I am a Mozart Freak. No doubt about it. I am also an atheist. For a few years, I couldn’t justify to myself why exactly I’m an atheist. I know I believe in natural materialism, and that everything in this universe can be traced back to natural causes. There’s no reason to interject the supernatural when there’s often a better explanation… waiting to be found.
But, I always thought this sounded too much like my husband. He is a very opinionated atheist, and proud of it. I don’t have a strong emotional attachment to the idea of natural materialism. I was brought up religious and attended 13 years of Catholic school. It makes sense to me but it does not move me. On the other hand, Mozart moves me deeply.
Just last night, I was watching Amadeus (don’t ask, I’ve seen it like a kajillion times since I was an adolescent) and something struck me as odd that I never really noticed about the film. The protagonist (or antagonist, however you see it) Antonio Salieri, who was played wonderfully by F. Murray Abraham, held a profound grudge and hatred against God for allowing Mozart to have a divine musical gift and living on in posterity, while his own music quickly became “extinct.” But the fact of the matter is, hatred is a very strong feeling against someone who exists. Salieri still believed in God, despite all the evidence against Him. God was simply unjust, malicious, and capricious. He had given a rare gift to the obscene and childish Mozart, and not to the pious and responsible Salieri. But he still believed in Him.
I thought to myself for the first time in my life, why not go a step further and simply denounce the existence of a supposedly cruel and unjust deity. Why worship or believe in a god who embodies so many horrible qualities? We would never stand for such a thing in a human being, why in a supernatural entity?
Then it dawned on me that if God really existed, then why would He allow Mozart, the most perfect embodiment of sublimity in music, to die at the very young age of 35 - soon to have been 36? According to musicologist Maynard Soloman, there was plenty of evidence to suggest that Mozart, had he lived longer, would have written more ecclesiastical music. I find it hard to believe that a God would allow His divine musical creation to die just at the time when he was on his way to writing the most beautiful music in glory to Him. Personally, I find this evidence enough to disbelieve in a god. Of course, I still have my doubts. Maybe Heaven will be filled with Mozart’s music and I’ll get to meet him in spirit form. I just find it highly unlikely. I’ll just continue to appreciate him as much as I can while I’m still alive!
This Composition was posted on Thursday, November 27th, 2008 at 8:44 pm and is filed under Composers, Desacralization, Mozart. You can follow any responses to this Composition through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.