I’m pretty psyched about this! Geez, at times like this, I wish I had $100,00 to throw around. Poverty sucks….

Anyways, the Nantes library speculates that this Mass is expected to have its first performance in January of 2009. Famous Mozart specialist Robert Levin from Harvard University may have a go at it and complete the orchestration.

Read the article here - http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080918/ap_on_re_eu/eu_mozart_discovery

The term “sacralization” comes from making a place or experience sacred, as if a museum or a classical concert were the same as going to a church. You have to sit there in utter silence, with a dozen to several hundred other souls who have to sit through a two-hour concert (save intermission). You can’t talk, cheer (only at the end of certain pieces or at the end of the performance) or move your body very much, stultifying the entire musical experience. And I must say, most music is not that awesome for one to have to sit and ponder its profundity and structure. Unless it’s Mozart’s or Verdi’s Requiem, or any number of dramatic and wonderful classical pieces, I don’t like sitting for two hours through a piece that is pretty, but okay.

Because of this, I love going to jazz, rock and world music concerts. There, you can totally get your groove on! You can cheer when someone improvises beautifully on their instrument, talk, move around and dance, play games, get something to eat during the performance, or just sit there and enjoy the music. But most classical music venues do not give you all of these options, which make it a very estranging experience for most people, especially young people and ethnic minorities.

My mother was skeptical about classical music concerts when she moved to this country from Mexico, and figured she would not enjoy them very much. But, when I was a teenager, I made her take me anyway, and she was bored the whole time. Once, she did have a good time and told everyone about it. We went to go hear the Los Angeles Philharmonic play Mozart’s Don Giovanni. There, my mom could cheer, laugh, and talk to me a little bit, because there was so much action going on onstage. And my Mom could understand what was going on by reading the marquis. To this day, she tells me how much fun she had and how Mozart was “such a pervert!”

We had a great time listening to all of the street musicians in Vienna, Prague and Venice. We would sit for hours, listening, with no external order telling us how to properly enjoy classical music. We would cheer, get up to grab a bite to eat and come sit back down, request certain pieces from the musicians, and chatted with each other as the night wore on. We had a lot of fun then. And we have the pictures to prove it.

I once frightened a professor of mine in Davis, California after a performance of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring. I absolutely love all the percussion and the jarring rhythms of that piece. It was revolutionary for its time. So, during the concert, much to my best friend’s amusement and the people around me, I would start headbanging at certain points. After the concert, my Beethoven professor came up to me and asked how I enjoyed the performance. I replied, “Hell yeah! I was totally rocking out to the percussion.” The look he gave me was priceless. He just stared at me, said “okay,” and awkwardly turned around to leave with his TA. My friend and I giggled and made fun of him. When I later saw him at a Beethoven piano sonata concert, he told me straight out that I was a weirdo, but he doesn’t hold it against me! Hey, I still aced his class!

Yeah, so the fact that there are many structural obtacles in place that make it so people like me can’t enjoy classical music in their own way make it an often alienating and humiliating experience. It will be nice when people can be a little more free at a classical music event, as such stuffy experiences will simply be the demise of classical music as the younger generations do not appreciate it as their elders do.

Of course, there are people in the classical world who actively work to make classical music relevant to our society. Marin Alsop, one of the few women conductors of a large orchestra, has made it her goal to desacralize classical music concerts. And there are so many young musicians that wear fun and vibrant clothing during their solos, that it’s hard to not want to go and just look at them! The violinist Anne Sophie Mutter is a great example of this. So, along with all the other things I would like to do in life to make the world a better place, I want to desacralize classical music and reclaim it!

What a gorgeous dress!

The Abduction from the Seraglio was supposed to premiere in September of 1781 for the Grand Duke Paul Petrovich, later Paul I of Russia. It was postponed until the following year. In the meantime, Mozart had been kicked out (literally, on the backside) by his employer, the Archbishop Colloredo of Salzburg. He fell in love with Constanze Weber - a woman who his father did not approve of and married her three weeks after the premiere of The Abduction from the Seraglio had happened. So, this was obviously a tumultuous time for poor Mozart. (It also interesting to note that the main female character in The Abduction is named Constanze).

The oriental harem was a popular subject for drama in the mid-eighteenth century. Stephanie’s appropriation of Bretzner’s work was not uncommon. Actually, Bretzner himself resented and protested bitterly against Mozart’s “pilfering” of his work. Okay, lets just ignore the fact that Bretzner also had “pilfered” considerably from earlier dramas; the original libretto that The Abduction from the Seraglio is based on was called Belmonte und Constanze, which was a prototype of the English libretto, The Sultant or a Peep Show into the Seraglio and the libretto Adelheit von Veltheim…ah, show business! Someone protests against their work being pilfered while they are rummaging through piles of other people’s works. Actually, if any of you out there watch The Simpsons, Bretzner was like Krusty the Klown. Krusty would be like (in Krusty voice!) “that guy stole my bit!” while his assistant would point out that he had stolen that bit from Steve Allen! Anyway, plays and comic operas about Turks and harems and foreigners enslaved and rescuers were rife in Europe at the time of the Turkish wars. Also, I might mention that there has always been an interest in the “exotic” or the “oriental” in Western music history. Some notable examples are from Gustav Mahler’s mystic music and Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado.

Okay, now on to the opera. The action of The Abduction from the Seraglio takes place in and around the palace of the Pasha Selim, in Turkey, somewhere by the sea; yeah, they’re not any more clear than that. The time is mid-sixteenth century.

The Overture of this opera, a presto-andante-presto, contrasts a brisk C major presto whose fortes introduce Mozart’s ‘Turkish music,’ with a tender andante in C minor. By the way, presto means “very quick” and andante means “moderately slow.” The ‘Turkish’ coloring in the Overture is achieved by exotic orchestration, with piccolo, triangle, cymbals, kettle- and bass-drums

Act I is set in a forecourt outside the palace. Belmonte, a young Spanish nobleman, has come in search of his betrothed, Constanze, who, together with her maid, Blonde, and Belmonte’s servant Pedrillo, had been captured by pirates and sold into slavery. Pedrillo had somehow managed to get a message to Belmonte, informing him of their whereabouts. As Belmonte is wondering how to get into the harem, Belmonte hears someone approaching. It is Osmin, the Pasha’s steward, who has come outside to pick figs. When Belmonte asks Osmin of he is near the Pasha’s palace, Osmin’s replies are very surly, and when Belmonte asks about Pedrillo, Osmin gets into a rage and chases him off. There is a really cool aria/duet that represents this part of the plot. So, Osmin introduces himself with a strophic song, “Wer ein Liebchen hat gefunden,’ which Belmonte attempts unsuccessfully to interrupt with a spoken question after each stanza, after which he and Osmin finally converse in a buffo, that is, comic duet.

Pedrillo now appears, exciting a fresh fury of outburst from Osmin, who is clearly jealous of Blonde’s affection for him. Pedrillo, he claims, is nothing but a worthless philanderer interested in chasing women - like Osmin isn’t such a person? Haha. Anyway, he says that Pedrillo deserves to be “first beheaded, then hanged, then impaled on red-hot spikes.’ Osmin sure comes up with some interesting stuff about how to torture people, and he especially likes repeating this one throughout the opera! Osmin goes back into the palace, and Pedrillo and Belmonte talk to each other. Apparently, Pasha Selim has not treated them harshly, and even though Constanze is not enamored by him, he does not force himself upon her. Belmonte informs Pedrillo that he has a ship just waiting nearby, ready to take them in a moment’s notice. But, first, they have to get Constanze and Blonde. Pedrillo tells Belmonte that he should pretend to be an architect, since the Pasha is interested in architecture and may gain him entrance into the palace. At this point, the Pasha’s entourage or Janissaries are heard to approach, and they sing the praises of the Pasha.

Pasha Selim pleads with Constanze to love him, and reminds her that he could use force upon her, but that he wants her to give her heart freely. Aaahh, what a magnanimous fellow. It’s like a guy walking into a bank, and announcing to the teller “I would like you to choose to give me all the money in this bank of your own free will; but remember, if you don’t, I could always pull out a gun and rob you.” I mean, honestly, anyone who demands that someone love them, irrespective of physical force, is still emotional abuse, and the fact that the Pasha sees this as totally normal is ridiculous to me. Anyway, so Constanze pledges her love to Belmonte and states her desire to remain faithful to him. Belmonte and Pedrillo finally get into the harem under the guise of being an architect, despite Osmin’s suspiciousness.

Act II starts out with a fight between Osmin and Blonde, who is lascivious with her and bullies her around. Blonde tells Osmin that this may be the way to a Turkish woman’s heart, but she is an Englishwoman, and is used to her freedom! This was a great comic line. Osmin claims that Englishmen must have been mad to allow such a state of affairs, but runs away when Blonde threatens to scratch his eyes out. It’s a funny aria, but even funnier to watch. Actually, the character of Blonde- a high-spirited and independent English servant, is indebted to Bickerstaffe’s libretto The Sultan or A Peep into the Seraglio.

Constanze is still lamenting her separation from Belmonte, and the Pasha is soon on her heels, demanding to know whether she will love him. She remains steadfast in her refusal, and he reminds her, yet again, that he could force his attentions upon her. It is at this point that Constanze sings her most famous aria, where she scornfully defies his threats. “Martern aller Arten,” is an interesting aria. It sounds like the formal defiance aria from opera seria (serious opera), so it is rather strange that Mozart produced it for an opera buffa. The aria is expansive with an elaborate introduction. This C major explosion, with it momentary plea, is overridden by its proud vocal display, and the brave supporting argument of solo flute, oboe, violin, and cello. Fierce coloratura in the voice’s highest range alternates with descents to regions well below those in which the soprano voice of comfortable. It is also a great feminist aria, where Constanze tells the Pasha that she would rather die than submit her self to him. All I can say is, Sing It, Sister!

Pedrillo and Blonde then meet to discuss how they will escape. Pedrillo explains that he will drug Osmin with wine so that they can escape. Pedrillo persuades Osmin to break the laws of Mohammed and, therefore, of his Muslim religion, and enjoy a delicious wine. He offers him two wines, a “mother” wine and a “daughter” wine. Of course, the mother wine is substantially larger than the daughter wine, so Osmin requests, quite sweetly, that he would like die Mutter wine. Osmin then passes out in a drunken stupor. The delightful aria/duet for this is called, “Vivat Bacchus! Bacchus lebe,” which basically extols the Greek character Bacchus, the god of wine, and the equivalent of Dionysus.

So now, all four all together, Belmonte, Constanze, Pedrillo and Blonde. The men express doubt about their lover’s fidelity, and when the women express hurt and anger; the men are made to apologize. The peace is restored when tribute has been paid to the virtues of true love, and the four lovers await their escape. I know it’s corny, but it’s opera, so give me a break!

Act III begins with the escape. Pedrillo sings a serenade to Constanze and then to Blonde, as the agreed signal for their escape. As they climb down their ladders, Osmin catches them, and is exultant at the thought of the type of tortures he will subject them to. They are brought to the Pasha, who regards this act as evidence of Constanze’s duplicity. Belmonte reveals that he is not a student of architecture, but a Spanish nobleman, and that his father will pay any ransom that they ask for. Unfortunately, Belmonte’s father was responsible for driving the Pasha (who had originally been a Spanish nobleman himself) into exile and robbing him of his loved ones and all his possessions. So this didn’t exactly help! Interestingly, Pasha Selim tells Belmonte that he despises his father too greatly to emulate his behavior, and lets them free. Everyone, except for Osmin, who bemoans the loss of Blonde, sing the praises of the merciful Pasha.

There is a very good rendition of this opera recorded by TDK at the Orchestra and Chorus of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and conducted by the always fabulous Zubin Mehta.

She was an 11^th century Renaissance woman! I would also add that Hildegard was a feminist icon to that list, but that would be adding a modern concept to an ancient time. Nevertheless, I think it’s fair to assume that Hildegard herself knew how intelligent and powerful she was in a time when women’s scope was so narrow.

Hildegard von Bingen, also known as Blessed Hildegard or Saint Hildegard, was a German abbess of a large convent in 11^th century Germany. She was placed into a convent by her family as a young girl and was known to have intense visions at a very early age. Hildegard’s first recollection as a youth was about a vision, where she propounded upon a vision she had with such detail, that her family and community were amazed. Her visions were recorded by an anchoress named Jutta (who was her teacher) and her lifelong secretary and scribe, Volmar. Hildegard described her visions as fantastic and luminous. According to well-known neurologist Oliver Sacks, her visions are a classic example of extraordinary imagery preceding a migraine. Dr. Sacks says in his book, The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat, that Hildegard’s “visions were instrumental in directing her towards a life of holiness and mysticism. They provide a unique example of the manner in which a physiological event, banal, hateful or meaningless to the vast majority of people, can become, in a privileged consciousness, the substrate of a supreme ecstatic inspiration.”

She composed music based on her visions. Her known compositions - that is, the ones that still physically exist - are numerous considering how little we have from the Middle Ages period. Her compositions vary in subject matter, ranging from 43 antiphons, 18 responsories, 4 hymns and 7 sequences, 2 symphonies (for virgin and widows) and three unique pieces (Alleluia, Kyrie and O viridissima virga) for a total of 77 works.

We had a blast, and I got to answer some cursory Mozart questions to our guest and my fiancee. Anywhere from “was Mozart buried in an unmarked grave like a pauper?” to “did Mozart really have a silly laugh like that?” I will get to these questions later. As an added gesture and a general fanaticism towards Mozart, my fiancee and I had another little shindig where we watched Mozart’s opera Die Entfuerung auf dem Seraglio (The Abduction from the Seraglio) and drank some more New Glarus Raspberry alcohol.

I have been throwing Mozart birthday parties since I knew the movie Amadeus existed. When I was 11 years old, a friend of mine said nonchalantly, “hey, did you know they made a movie about Mozart?” I stared at her in disbelief and demanded to know the title. She wasn’t sure, so that same day, I went to Blockbuster video, and there it was, Amadeus. I begged my Mom to let me have $20 for my upcoming birthday so I could buy it. Two of my schoolfriends and I went to Blockbuster on my 11th birthday to buy it. I was on rollerblades at the time, and so I couldn’t go in the store. I gave my friends the $20 to get the movie for me. They walked in while I stood staring through the glass. They initially grabbed every movie except for Amadeus - including a Barbara Streisand musical - just to get my goat. I was flailing my arms and mouthing a very big NO. They laughed to themselves and finally grabbed Amadeus. Hence, the beginning of my Mozart birthday party tradition.

Anyways, back to those impertinent questions. A lot of people have asked me over many years about all those stereotypes and myths that have been perpetuated about Mozart. Are they fact?

First, there is a stereotype, which is exemplified in Amadeus for dramatic effect, about Mozart writing music as if it was “dictation” from the top of his head and his original scores of music having no corrections. This is simply untrue. Mozart was a human being, albeit a human genius, like anyone else. He made mistakes and worked diligently on a lot of his work. Just because someone is a genius does not mean they are perfect and do not have to work like a dog.

Second, people want to know if Salieri really killed Mozart. This is another myth that has been used to make for a very interesting and dramatic plotline, but is not historically true. It is true Antonio Salieri went insane later in life, tried to commit suicide and claimed to have killed Mozart, but he was seen as rather disreputable at that point in his life. There is historical evidence to suggest Mozart died of renal failure, or failure of his kidneys. How boring.

Third, did Mozart die a pauper and therefor get buried in an umarked grave? The actual reason for Mozart being buried in an unmarked mass grave has actually nothing to do with money. According to musicologist Maynard Solomon, Mozart chose to be buried in this way because of his belief concerning hygienic practices with the dead that were being encouraged by Joseph II but not being adopted en masse in Vienna during the 18th century. As a Mason and freethinking Catholic, Mozart believed in some pretty progressive things for his time. Besides improved hygiene for the city of Vienna, he did not want to be buried in such a typical fashion. He felt that by being buried in an unmarked mass grave, he was considering himself an equal with everyone else, and an equal in death.

Fourth, Mozart had two sons when he died. Karl Thomas and Franz Xaver. Get it right Amadeus!

Fifth, Mozart may or may not have had a silly, frivolous giggle like the one shown so colorfully in Amadeus. Who knows?

Sixth, Mozart was indeed an obscene man. He loved scatological humor, chasing petticoats whenever he got the chance, drinking punch spiked with alcohol, and dancing. He also loved playing games of various sorts and he absolutely loved playing billiards. Mozart was a party-kind-of-guy. If you wanted to have a good time, Motzie was probably your man. But, if you were a woman, beware! Or if you were the type of woman who liked that sort of thing, then carry on.

I think Amadeus is an awesome movie, and you do not even have to like Mozart or his music to enjoy that film. I have known people who do not care for classical music but love Amadeus. It is a wonderfully dramatic movie. Rock on Peter Schaffer! It does have some historical inaccuracies, and its basic premise has been fabricated for dramatic purpose. I do love to watch it every year and answer questions anyone may have.