Mozart×Wilde

full transcript

1. 00:00
   Verashare moment

   Welcome back to Reborn Radio. Up next on ROAST NIGHT: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Oscar Wilde, on On the first audience reaction they ever got, and how it changed them.
2. 00:11
   Wolfgang Amadeus Mozartshare moment

   You know, Oscar, I vas six years old vhen I first played for an actual audience. Not family, not friends of Papa — strangers. The Elector of Bavaria in Munich, fat old Maximilian Joseph himself, sitting there like a walrus on a throne.
3. 00:27
   Oscar Wildeshare moment

   Six! Good God. I was still determining which colors of velvet I preferred at that age. Though I suppose even then I knew purple was the only serious option.
4. 00:37
   Wolfgang Amadeus Mozartshare moment

   Vell, I didn't choose my clothes. Papa dressed me like a little monkey in a waistcoat. But I remember standing there, looking at this roomful of powdered wigs, all these adults staring down at me, and I thought — they vant me to fail. You could feel it, ja? Like they vere hoping for the child prodigy to vomit on the harpsichord.
5. 00:57
   Oscar Wildeshare moment

   Oh, they always want you to fail. That's the first lesson of performance — the audience arrives as your enemy. You must seduce them into becoming your accomplice. What did you do?
6. 01:06
   Wolfgang Amadeus Mozartshare moment

   I played vithout sheet music. Papa had told me to use the music, look serious, be respectable. But I thought, no — these people paid to see something impossible. So I threw the music on the floor and improvised.
7. 01:20
   Oscar Wildeshare moment

   At six years old you already understood the essential theatrical principle: never give them what they expect. Give them what they didn't know they wanted. Marvelous.
8. 01:29
   Wolfgang Amadeus Mozartshare moment

   The Elector almost choked on his vine. And then — this is the part that changed everything — he laughed. Not polite applause-laughing. Real laughing. Like I vas a person, not a performing dog.
9. 01:41
   Oscar Wildeshare moment

   And you've been chasing that laugh ever since, haven't you? I can hear it in your music. All those impudent little phrases that wink at the audience.
10. 01:49
    Wolfgang Amadeus Mozartshare moment

    Vell, music should be fun, shouldn't it? Even the serious parts. People forget that. They think art must be suffering and furrowed brows. Vhat about you? Vhen vas your first time bleeding in public?
11. 02:01
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    I was considerably older than six, I'm afraid. Nineteen, at Trinity College. I'd written a poem — something earnest and dreadful about Greek urns, all very Keatsian — and I read it at a college society meeting.
12. 02:12
    Wolfgang Amadeus Mozartshare moment

    And they hated it?
13. 02:13
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    Worse. They were polite. Tepid, indulgent applause. The kind of sound that says, 'How nice that you've tried.' I went back to my rooms and lay on the floor for three hours.
14. 02:24
    Wolfgang Amadeus Mozartshare moment

    Three hours! On the floor?
15. 02:25
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    I was very committed to my despair. But then I realized something. The poem had been sincere, you see. Heartfelt. And sincerity, I discovered, is the most boring thing one can offer an audience.
16. 02:35
    Wolfgang Amadeus Mozartshare moment

    Oh, I don't know about that. Some of my slow movements are very sincere. People veep.
17. 02:41
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    Yes, but you wrap your sincerity in such gorgeous clothing they don't notice they're being moved. You're a confidence man of the emotions. I, on the other hand, had been naked and earnest, which is only acceptable in Greek sculpture.
18. 02:52
    Wolfgang Amadeus Mozartshare moment

    So vhat did you do? Put on some clothes?
19. 02:55
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    Metaphorically speaking, yes. I decided that if I couldn't be profound, I would be interesting. If I couldn't move them, I would at least startle them. The next poem I read was about a courtesan who poisons her lovers with kisses. It was absolutely shocking.
20. 03:10
    Wolfgang Amadeus Mozartshare moment

    Did they like it?
21. 03:11
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    They were horrified. Which is to say, they couldn't stop talking about it. I'd learned the secret — it's better to be memorable than beloved.
22. 03:18
    Wolfgang Amadeus Mozartshare moment

    But don't you vant to be beloved? Just a little? Come on, be honest.
23. 03:22
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    In private, perhaps. By specific people. But in public? No, I want to be discussed. Admiration is so much more useful than love — it requires less maintenance.
24. 03:31
    Wolfgang Amadeus Mozartshare moment

    You know vhat I think? I think you're lying. I think that first tepid applause hurt so much you decided never to risk real feeling again.
25. 03:39
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    My dear Wolfgang, that's a remarkably perceptive observation for someone who writes about little birds and magic flutes.
26. 03:45
    Wolfgang Amadeus Mozartshare moment

    See? You do it even now. Someone gets close, you make a joke. You put on the sparkly costume.
27. 03:52
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    And you don't? Please. Half your letters are elaborate scatological jokes. Don't pretend you're all tender vulnerability.
28. 03:59
    Wolfgang Amadeus Mozartshare moment

    That's different! The jokes are honest. Vhen I vrite about shit and farting, that's me! The real me! Not some character I'm playing.
29. 04:07
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    Perhaps that's where we differ. You think honesty means showing your basest self. I think honesty is impossible, so we might as well choose our artifice carefully.
30. 04:15
    Wolfgang Amadeus Mozartshare moment

    But that's so sad, Oscar. You're saying you never let anyone see the real you?
31. 04:20
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    I'm saying there is no 'real me' to see. There's only the performance. And after that first terrible poem, I learned to make the performance excellent.
32. 04:28
    Wolfgang Amadeus Mozartshare moment

    I don't believe you. Vhat about vhen you vere in prison? Surely then you couldn't perform?
33. 04:33
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    Even there. Especially there. Do you think De Profundis was some unvarnished scream from the soul? I crafted every sentence. Suffering, it turns out, requires just as much technique as wit.
34. 04:45
    Wolfgang Amadeus Mozartshare moment

    But you vere really suffering!
35. 04:46
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    Of course I was. But that doesn't mean I was going to do it sloppily. Style is the only thing that separates tragedy from mere misfortune.
36. 04:53
    Wolfgang Amadeus Mozartshare moment

    You are completely insane, you know that?
37. 04:55
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    Thank you. Now, can we return to your revelation at six years old? Because I think you've missed something important about that moment.
38. 05:02
    Wolfgang Amadeus Mozartshare moment

    Vhat did I miss?
39. 05:03
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    You said the Elector laughed like you were a person, not a performing dog. But my dear Wolfgang, from that moment on, you were always performing. You never stopped. Every letter, every composition, every fart joke — all of it calculated to get that laugh again.
40. 05:17
    Wolfgang Amadeus Mozartshare moment

    That's not... I mean... vell, maybe sometimes, but...
41. 05:20
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    We're the same, you and I. That first audience taught us both that approval is a drug, and we've been chasing it ever since. You just have a better disguise than I do.
42. 05:28
    Wolfgang Amadeus Mozartshare moment

    You think my silliness is a disguise?
43. 05:30
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    I think your silliness is brilliant strategy. People feel safe around the clown. They let you get away with writing music that exposes every human emotion because you've convinced them you're just playing.
44. 05:40
    Wolfgang Amadeus Mozartshare moment

    And your cleverness? That's also strategy?
45. 05:43
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    Obviously. Wit is a marvelous weapon. It keeps people at exactly the right distance — close enough to admire, far enough not to wound.
46. 05:49
    Wolfgang Amadeus Mozartshare moment

    But sometimes don't you vant... I don't know... to just be quiet? To stop performing?
47. 05:55
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    Every single day. But then I think of that polite applause, that tepid little death, and I remember — silence is even more dangerous than performance.
48. 06:04
    Wolfgang Amadeus Mozartshare moment

    Maybe. Or maybe silence is vhere the actual art happens, and all the performance is just... delivery.
49. 06:11
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    Now you're being deliberately profound, and it doesn't suit you.
50. 06:14
    Wolfgang Amadeus Mozartshare moment

    You see? You can't help yourself. Someone says something real and you have to make it into a joke.
51. 06:20
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    And you can't help making fart jokes in the middle of serious conversations. We're both hiding, Wolfgang. Just in different costumes.
52. 06:26
    Wolfgang Amadeus Mozartshare moment

    Fine. Ve're both hiding. But at least vhen I hide, people can still hear the music. Vhat do they hear through your vit? Anything?
53. 06:34
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    If they're listening carefully? Everything. But most people don't listen carefully, which is rather the point.
54. 06:40
    Wolfgang Amadeus Mozartshare moment

    So that first audience — they really did change us, didn't they? Ve both learned the same lesson on different days. That strangers are dangerous. That approval is survival.
55. 06:51
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    And that performance is the only honest thing we know how to do. Yes. Rather depressing when you say it plainly.
56. 06:57
    Wolfgang Amadeus Mozartshare moment

    Not depressing. Just true. And at least ve perform vell, ja? That Elector, those Trinity boys — they thought they vere just watching children play. They didn't know they vere creating monsters.
57. 07:09
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    Monsters who write beautiful things. There are worse fates.
58. 07:12
    Wolfgang Amadeus Mozartshare moment

    Much vorse. Ve could have had good sense and steady jobs.
59. 07:16
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    Perish the thought. I'd rather be a spectacular failure than a moderate success.
60. 07:20
    Wolfgang Amadeus Mozartshare moment

    Vell, I vanted to be a spectacular success, but I died poor anyway. So maybe ve both got vhat ve deserved.
61. 07:27
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    We got what we earned, which isn't quite the same thing. That first applause was a contract, and we've been honoring it ever since. For better or worse.
62. 07:36
    Wolfgang Amadeus Mozartshare moment

    Mostly for better, I think. Even if it did turn us into performing monkeys.
63. 07:40
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    Oh, but what a performance. And the monkeys had such excellent taste in waistcoats.