Dartblog

Funny the things that stick with you over the years. One day in Music 1, Gabriel Chodos, the concert pianist who taught the class, was extemporizing over Wolfgang Mozart. We had heard various pieces of music and were duly respectful, and Chodos seemed to be searching for the right words to get us to better understand the man’s genius.

Finally, he sat down at his piano and started to play various versions of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star (formally known as Twelve Variations on “Ah vous dirai-je, Maman”, Köchel 265/300e). Chodos explained, “The amazing thing about Mozart is that he could have composed it like this” — and he played a lovely version of the theme that we all know — “or like this” — and he played it a different way, equally charming — “or like this” — and he played a part of the piece in yet another manner.

By this point, our professor was lost in his thought, as if he, too, were puzzling out what it was that had inspired Mozart. Finally, he said, with awe and some triumph, and perhaps even a little jealousy, “but he wrote it like this!” And from his piano came a fourth variation that danced and sparkled, and that made all of the other versions he had just played for us seem flat in comparison.

I sat there in wonder. The first three times Chodos had played his excerpts, they had sounded just fine, and as musical rubes, we had been happy to recognize them. But once having heard them, the éclat at hearing what Chodos presented as Mozart’s real composition was so much greater. We all burst out in smiles of pleasure, as did our teacher. I think he realized at that moment that he did not have words for what he had just taught us, but we had all learned something important anyways, about Mozart, and music, and the difference between good and great.