Holiday Musings- Mozart

A resolution to improve the quality of my thinking is to be more reflective and consider more deeply my experiences and no better time to start than when on holiday! Whilst in Salzburg, we visited Mozart's birth place and also his later family home and it was clear that talent management, often described as the greatest challenge of modern management, has been an eternal conundrum.

Managing Mozart- Geniuses are seldom straightforward to manage, in the sense of keeping them happy, productive, not driving everyone else mad and bringing out the best in them. Mozart to me offers a number of insights in managing talent and I record 4 here:

• Discovery and Initial Nurturing- Mozart was fortunate that his father Leopold, recognizing his talent, pushed him and created many opportunities for him to develop, thrive and succeed. His mother was a nurturing presence, supporting through the angst of development and being misunderstood as geniuses often are whilst his sister provided companionship in music to complement Leopold.
• Grit and Hard Work- Of course, Mozart worked extremely hard- forget the mythology of Mozart as 'God's stenographer', by all accounts Mozart worked day and night on improving his technique and expertise. The many drafts of now famous operas and other pieces that his wife Constanze threw out after his death are testament to not the sudden bursts of inspiration but the many hours of perspiration and refinement.
• 'Independence'- Mozart's unhappy relationship with his erstwhile patron the Archbishop of Salzburg which he complained bitterly about as constraining, ended in 1781. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this was also the period of major life decisions Mozart made independently against advice of well-wishers including his father- he left Salzburg for Vienna, married Constanze and enjoyed probably his most prolific 5 years, producing "six string quartets dedicated to Haydn, fifteen concertos for piano and orchestra, the “Haffner” and “Linz” and “Prague” Symphonies, the Mass in C Minor, the operas “The Abduction from the Seraglio” and “The Marriage of Figaro,”" amongst many others. Geniuses are seldom easy to manage or to live with (!), but when 'free' are capable of their most impressive and creative endeavors which can live on long after.
• Agents and Managers- Vanity and ego plague so many, and geniuses seem to have reeived double servings. Mozart was by his own admission "proud as a peacock", enjoyed a lavish lifestyle and acted as though the world revolved around him. These traits, unfortunately so common, are especially important to manage in our modern times of teaming and the near-impossibility of individual sparks of brilliance changing the world. It might be easier to pair geniuses with agents or managers, people whom they trust fully and who can help geniuses adapt to the real world and be effective.

Back to enjoying the holiday but a final thought on brand Mozart which in 2006 was estimatd at USD 6.5 billion. Salzburg and more generally Austria is flooded with Mozart chocolates, sweets, cakes and the like, in addition to the many Mozart concerts and operas. Mozart was a slight, physically unattractive man but that's immaterial today, more than 250 years after this birth. Profiles are used or pleasing portraits and artistic license liberally applied to his physical features... Useful lesson for all of us in the commercial and social impact world- the power of a brand! And the attention needed to build up and nurture one.

Further reading-

Mozart's Music- https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/07/24/the-storm-of-style (An easy read from the New Yorker, especially for non-musical folks like me)

Brand Mozart- https://www.dw.com/en/mozart-a-pop-icon-with-staying-power/a-1853249