Redundant genius .sx Robin Holloway .sx Mozart died almost exactly 200 years ago .sx The celebrations have been so neon-lit as to make the Bach/Scarlatti/Handel tercentenary in 1985 , even the Beethoven bicentenary of 1970 , seem by contrast pale and tasteful .sx But the great masters do not need round-figure birthdays ; their reputation no longer fluctuates and their music requires no arbitrary boosting .sx Nonetheless Mozart's present universal popularity would have surprised the taste of 1891 .sx Early in the century he was taken by Hoffmann as a harbinger of romantic daemonism , but as the romantic epoch blossomed ( with Hoffmann one of its key sources ) Mozart was seen rather as an island of innocence before music realised its full powers .sx Between the summits of Bachian polyphony and Beethovenian symphonism came Papa Haydn and the infant Mozart .sx Schumann's well-known view ( incomprehensible to us ) of the G minor Symphony's carefree gaiety reaches a climax in Mahler's notorious contempt for classical formulae .sx Though his supremacy in opera was never doubted , vicissitudes of taste lost Idomeneo , Cos i-grave fan tutte , even The Magic Flute , for many decades .sx These works , unsurpassed in their respective genres , all had to be revived in this century .sx In fact , Mozart is a stranger composer than his apparently complete centrality would suggest .sx He lies athwart the main lines .sx On one hand sic !sx there are the affect-and-image-makers , Bach , Schubert , Wagner , with their baroque continuity of texture and primacy of expressive meaning .sx But his native place would appear to be on the other - the thematic development and tonal argument whose focus is in the Viennese classical style and the sonata principle .sx At bottom , though , Mozart is not really like his two peers , Beethoven and Haydn .sx He is not by nature an arguer or a developer .sx His starting point is the conventions , routines , donn e-accute es of material and form that make the going commonplaces of his time .sx His instrumental works 'step through their paces' , shifting prefabricated musical units across highly formalised perspectives of key and texture ; construction and proportion are what concern him , not logic , or journey , or organic growth .sx They are at their greatest when most is in play , above all in the mature piano concertos with their extraordinary abundance of themes ( far more than required by Haydn and Beethoven , whatever the genre) .sx But in symphonies and chamber music the result is often neat and dry .sx Only when these genres are infused with a vocal/dramatic element does he take off as an abstract composer .sx For what stirs his depths is virtuosity and display , wowing the aisles and bringing the house down .sx Though this also accounts for the quality of the piano concertos and those movements in chamber works which seem to be rendering an operatic scene ( the love-duet between first violin and first viola in the andante of the C major Quintet , or between the two pianists' right hands in that of the F major piano-duet Sonata ) , it reaches its native land in music for the human voice .sx Everything in Mozart needs to be vocally phrased , never more so than when it actually is vocal .sx And vocal means the gamut of human expression , placed in an operatic context .sx Church music only comes to life when charged , sometimes flagrantly , with theatrical fervour .sx Mozart's religious and ethical aspect lies altogether elsewhere , in pieces for masonic rituals that culminate in the sublime Funeral Music and only reach a larger public as it were surreptitiously , via The Magic Flute .sx Another difference between Mozart and his classical peers is that his catalogue is full of oddments - bits and bobs that he touches with the highest flights of fantasy .sx Who but Mozart , commissioned to write something for a glass harmonica or a clock - work organ , would have bothered to turn these unappealing tasks ( we have his word for it ) into one-off masterpieces ; or lavished his genius upon arias for insertion into other composers' operas ; or transformed routine serenades and divertimenti ( sometimes ) into inspirations that belong with his greatest work ?sx Uninspired pieces are also , of course , numerous .sx Glenn Gould compared Mozart on an off-day to an interdepartmental communication .sx That such music shares the same lucidity and command as his greatest makes his greatest vulnerable to easy-listening muzakisation , as invited by not much of Haydn's and almost nothing of Beethoven's .sx A high percentage of Mozart's bicentennial popularity is fuelled by the wallpaper quality which can debase him into a rococo successor to Vivaldi .sx This bicentenary !sx Its blatant commerciality can only be compared to present-day Christmas :sx exploitative greed with a saccharine veneer of quasi-religious observance .sx Its main message is not so much the undying glory of Mozart as a reminder , lest we forget , that since the end of church , then royal or aristocratic patronage ( at which turning-point his unhappy career is poised ) , the creative musician lies at the bottom of the pile .sx In whatever current present ever since , he is always dispensable and redundant , in glaring contrast with the perpetual demand for singers , pianists , conductors , impresarios , who actually keep the mills churning .sx He becomes ( if he makes it ) necessary and 'classicised' only after his death when the benefits are too late .sx The living composer , unless he pushes or is pushed , is superfluous .sx There are exceptions , but this with all its clich e d pathos is the norm .sx Cultured society ignores the innovative creator ; then venerates him , and creams the profits , spiritual and material - symposia , conferences and concerts equally with the CD editions , the coffee-table books , the Mozart chocolates .sx Death by overkilling the vital essence is the awful warning of 1991 just as death by neglect of the mortal individual remains that of 1791 .sx The Japanese are back .sx Alistair McAlpine .sx The art market galloped along this month with sales in Paris and New York .sx The first fence , the Tremaine Collection , a Becher's Brook-like obstacle , presented no real problem to the auctioneers .sx The market cleared it , just clipping the brush with 16 out of the 18 lots sold .sx The Fernand L e ger , estimate $8-10 million , was sold for $7 .sx 7 million .sx Some people expected it to fetch $15 million , but some people will always be optimistic .sx The price seemed to me to be a very good one , for fine as the painting is - and no one has disputed this - it is not the sort of picture to hang in the drawing-room :sx three naked girls eating their packed lunches .sx Considerable emphasis has been given to their breasts and buttocks .sx This painting is not even the sort of thing that you would want to sit in front of while buying and selling oil wells .sx Come to think of it , the picture is perhaps a little too much even for the bedroom :sx strictly for a museum , this work .sx It was sold to a bidder described by Christie's as " a private European " .sx Whether this customer is an enthusiast for 20th-century art or for breasts and buttocks has not so far been revealed .sx In either event , he got a very fine example of the former and a remarkable collection of the latter for , on the face of it , not a very high price .sx The two paintings that did not sell were a Mondrian and a Miro .sx The Miro at least was untypical of this collection , a weak painting .sx High prices , however , are still paid in the auctions .sx In the same sale a picture by Robert Delaunay fetched over $5 million - its estimate , $2-3 million .sx Sold to " a private European " , this painting is an abstract work with not a part of the body in sight .sx In Paris , a Gauguin landscape fetched a record price .sx Christie's New York sale of Impressionist and Modern Paintings ended part one with 38 lots sold and 22 lots bought in .sx This did not seem to be good news , but the dealers were smiling again .sx The rest of the sales were patchy but still the dealers smiled .sx For some months , the auctions have been dominated by collectors .sx If the collector really wanted a picture he bid for it , but with no opposition from the trade .sx For the first time the dealers are beginning to bid again .sx One group of people noticeable by their absence were the Japanese .sx They were absent as buyers in New York but present as sellers and were well pleased with the prices that they received for their goods .sx The Japanese moved into the art market straight after Black Monday in October 1987 .sx They saw art , and in particular Modern and Impressionist paintings , as an alternative investment to the stock market .sx There is very little personal money in Japan , which has high taxation and higher death duties .sx In Japan the real wealth comes from the controlling of money , the owning of companies where the proprietor is , in effect , the same as the company .sx If he will buy art , then art is bought .sx Many of these people were real estate dealers , well used to borrowing money , often used to their assets showing no cash return ; used to assets that rely on capital appreciation to make a profit for their owners .sx The art market suited these people .sx They bought paintings by the dozen .sx One such , when viewing a sale at Sotheby's , said , " Why are we selecting which lots to buy ?sx Why do I not buy the whole of the second part of the sale ?sx I can well afford it .sx " .sx The prices seemed to these people small by comparison with those that they paid for land .sx Indeed they were .sx All went well while the price of land went up , but when the world changed and the price of land went down , so did the price of pictures , for the finance companies squeezed again and they began to sell .sx Why are these collectors happy with the prices that they have been receiving in New York ?sx They are happy to be able to sell at all .sx They are happy that there still is a market in art , for the buildings that they bought are often unsaleable at any price .sx So are the Japanese out of the market ?sx No , just in different fields - dolls , for instance .sx Dolls fetch very large prices in Japan , often in excess of pounds50,000 .sx The dolls have , of course , to be asked by their collectors - Japanese doll collectors always talk to their dolls - whether they wish to become part of their collection or not .sx Dolls can be unreliable in their answers , but while the Japanese offer them comfortable homes and often other enticements , the market in dolls will stay brisk .sx The Japanese are by nature true collectors .sx They have the tradition of the kura or storehouse for keeping their collections , displaying a painting taken from their stores for just the right amount of time , on just the right occasion , to just the right person .sx Until a collector has a warehouse in which to keep his collection , he is no collector , he is merely furnishing his home .sx So for the Japanese dealer there is no need for the circular sent out by the commune of Minami Azab , a wealthy suburb of Tokyo with many foreigners living there .sx The circular was in English and said , " If you are contemplating suicide , please do not use the gas .sx It will merely create destruction in the neighbourhood .sx " .sx Waffle with syrup .sx Martyn Harris .sx On Monday night the nation's soidisant Grand Inquisitor Sir Robin Day returned to earth from his satellite orbit to front 4-Thought ( Channel 4 , 11.20 p.m. ) , the series which experiments with new ways of presenting current affairs - in this case the fall of Mrs Thatcher .sx For his own experiment Sir Robin had hit upon the bold stroke of inviting two politicians to be questioned by two journalists :sx Sir George Younger and Nicholas Ridley on the one hand , with Alan Watkins and Bruce Anderson on the other .sx Sir George presented the challenging case that The Fall was to do with the economy , the poll tax and Europe , which last he referred to puzzlingly as " a real-life situation " .sx Ridley agreed , but with more emphasis on the economy .sx Bruce Anderson agreed at length with both of them .sx " But what is your question , Bruce ?sx " demanded the Grand Inquisitor , and it seemed that Bruce did not have one .sx