Debating the life and music of Mozart

The review, “Miller, Porfiris wow crowd during Saturday’s Eastern Connecticut Symphony Orchestra performance,” (Jan. 28), gives due credit to a well-performed work.

While Mozart’s music has long been a repertory mainstay, the music of his lesser-known but equally-endowed contemporaries has been shelved and forgotten.

There is hope, however. Matthias Bamert and The London Mozart Players have rediscovered and recorded little-known gems by artists like astronomer William Herschel, inventor and entrepreneur Ignace Pleyel, and Czech chorist Johann Vanhal.

Composer Antonio Salieri was smeared by a lie known as “Amadeus.” Such libel sullies a genius who dominated the operatic tapestry of Europe for close to 50 years from the 1770s to the 1820s. Salieri’s output includes chamber music, marches, sacred works and 42 operas.

The You Tube site KuhlauDilfeng3 (and others) offers free listening to many obscure but worthwhile works. As for Mozart, contention has roiled over his historical veracity, similar to the Baconian questions involving William Shakespeare.

For a controversial but compelling debate about his life and music, the link http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread. php?46636-The-Manufacture-of-Mozart is a superb reference. Eric Straub East Lyme