I keep reading about how classical music effects brain activity, so I decided to run an informal experiment. I usually listen to jazz when I'm working, but I'm going to start listening to only classical to see if I can perceive any differences in my thinking over time.

I just bought Yo-Yo Ma's Bach: The Cello Suites. A great album for deep thinking. Ma's unaccompanied solo cello is beautiful and haunting. I don't know if I've heard anything quite like it before. I find myself getting lost in it, carried away somewhere imaginative.

I was also recently listening to the soundtrack from Amadeus. One of my favorite scenes is the Emperor's reaction on opening night of the first work he commissioned of Mozart.

MOZART
So then you like it? You really like it, Your Majesty?

JOSEPH
Of course I do. It's very good. Of course now and then - just now and then - it gets a touch elaborate.

MOZART
What do you mean, Sire?

JOSEPH
Well, I mean occasionally it seems to have, how shall one say? (he stops in difficulty; to Orsini-Rosenberg) How shall one say, Director?

ORSINI-ROSENBERG
Too many notes, Your Majesty?

JOSEPH
Exactly. Very well put. Too many notes.

MOZART
I don't understand. There are just as many notes, Majesty, as are required. Neither more nor less.

JOSEPH
My dear fellow, there are in fact only so many notes the ear can hear in the course of an evening. I think I'm right in saying that, aren't I, Court Composer

I've used this exchange in a my design classes as an example on composition. Mozart's reply indicates that each note was selected with a purpose, each to fit in perfectly between the preceding and following notes. If you take away any of these notes, as Emperor Joseph suggests, there would be an incompleteness to the score.

I read once that a design (or painting, song, sculpture, story, etc) is finished when nothing more can be added to enhance the idea and everything that doesn't add or support the idea has been removed. Just like Mozart's notes.

Something I always think about with that scene. Salieri seemed to be the only character that truly recognized Wolfgang's genius, which I'm sure if not far from reality. I wonder about the singers and musicians that performed his work. Did they realize that they were taking part in something that changed the course of music? When the viola player went home after that performance, did he have any clue that he just performed an opera that was revolutionary for the time, or was it just another day at the office?