#MinnegeddonPartDeux…as of today…

Last week torrential rains tore through most of the state of Minnesota.  Many roads are still closed and countless citizens are waiting with their hearts in their throats to see if sandbags will hold while the rivers and Minnehaha Creek crest this week.  This dire condition is consistent with the events transpiring surrounding me and die zauberflote.

Early in the MO lockout I sent very respectful letters to Michael Henson and Osmo Vanska describing why I consider myself to be a part of the MO family and asked to be heard again on the stage at Orchestra Hall, where I once was regularly encouraged to practice.  I even recently sent a last letter to Gordon Sprenger, asking for his help in bringing me and die zauberflote to the public at the level of the press.  I have not been granted the courtesy of a reply, so have no choice but to move forward on my own.  Still, it seems somewhat ironic that they insist on staying mum about the player one of their own has let slip is the “most exciting musician since Mozart.”  Other players in fact, made similar dazzling statements before running away as fast as they can.  

So no I am starting to prepare a group of concerts that will be, appropriately, called “Locked-Out Concerts.”  They will feature, I hope, the music of some whose suffering makes my experiences look utterly superficial — the women composers who were interned in camps in the Holocaust.  And the program will also include pieces by Mozart, for yes, he was indeed locked-out of his rightful position and financial security by those who deemed him, alive, to be a threat.  

 

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Ah yes, reminders of the “Tornado Concert”…

With dual tornadoes flattening a small town in Nebraska yesterday I found myself thinking of a performance I gave under rather challenging conditions some time ago.  The program was, what else? — all Mozart.  The venue was the beautiful Art Room of the Hennepin Avenue Methodist Church in Minneapolis.  Everything went smoothly until around noon the day of the performance.  Tornadoes moved in on the Twin Cities.  Some of my guests who planned to attend the concert found themselves holed up in movie theater in a Mall in St. Paul as a tornado roared by.  Another who lived near Lake of the Isles found a tree had fallen across their driveway.  One tornado zeroed in on my accompanist’s apartment building.  He became terrified and tried to bow out, claiming he had no way to get to the church.  He did, fortunately, manage to arrive, at the last moment.  And yes, everything ended up working beautifully, and all but a handful who had planned to attend made it and seemed to be delighted by the program.  My three little children ran around the back of the room, playing quietly.  As with just about everything connected to Mozart, that which seemed to be almost impossibly challenging evolved into an experience of absolute joy…

Wolfgang Mozart — How many other musicians came with venticelli? How about a vortex?

Wherever Wolfgang Mozart went he seemed to create controversy.  It seemed people either loved him or hated him.  Most tended to fall into the latter category.  As he began to take over the territory previously owned by the ‘older, established composers’ the tumult became even worse.  He could not possibly have composed an opera as a teen-ager, they said.  Surely, Leopold must have composed it for him.  They seemed to forget that in all his days Leopold had never composed an opera attributed to himself.  

The minute Wolf would arrive in a town, the word went out.  Whispers began.  What would he do?  What would he say?  What outrageous piece would he compose today?  How would he, by inference, humiliate his peers who struggled to compose and edit while he tossed off pieces he seemed to pull out of his head?  

And this is how the vortex began.  The whispers of the venticelli turned into a general agreement that something must be done.  This obnoxious overlord had to be stopped.  And so they banded together in agreement over his demise.  They treated him as though he were already dead.  Then they waited for something to happen.  Every time he moved, every time he stumbled, they rejoiced.  And they lay in wait. The vortex of slander grew larger as Wolf became more vulnerable.  He succumbed to the vortex of the evil eye, and they rejoiced.  They stole his music to parade like a banner — they had defeated the great one, the one who could not be imitated because of a unique gift of shalom which caused them to gnash their teeth.  They could perform Wolf’s music using their energy and remain unscathed from its effects.  Or so they believed…

What happened to Mozart? Might it have included an ‘evil eye’…:-0

Every once and a while someone will make reference to an ‘evil eye’.  This, as a concept, seems to have started in the earliest civiizations, where even Egyptians had a stone with an ‘eye’ in it, to ward off the ‘evil eye.’  There is a look connected to the concept, eg ‘he gave me the evil eye’.  But there is also a group context.  It works like this.  

Someone with ill intent will insinuate themself into another person’s life, pretending to be their friend.  They are very chummy, oh-so-helpful, and nearly always ‘good’ people who make sure to let you know just now special they are.  They flatter and move in.  In truth, they are only feigning affection.  They are about to begin treating this person as though they were already dead.  The victim may sense little bits of disrespect or harshness from time to time, but for the most part they are sure they ‘know’ the person and must have misread their word or action. This leader will then assimilate others with ill intent toward this person.  If these are people already in a relationship, such as family or co-worker to the victim, all the better.  A few knowing looks can solidify a connection.  Then all these people are in agreement that this person needs to go.  They form a group, or a vortex of the evil eye.  This will tend to cause the victim to become vulnerable, and perhaps take sick or have some sort of accident.  It all looks ‘natural’ and nobody is to blame.  Some people seem to have been targeted in this way.  One of them is Mozart, others are JFK and Princess Diana.  Just a thought…

 

It’s always the ‘little horn’…or what actually happened to Wolf and why…

If you are reading my posts and find yourself tempted to ask, ‘who does this person think she is?’ I would ask you to just bear with me for a moment.  And, if you are interested, ask why, when so many people have heard die zauberflote, you have yet to hear of me from them…

It is a fairly accepted concept that when someone is doing something really different they are likely to attract a lot of flak.  In fact, it may seem that all sorts of odd people even crawl out of the woodwork to try to stop the change.  This is what happened with Mozart.  Due to an ineffable quality of his personality, that we also hear in his music, and which has been labeled “the Mozart effect”, he created controversy wherever he went.  It didn’t matter what he did or what he said.  His mere presence in a room was sufficient to create a vortex of energies. He had a tendency to polarize people — a few ‘got’ him and were astounded by his gifts; the rest despised him and slandered him at virtually every opportunity.  Since much of this antipathy occurred behind Wolf’s back, he was unable to assess the potential for damage to his good name and credibility and takes steps to protect himself.  In addition, he had an annoying habit of being ‘right’ about everything connected to music.  He was on a mission where he did seem to sense he had to move as quickly as possible, and naively believed others would understand that and have some empathy, not to mention respect, for his advice.  

It is my thinking that it was not until toward the end of his life that Mozart began to understand what he was up against.  In fact, there was virtually no one whom he could trust to look out for him.  Certainly not the sweet little wife, Constanze, always so helpful, such a saint, so patient with him.  I doubt that there was a more dedicated antagonist in Wolf’s life than his wife.  They were separated during those last months, due to her needing more treatment at a spa for health issues.  But was she sympathetic to him, or watching and waiting for the poison she doled out daily in tiny doses when they were together to take hold? 

In the Bible, it is the ‘little horn’ who becomes the most wicked Anti-Christ.  It is someone who stays in the background, appears to follow all the rules, appears to be a team member, but who has a hidden agenda, that can create the most confusion in the end.  And so I think it was with Mozart…

The Exquisite Mendelssohn….

A recent performance of this piece in the Twin Cities recalled to me the first time I heard it long ago.  I saved my allowance and whatever other money I had as a child for recordings from the Columbia Record Club. The first two 33 1/3 records I bought were performances of John Wummer playing the Mozart Flute Concertos.  The third was the Mendelssohn.  I don’t recall the artist. Right from the start, I knew this was something extraordinary.  Its lines were simple yet profound.  The composition seemed almost classical.  The high E in the climax of the third movement seemed almost unbearably lovely.  I did not realize at that time that I had memorized much of it.  That came later, when it played through my head over and over. There was simply nothing like it then or now…:-)

#Minnegeddon — Piper to the Alternative Scoring…

At this point it seems almost inevitable that the soundtracks for the earlier episodes of P2A will consist of new music, perhaps in the style of those who end up with Wolf in the room on Rauhensteingasse in “Vienna Mystery”.  However, it is my thinking at this time that there is only one piece of music that would be appropriate for the epilogue, currently called “Revenge of the Mozarts” — and that is the Requium that he was forced, by need of money, to write under another’s name.  Although Wolf was not allowed to live long enough to complete it — he was, in fact, digging his own grave in composing it, and was aware of that — there are many ideas and motifs that accurately represent not only his sublime musicianship, but his character and attitude at what seemed inevitably to be the approach of an untimely death.  

Wolfgang Mozart and Salzburg, Austria…

We all know that Wolf was born in Salzburg, and grew to hate it.  He left for Vienna when he was able, and never returned. However, the story of why Wolf lived such a short life may have a connection to his relationship to Salzburg.  How?  Let me explain.

When Leopold realized that he had not one (Nannerl) but two child prodigies in his family, he looked around and despaired at what he saw.  Salzburg was out-of-the-way, provincial, dull.  It grew very cold in the winter.  How could a loving Gd possibly give him such amazing children and expect them to grow up and flourish in such a place?  He was deeply offended by the shortcomings that Salzburg presented.  

Leopold knew that his children represented the royalty of music.  Why not then present them to royalty of this world?  They were the best, so only the best for them would do.  With all the earnest zeal of the children’s greatest mentor, he pushed them onto the world scene.  He demanded that the world pay attention to them.  He refused to allow them to be ignored and die forgotten in Salzburg.  He was adamant that this is what Gd would want.  

Unfortunately, as history shows, Leopold’s vision was false.  His family became divided, turning on one another.  His daughter’s gifts became forgotten as excitement over Wolf’s increased.  In a last desperate trip to find Wolf a permanent spot at court, Maria Anna died in Paris.  Leopold held Wolf responsible.  It was easier to do that than look inward and acknowledge that it was his plan that had brought on destruction of his family.  Arrogance and pride held sway, and he never managed to apologize for Wolf for his mistaken vision.

In fact, the truth was right under their noses.  Being Catholic, they didn’t spend much time with the Bible.  In fact, the probably expected the priests to tell them everything they needed to know about it.  Had they looked within, they might have noticed a statement about ‘the salt of the earth’.  Salzburg was just that.  A town with a great salt mine that produced salt for the entire region.  It seems to go down for miles.  At the bottom is a lake.  A symbol of the depths of human character.

What if Gd wanted the Mozarts to be what they were — common people, ‘salt-of-the-earth’?  What if Nannerl and Wolf’s gifts had been allowed to mature in a small-town environment, away from the ridicule and gossip of the courts?  What if Wolf had been able to mature emotionally instead of being stuck in the role of an immature and conditioned puppet? Might Leopold have been able not only to assess the height of Wolf’s gifts, but also their depth?  

 

 

Adoption day…