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| Chinese-American cellist Yo-Yo Ma |
“In the métro, you’re all linked together because you’re traveling together every day from one place to another. This is what unites us.”
“This is art in the métro. Some people had come to the station specifically to see Yo-Yo Ma perform, while others stumbled upon the concert. They will go home and say: 'I don’t know what happened this afternoon, I went out to run some errands and I ended up singing Hallelujah with Yo-Yo Ma.' "
This is not the first time an artist of such high stature has 'busked' in an underground rail system. American violinist Joshua Bell famously performed Bach's famous Chaconne incognito in Washington's L'Enfant Plaza in January 2007 as part of a sociological experiment on class perception in conjunction with the Washington Post, which earned a Pulitzer Prize for the stunt. Read more about Bell's appearance here on Unraveling Musical Myths.
French violinist Renaud Capuçon also performed the role of a busker two years later on line 6 of the Paris Métro in similar casual 'disguise' (Joshua wore a ballcap, while Renaud opted for a fedora.) Like Bell, who performed on his 3.5 million Strad (the “Gibson ex-Huberman,”) Capuçon “busked” with an invaluable instrument – a 1737 Guarneri (formerly owned by Issac Stern, nicknamed "Viscount de Panette.")
Capuçon's "performance" of the gorgeous Melodie from Christoph Willibald Gluck's Orfed ed Euridice seen in the video above, was documented on camera for/featured in French filmmaker Simon Lelouch's short film 7.57 am-pm. He would perform two days following filming to a sold out crowd at Paris' Théâtre des Champs-Elysées.
[1]For my non-French speaking readers, Ma greeted the assembled crowd thusly: "Hello, ladies and gentleman, my friends! Very good? Tired, no? Thank you for your patience and for giving up your Saturday afternoon. Are you tired? (audience: NO!) But it's beautiful, yes? [pointing to screen] It's wonderful here in the metro - for everyone! And now I want to play something for you and we’ll see what happens, ok?"
[2]Intimate appearances by Ma are a staple of the musician's "Bach Project" campaign and tour. Each "Day of Action" as Ma refers to his more subdued appearances, follow, or are scheduled before a major concert appearance. Sociological issues ranging from the integration of AI technology and personal ethics, to the use of technology and media as a viable means to increase visibility on issues plaguing minorities, (all in the context of the uniting force of high culture) are discussed. A detailed briefing of today's 'Day of Action' may be found by visiting the link to "The Bach Project," listed below.
- Rose.
- For more on this story and for an extended video of the performance, visit Global News.
- Visit The Bach Project to learn more about Yo-Yo Ma's campaign and to keep abreast of forthcoming tour dates.
In light of the 227th observance of the death of Unraveling Musical Myths' favorite composer, Wolfgang "Amadè" Mozart, I have decided to launch early the first installment in my new series on the composer "The Mozart Files: Facts vs. Fiction."
I was first inspired to create this series after reading one too many articles containing often repeated, falsified accounts of Herr Mozart in both reputable news media and on educational-themed, pop-culture-slanted websites (which shall remain nameless.)
Unfortunately where Mozart is concerned, details concerning his demise and of the events that occurred post-mortem are, and have been for generations, supported by as much - or perhaps even more - grandiose tales of legend than by factual biographical data which may be quite readily cross-referenced against archival material (much of it made available for public access via the modern trend of digitizing personal letters, registers, and related memorabilia.)
Sometimes, discrepancies may be traced to poor translation from the German tongue - however more often, dubious accounts of Mozart's life have simply been passed down though the musical ages - fantastical dramatizations of otherwise unremarkable events that have permeated even the seams of modern pop-culture, often the direct result of overactive imaginations, exaggerations, and through the practice of quoting from quasi-biopic, dated material rife with fiction.
How fitting it is, then, to begin with the funeral of Wolfgang Amadè Mozart, which occurred today - on the 7th of December, in 1791.
The reader may already be familiar with the melancholic story of Mozart, lying stiff in his coffin, the icy chill surrounding his corpse the result not just of a severe case of rigor mortis, but of an (appropriately) dramatic storm of snow, rain, violent wind (and thunder!) which raged so untameable it forced an already ill-manned procession (which may or may not have included Franz Xaver Süssmayr as a pallbearer) to turn back at the gates of St. Marx Cemetery.
You may have even bore witness to iconography depicting the same scene - or perhaps, even more pitiably, depicting a lonesome pup, it's tail tucked in between its legs and head drooped woefully toward the earth as it follows a horse-driven hearse with his friendless Master inside - together making the doleful journey toward the graveyard under the cover of a frigid, moonless night:
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| "Mozarts Begräbnis" - c. 1860 engraving depicting a fabled journey of Mozart's corpse w/ poem: "Mozart's Burial" Translation of poem into English: "As the storm roars about, on the snow-covered field / On the final path, brightened by no beam of light / He heads on alone; no eye weeps for him, / Only his loyal dog follows along, his only friend." This portrayal, attr. Joseph Heicke bears striking similarity to an earlier coloured French Print by Pierre-Roch Vigneron, "Convoi du Pauvre" (Poor Man's Procession, c. 1800), now in Austrian archives. Ludwig van Beethoven is said to have hung a copy of Vigneron's engraving in his home as a reminder of his hero's humble burial. Even through recycled iconography, we find material originally and wholly unrelated to Mozart take on an apocryphal association post-mortem. |
"a heavy storm of snow and rain [which was] raging...[which caused] the few friends who had assembled for the funeral procession [to stand] with umbrellas around the bier.. [the body] was then carried through the Schulerstrasse to the Cemetery of St. Mark. As the storm grew worse, the mourners decided to turn back at the gate, so that not a friend stood by when the body was lowered into the grave."[1]
"The night of Mozart's death was dark and stormy; at the funeral, too, it began to rage and storm. Rain and snow fell at the same time, as if Nature wanted to shew her anger with the great composer's contemporaries, who had turned out extremely sparsely for his burial. Only a few friends and three women accompanied the corpse. Mozart's wife was not present. These few people with their umbrellas stood round the bier, which then taken via the Grosse Schullerstrasse to the St. Marx Cemetery. As the storm grew ever more violent, even these few friends determined to turn back at the Stuben Gate, and they betook themselves to the "Silver Snake."[2]
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| Memorial tablet at St. Marx Cemetery, positioned at a location believed by some to be Mozart's grave. Image: Invisigoth67 [CC BY-SA 2.5], Wikimedia Commons |
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| *Early Mozart biographer, Franz Niemetscheck may have had ulterior motives of the financial ilk when he sought the testimonials of a deeply indebted Constanze following the composers untimely death. Much of these accounts have since been discredited through the revelation of contemporary registers and documentation. His publication was the first full-length account of Mozart's life - replacing the brief, 6000-word mini-bio published 5 years earlier by Friedrich Schlichtgeroll in the obituary volume "Nekrolog auf das Jahr 1791." |
“On 5 December 1791, the honorable Wolfgang Amadeus K.K. Kappellmeister and chamber composer died in a small Kaiserhouse in Rauhensteinergasse in Vienna of fevered prickly heat”[4]
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| Excerpt from the Official death register at St. Stephen's. Dated 6.12.1791, this timestamp is widely believed among modern scholars to have been an error on the part of the city official who recorded it. A known laxity in regard to attention to detail combined with multiple contemporary weather reports (both public and private) refute a December 6 burial for Herr Mozart. |
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| Not Mozart's grave: this mid-19th century lithograph, after an original engraving, depicts the result of an official inquiry into the "disappearance" of Mozart's corpse. Held in 1855, it relied on the testimonies, provided no earlier than a half-century post mortem, of an auditor (who offered memories from his youth of being told of the location of the grave by his mother), the dubious assertion by the Sexton at St. Marx, who claimed to have been in possession of "Mozart's skull" (which he later alleges he transferred to the anatomist Josef Hrytl), and from the word of flautist Carl Scholl, whose shaky credibility lay only in the fact that he knew Mozart personally whilst the composer was alive. This engraving may be arguably viewed an early example of the type of rumor, built on confusion, that enabled later inquirers to plant the seeds of a "mass grave theory." Note the numerous, unnamed crosses which dot the surface of a large mound. (see: footnotes) - "Grab von Wolfgang A. Mozart," anon., Österreich. . |
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| Dramatic depictions and even Deifications of Mozart after death were not solely relegated to the literary sphere. In this engraving by Amadeus Wenzel Böhm "Apotheose W. A. Mozart," we witness, alongside a weeping Constanze and the couple's infant son, Franz Xaver, the "Apotheosis," or divinization of Mozart, as he transcends the invisible barrier between earth and heaven, and between mortal man and immortal god. Note the flowing Roman-esque coiffure sported by Mozart on his 'graveside' cameo (a nod to the god of music, Apollo, with whom the composer was often compared) and the Marian-like draped garments worn by Constanze. It is hardly a surprise that little Franz is depicted in the nude - Böhm's engraving is drenched in both pagan and religious symbolism. The presence of nine stars which form a halo (the colloquial "Crown of Immortality") around Mozart's cranium may also contain Masonic significance. A similar depiction of an antiquated Mozart could be formerly found in a medallion of red wax over moulding, fashioned in ca. 1788 by the composers' confidante Leonhard Posch. That medal, which also depicts a long-tressed Mozart, disappeared from the Mozart Museum in Salzburg in 1945. |
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| "Allegorie auf den Genius Mozarts" (Allegory on the Genius of Mozart) by Stich von Johann Adolf Roßmäßler depicts an angelic putto crowning the 'god' Mozart, with a musician-angel dictating music from the heavens to an earthly being - a play on the age-old belief that Mozart's compositional gifts were channeled from up on high by means of divine intervention. As is the case with Böhm's engraving above, this too, depicts the "apotheosis" of Mozart after death. | Österreich, 1794 | |
"What you wrote long ago, in honor of your friend, I repeat here for you, weighed down as I am by grief.
Beloved husband! Mozart! Immortal for me and for the whole of Europe, you too, are at rest, now - forever!!
At one hour after midnight, during the night of December 4 to 5th of this year,
He departed, in his 36th year - too soon, Oh! how much too soon -
eight years bound us together with an affectionate, indelible bond!
Oh! that I may soon be united with you forever.
your wife, distraught with grief
Vienna, December 5th, 1791
Constanze Mozart née Weber."
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| Mozart's widow Constanze proved to be ever the shrewd businesswoman following her famous husband's death. |
"it would seem unbecoming for the imperial court to reduce to a beggar's state the widow of a man of such rare talent who had been in the Emperor's service"
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| Constanze after her marriage to Herr von Nissen. This miniature by Thomas Spitzer showcases Mozart's former spouse clad in a lavish gown and donning resplendent pearls. |
The results of the official inquiry into the location of Mozart's remains were announced in 1855, to
coincide with the upcoming 100th anniversary of the composers' birth. It concluded the following:
"The place where Mozart's body was buried on 6 December 1791 is a long shaped quadrilateral at St. Marx' cemetery which is in the direction of the cemetery's cross adjoining the entrance, on the right of the main path and in the fifth row of the common grave. It is planted with young willows."
** An "Attestation of Salieri's Two Attendants", being the infirmieri of the former (with a "confirmation" by
the medical attendant to the composer, one Dr. Rörhik) was penned in
Vienna on 5 June 1825 (nearly one month after the death of the composer)
and subsequently published in the October 1826 issue of Harmonicon (4, no. 46. pp. 189-90).
Seen at right, it reads:
"We the undersigned, who are, by profession, attendants on the sick (infermieri), declare, in the presence of God and man, that in the spring of 1824, we were called to attend the Cavaliere Salieri, maestro di capella
to the Royal court, and that during the whole course of his long
illness we never quitted him a single moment; that is, when one of us
was absent, the other always remained in attendance. We also attest,
that in consequence of his weak state, no one was permitted to visit him
except ourselves and his medical attendants; it being judged proper
that not even the members of his own family should see him. With
respect, therefore, to the following question put to us; Whether it
is true that the aforesaid Cavaliere Salieri had said, during his
illness, that he had poisoned the celebrated composer Wolfgang Mozart?
- we reply, upon our honour and conscience, that we never heard such
words uttered by the said Salieri, nor the slightest mention of anything
alluding to it.
In confirmation of this, we subscribe our names as follow;
GIORGIO ROSENBERG,
Infermiere
AMADEO PORSCHE,
Infermiere presso il Signor Salieri, Maestro di Capella di Corte.
Vienna, 5th June 1825.
N.B. Dr. Rörhik, the medical attendant of Salieri, confirms, as far as his knowledge goes, the above statement made by the two assistant infirmieri."
Author's note:
It
is worthy to note that piano virtuoso Ignaz Moscheles claimed a denial
by Salieri himself. Contained within a collection of letters and diary entries penned
by Moscheles and later published after his death by the pianist's wife
Charlotte ("Aus Moscheles Leben, Nach Briefen und Tagebüchern" ) is a recollection of a conversation shared with an ailing Salieri, in which he allegedly begs of his former pupil: "Although I am mortally ill, I assure you in good faith that there is no truth to that absurd rumor. Mozart, you know - I am supposed to have poisoned him. But no, it's malice, nothing but malice. Tell the world, dear Moscheles; old Salieri, who is about to die, told you so himself."[13]
The dubious assertion that Salieri "confessed" to "poisoning" Mozart in a state of weakened delirium has long been a rumor that just won't quit. Far from being the salacious sort of gossip spread by the whispering of lips behind closed doors and among select company, the tale of Salieri's pitiful mea culpa even made it to print: a correspondent's report from Vienna printed in the May 25 issue of the Leipzig Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung in 1825 - some thirty years following Mozart's death - reads: "Our worthy Salieri just won't die - as the popular expression goes. His body suffers all the infirmities of old age, and his mind is gone. In his distorted fantasies he actually claims to be partially responsible for Mozart's death - a bit of lunacy which surely no one but the poor, delirious old man believes."[14]
Bibliography:
[1]Slonimsky, Nicolas: "The Weather at Mozart's Funeral," The Musical Quarterly Vol. 46 No 1 p. 12, Jan. 1960, after Jahn, Otto: Life Of Mozart, Vol. III, 1856
[2]Deutsch, Otto Erich, Mozart: A Documentary Biography tr. Noble, Jeremy, 1965
[3]Nissen, Georg Nikolaus von: Biographie W.A. Mozarts, Leipzig, 1828, p. 572
[4]Bär, Carl, Mozart: Krankheit, Tod und Begräbnis, 1966 pp. 7-10
[5]Abert, Hermann tr. Spencer, Stewart, ed. Eisen, Cliff: W.A. Mozart, 2007, p. 1310
[6]Bär, Krankheit, pp. 126-157
[7]Abert, W.A. Mozart, p. 1310
[8]Keefe, Simon P.: Mozart 1st ed. (The Late Eighteenth Century Composers, excerpt: "Mozart in the Market-Place," Moore, Julia: Journal of the Royal Musical Association, 64, 1989, pp. 18-42)
[9,10,11]Lorenz, Michael: "Mozart and the Myth of Reusable Coffins," 1 July, 2013
[12]Stafford, William, after Bär, Carl: The Mozart Myths: A Critical Reassessment, 1991, p. 50
[13]Braunbehrens, Volkmar: Mozart and Vienna, 1991, pp. 409
[14]ibid., p. 408
[†]Gärtner, Heinz: Constanze Mozart: After the Requiem, 1991, pp. 10-19; Cantagrel, Gilles: Mozart: Letters and Manuscripts, 2005, p. 202; Servatius, Viveca: Constanze Mozart: Eine Biografie (auf Deutsch), 2018, p. 136
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| Wolfgang Amadè Mozart surrounded by angelic putti. |
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| Am unknown Viennese Freemason Lodge, formerly identified as Mozart's New-Crowned Hope Lodge: "Innenansicht der Wiener Loge," c.1790, attr. Ignaz Unterberger (Wien Museum Karlsplatz) |
“Sweet are the feelings of a mason on such an auspicious occasion, when the chains of brotherhood which binds us are forged anew; sweet the feeling that humanity has come again to dwell with mankind; sweet the remembrance of that former place where every Brother's heart show what he was, and what he is, and what he may become; where truest love and brotherhood are found, and where the queen of all the virtues, the greatest, highest of virtues, Beneficence, is enthroned in quiet radiance.”
“If I didn't know that I had written better things, I would regard this as my best work.”
“Music has suffered an irreparable loss. He died too early for his family and for art, to which he would have presented still more moments to his abilities. His last work was the composition of a cantata which he had supplied to the local Freemasons, of which he was a member...said to be a masterpiece of noble simplicity.”
[1]Works during this year included two full length operas: Die Zauberflöte (K.620) and La Clemenza di Tito (K.621), three concertos in the same year (a personal feat not accomplished since 1786); an adagio and rondo for the glass armonica, flute oboe, viola and cello (Benjamin Franklin's new instrument, designated K.617); string quintet, concert aria (“Io ti lascio, oh cara, addio,” K.621a); a contrapuntal study (K620b); two cantatas ("Eine kleine deutsche Kantate,” K 619 and the presently aforementioned cantata on which this article is based, K.623); 160 bars of an incomplete andante for piano four hands, and an unfinished Requiem. A full listing of Mozart's output in his final year may be found in the Köchel catalogue, or via Mozart's own Thematic catalogue, recently digitized for online access by the British Library.
[2] At the time of his passing, Mozart had completed of his Requiem the Introit in full score, and vocal parts, continuo and some instrumental passages had been written for the Kyrie, Dies Irae, Tuba mirum, Rex Tremendae, Recordare, Confutatis, (eight bars of) the Lacrimosa, Domine Jesu and Hostias. Realisations of the Requiem were first attempted by the Austrian composer Joseph Leopold Eybler, who had partially orchestrated the Sequence before returning the score to Mozart's former pupil Franz Xaver Süssmayr, who completed it in February 1792. The alleged hand of Mozart's former pupil Franz Jacob Freystädtler having authored the orchestral parts of the Kyrie (with the exception of the trumpet and timpani parts) remain a subject of derision among modern scholars. An incomplete version of the Requiem as Mozart had left it before death has been attempted in modern times – Conductor Christoph Spering issued a recording of the unfinished work in 2002 through the OPUS 111 label. Listen to it here (note that the tempi used by Spering may not be Mozart's own.)
[3]The Freemasons in 1791 existed as a society far removed from its present establishment. Described as an “anti-Catholic/non religious” group of “..closely-united men who, employing symbolical forms borrowed principally from the mason's trade and from architecture, work for the welfare of mankind, striving morally to ennoble themselves and others, and thereby to bring about a universal league of mankind, which they aspire to exhibit even now on a small scale" - quotes by E.J. Dent, Mozart's Operas, edition II, pp. 230
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| Graphic: Unraveling Musical Myths |
Mozart's beloved opera “Die Zauberflöte” (The Magic Flute), composed in his final year, is set to receive for the first time, the Hollywood treatment with a big-budget adaptation directed by German filmaker Roland Emmerich (of Independence Day and Godzilla fame.) Presently in pre-production, a detailed synopsis and further information on the film's production may be viewed at Pantaflix Group.
Mozart recently played second wheel in another film portrayal, "Interlude in Prague" in 2017. In that production, Welsh actor Aneurin Barnard (who bears an uncanny resemblance in the film to the infamous Lange portrait of the composer) plays the romantic adversary of the fictitious Baron Saloka for the affections of a young soprano - a love triangle which unfolds against the backdrop of the creation of Mozart's dramatic opera Don Giovanni.
Although Emmerich's upcoming film will feature characters and a storyline which fall oustide of Mozart's Magic Flute, the production team promises the film will be a "music-driven, full-length feature film."
UPDATE, JANUARY 2020: 'Game of Thrones' VFX firm Pixomondo joins Emmerich produced adaptation of Mozart's Die Zauberflöte; shooting to commence mid-summer.
