Wait until music starts,
adjust volume (or turn off),
then click Here!  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Apollo's Amanuensis? for Chris Farmer, because he insisted it have a wider audience. PONS VAROLII WHEN one enters "the Home Stretch," as one might say, the subject of Metaphysics commands more of his attention. Your parents, aunts and uncles, all those who taught you as a youth, the great performers, your entire "adolescent" world has passed on. Then comes the shock of the first of your peers dying. You realize, if not today or tomorrow, then not that far distant, you too will be referred to ... in the past tense. If one is still in full possession of his faculties, hopefully they have acquired a welcome patina of depth. It isn't simply by accident, in my opinion, that many great musicians (the only Western art form to which I am, well, bonded) perform at their finest when quite elderly. I remember as a student in Berlin attending a recital by Klara Haskill, looking every inch a crone, causing me to wonder how she made it to the piano unassisted by attendants in white smocks; but then she began to play. I have never, before or since, heard a performance of Schubert's two sets of Impromptus that brought forth every nuance, every shade of loveliness in works most regard as being of minor import. Her performance of Beethoven's "Waldstein" (the featured work on the program) was as virile, forceful, esthetically perfect as one could have expected from, say, the mature Schnabel or Gieseking, who were regarded as die Meister, when it came to Beethoven's works for the piano. There's an �lan to the Waldstein, which - alternating with sublimely lyrical episodes - takes hold of both performer and audience, relentlessly driving them. How this ag�d woman, who would not have looked out of place using a walker, could summon forth such sustained energy was astonishing. It was as if some form of daemonic possession were supplying it: I mean the physical energy, the requisite ergs required to elicit such volume of sound from the strings. It remains a unique experience. Not long after, Glenn Gould came to present his "interpretation" of what should be called "Bach's Gouldberg Variations." The notes were as Bach penned them. The rest was pure Gould. Douglas Hofstadter, in a book awarded the Pulitzer Prize and understood by perhaps as many as a few hundred, relied upon "The Goldberg Variations" and other works of Bach to complete his metaphysical Trinity entitled G�del, Escher, Bach. He called it a "metaphorical fugue on minds and machines in the spirit of Lewis Carroll."(1) What does that mean? Damned if I know, and I've read the book three times, coming away with the feeling of having coped with a "computerized Kant"! The Goldberg Variations have enormous import in this exposition of a Neo-Pythorean basis for existence. Hofstadtler calls the reader's attention to the fact that every third variation is a canon: first in unison, then on the second, the third ... until the final on the ninth: ten in total.(2) If one rushes the performance, the contrapuntal interplay becomes blurred. The harpsichord has nowhere near the speed of the modern piano. What was Allegro in Bach's era would have been Allegro Moderato, or just Moderato in Liszt's. Counterpoint is the supreme artistic achievement of Faustian man, even as sculpting the human form was to the Apollinian (to use Spengler's terminology). Had Gould wished to demonstrate his bravura technique, there are any number of works from the Romantics he could have chosen; but the man had the arrogance to say his "interpretation" was a vast improvement, removing the "traditional stodginess that tends toward boredom." But a canon is such an artistic achievement, more rigorous even than a fugue, that to muddle it is contrary to the esthetic intent. Bach's contrapuntal genius has never been surpassed. One must acknowledge the genius of other Titans, like Handel, who rose to similar heights, but no one ever surpassed Bach. (Writing about music is of dubious value. There are always Program Notes and they are invariably worthless, save as a source for factual data, like Mozart having composed what is unquestionably his best known work, Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, a few days after getting word from Salzburg that his father had died.) The Question remains an enigma: Where did it come from and why did it cease? The Greeks could turn stone into flesh. They could surpass nature, producing more esthetically balanced figures than any which moved about the Agora. It is hard to imagine any youth about to throw a discus as perfectly formed as Myron's statue. What exactitude in the statue of Artemis: it captures her "wildness." A stunning representation of the essence of femininity, that no male must know or even try to know. We can follow the development of Greek art, from the stiff kouroi (from Egypt via Crete). We can follow the development of counterpoint from the ars nova, until it became so entrapped in a set of rules that it resulted in vocalized mathematics. The monophonic reaction arose because "rules" had robbed counterpoint of its beauty. We know a culture is in trouble, when it does not demand beauty in art; and it is in serious trouble, when it demands ugliness in art.(3) The Greeks were so anthropocentric that every force, every concept, every impulse was personified. "Wisdom" took the form of Athena. The constant striving toward the evermore perfect, balanced, and beautiful was one of the attributes attributed to Apollo. Apollo became a composite deity - the arts (including astronomy), both death and healing, the sun, prophecy, and source of the sole Divine Commandment among the Greeks ("Know Thyself!") - that to refer to him as "the God of the Unknown" seems, in my view, the closest one can come to according a title (the "unknown" being the cognitive). There is nothing to associate him with fertility or even nature. Like Athena, he is solely of the mind, and while there are myths of his being enamored of both maidens and youths, the love of Apollo invariably resulted in disaster. Unlike Zeus, he sired no progeny. Like the other Olympians, he was an import.(4) Artemis is described as both his twin and predating him. She too may be a holdover from the prior cults and transformed into Apollo's sister, as she became the Goddess of the Unknown: more specifically, both of the wild and that aspect of woman forbidden for any male to know.(5) The "twin" association may arise from both being associated with The Unknown: Apollo that which is unknown, and Artemis that which must remain unknown to any man. Despite this twin-myth, Artemis had nowhere near the role of Apollo. Among the Olympians, Zeus, Athena, and Apollo were the most powerful, most awesome. Assigning the origin of myth to the psyche, one might envision Zeus as Existence, Athena as the Self, and Apollo as the Outside. The figure of Apollo looms so large, that he was the only Olympian taken by the Romans without a change of name; probably because there was no counterpart in Roman myth with whom Apollo could be identified. The figure of Apollo loomed so large in the ancient world, that "Apollinian" was the name Oswald Spengler chose for the Graeco-Roman High Culture. When man set out to venture forth from the Earth, which had been both his home and his prison, he named the project after this ancient god, who has remained in the consciousness of the West as symbolic of the Perfection and Mastery Over the Unknown: Apollo. Thanks to Apollo, there is a human footprint on the Moon. CUNEUS Is there such a thing as "the Sixth Sense"? You know, the ability of some to ascertain the future or meanings not manifest by physical laws, as we know and understand them? I can't answer that any more than I can give you a reason as to why, on this speck of the universe, where entropy seems to have run backwards, I am typing these lines. I can only tell you an event from my life, which is often remembered in the desert of sleepless nights. I was about eight-and-a-half. My mother, who was very much a Gef�hlsmensch, went to some fortune-teller one of her friends had recommended. When she returned, she was quite upset. My step-father (my parents had divorced when I was two, and my mother had remarried not long after) was concerned and asked her what was bothering her. She made it quite clear, she didn't want to discuss it. Her behavior (as I watched silent and unseen) became more erratic, inducing great concern in her husband. On removing the roast for that night's dinner from the oven, she dropped it, causing her to burst into a most uncharacteristic fit of tears. Her husband demanded she tell him the cause of her distress. I suppose dropping the roast induced her to comply, for normally my mother did not harken to demands. Her answers were almost incoherent: crazy old crone, why did they allow people like that to run loose? This was begging the issue. Her husband insisted she tell him what the woman had said. Through a series of sobs, she related how the fortune-teller had told her to enjoy her husband, because before her son (meaning me) turned ten, she would "lose" him. While "repairing" the roast - meat rinsed under hot water loses a lot in the process - he calmed her down, making forced-humor about those who put credence in senile babblings, assuring her there was no "other woman" (my mother was more than enough to cope with). The trauma passed. Not knowing where I was, my mother bellowed for me to get ready for dinner. ("Washed Roast"?) I never let it be known that I had heard any of it. We ate as usual; well, nearly as usual: the table was far more subdued than normally. About a week later (unaware I had witnessed the event), my mother mentioned it to me, commenting on how foolish she had been to let the delusions of a senile crone upset her. It became sort of a family joke. My birthday is the 18th of August (the same as that of Franz-Josef and Antonio Salieri, for astrology buffs), so it fell during summer vacation from school. For my ninth, I received a dream-gift: a real Lionel electric train set. My step-father, in a bemused manner, chided as that would be the last he would give me, he wanted it to be something special. That's typical of the way we treated that malingering incident, which simply should have gone away - but didn't. My step-father (like my natural father) was a musician: double bass; and as was required of musicians at that time, he doubled on other bass instruments, like the tuba and Sousaphone. During WWII, he had been a bandsman in the Army Air Force (there was no independent air force until after the war) - who never got any closer to the war than John Wayne, meaning the huge air force base in Orange County. That's how he and my mother had met. Although trained as a nurse, nursing paid far too little to support herself and a child, so she became a cocktail waitress at one of Hollywood's posher nightclubs. (Hollywood was once the legend it has become; now, it's a Mexican sewer.) The war had drained off the nursing staffs, and an appeal was made for volunteers. During the war, the bars closed at midnight. She took on the duties as a Red Cross volunteer during the day and worked from 6 p.m. until midnight as a waitress. The sergeant bandsman, all spit-n-polish, of a genuinely affable nature, had made an impression on her. The army had prudently assigned this Austro-Bohemian to the West Coast, where the war hysteria was focused on the Japanese. He would come up on weekends, stay at the USO, pay his respects in the manner of a bygone age, and as the German offensive in the Ardennes collapsed, they were married (with the approval of his Commanding Officer, as was required at the time). "Hollywood," with ten symphony orchestras serving the motion picture and radio industries headquartered there, was El Dorado for the serious musician; but hard to gain entry. It was a magnet for every qualified performer from the U.S. and the myriad of excellent European musicians, most Jewish, who had been hired by the Jewish-owned studios and gotten a resident visa as a result. The region was awash in superb musicians, music teachers, singers - Diana Durban had single-handedly saved Universal in the Depression - and competition was fierce. A contract with a major studio or radio network was the desideratum, but barring that, one worked as a "freelance" through a contractor. One was excepted to perform anything: movie scores, symphonies, operettas and operas up to "Big Band" revivals. The big dance bands - 60-plus in the orchestra - had been a 30s phenomenon, which was revived (for a while, until even the veneer of gentility was stripped away) after WWII. Glenn Miller had been a major band-leader, whose plane had vanished in WWII; but "The Glenn Miller Orchestra" still made the rounds of the great ballrooms. Actually, it was just a nucleus of, at most, a bus-full. The "Big Band" was restored hiring locals through a contractor. Not merely dance-halls, but also studios would augment their "nucleus" using the same method. (It's still being used today.) And so my step-father might find himself recording at MGM, or doing a performance of Ein Heldenleben, or standing in at the Hollywood Palladium as part of "The Tommy Dorsey Orchestra." The next summer, my mother's back pains and urinary problems had grown steadily worse. The cause was clear to her and confirmed by her doctor: a kidney stone. This was before the advent of ultra-sonic and laser medicine. The only treatment for a kidney stone was surgical removal, major surgery at that. My step-father had nothing booked for the first two weeks in August, so the surgery was scheduled for that time. This was prior to the "In-&-Out Burger" procedures currently used. After a surgery as major as the removal of a kidney stone, the patient spent four or five days in the hospital, to make sure there were no complications. The arrangements were made, staff and room reserved. Two days before surgery, a rush call came from a contractor. A lead bass with the band opening that night at the Hollywood Palladium had become ill. Would my step-dad like the slot (as it paid a premium for no notice). My mother insisted he take it. I could stay with my aunt, while she was in the hospital. The next day found my step-father opening at the Palladium, and the following my mother being opened at St. Joseph's. We were all there to greet her, when they wheeled her into the Recovery Room. As patients still under the effects of the drugs and anaesthetic aren't prone to extensive chats, our visit was a short one. We left our flowers, cards, and candy; then my aunt, cousin, and I headed back to their home, while my step-father returned to ours (to change into his white dinner-jacket: the musician's summer work-clothes). Because my aunt lived some distance from the hospital, it was decided I would not return until my mother's discharge in three days, but my step-father would visit her daily. The next day passed without incident; but on the following day, after returning from a morning stroll along the brook not far from my aunt's house, I found both my aunt and cousin in the living room, crying hysterically. Stunned by the scene, I just stood there; then my aunt looked at me, and more in a wail than a voice cried out, "He's dead! Your father is dead!" The orchestra'd stopped at 1 a.m., an hour before closing. He'd gone home, relaxed in the den, which boasted a new jute rug imported from India, had a beer, thumbed a magazine, and had a cigarette before going to bed. The cigarette had rolled from the ash-tray onto the jute carpet and began to smoulder. A neighbor going to work the next morning saw black, acrid smoke oozing from the house and called the fire department. When the firemen forced entry, the smoke burst into flame, which was quickly put out. They found him lying on top the bed in his underwear (mid-August, before air conditioning), heart barely beating. First aid proved useless; he was pronounced DOA from asphyxiation upon arrival at the hospital. My tenth birthday, five days later, went uncelebrated. This long digression, a cross between Stephen King and Rigoletto, has been inserted, because it has been the impetus behind my never-ending quest to ascertain the essence of Existence. These events happened to me; I experienced them. They are not something told to me as they are being told to you; rather an integral part of my Existence. "A self-fulfilling prophecy," one might say: the rantings of the old crone had been implanted in his subconscious. Well, yes, that's one explanation (probably preferred by those who cling to rationality, the way Linus clings to his blanket); but it does not address the fact that this old crone was recommended to my mother, because of the high incidence of her predictions coming to pass. Were they all self-fulfilling prophecies? Another explanation, one that we eschew the same way the Greeks eschewed that there could be such a thing as an Irrational Number, is that our Existence is (for all intents and purposes) a pre-recorded video-tape; that the clairvoyant is able to "view" sections of the tape in advance: that is, before we experience them. We call this,"predestination." No less an intellect than Spinoza purported that man was no more able to control his acts, than a stone in flight could determine where it would land. (Predestination is also a tenet of strict Calvinism. Finding that a disagreeable aspect to the Reformed Church, an off-shoot of the Calvinistic "Baptist" confession in the U.S. particularly has rejected that tenet and call themselves, "Free Will Baptists." The Bible-Belt region of the U.S. is awash in congregations, that post signs at their meeting places: Free Will Baptists.) The idea that the future is known long predates the adoption of Christianity. The Greeks especially (and later the Romans) put enormous store in the utterances of oracles and the divinations of sybils. Of these, by far the most famous (and presumably the most reliable) was The Pythoness, the Oracle of Apollo at Delphi. Long before the advent of Christian Trinity, there was a Classical Trinity consisting of the three most important Olympians: Zeus (the Transcendental God, the All), Athena (the Goddess of the Wisdom, self-actualization), and Apollo (the God of the Unknown). In the heyday of Hellenistic syncretism, the Temple at Jerusalem was known as "The Temple of Zeus-Yaweh." Apollo, as the God of the Unknown, is therefore The Revealer of the Unknown. Death is an unknown, so Apollo is the Slayer and also the Healer. As the Revealer, he became identified with Enlightenment - as to reveal is to enlighten, illuminate - and from that with the sun, the source of illumination; so we have Phoebus Apollo, originally two distinct divinities merged into one. To the Greeks, the term Mousikos didn't mean "musician" as we understand it; but rather a man of accomplishments! Our word "music" stems from but one of the Muses; and there were nine of them, including Urania, the Muse of Astronomy. More properly, we should think of the Muses, not in the term of "music," but in the term of "museum": an edifice dedicated to the Muses - noteworthy accomplishments. Quite correctly, we differentiate between an art museum and, say, a museum of natural history. We don't refer to concert halls and opera houses as "museums," as in theory new works may be premiered there. (One must remember the connection between the Muses and Accomplishments: museums are for accomplished items, not innovations.) Despite the nomenclature, opera houses (at least the major ones) are museums: they are dedicated to productions of the long-established repertoire, not innovations. Don't hold your breath until the Vienna State Opera mounts a production of Harvey Milk. When I was 18, I worked a summer as a guide at the Griffith Observatory. (My lasting contribution was the adoption of Daphnis et Chlo� as the "sunrise music." The last time I was there, they were still using it. Prior to my tour of duty, it had been Tod und Verkl�rung, which I thought too heavy handed.) Anyway, my tour de force was the demonstration of the Tesla coil (as the Griffith gives as much, if not more, attention to physics in all forms as it does to astronomy and related topics). The Tesla is impressive, with its "created lightening," but the yokels (yes, that's what we called them) were utterly betaken by the fact that the flourescent tubes I was holding would glow, even though they obviously weren't connected to anything. They were awestruck - because they knew nothing of ionization. It was their ignorance that made my demonstration so impressive. If they had known more, ennui rather than awe would have resulted. This is - mutatis mutandis - the same reason the drivel filling space in programs (to separate the ads) on the Classical Chautauqua is accorded ink: the ignorance of the audience. It is obvious that Don Giovanni is a very serious work given a buffa veneer from the simple fact that Mozart wanted the opera to end with the damnation of the Don (as it was initially produced in Vienna, to his delight), and that the anti-climatic finale was added at the insistence of the impresario in Prague (and, alas, has attached itself to the work, save for that first, short - but authentic! - production in Vienna). Don Giovanni is a "comedy," in the sense that Ionesco's Rhinoceros is a comedy. The buffa elements are there to distract, the same way the flourescent tubes distracted. E.T.A. Hoffmann understood this and so did Kierkegaard. GBS knew exactly what the implications were. Why do you think he interpolated Don Juan in Hell into Man and Superman? Because Don Giovanni anticipates Jenseits von Gut und B�se by nearly a century: the Don is the �bermensch! Wagner knew there was much more to Don Giovanni than the printed score indicates. He didn't know exactly what; but of all of Mozart's operas, it's the one he felt most drawn to. (Perhaps because, subconsciously, Wagner could see the shadow of himself in the character of the Don: beyond good and evil.) The Commandatore is one of those idols, whose Twilight Nietzsche so accurately delineated. All of this is very hard to comprehend, because the buffa aspects of the opera are so perfect, and the music is, well, Mozart. What more can one say? I say the Don is the �bermensch (and feel the shade of GBS nodding in agreement), because he is totally inner-directed, which makes him an �bermensch. The Over-Man is not a creature devoid of manners and morals; rather, one who has fashioned them himself: he is a Ding an sich. Of course the Don does not "repent"; he has nothing to repent for. Donna Anna, who is the only other "strong" character in the opera, was ecstatic when she believed that the Greatest Wimp in Opera, Don Ottavio, had finally developed something approaching virility. (There are countless essays in every language, except perhaps Ebonics, advancing the premise that the Don "scores," before the curtain rises; and that Anna's harpy-pursuit is the result of her delight in discovering her husband-to-be was a virtuoso in the Ars Amoris, followed by the realization she'd been "had"! If so, it's the only time the Don does, which is part of the buffa: facia di farina.) The Don does everything he can to avoid fighting the old fool - until the Commandatore infers that he's a coward, which is an intolerable accusation. (And isn't Mozart's summoning of The Beast, now in command as honor has been maligned, an utterly masterful deployment of the interval between billiard shots?) The trio for basses - three basses! - shows the compassion of the Don, but what else could he have done? Truly unfortunate that the old geezer brought it on himself, but what does the Don have to repent for? Nothing! He did everything, consistent with honor, to avoid this; but the Commandatore would have it no other way. Hard cheese! Exerunt. As for the other women, we see that the source of Elvira's fury is not having Don Giovanni for her own. Once she thinks she has acquired him, she is transformed from harridan to house-cat. And at the conclusion of la chi darem la mano, Zerlina is pushing the Don to the site where their "union" will be consummated. Why should he not resume at the festivities what had been thwarted by Elvira - after such careful preparation (and arguably the finest duet ever composed)? Again: ubi sunt culpa? Besides, the �bermensch harbors manifestly superior genetic material. Is in not in accord with the Categorical Imperative that these superior genes be given the widest possible distribution? 1,800-plus is pretty wide, but the Don is unique; furthermore, these superior genes aren't reserved for aristocrats; no, they're available to milkmaid and countess alike. Aperto a tutti quanti; viva la libert�! Were he a bullock, he'd be heaped with honors! Don Giovanni is the finest artistic statement ever made in favor of eugenics - and for this he should repent? (The program notes, even from a 1939 production at the Wiener Staatsoper, wouldn't have raised that consideration!) The conclusion is mere lip-service to convention. The Stone Guest and his demons are Nietzsche's "idols." The statue has come as invited, and good manners mandate the Don return the visit. The �bermensch would never behave uncivilly. The statue demands that he repent. The Don refuses, time and again: he has nothing to repent for! (At the party, Zerlina behaved like a stupid goose. She was the one shoving him, a few scenes earlier.) Neither Mozart nor da Ponte were so naive as censure the Don. After all, had not da Ponte - a baptized Jew and ordained priest - been forced to leave Venice, not merely for taking a mistress and running gaming rooms, but also supplying filles de joie upon request? Mozart may have been a virgin until his marriage [!], but he was no prude. It is almost impossible for us to reconstruct the mind-set of these men in their powered wigs and hand-crocheted silk hose (which cost a small fortune, the middle class wore wool, while the poor wore long pants: hence sans culottes). This apogee of the Faustian culture was its most inner-directed era, where good manners and a proper wardrobe could garner entr�e into virtually any society: a society where the middle class made a fetish of "virtue," while the high and low did as they pleased - but discreetly. They didn't talk about it nor flaunt it in public, but Fanny Hill and Philosophy in the Bedroom were not works of fantasy; rather, common aspects of society mentioned nowhere else. A society where The Monkey, Voltaire, could reveal to the world the sexual inversion of Frederic the Great in M�moirs du Roi de Prusse, and Frederic, seeing the book advertized by a vendor in Berlin, admonished the startled shopkeeper to lower the sign, as people couldn't read it hung so high, but he (the King!) would appreciate it, if the shopkeeper would refrain from making a display in his window, as it was not a work for children to become too curious about. Where Rousseau, the High Priest of the Nature Cult, could sire sixteen children and abandon them all as foundlings. Where Beaumarchais, playwright, gun-runner, secret-agent, arrested by a warrant by King Louis (written on the Seven of Spades, the court was having a card party at the time) and taken to a prison for juvenile delinquents (which he refused to leave until permission was given to stage his latest play, La Mariage de Figaro) could con his friend Benjamin Franklin into getting the recently recognized United States to appoint an out-of-work former Prussian captain (whose tastes were similar to his King's, but quod licet Jove, non licet bove) Quartermaster-General of the United States Army: merely by getting a costumer to make him the uniform of a Prussian major-general. (Actually, "General" Baron von Steuben succeeded in making a real army out of Washington's rag-tag militia, able to meet British regulars and the mercenaries and drive them from the field. Such was the power of good tailoring!) It was during this era that the forms of the Faustian Culture, The Culture of the West, were fulfilled and it passed into a Civilization, where elaboration replaces innovation - amid an ocean of blood, the roar of cannon, the advent of the machine, armies fed into grinders, the end of a thousand-year-old shadow empire and the advent of an ephemeral one. But before the Civilization Crisis (of circa 1800), from the Bottomless Well of Western Man's Collective Unconscious arose the voice of His Primal Soul, once called "Apollo," and laid down the Western Canon, revealed through four operas - call it The Tetrateuch - by a dumpling-headed native of Salzburg, who served as Apollo's Quill: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. CORPUS CALLOSUM The First Revelation is that of the ideal social structure (an affirmation Edmund Burke). Le Nozze di Figaro is not merely an adaption of Beaumarchais' play (which Napoleon later stated was the true start of the French Revolution, not the storming of the Bastille: a mere riot). Rather, Apollo infused da Ponte and Mozart, as He once had infused the Pythoness. Figaro isn't, in any way, a Jacobin. His grievance is not that the Count achieved his position simply "by suffering himself to be born" (as the original play has him state), but that he is not living in accord with his position: he is attempting to transgress the mandates imposed by noblesse oblige. He, Figaro, will put a stop to this and force the Count to behave in accord with his station. This is in total agreement with the tenets of Edmund Burke: that a monarchy needs a hereditary nobility to assist the king and commons in maintaining a civilized state. One born to a (future) position of authority is to be educated with the goal of preparing him for the duties imposed by his rank. Burke's constant admonition, "Novelty is not reform!" shows the Count to be committed to reform, by voluntarily renouncing the jus primae noctis: the feudal right of the Lord to have the first night with any bride among his serfs.(6) In Le Nozze, the Count is the buffa figure: one way or another, he is frustrated at every turn. That he is truly a nobleman - a nobleman acting very foolish, but in every sense noble - is shown by the fact he doesn't just boot Cherubino out of the castle (as Mozart had been kicked downstairs), rather he gives the scamp a captain's commission in his regiment. In the 18th century, one was expected to buy a commission. Purchasing a captaincy was expensive, but the Count gives it to his sixteen-year-old [?] vexation, affirming the nobleman's benevolence: one of the Great Oaks Burke deemed so vital. (Unfortunately the Count's third-act aria, which does much to delineate frustration he is going through, yet still preserving his dignity, is cut from most productions.) At the conclusion of the fourth act, his dignity, nobility, and sincerity are revealed when the Countess presents him with the ring he thought he'd given to Susanna. He suddenly realizes he'd been trying to seduce his own wife - making a perfect ass of himself. He goes down on bended knee to beg forgiveness, to atone for his foolishness and hard-heartedness. The music, which Apollo has flow through Mozart's quill, is the distillation of contrition. The tenor of the Count's remorse serves as the music for the finale - a ten-part ensemble plus chorus, made to sound effortlessly composed (because it was effortlessly composed: Mozart was taking dictation) - has the curtain descend upon cadences of Let Us Love One Another, Let us Forgive One Another. Figaro was a total break with tradition. No opera ended the First Act with a solo aria, but Figaro does. The true music-lovers, who were present at the initial dress rehearsal, knew this was an opera unlike any that had come before or would come again. For twenty minutes they crowded around the orchestra-pit ranting, "Bravo, Mozart! Bravo! Bravo!," as the little auburn-haired, Alpine-headed man at the harpsichord, bowed and bowed. (Fortunately Mozart had Busati, the finest bass-baritone in Europe, for Figaro. His non pi� andrai had been delivered like a cannonade. The bigger the voice, the better will be the production.) The audience at the dress-rehearsal knew a new era in opera was upon them. In contrast, the aristocratic audience on opening night, with Joseph II present, was more bewildered than impressed. What neither knew was that this "new era" was a conclusion. Opera, as a developing form, was being fulfilled. Here was its apogee, the work which sent Rossini into early retirement (earning him the nick-name, il Tedescino; and causing him to comment, "Why should I carry water to the well? I only wrote my Barbiere, so that Le Nozze would have a decent prelude.") Because of it, Brahms and Mahler categorically refused to compose an opera. (Although I must say that Mahler's salvage-job on Drei Pintos indicates he was unduly intimidated.) Tchaikovsky considered it the consummate masterpiece. Writing from Hamburg, where the then unknown Mahler was conducting, he heaped praise on Mahler ... and as for Figaro: "Last night they performed it. I went. If they perform it tonight, I shall go again; and if they perform it tomorrow, I'll be in the audience. Anyone who misses a performance of Le Nozze di Figaro knows nothing about either opera or music." It takes a special relationship with this work to realize that the Count is both buffa and heroic - as is also the case in Don Giovanni. It is when he goes on bended knee to beg Rosina's forgiveness (and the music conveys this far more distinctly than the text) one realizes how honest, generous, and ethical he is. His servant had forced him to rediscover his nobility, and a nobleman must never be allowed to forget noblesse oblige. Why does Apollo endorse Burke? Because a hereditary nobility is the surest check against the disaster of demagoguery, which was to convulse Europe a decade later. "A prince may stoop down to pick up a brush for a painter, but when the public stoops down, it is only to throw mud," Oscar Wilde noted (and look at Wilde's pathetic fate to see the validity of that observation). One who is born and educated in the proper deployment of authority, whose career of service to society is fixed at birth, and who understands both the need for reform and the mandates of noblesse oblige is the barrier against the Tyranny of the Majority and the Plutocracy, which precede the rise of Caesarism. Of course, there must be a mechanism for removing one born to this position, who fails in his duties. The censure of his peers and sovereign? We do that now to some degree with judges, who must run against their own record; however, the United States - and not just the United States - is a Plutocracy, a grotesque caricature of what Jefferson envisioned. Ours is a system of only rights with no corresponding responsibilities: the antipode of the First Book of the Apollinian-Mozartian Tetrateuch: Le Nozzi di Figaro. The Second Book, Don Giovanni, has already been discussed. As I equated the Don with Nietzsche's �bermensch, a diversion into this is now warranted. Nietzsche held the �bermensch to be a state-of-being, not a physical entity. This is shown to be true, by the fact that never once did Nietzsche use the term in the plural: �bermenschen! Failure to comprehend that results in a gross misinterpretation of Nietzsche's works. Wagner, in his "Nordic" tetralogy (the only thing Nordic about it being the names of the characters and the warped adaption of some sagas, he used to advance the ideals of Bakuninite anarchism) provides the criteria for the status of the �bermensch. In the second act of Die Walk�re, Fricka totally demolishes Wotan's contention that the son he sired on a mortal woman, Sigismund, is a "free agent," able to reclaim the Rhinegold, which the runes that serve as the Germanic Logos prevent Wotan himself from doing. Wotan sinks into despair, crying "Den Freien muss sich selbst schaffen; Knechte knehte ich nur." This "free-agent," the Law unto Himself, is of course Siegfried: a product of fraternal incest (an abomination), beholden to the gods for nothing. He alone can restore his father's sword (which divine power had broken) by filing it to powder, resmelting it, and forging it anew. Nothung is recreated by the adolescent �bermensch. It is entirely of Siegfried's doing and with it, he destroys Wotan's runic spear, heralding an end of the gods' power. Pedants, who write program notes, will try to make a villain out of the Don, citing minutiae, like the Don emerging at the end of Act I with a drawn sword, while dragging Leporello behind him. What jejune twaddle! The Don emerges with something that flashes and glitters (pedants forget it's also theater, that must command the audience's attention). This is certainly affirmed in the Second Act, where for a purse of coins, Leporello forgets all that has gone before and resumes his servile status. He readily assumes the Don's hat and cape, to fool that harridan Elvira and get her out of the way (allowing for the exquisite arietta with mandolin). The fact that the Don is not a vicious or violent man is affirmed in the buffa scene (straight out of the commedia del arte), where Masetto (thinking the Don to be Leporello) displays the weapons he has amassed to kill the Don - and receives nothing more than a sound box-on-the-ears. (While we are rewarded with a fine arietta by Zerlina, on how she'll nurse Masetto - who is back, full of piss and vinegar, in no time.) In actuality, if a "pious" nobleman had been shown an array of weapons an oafish peasant planned to use on him, the nobleman's chief concern would have been how to clean his sword afterwards. We must remember that in the ancien r�gime, opera was an aristocratic entertainment. Among the nobility, seduction was regarded with levity. Schiller's play Kabala und Liebe - which Verdi "worked over" to fashion Luisa Miller - underscores the grossly different attitudes toward sexual conduct between the classes. Da Ponte casually commented that he rented his over-priced lodgings in Vienna, because the rent included the "ministrations" of the landlady's sixteen-year-old daughter. (Mozart, on the other hand, confided in a letter to his father, that he had been a virgin at the time of his marriage.) The first three Books of the Tetrateuch are allegorical buffa plots (in which no seduction is sucessful nor sexual act actually consummated): mere titillation masking enormous profundity. With Don Giovanni, the real revelation is the nature of the �bermensch, hidden behind the mask of a frustrated rake. He is a totally inner-directed person, building a code of conduct upon the faculties all gentlemen possess: conscience, a disdain for violence, and generosity: aperto a tutti quanti; viva la libert�! He's no prude. Sex is merely another human need, like food and drink. (The Don's monomania in the opera is merely a distraction. Da Ponte's attitude in real life is more in keeping with the Apollinian Canon.) The Pauline idiocy about the "virtues of chastity" is just that: idiocy. "Not by bread alone doth man live," Nietzsche has Zarathusra say, "but also by meat!" - and then slit the lamb's throat. His manners are impeccable and his honor inviolable. In fact, he differs scarcely at all from what Confucius, thousands of years before and within the context of a totally different Race-Culture, called "Manhood-at-his-Best." The ancient Greeks had ascribed to Apollo the one and only Divine Commandment: Know Thyself! Oscar Wilde pointed out in his remarkable essay, "The Soul of Man Under Socialism," that while such sufficed for the Ancients, for Faustian Man the maxim must read BE Thyself! Hidden inside of Don Giovanni is the antithesis of that miserable creature described by Nietzsche in Ecce Homo: "Last Man," the mindless conformist, materialist, hedonist, and egalitarian: "one herd and no shepherd!" The message of Cos� fan Tutte (which tradition holds was based on an actual event and the plot suggested by none other than Emperor Joseph II) is simple and straight-forward: in place of the Pauline lunacy of "Be ye perfect!" is proffered the Apollinian verity of Be ye Real! The plot - mutatis mutandis - reminds one of a Hollywood social comedy from the 1930s, say, It Happened One Night. What is being spoofed are the overblown claims of idealism and romanticism. Don Tomaso and Despina dispel this romantic nonsense. The overture has a "Figaro" quality to it, even as the plot is a muddle of deception and benign satire.(7) There's nothing profound in Cos� (Mozart's one unqualified success with the Viennese aristocrats), merely a reflection of a gracious age and culture drawing to a close - and the most exquisite trio ever composed for the human voice, tossed in with no dramatic significance whatsoever. Buried under this rococo froth is the fact the sisters want to be mothers. That is the purpose of marriage. They want husbands who love them and will love their children, who will be around when they need them. Man is a vessel for fatherhood and woman for motherhood.(8) The sisters' Beloveds are soldiers. They're gone. Who knows if they'll return? The new swains accord them total adoration. (Who can forget the serenade? It would melt any woman's heart.) After Come scoglio! (composed as a band-box for da Ponte's mistress), the refused suitor takes "poison." What greater manifestation of total devotion is possible? Despina and Tomaso, playing on the sisters' emotions (as Frau Weber had played on Mozart's), prove to much. They yield to the Here and Now. What does Don Tomaso tell the utterly crushed suitors? They should marry the sisters at once! They had held out far longer - and proven far more difficult to manipulate - than any other two women he had ever encountered. The heartbroken officers should realize their betrothed were positively heroic! The Ancients had considered infatuation a malady: "love sick." Romantic love had been a creation of the Court of Eleanor of Aquitania. The nobility of the 18th century had quite a different attitude: marriage was far too important to allow emotion to interfere. The 14-year-old Archduchess Maria Antonia was packed into a carriage and taken to Paris to marry a youth she'd never seen: the future Louis XVI (who looked like a potato - with a matching personality). The important thing was that the next King of France should be half Bourbon and half Habsburg ... but a revolution intervened. It is, of course, with die Zauberfl�te that all "innuendos" of the Tetrateuch vanish and the Apollinian Canon is fully revealed in all its glory. There is a reason for this: the other operas had been written for the aristocracy; The Magic Flute (technically not an opera but a Singspiel) was a creation for all, not a minute segment of the population. Few artistic creations have as large a bibliography as this Maschinenkom�die, taken on by Mozart for a variety of reasons (he needed money, Schickenader was an old friend of the family), primarily - in my opinion - because Apollo willed it. There were other operas, which Mozart had started and, for one reason or another, abandoned. What remains of Za�de indicates an opera of exquisite charm. (No monumental work like his unfinished mass, but still a work of no small import.) That Mozart even wet his quill with L'Oca di Cairo, I find curious. (Even Apollo would have had it rough, manifesting Himself with a goose commanding our attention.) Cos� carried little of the Canon, but it sufficed to instill awareness as to the realities of the human estate; leaving "Be ye perfect!" for saints and madmen - as Nietzsche was to show were the only ones meant for it. The Magic Flute was not abandoned; it served as the consummation of all that had gone before.(9) When analyzing The Magic Flute, we must remember that Emmanuel Schickenader was no B.T. Barnum. He was, without question, the finest German "Hamlet" of his era. He had met his fellow-Masons, the Mozarts, when his company visited Salzburg. He was as fine an actor to be found on any German stage - and financially ruined, when he had prepared a lavish production of The Marriage of Figaro, only to have it banned after the dress rehearsal. He'd gotten "mixed signals" from Vienna. Joseph II was as ardent a reformer as Thomas Jefferson. Joseph had confiscated all church property - an action so drastic the Pope went to Vienna in an unsuccessful effort to reverse it - had abolished capital punishment (when in England, they were hanging 12-year-olds for stealing a handkerchief), had ordered the schools, which were run by religious, to admit Jews without attempting to covert them, and had suppressed all contemplative orders. Religious engaged in education, caring for the sick and elderly, etc. were provided for by the government, but those that did nothing but mumble prayers were ordered disbanded. Joseph was an adamant reformer, who believed in "Reform from the Top": Alles f�r das Volk, Nichts vom Volke: Everything for the people, nothing by the people! The French Revolution was preempted by an Austrian one, as Joseph's reforms engendered violent opposition. His confiscation of church property led the Archbishop of Li�ge, then part of the Austrian Low Countries, to organize open revolt. His edict that only Latin, German, and Italian were to be official languages (the Habsburgs ruled nearly all of northern Italy) led to massive riots. Joseph was forced to retract on some of his most radical reforms; however, had he not died in 1790, he may have well proved a moderating influence in the French turmoil (at that stage, it was merely a turmoil). He set the example for the political philosophy of Edmund Burke, who was an avid supporter of Reform from the Top. Once again, the question raised by the Greeks: what is good government and how are we to achieve it? became an overriding issue - one definitively answered by The Magic Flute. Even though Catholics were forbidden to become Masons, that didn't bother Mozart in the least. His Masonic ties were much stronger than those to the Church, but he saw no conflict between them. Let us dispose of some of the misinformation bantered about. The character of Sarastro is indeed drawn from a real person; however, not Ignaz von Born. The model is one Luigi Balsamo, known to history as "Cagliostro." Today, he's generally regarded as a humbug: one of those picaresque characters, who thrived in the 18th century. He was enormously well known; but after his close call in the Affair of the Diamond Necklace, he opted to leave Paris (where he had founded an Egyptian Masonic lodge) and went to Italy. Once there, his wife (a famous beauty, who it seems wanted to be rid of him) denounced him to the Inquisition as a necromancer and warlock, resulting in a death sentence (commuted to life in prison). As work began on The Magic Flute, he was rotting in a papal dungeon, where he was to die a few years later. To his contemporaries, Cagliostro was yet another victim of Voltaire's infame: the Church, not the religion. It was the Church which personified hypocrisy, preaching "love, forgiveness, and benevolence," while wallowing in material luxury and subjecting anyone suspected of threatening its position to unspeakable torments and monstrous persecutions (the Protestants behaving scant better than the Pope, as Irish Catholics proved). How do we know that Cagliostro served as the model for Sarastro? We must remember that Cagliostro had founded a unique Egyptian lodge, and when Sarastro offers his invocation, it is to Isis and Osiris, Egyptian dieties. Empress Maria Theresa, who haphazardly followed the papal ban of Masonry (her husband, the Emperor Francis, was an ardent Mason) is cited as the model for The Queen of the Night. Nonsense! Few rulers have been so ardently admired as this woman, who fought with determination to preserve the Habsburg legacy. Who then is the model for The Queen of the Night? Think about it! In Act I, she is presented as a grief-stricken mother, whose only child has been abducted by an Evil Necromancer (like the type that should be rotting on bread and water in a dungeon). In Act II, however, she is shown to be a woman consumed by hatred and arrogance. She presents her daughter with a dagger and vows that if her child doesn't use it to slay Sarastro, she will be disowned, devoid of any concern, an enemy, lost! The Sorrowing Mother, the Mater Dolorosa, is now a repository of hatred and revenge: kill or be excommunicated! Yes, The Queen of the Night is the Roman Catholic Church - all "churches" which place privilege, power, and wealth ahead of humanitarianism. Once that is realized, the volta face of The Queen of the Night between acts one and two becomes readily understood: The Queen in Act I is what the Church preaches; the Queen in Act II is what the Church practices. There is great subtlety in The Magic Flute, hiding behind what appears to be an absurd fairy tale; but there is nothing absurd about it. Goethe recognized this at once and wrote a sequel. When informed of Mozart's death, the creator of Faust (the character Spengler chose to signify our whole culture) is said to have cried, "Now there is no one, who can make an opera of my Faust!") The characters of Papageno and Papagena are archetypal. Enlightenment is not for all. The mass of mankind fulfills its destiny by being good providers and loving parents. Such is their nature; and in fulfilling their nature, they are consummating all the gods ask of them. Enlightenment, on the other hand, is achieved - if it is achieved - only by rigorous self-discipline, constant striving, and most importantly, the ability to confront and accept one's mortality without fear, trepidation, or false bravura. Such is the nature of Tamino's preparation, and his trial is to confront Death - his death, his mortality - with resolve. My interpretation (and as I noted, all the books dealing just with The Magic Flute would constitute a respectable library) is that Tamino and Pamina are not two persons, but one: Tamino is the animus, Pamina the anima. He is all reason and resolve; she is all emotion. Eventually, they are united, forming an Integrated Personality. It is this whole personality, which emerges purified by the trials. (Would Apollo care when Carl Jung would be born and supply a vocabulary for what really doesn't need to be said? It needs to be felt. Who is so shallow to maintain that conscious comprehension is the only form of comprehension?) The Three Boys? Common Sense! The Three Ladies? The "Shadow" of the Three Boys! How much of it intentional? None! It arises, Athena-like, fully formed from the Collective Unconscious of Euro-Man: that Existential Unity. The tenor in Schickenader's troop played the flute, so it became The Magic Flute. Mozart's sister-in-law had the voice of a bird - and matching brains. The Queen of the Night has many a high-f, but not much dialogue. The sons of two members of the chorus sang quite well, so did Schickenader's 12-year-old daughter; so the Three Boys were two boys and a girl - but they could handle the notes, which are highly syncopated. What makes The Magic Flute the Definitive Apollinian Statement? Its Revelation is for everyone, and the music makes it a Unity! The Magic Flute has, literally, everything: slap-stick comedy, the Philosopher-King Plato longed for, the Guardians whose serve the three entities worthy of devotion: Wisdom, Truth, and Beauty, an overture which is a masterpiece of the fugal form, choruses that would grace the grandest cathedral, the Eternal Conflict between Light and Dark: Reason and Superstition, homage to the simple life of love, family, togetherness; a Revelation of Enlightenment and the prerequisites for attaining it. Here is the folk song, the first true Lied, coloratura arias that after 200 years remain glories of the human voice, ensembles of every combination that remain unsurpassed - all placed between an opening scene, where the hero rushes on stage and faints; ending in a brief ballet of joy, of Light Triumphant. If there is any other work of human creation which even comes close, I've never seen it. It so moved George Bernard Shaw, that he wrote, "The Magic Flute is the one opera that might be performed before God - without committing blasphemy." Who or what is this "Apollo," to whom I've constantly referred? It is that Force or Emanation, which drives one ever onward toward Consummate Beauty, within the context of a Race-Culture: a type of daemonic possession, if you like. Coming, as he did, at the very apex of the Faustian Culture, Mozart simply could not produce bad music. La Clemenza di Tito cannot compare with his other mature operas, but it's hardly "bad" music. It was written, as stated, simply by talent; there is no "soul" in it. Mozart's operas are his supreme achievement: the defrocked once Jewish priest and a gifted actor (probably assisted by Mozart and others) providing the texts, which Apollo would infuse with life, through the quill of his amanuensis. From Figaro, we learn that Burke, not the neo-Roman Jefferson, delineated the political system for Western Man. Why a responsive and responsible monarchy and peerage? Because those entrusted with power are to be educated from birth as to the duties that come with their station. Noblesse oblige forced a contrite and embarrassed nobleman to demonstrate his nobility in begging his wife's forgiveness. His servant had succeeded in forcing his master to regain his standing. The great advantage of the ancien r�gime is that it prevented the advent of the demagogue. This is the reason Alexander Hamilton strove so hard for the establishment of a Constitutional Monarchy (which Washington thought inevitable). The republican compromise was nothing like the plutocratic Roman circus now in control. The electorate, comprised solely of responsible men (each state free to determine who had the franchise), was a direct factor solely in determining one house of the legislative branch of biennial duration and the selection of presidential electors, while the Senate was composed of representatives of the states and served three times as long. (The idea of judicial legislation would have horrified Jefferson.) The Constitution, which had to serve in lieu of a mos maiorem, was decidedly limited in scope; and the 10th Amendment, expressly denied it acquiring additional powers, save by an overwhelming assent of the body politic. It was intended to come as close as possible to the English system, without recourse to heredity. The warnings of Burke were not heeded, with the result that within a century, first the demagogues, then the creatures of the vested interests and the plutocrats made a bitter mockery (our own era a travesty) of Jefferson's dream of the New Rome in the New World. Don Giovanni brings forth the �bermensch, three-quarters of a century before Nietzsche's hazy delineation. It also dispels those idols, long exorcized by the rational; but still clung to - even with the images streaming in from the Hubble - still a potent force among those, who dread the idea of "going it on their own." Forget about the "lechery" - without a seduction. That is there simply to mask the real intent: the delineation of the totally inner-directed �bermensch. The voice of Cos� is soft and its message simple: Be ye REAL! Don't spurn love, if you perceive it as such - and carpe diem! What is important are the children you will bring forth. The rest is merely preparation. With Die Zauberfl�te, the Book is sealed. The School of Athens walks across the stage, and Thomas Carlyle's cry, "Find the most able man and make him King!" is given proleptic voice. Nothing so complete nor protean had or has been staged. Such is what these operas say to me. In them, or rather through them, I see what is the finest, most beautiful, most awe-inspiring in my Race-Culture; and I'm led to dwell on the temple that once stood at Delphi, with its simple yet all-encompassing message: October, '98: GJL. Go back! Notes: 1. "Lewis Carroll" was the pen name of Charles Ludwidge Dodgson, an Oxonian mathematician and logician, who combined non-Euclidian geometry with the imagined fantasies of a young Victorian girl - a type of child, he was a bit too fond of - to carry "nonsense" literature to its apex in his enduring classics - available even in Latin translations - which rely upon an "Internal Reality." His mathematical works are not devoid of value. (Back!) 2. Later were found in Strasbourg fourteen additional canons, all based on the first eight notes of the original theme.(Back!) Conventional performances generally are limited to the original thirty. 3. If one looks at the debasement of Classical sculpture, in step with the decline of the Roman Empire; or the acceptance of Expressionism and Serialism in this century, he will see what I mean(Back!). 4. According to Robert Graves, Hera was a holdover from the matriarchal cults of pre-Hellenic Greece. The union of Zeus and Hera stemmed from the Dorian conquest. As such, Hera hated all of Zeus' creations: Athena had to be hiPen in his thigh, and Apollo born in a cave where Hera couldn't find him.(Back!) 5. Her Asiatic origins are obvious, as the cult-statue at Ephesus has been recovered. It was merely a totem of mammillae, while her Hellenic forms are consistent with being Apollo's twin.(Back!) 6. Actually, this gross misapplication of feudal law, drawn from the right of the Lord to the "first fruits," had all but vanished centuries before, except in the most remote areas. The Church had declared it sinful and contrary to Christianity. As a result, one of the few places it was still exacted was in areas with Jewish Stedls, as the Christian Lord could not be contracting a marriage with a non-Christian. To avoid this, Jewish girls routinely shaved their heads and wore wigs. Even a Polish nobleman would have scant interest in sexual relations with a bald woman. The Count's action (in both the play and opera) was anachronistic; however, it serves to show he took noblesse oblige seriously. Here was (supposedly) a wrong which had to be reformed, and he reformed it. (Back!) 7. Anton Mesmer - a close friend of the Mozarts (Bastien und Bastienne), who had become world famous from his work on "Animal Magnetism" - is spoofed by the disguised Despina and a giant magnet. (Back!) 8. Look at Mozart: he was totally smitten by Constanza's sister, but the diva preferred the "hunk" Josef Lange, who was not without talent: his unfinished portrait of his brother-in-law remains the most spiritually revealing portrait of Mozart ever done; and so the little man, goaded by his landlady, settled for the sister - over his father's virulent disapproval. What Leopold failed to consider was that Wolfgang's virginity was killing him! (Back!) 9. La Clemenza di Tito, Mozart's answer to Wagner's Amerika Marsch, is without consequence. It has much of Mozart's talent, but nothing of his soul: Rossini's "laundry list" set to music. What better describes that shopworn libretto of Metatastio thrust upon him? Let's be thankful for the clarinet obbligati and the choruses, which make a performance worth attending. (Back!)