Ton Koopman on the Cantatas of Bach

John Finnis on Secularism

When I began this blog, I conceived it primarily as a forum (for Mr. Vertucci and myself and our readers) for 'theoria' as I called it. There are too many blogs concerned with the rather sordid business of practical politics: such blogs no doubt serve their purpose, but for myself, I enjoy an elevated discussion, one that can embrace theology, philosophy, political and economic history, and other relevant branches of human thought and endeavor. 

This blog, like a good many others, exists to raise the tone of discussion and highlight important thinkers and creators. To that end, I'd like to bring to attention an intriguing lecture by Dr. John Finnis.

Dr. Finnis is a leading proponent of the New Natural Law Theory. Among his former students is the distinguished Princeton philosopher Robert George (whose recent involvement in the Manhattan Declaration has stirred up discussion and interest in my own parish). Dr. George, like Dr. Finnis, is Roman Catholic, and since I have recently been occupied with reading the social encyclicals of the Roman Church (including Pope Benedict's Caritas in Veritate), I've spent some time familiarizing myself with the various strains of Catholic political thought, both in this country and in Europe. The New Natural Law Theory is certainly one of the more interesting, but until I spend some more time reading and digesting it, I'll refrain from comment. Mr. Vertucci is an astute reader of St. Thomas Aquinas and of political philosophy in general will doubtless have much to contribute to the discussion.

I hope, in the future, to expand my discussion and commentary on the various strains of Christian political thought. I'm very interested in recent developments in the Catholic Communio circle (represented by David Schindler and Tracey Rowland), the Anglican Radical Orthodoxy Movement, and of course, the Natural Law Theorists.

Around the Web

For the week of Saturday, November 21 through Friday, November 27.

1) In Spiked Online, Frank Furedi on education:

Education needs to conserve the past. As Arendt argued, conservatism, in the sense of conservation, is of the essence of education. Her objective was not to conserve for the sake of nostalgia, but because she recognised that the conservation of the old provided the foundation for renewal and innovation. The characterisation of conservation as the essence of education can be easily misunderstood as a call inspired by a backward or reactionary political agenda. However, the argument for conservation is based on the understanding that, in a generational transaction, adults must assume responsibility for the world as it is and pass on its cultural and intellectual legacy to young people.

2) In the WSJ, Alexandra Mullen reviews, "Mr Langshaw's Square Piano" by Madeline Goold.

3) From Pope Benedict's meeting with artists in the Sistine Chapel on Saturday:

"Beauty ... can become a path toward the transcendent, toward the ultimate Mystery, toward God," Benedict said.

"Too often. . . the beauty thrust upon us is illusory and deceitful. . . it imprisons man within himself and further enslaves him, depriving him of hope and joy," he said.

"Faith takes nothing away from your genius or art," he said. "On the contrary, it exalts them and nourishes them."

Amongst the other guests were Iraqi-born British architect Zaha Hadid, whose Maxxi modern art museum has just opened in Rome, and F. Murray Abraham, the American actor who won an Oscar for his role as Salieri in the Mozart film, Amadeus, in 1985.

4) In City Journal, 1919: Betrayal and the Birth of Modern Liberalism.

5) At last someone (Gene Healy at the Cato Institute) has said it, "Obamacare" is unconstitutional:

In answer to the question "by what authority?" Reid's bill offers the Commerce Clause — the go-to provision for friends of federal power. That clause gives Congress the power "to regulate Commerce ... among the several states."

It was a modest measure designed to regularize cross-border commerce and prevent interstate trade wars — so modest, in fact, that Madison described it in the Federalist as a clause that "few oppose, and from which no apprehensions are entertained." [Federalist 45]

The Founders would have worried more had they known that the Commerce Clause would eventually become a bottomless fount of federal power. In 1942's Wickard v. Filburn, the court held that the Commerce Power was broad enough to penalize a farmer growing wheat for his own consumption on his own farm.

That farmer, Roscoe Filburn, ran afoul of a New Deal scheme to prop up agricultural prices. The fact that he wasn't engaged in interstate commerce — or commerce of any kind — was quite beside the point. If "many others similarly situated" engaged in the same behavior, it would substantially affect interstate commerce, and frustrate Congress' designs.

Thanksgiving

Now fear not, I do not intend to make list-writing a habit here, but in light of the time of year I thought it appropriate to share with you some things I am grateful for. This may shed some light on the character of your humble blogger and also offer a foretaste of topics to come here at APLV. This year I thought I would focus on a particular topic: art.

In no particular order:

1) Horace, Ode 2.3

Aequam memento rebus in arduis
seruare mentem, non secus in bonis
  ab insolenti temperatam
    laetitia, moriture Delli,
seu maestus omni tempore uixeris,
seu te in remoto gramine per dies
  festos reclinatum bearis
    interiore nota Falerni.
Quo pinus ingens albaque populus
umbram hospitalem consociare amant
  ramis? Quid obliquo laborat
    lympha fugax trepidare riuo?
Huc uina et unguenta et nimium breuis
flores amoenae ferre iube rosae,
  dum res et aetas et sororum
    fila trium patiuntur atra.
Cedes coemptis saltibus et domo
uillaque flauus quam Tiberis lauit,
  cedes et exstructis in altum
    diuitiis potietur heres.
Diuesne prisco natus ab Inacho
nil interest an pauper et infima
  de gente sub diuo moreris,
    uictima nil miserantis Orci.
Omnes eodem cogimur, omnium
uersata urna serius ocius
  sors exitura et nos in aeternum
    exsilium impositura cumbae.

Translation and notes by Michael Gilleland.

2) Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro:

Act III: Riconosci in questo amplesso

3) Les vacances de Monsieur Hulot. Directed by Jacques Tati. 1953.

4) The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien

It was said to me by Elrond Halfelven that I should find friendship upon the way, secret and unlooked for. Certainly I looked for no such friendship as you have shown. To have found it turns evil to great good.' – The Two Towers

Suddenly the king cried to Snowmane and the horse sprang away. Behind him his banner blew in the wind, white horse upon a field of green, but he outpaced it. After him thundered the knights of his house, but he was ever before them.  Éomer rode there, the white horsetail on his helm floating in his speed, and the front of the first éored roared like a breaker foaming to the shore, but Théoden could not be overtaken. Fey he seemed, or the battle-fury of his fathers ran through him like a god of old, even as Oromë the Great in the battle of the Valar when the world was young. His golden shield was uncovered, and lo! it shone like and image of the Sun, and the grass flamed into green about the white feet of his steed. For morning came, morning and a wind from the sea; and darkness was removed, and the hosts of Mordor wailed, and terror took them, and they fled, and died, and the hoofs of wrath rode over them. And then all the host of Rohan burst into song, and they sang as they slew, for the joy of battle was on them, and the sound of their singing that was fair and terrible came even to the City. – The Return of the King

5) Cyrano De Bergerac by Edmond Rostand

'Behold the nose that mars the harmony
Of its master's phiz! blushing its treachery!'
--Such, my dear sir, is what you might have said,
Had you of wit or letters the least jot:
But, O most lamentable man!--of wit
You never had an atom, and of letters
You have three letters only!--they spell Ass!
And--had you had the necessary wit,
To serve me all the pleasantries I quote
Before this noble audience. . .e'en so,
You would not have been let to utter one--
Nay, not the half or quarter of such jest!
I take them from myself all in good part,
But not from any other man that breathes!

[Translated by Gladys Thomas and Mary F. Guillemard]

6) Homer's Iliad.

Book I

Down on the ground
he dashed the scepter studded bright with golden nails,
then took his seat again. The son of Atreus smoldered,
glaring across at him, but Nestor rose between them,
the man of winning words, the clear speaker of Pylos. . .
Sweeter than honey from his tongue the voice flowed on and on.
Two generations of mortal men he had seen go down by now,
those who were born and bred with him in the old days,
in Pylos' holy realm, and now he ruled the third.
He pleaded with both kings, with clear good will,
"No more–or enormous sorrow comes to all Achaea!
How they would exult, Priam and Priam's sons
and all the Trojans. Oh they'd leap for joy
to hear the two of you battling on this way,
you who excel us all, first in Achaean councils,
first in the ways of war.

Stop. Please.
Listen to Nestor. You are both younger than I,
and in my time I struck up with better men than you,
even you, but never once did they make light of me.
I've never seen such men, I never will again. . .
men like Pirithous, Dryas, that fine captain,
Caeneus and Exadius, and Polyphemus, royal prince,
and Theseus, Aegeus' boy, a match for the immortals.
They were the strongest mortals ever bred on earth,
the strongest, and they fought against the strongest too,
shaggy Centaurs, wild brutes of the mountains–
they hacked them down, terrible, deadly work.
And I was in their ranks, fresh out of Pylos,
far away from home–they enlisted me themselves
and I fought on my own, a free lance, single-handed.
And none of the men who walk the earth these days
could battle with those fighters, none, but they,
they took to heart my counsels, marked my words.
So now you listen too. Yielding is far better. . .
Don't seize the girl, Agamemnon, powerful as you are–
leave her, just as the sons of Achaea gave her,
his prize from the very first.
And you, Achilles, never hope to fight it out
with your king, pitting force against his force:
no one can match the honors dealt a king, you know,
a sceptered king to whom great Zeus gives glory.
Strong as you are–a goddess was your mother–
he has more power because he rules more men.
Atrides, end your anger–look it's Nestor!
I beg you, cool your fury against Achilles.
Here the man stands over all Achaea's armies,
our rugged bulwark braced for shocks of war."

[Translation by Robert Fagles.]

7) Beethoven's 7th Symphony

Allegretto

Wilhelm Furtwängler conducting The Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra

Allegro con brio

Otto Klemperer conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra of London.

8) 2001: A Space Odyssey. Directed by Stanley Kubrick. 1968

 

9) T.S. Eliot: Four Quartets

from No. 2, "East Coker"

You say I am repeating
Something I have said before. I shall say it again.
Shall I say it again? In order to arrive there,
To arrive where you are, to get from where you are not,
    You must go by a way wherein there is no ecstasy.
In order to arrive at what you do not know
    You must go by a way which is the way of ignorance.
In order to possess what you do not possess
    You must go by the way of dispossession.
In order to arrive at what you are not
    You must go through the way in which you are not.
And what you do not know is the only thing you know
And what you own is what you do not own
And where you are is where you are not.

Full texts of the poems.

 10) Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 25, KV.503

Allegro maestoso

Remembrances: H. C. Robbins Landon and Elisabeth Söderström

Remembering two giants of the musical world: musicologist H. C. Robbins Landon (March 1926 - Nov. 2009) and soprano Elisabeth Söderström (May 1927 - Nov. 2009).

Obituary of the late Mr. Landon [The Guardian UK]
Obituary of the late Elisabeth Söderström [Times Online UK]

Jessica Duchen remembers them also at Standpoint Magazine.

In particular I would like to note and praise their many years of study and practice, the many solitary hours of combing through manuscripts or singing scales, that is, all of the thankless, often painfully slow work nonetheless required for such brilliant scholarship and performance.

J. Haydn.

Die Schöpfung, Part I: Die Himmel erzählen die Ehre Gottes

Herbert von Karajan. Wiener Philharmoniker.

Beethoven.
Fidelio, Act I: Mir ist so wunderbar

Elizabeth Gale, Elisabeth Söderström, Ian Caley, Curt Appelgren.

Directed by Bernard Haitink. Glyndebourne Festival Opera.

Movie Review: Amadeus (Part III)

This is part three of a three-part review of Milos Forman's Amadeus.

Part I | Part II | Part III

Now that we have discussed the relationships and arcs of the emotions in Amadeus we may discuss their significance.  Specifically for us, we want to know why they are ethically significant, what does Amadeus say is good and bad?

First, the structure of the film suggests that emotions have particular causes and relationships.  Feelings are not random, vague, inexplicable effusions of feeling but specific responses that either please or hurt us, and accordingly can affect our judgment.  Salieri does not decide to murder Mozart because he was slighted, such slights made him angry.  Salieri decides to kill him because Mozart’s existence gnaws at his soul.  Also, jealousy does not motivate Salieri to murder, such a weak feeling of jealousy could not motivate someone.  Envy can.

This may seem trivial, but think how many characters in films and television programs are simply caricatures, with their emotions indistinct and indefinite.  One might say, at best, that their emotion might fall somewhere around something called “jealousy,” but how many characters can you call to mind when you think of the word, “envy?”  Then, thinking of Salieri’s seething envy; how shallow does that “jealousy” seem?  This is not the “light” version of an emotion, this is an emotion in its purest and most elemental form.  It is only by having the characters pass from one distinct emotion through others, to its opposite that we appreciate the range and relationship of feelings.  

Aside from the structural relationships between the emotions, how do the emotions suggest ethics?  Foremost, morally positive emotions attend to happiness and morally inferior emotions lead to despair.  Mozart’s boastfulness only serves to alienate Salieri, and it should be obvious by now that Salieri’s host of emotions leads him down a dark path.  Let us examine him first.

Salieri is overwhelmed  by his emotions, which continually run away with him.  Running unchecked, his emotions degenerate from the positive (calmness, amity, kindness) to their opposites.  Unlike Mozart, Salieri is unable to channel his emotions into his music.  A moment that should have been his triumph, the premiere of Axur, his greatest opera, provides him no joy.  The fact that the emperor loves the piece is just another insult to Salieri, who realizes that even at the height of his powers he is no match for Mozart.  The emperor compounds the insult by awarding him a medallion, which he wears throughout the rest of the film as it becomes an ever-present reminder to the him and the audience of the composer’s mediocrity.  In contrast we see the premiere of Don Giovanni, an opera into which Mozart poured all of his genius, his creative energy, and his emotion, but instead of the great (and hollow) fanfare that Axur received, Don Giovanni is a flop.  Not only is the emperor missing but the house is half-empty and gives him a pitiful applause.  When Salieri turns around he looks directly at Mozart.  All that matters to him is Mozart’s appraisal of the work.  In contrast, Mozart is so carried away with giving his creation life that he can barely stand at the end of Don Giovanni.  Mozart is not awaiting anyone’s approval.  Where Salieri is still stuck in the conventions of the era, where Axur ends with the chorus singing gracefully and waving their little branches in the air, Don Giovanni ends with a chorus of devils waving torches.  (This is actually a bit of a trick on the part of Milos Forman, since Don Giovanni actually ends with another chorus that is a coda for the opera.  It is a just edit though, since the title character’s finale is a sufficient note to end on.  It is also a brilliant touch by Forman and Twyla Tharp, since the musical text of Don Giovanni does not specifically call for the devils or the fire, merely “deep voices.”)

We should also note that more reversals attend to the drama.  The opera that should be a flop is met with great fanfare.  The event that should be the height of Salieri’s career is of significance only in comparison to Mozart.  As Salieri’s emotions are degenerating to the unpleasant, his career reaches its height.  In contrast, the opera that should have been hailed is a disaster.   The event that should be the highlight of Mozart’s career is a flop.  As Mozart’s musical powers are that their height, his life is unraveling. Thus we see that while the more destructive emotions gain sway in Salieri, the significance of the events become much different.  The Salieri that would have rejoiced at having his favorite leading lady star in his best work and at receiving a prestigious award from the emperor fades away into the Salieri of envy. 

Yet Salieri’s faith and his war with God are at the center of his fall. Salieri clearly believes in a god, and he assumes two traits of this god that are relevant to his actions in the plot, 1) that this plays an active role in shaping our human affairs, and 2) that this god plays an active role in creating mankind, deliberately endowing us with certain traits.  One interpretation is that these two beliefs are what caused Salieri’s fall, and that if he believed that he and Mozart were not deliberately fashioned as they were, he might take some consolation in the randomness instead of feeling tested or punished.  Also, one might suggest that if Salieri did not believe a divine force was responsible for their talent, he might have attempted somehow to improve himself (perhaps even condescending to study with Mozart himself), rather than relying on divine intervention for success.  A more theological interpretation would be that Salieri erred in presuming to know the will of God, mainly that his vows were accepted.  Similarly, he erred in presuming to act as he desired (with the desire to becoming a musician) and trying to get what he wanted from God instead of acting to discover God’s plan for him. 

In great contrast to Salieri’s envy we have Mozart.  As an artist, fundamentally he is a creator, especially worthy of our praise because of the genius, joy, and brilliance of his work.  We overlooks his foibles and indiscretions because his powers are beyond ours and he can create what and as no one else can.  The act of giving life to something, Mozart’s creative acts are the perfect opposites to Salieri’s envy.  Mozart’s creative gift is an absolute good, and Salieri’s envy an absolute hatred of that good.  Mozart is the unwitting recipient of much evil by the end of the film, and particularly saddening ones at that.  He not only suffers death but illness and discord beforehand.  He suffers several misfortunes as two of his operas fail to bring him success and prosperity.  On his deathbed, he is deprived of enjoying the good when it finally comes (in the form of the profits of The Magic Flute and the knowledge that it was a success.)  Yet worst of all is that he suffers evil coming from a source from which good should have come, from the man who loved his music most of all. 

The final note on the ethics of Amadeus is that while our hero dies, his destroyer is punished and the greater composer’s music lives on.  Like in Don Giovanni, while the villain might have temporarily gained mastery of worldly matters, in the end supernatural power puts matters as it wishes.  While Don Giovanni killed the commander and outwitted his pursuers and Salieri killed Mozart and got away with it, powers beyond their control had the final say.  Don Giovanni was dragged down, Salieri was subjected to the slow torture of watching himself become extinct, and Mozart’s music is eternal.

Around the Web

For the week of Saturday November 14 through Friday November 20.

1) At City Journal, Theodore Dalrymple on Le Corbusier’s "baleful influence."

His ahumanity makes itself evident also in his attitude toward the past. Repeatedly, he talks of the past as a tyranny from which it is necessary to escape, as if no one had discovered or known anything until his arrival. It is not that the past bequeaths us problems that we must try our best to overcome: it is that the entire past, with few exceptions, is a dreadful mistake best destroyed and then forgotten. His disdain for his contemporaries, except those who went over to him without reserve, is total: but a stroll through the Parisian suburb of Vincennes, to take only one example, should have been enough to convince him, or anyone else, that right up to World War I, architects had been capable of building differently from, but in harmony with, all that had gone before. These architects, however, were not mad egotists determined to obtrude their names permanently on the public, but men content to add their mite to their civilization. At no point does Le Corbusier discuss the problem of harmonizing the new with what already exists.

2) From the magazine of the National Endowment for the Humanities, Meredith Hindley on The Imperial Scrolls of China.

3) In the Journal of Religion and Society, Paul Cliteur of The University of Leiden, Netherlands asks, What is Atheism?

Joseph Haydn's "Missa in Angustiis" Part II

This is part two of a two-part essay on Joseph Haydn's "Missa in Angustiis." Part I.

8) Sanctus

The Sanctus is comprised of two parts, the first being an adagio of Sanctus Dominus Deus Sabbaoth. Haydn here achieves a gentle majesty for this most solemn part of the liturgy. A forzando, crescendo, and decrescendo on the first two repetitions of Sanctus create breadth and, starting on the third repetition, the strings pulsing out eighth notes on the beat creates an aura of stateliness. The third repetition is forte but the chorus quickly retreats to piano. The overall impression of this adagio is of an exuberance restrained by awe, a balance difficult to achieve, to say the least. Stephen Town is quite right to say:

The tempo here requires a very poised, deliberate pace, so that the three choral Sanctus invocations may unfold fully, and the ensuing orchestral material may attain its appropriate espressivo character. [1]

In D major and in 3/4 time the following allegro is of an exuberance far less restrained, although it retains a certain regalness. The text, pleni sunt coeli et terra, gloria tua, is repeated only twice before the chorus erupts into a flurry of Hosannas, dynamically contrasted with forte and piano markings.

9) Sanctus: Benedictus

This movement begins with just over 30 bars of orchestral prelude. Also in D minor, it brings back the martial quality of the Kyrie. Strophic in construction, the movement proceeds with the text (broken into two units: benedictus qui venit and in nomine domini), traded back and forth between a soloist and the tutti. The phrases take on different characters in their repetitions, forceful in its first appearance in the solo soprano, then quite gentle. In the third repetition, the alto soprano takes up the phrase, but the tension increases as the other soloists make their entrances on different measures. The fourth repetition is the same as the first, though the half-notes in the tutti on the Do- of Domini are replaced by rising and falling eight note figures in all but the tenors. The last repetition is a mix of the two sentiments with a preparation of the return of the martial atmosphere with the three-note trumpet figure. The tutti enters forte, followed by a heart-stopping chord forte from the orchestra, and an equally strong final repetition of in nomine domine from the tutti.

10) Sanctus: Osanna

This Osanna is contains the same material from the Osanna following the Sanctus.

11) Agnus Dei

The similarities between parts of this movement and other portions of this mass are significant and not due to any lack of originality. Rather the congruities serve to unify the parts of the mass by quoting its elements and focusing them around the concepts of Agnus Dei, qui tolis peccata mundi, and miserere nobis. 

12) Agnus Dei: Dona nobis

Where the last movement ends with only the soloists completing the personal plea dona nobis, here the chorus joyfully takes it up. As if being catapulted up, we hear a note on the timpani and then the altos enter forte in D, followed by the tenors, basses, and sopranos for a glorious choral fugue and finale.

III. Conclusion

Overshadowed by Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven's grand sacred pieces, I think the Missa in Angustiis is still relatively overlooked despite its conception in Haydn's prime. I have passed through several phrases in my opinion regarding this mass. I had much enjoyed it before studying it, grew to see it as in imperfect synthesis of classical era taste and the sacred tradition, and finally, now, enjoy a more nuanced appreciation. For example, no, the Kyrie does not call forth the supernatural, elemental forces that Mozart's do, and the terror of such things, but it does recall an earthly terror, perhaps that of a man who knew a besieged homeland and a war-torn Europe. The celebratory movements, e.g. the Gloria, Osanna, and Dona nobis balance an overflow of praise and enthusiasm with a wonder of that which is being praised.

To conclude our discussions as to whether this piece is a good mass as well as good music, we perhaps must draw one more distinction, that between creating a setting of a text, i.e. creating musical analogues for the words, and creating a text for liturgical use. Tovey noted this distinction comparing Bach's B Minor Mass and Beethoven's Missa Solemnis. [2] In the Missa in Angustiis, despite some particular themes I consider misplaced, we largely have a structure largely appropriate to a mass. It does not introduce the problem of scale that the Missa Solemnis presents us with, nor does it possess a movement, like the Sanctus of Bach's B minor mass, which is more of a setting than a liturgically-usable expression of the text. Overall, I think Rosen exaggerates in condemnation. Wherever classical era playfulness or Haydn's exuberance might have undesirably crept in, the Missa in Angustiis, with its turns terrifying, solemn, and exulting, is a glorious mass.

–

[1] Town, Stephen. Sacred Music. "Joseph Haydn's Missa in Angustiis" Volume 11, Number 2 (Summer) 1983.

[2] Tovey, Donald Francis. Essays in Musical Analysis Vol. V Vocal Music. "Essay CCVIII. Missa Solemnis, Op. 123." Oxford University Press. London. 1937.

After an involuntary sabbatical, I have made my return to Apologia pro literati vita. 

I'd like to thank my friend and collaborator, Nick, for doing solo duty. As I'm sure our readers can see, Nick has an admirable handle on several interesting subjects, and I myself am always eager to read his posts.

My own contributions may be thin for a time: I write chiefly in response or reaction to what I read, and my present reading material has not suggested itself as blogging material. Nevertheless, I shall endeavor to ferret out something original or spare.

Movie Review: Amadeus (Part II)

This is part two of a three-part review of Milos Forman's Amadeus. 

Part I | Part II | Part III

iii.    Pity to Indignation and Indignation to Pity

For the first half of the film, Mozart is not the most likable character.  He rolls around on the floor with his bride-to-be, he has a piercing cackle of a laugh, he is late to conduct his own piece of music, he composes a bawdy opera.  Mozart has a concerned (if not controlling) father who he disobeys, whereas Salieri’s father mocked his musical aspirations.  Yet while the viewer cannot really bring himself to dislike Mozart, whose brilliance, enthusiasm, and childlike nature balance his faults, we feel a sense of indignation that Mozart should be grateful for his fortunes, especially the good graces of the emperor.  Similarly, we feel pity for Salieri as his labors of love are continually outshone by the rising Mozart and as the young composer disrupts every aspect of Salieri’s life: his life at the court and his relationship with the emperor, his relationship with the Vienna’s prima donna, his own pride in his music, and his relationship with his god. Gradually, though, as Salieri’s emulation morphs into envy and his friendly feeling into enmity, Mozart instead becomes the object of our pity as he becomes the object of Salieri’s vengeance, and Salieri becomes the object of our indignation for the unjust control he wields over Mozart’s life. 

iv.    Confidence to Fear

Lastly, Mozart passes from mastery of his life into complete terror.  When he arrives in Vienna, he tells the lead composers of the imperial court that their tradition of Italian opera is rubbish and shows them up with a new work of his own making.   He complains of their stupidity and calls them “musical idiots” to the emperor’s chamberlain.  Mozart has the audacity to put on an opera set in a harem and then include a ballet in his opera.  He gets married without his father’s consent.  Slowly, as the other emotions of the film gradually give way to their opposites, Mozart’s confidence too gives way to its contrary, fear.  In the middle of the night Mozart is visited by a clandestine patron who commissions a requiem mass from him.  Cloaked in the costume his late father once wore, the figure terrifies the composer, who is haunted by his father’s relentlessly controlling nature years after the man’s death.  Mozart is terrified of every knock on the door.  One time out of fear he asks his wife to answer the door, although it turns out only to be his actor-friend.

The movie’s final scene unites all of these emotional reversals and amplifies them with reversals of plot.  The first of these is the premiere of The Magic Flute, which is a smash hit, a fact that should have brought Mozart great joy since his previous operas flopped.  He is denied this pleasure because he passes out at the harpsichord during the final act and misses the curtain call.  Next Mozart is taken home, where he should be safe to recuperate with his wife.  Not only is his wife absent, but it is Salieri who has taken him home and who remains with him.  Instead of being afforded comfort, Mozart is thrust into danger.  Then, when the actors drop by Mozart’s apartment with his share of the profits, an event would have eased Mozart’s mind is turned into a tool for his destruction, for Salieri tells Mozart it was not the actors but the man who commissioned the requiem.  Salieri then pressures Mozart to complete the mass, claiming the anonymous patron promised much money if the work is finished by the following day.  Thus instead of being eased by receiving the profits of his work, he is burdened to finish a work that is torturing him. 

When Mozart begins to dictate his final work to Salieri, all of the films emotional reversals are amplified.  The emotions that have degenerated into their opposites, will now return, but in a false form.   First, there is the irony that Salieri’s enmity for Mozart should be culminated in a collaboration.  Mozart went from being Salieri’s idol, to his rival, to his enemy, to his tool, and lastly his friend. We get a brief, sad glimpse at the partnership that might have been. Only the friendship is a false one.   Emulation has passed into anger and then to envy and then at last to false-friendship.  Second, at last Salieri begins emulating Mozart, but it is not a true emulation since he is merely copying Mozart’s work verbatim, a task he is barely capable of.  Emulation has passed into enmity and then into false emulation.  Third, that Mozart’s fear, while it should be at its greatest as he falls victim to Salieri, is ebbing because he trusts the man.  Thus Mozart’s confidence gave way to fear, which has given way to a false confidence now. 

The fact that this last scene is the final stage of the emotional arcs is amplified by the contrasting fact that the scene appears to be a happy and successful resolution.  It looks like Salieri is helping Mozart, it looks like Mozart has the money he needs and will get more. . . but none of this is true.  The opposite emotions have taken over, and the false ones fade away as the composer dies.

Of course, the only emotions that are not brought back in false-form are ours, namely those of pity and indignation.  Mozart, once triumphantly and joyfully conducting, is pale and dying on his bead with the villain magnanimously standing over him.  This unjust situation is magnified when Mozart utters his last words to Salieri, “forgive me.”  This is the last reversal, Mozart uttering the words that should have come from his murderer, and Mozart’s inability to grasp not only the gravity of his situation but all of the events leading up to it make us pity him and loathe Salieri even more since it reminds us how long and how completely Salieri was sabotaging him.

Part I | Part II | Part III