Eine Kleine Geburtstagmusik

Happy 250th Birthday to W.A. Mozart! Tomorrow marks a quarter of a millennium since the birth of my favorite classical composer. Here's the official Mozart 2006 blog. (Auf Deutsch.) Weil du kannst keine Deutsch lesen, hier ist der (die? das?) Blog von Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. (In English.)

The Russkies are having an "International blitz-competition for composers" to celebrate.

This gentleman attempts to set the record straight on Mozart fact and fiction. Excerpt: Anselm Huttenbrenner reported that Salieri always spoke of Mozart "with exceptional respect," and the two composers were on friendly enough terms so that Salieri would loan Mozart scores from the court library. Apart from Constanze's remark, there exists no independent evidence to conclude that Salieri and Mozart were on bad terms. On the contrary, their relationship may have been a healthy professional one. (Maybe Salieri wasn't Dean Wormer after all?)

They have a bunch of recommendations for listening and reading up at Marginal Revolution.

In my desk drawer at work, I have some Mozart discs sitting on top of my copy of Never Mind the Bollocks. Here's the Times Literary Supplement's comparison of Mr. Mozart to Mr. Vicious.

But does listening to him make you smarter? Sid Vicious, certainly. Not even disputed. But Mozart? Wellll... The Mungers tackle that question here, here, and here.

And LBNL, here are some gift ideas featuring Mozart and his friends.