Happy birthday, Mozart

  • Today is Mozart’s 250th birth­day, and it’s being rec­og­nized all over the place. Pretty lengthy legacy for a guy who only lived to be 36.

    And nat­u­rally there are write-ups to be found all over the blo­gos­phere — you can con­nect to quite a few through this post of Michelle Malkin’s, includ­ing a won­der­ful arti­cle by Paul Green­berg of the Jew­ish World News:

    That flute solo may be the sig­na­ture of Mozart’s art, which is not a mat­ter of quan­tity but qual­ity. Even when W.A. Mozart wrote for sev­eral pianos, or whole orches­tras with massed choirs, they become a sin­gle instru­ment in his hands, and in our soar­ing minds.

    The effect is mirac­u­lous: We find our­selves at peace — but not at rest. For in Mozart we dis­cover there is noth­ing sta­tic about peace, that peace is being per­fectly whole, per­fectly alive, at one with the uni­verse. Or as Karl Barth put it, “Mozart’s music is an invi­ta­tion to the lis­tener to ven­ture just a lit­tle out of the sense of his own subjectivity.

    Def­i­nitely a day for a lit­tle night music.

    (Here at chez Brooks, we actu­ally do have a bust of Mozart. That’s because this is a place of cul­ture — plus my mom-in-law gave it to us. But around here, the pin­na­cle of us rec­og­niz­ing his great­ness is that he gets to wear both the Cray­ola base­ball cap and my bar­ber­shop medals. A bit irrever­ant, maybe, but if he was half the guy that “Amadeus” made him sound like he was, I’m sure he’d appre­ci­ate the bling.)

    Mozart homey


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    1. Happy Cir­cum­ci­sion Day!

    January 27th, 2006 | Grace | 5 Comments |

5 Responses and Counting...

  • Mimi 01.27.2006

    Happy Birth­day, Mozart.

  • her­man

    Does he get to wear both the hat and medals all year long or just on his birthday??

  • Grace

    The medals are a year-round thing. I mean, after all, he is Mozart, y’know? But alas, I need that hat. At this time of year, I get too much glare in my office to look at the com­puter screen, so I wear the hat when it gets really bad. I just bestowed it on him yes­ter­day — so that’s what a 250th birth­day is worth around here.

    He still fares bet­ter than the match­ing bust of Wag­ner. That gets a really use­less medal we got at a din­ner show in Las Vegas (why a medal for din­ner? It’s Vegas, baby!), and a very British tweed cap that Greg got in Scotland.

    And at Christ­mas, of course, they both get Santa hats. We could leave the mar­ble busts alone, but what fun is that?

  • her­man

    I am no expert but I think a viking hat could be rather appro­pri­ate for Wag­ner… :)

    It sounds fun that you guys dress em up…

  • Grace

    You’re right. One of those pointy ones with the horns would be the most appro­pri­ate head­gear, but I’m amazed to note that we don’t own one of those. How weird!

    Also, I’m embar­rassed to admit that Greg clued me in to a stu­pid mis­take — that bust is Beethoven, not Mozart! What a doof I am.

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