A pop culture guide to Brand Mozart
Editor’s Note: Classical music of any kind often feels boring and inaccessible—but not with Narendra Kusnur. He offers an accessible and fun guide to Western classical music—which has shaped movie soundtracks and top 40 hits alike.
In this month’s guide, Kusnur introduces us to Brand Mozart. From the very beginning, Mozart music was used to sell stuff — starting with sweets back in the 19th century in Vienna. He has since starred in Titan advertisements, OTT series and romcoms, and everything in between. Of course, there is a playlist.
Written by: Narendra Kusnur has been a music journalist for over 40 years—including a decade-long stint covering the beat at the Mid-Day newspaper. He currently writes for The Hindu, Free Press Journal, Hindustan Times, and Rolling Stone India—besides the in-house magazines of prestigious institutions—such as NCPA and Shanmukhananda Hall.
Great news for Mumbaikars, the Sydney Opera House is bringing its show ‘Meeting Mozart’ to the Experimental Theatre of the National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA) on July 19 and 20. Two actors will play the role of Mozart and his wife Constanze, and they will be accompanied by a string quintet from the Symphony Orchestra of India (SOI).
The idea is to showcase the Austrian composer’s best-known music—from ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’, ‘Eine Kleine Nachtmusik (A Little Night Music)’ and ‘Rondo A La Turca (Turkish March)’ to his full-fledged orchestral pieces. For those who don’t recall the titles, here’s a rendition of ‘Eine Kliene Nachtmusik’ by the Bremen Barockorchester.
Below is a solo piano recital of ‘Rondo A La Turca’ by Marnie Laird of New York.
Wasn’t that wonderful? Along with Johann Sebastian Bach and Ludwig Van Beethoven, Mozart (1756-1791) has had the maximum impact on later-day popular culture. But where Mozart stood out was in the effort to market himself as a brand. In 1890, Paul Furst, from Mozart’s birthplace, Salzburg in Austria, began manufacturing the Mozart-Bonbon confection made of pistachio, marzipan, and nougat and covered with dark chocolate.
Later, the name was changed to Mozartkugeln, which became famous. Numerous imitators also began making the confection, leading to several court cases. Earlier this year, the Salzburg confectionery manufacturing the original sweet closed down, after reporting bankruptcy. This video shows the history of Mozartkugeln.
Besides Mozartkugeln, there have been T-shirts, caps and even women’s innerwear in his name. This has sparked criticism from purists who dismiss these as attempts to cash in on his name.
For a more recent and closer to home example of the Mozart brand, see the use of his opening movement of the 25th Symphony in Titan watch ads. Here’s Trevor Pinnock conducting the Berliner Philharmoniker.
And this is one of the many commercials for Titan watches.
Mozart at the movies
Needless to say, Mozart’s work has inspired many films and songs, too. Among Indian audiences, the best-known works are the adaptation of his 40th Symphony’s opening movement by music director Salil Chowdhury in the song ‘Itna Na Mujhse Tu Pyaar Badha’ in the 1961 film ‘Chhaya’. Let’s take a re-look at the original 40th symphony, played by the Berliner Philharmoniker conducted by Sir Simon Rattle.
Now, we compare it with the ‘Chhaya’ song. Of course, Chowdhury openly said he was inspired by the Mozart tune.
The 25th Symphony was also used in the opening scene of Milos Forman’s 1984 biopic ‘Amadeus’, starring Tom Hulce as Mozart and F Murray Abraham as his rival Antonio Salieri. The film is based on Peter Shaffer’s 1979 play. While the movie is a must for classical buffs, let’s watch the first interaction between Salieri and Mozart.
Before ‘Amadeus’, there were many depictions of Mozart in cinema. In 1936, Stephen Haggard portrayed the composer in ‘Whom The Gods Love’. There were many Austrian and Italian films about him, and in 2017, the film ‘Interlude In Prague’ talked about a fictitious event in Mozart’s life that led to his winning the opera ‘Don Giovanni’. Aneurin Barnard played Mozart in that film. The composer’s work has also been used in the OTT series ‘Mozart In The Jungle’. Here is a clip from ‘Whom The Gods Love’:
The Mozart phenomenon was used interestingly in the 2020 film ‘Bill and Ted Face The Music’. It’s about two musicians who have been commissioned to write a song to heal the world, and how they use time travel to work on their creation. One of the scenes shows an interaction between Mozart (played by Daniel Dorr), playing an excerpt from his ‘Piano Sonata No 16’, and rock guitarist Jimi Hendrix (DazMann Still), who improvises the Austrian composer’s phrases in his own style. Here’s the clip.
This is the original piece played by Chinese pianist Lang Lang.
That brings us to three of Mozart’s most famous operatic works. Let’s begin with his opera buffa (comic opera) ‘Le Nozze di Figaro’, translated into English as ‘The Marriage of Figaro’. Premiered in 1786, it tells the story of how servants Figaro and Susanna succeed in getting married, foiling the efforts of their philandering employer Count Almaviva to seduce Susanna. A 1976 film by Jean-Pierre Ponnelle featured Hermann Prey, Mirella Freni and Kiri Te Kanawa in the lead roles. The opera gets substantial mention in ‘Amadeus’, as seen in the following clip.
One of the best uses of ‘The Marriage Of Figaro’ was in Frank Darabont’s 1994 film ‘The Shawshank Redemption’. There’s a scene where banker Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins), who has been sentenced to life, begins playing the duet ‘Sull’aria Che Soave Zeffretto’ from the prison warden’s office. It earns him a stay in solitary confinement, but also changes the film’s story. See the scene below.
Mozart’s 1787 opera ‘Don Giovanni’ was also converted into an Italian film in 1979 by American filmmaker Joseph Losey, with Ruggero Rimondi playing the lead. It begins with Giovanni trying to seduce Donna Anna (Edda Moder) and killing her father after failing. The work has been used in the Hannibal TV series based on the famous villainous character. It was also used in the film ‘Sherlock Holmes: The Game Of Shadows’, when the villain James Moriarty (Jared Harris), a criminal mastermind who serves under the guise of a mathematics professor, is seen watching the final scene of the opera in an auditorium as Sherlock Holmes (Robert Downey Jr) moves backstage to track him.
Of his operas, ‘Die Zauberflote (The Magic Flute)’ is perhaps the most widely performed. Even the famous director Ingmar Bergman converted it into a Swedish film starring Josef Kostlinger and Irma Urrila in 1975. Then, there was a 2006 English adaptation by Kenneth Branagh, setting it in World War 1, and a 2022 German modern-day musical fantasy version by Floran Sigl. The aria, ‘Der Holle Roche’, is used in the Julia Roberts film Eat Pray Love, released in 2010.
Interestingly, it highlights the joy Elizabeth Gilbert (the author Roberts plays) is experiencing while travelling through Italy and savouring Italian cuisine. We’re sure this clip will make your mouth water.
If Julia Roberts could be filmed on Mozart, could Meryl Streep be far behind? Of course, the composition and circumstances in her case are different, as she sings the famous ‘Queen Of The Night Aria’ in the 2016 film ‘Florence Foster Jenkins’, based on the life of a New York socialite who forms the Verdi Club. Like it or not, this is what she does.
Mozart has found his place in rock music, too. The most notable example is American rock band Evanescence, whose vocalist Amy Lee was so fond of Mozart’s ‘Lacrimosa’, which is part of his ‘Requiem’ (mass for the dead), that she decided to modify it a bit and use it, spelling her song ‘Lacrymosa’. We now hear the original Lacrimosa, played by the Collegium Musicum, Berlin, conducted by Donka Miteva.
This is Evanescence’s rock version of the classical piece.
Let’s conclude with examples of how Mozart can be used out of context, but still serve their purpose. Though ‘Requiem’ is categorised as a funeral piece, ‘Lacrimosa’ has ironically been used in ads for Nike and McDonald’s, which even sold a brew called Lacrimocha. We’re sure the creative teams got their plans dead right.
Here’s Nike’s ad:
This is the McDonald’s ad:
Finally, like we always conclude the column, with a handy playlist of all the tracks on splainer’s YouTube channel. There’s some original Mozart, and some clever adaptations or inspirations.
PS: If you need a list of all the amazing music shared by Naren:
- ‘Eine Kleine Nachtmusik’ by Mozart
- ‘Rondo A La Turca’ by Mozart
- ‘Symphony No 40, Movement 1’ by Mozart
- ‘Itna Na Mujhse Tu Pyaar Badha’ by Salil Chowdhury from ‘Chhaya’
- ‘Symphony No 25, Movement 1’ by Mozart
- ‘Sull’aria Che Soeve Zeffretto (aria)’ by Mozart
- ‘Der Holle Roche (aria)’ by Mozart
- ‘Queen Of The Night (aria)’ by Mozart
- ‘Lacrimosa’ by Mozart
- ‘Lacrymosa’ by Evanescence
