Posted on 01/27/2006 9:41:55 PM PST by Coleus
When Mozart Stunned Rome; God at the Pub
Wolfgang's Memory Caught a Pope's Attention
ROME, JAN. 26, 2006 (Zenit.org).- As any good music aficionado knows, 2006 marks the 350th anniversary of the birth of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Opera houses worldwide are featuring "Don Giovanni" and "Figaro," while Mozart biographies and boxed sets of concertos and sonatas proliferate in music stores.
Even Rome was enchanted by this great composer and, indeed, the child prodigy from Salzburg was warmly received in the Eternal City during his brief sojourn here in 1770.
Mozart is often associated with the Freemasons -- he joined the Masons of Vienna in 1784 -- and "The Magic Flute" is held by many scholars to be a Masonic opera. The most important moments of his life, however, took place in the Catholic Church.
Mozart was born on Jan. 26, 1756, and baptized Catholic with the name Johann Chrysostom Wolfgang Theophilus. "Theophilus," which means "lover of God," was soon transformed into the more celebrated moniker "Amadeus." He married Costanza Weber in the Cathedral of Vienna, his children were baptized Catholic and he was given last rites by a Catholic priest.
In this light, the visit to Rome must have held great meaning for the 14-year-old Catholic Mozart. Immediately upon entering the city through the splendid Piazza del Popolo, the young Mozart and his father Leopold made their way to St. Peter's Basilica. Thanks to Wolfgang's fine clothes and Leopold's clever strategies, the two were allowed through the Vatican gates.
It was Holy Week in Rome -- Holy Tuesday to be exact. Pope Clement XIV was busy serving meals to the poor gathered in the Vatican, shortly before celebrating Mass in the Sistine Chapel. The two Austrian musicians managed to find their way into the papal presence and then accompanied the court into the chapel.
It was custom during Holy Week in the Sistine Chapel to sing the exceptionally beautiful piece of music known as the "Miserere," written a century earlier by Giorgio Allegri. The work, performed by two choirs of nine voices, was exclusive to the Sistine Chapel and could not be published, but was handed down from choirmaster to choirmaster.
The remarkable prodigy Wolfgang stunned everyone by returning to his lodgings and transcribing the music he had memorized during the liturgy. His proud father wrote to Wolfgang's mother Anna, "Perhaps you have heard of the famous 'Miserere,' whose publication is prohibited under pain of excommunication. Well, we have it. Wolfgang wrote it from memory."
Word spread fast throughout Rome of the child who could memorize music after hearing it once. The news eventually reached the ears of the Pope. Far from excommunicating the boy, Pope Clement received Wolfgang several times in audience, conferring medals and titles on him.
The Mozarts visited Santa Maria Maggiore and the Quirinal Palace in the Pope's company. Like good pilgrims, they acquired relics, including a piece of the Holy Cross. And, although perhaps not as salubrious for the soul, during that July in Rome, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart learned how to play bocce ball.
DECLARATION ON MASONIC ASSOCIATIONS
It has been asked whether there has been any change in the Church’s decision in regard to Masonic associations since the new Code of Canon Law does not mention them expressly, unlike the previous Code.
This Sacred Congregation is in a position to reply that this circumstance in due to an editorial criterion which was followed also in the case of other associations likewise unmentioned inasmuch as they are contained in wider categories.
Therefore the Church’s negative judgment in regard to Masonic association remains unchanged since their principles have always been considered irreconcilable with the doctrine of the Church and therefore membership in them remains forbidden. The faithful who enrol in Masonic associations are in a state of grave sin and may not receive Holy Communion.
It is not within the competence of local ecclesiastical authorities to give a judgment on the nature of Masonic associations which would imply a derogation from what has been decided above, and this in line with the Declaration of this Sacred Congregation issued on 17 February 1981 (cf. AAS 73 1981 pp. 240-241; English language edition of L’Osservatore Romano, 9 March 1981).
In an audience granted to the undersigned Cardinal Prefect, the Supreme Pontiff John Paul II approved and ordered the publication of this Declaration which had been decided in an ordinary meeting of this Sacred Congregation.
Rome, from the Office of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, 26 November 1983.
Joseph Card. RATZINGER Prefect
+ Fr. Jerome Hamer, O.P. Titular Archbishop of Lorium Secretary
bumpus ad summum
He was named "Johann Chrysostom" because 27 January is the feast day of St. John Chrysostom on the old Roman sanctoral calendar.
Sancte Joannes Chrysostomus, ora pro nobis!
Bookmark
I was always told that Catholics could join the1st Degree masons....ONLY. They could never go higher, because it takes on a religiousity....my grandfather (mother's side) was a Lodge Grand Master and my Father was 4th Degree Knights of Columbus!! And I am married to a Jew...ecumenicalism to the nth!
are reporters good in math?
My very Catholic father told his priest that my Jewish husband was a better Catholic than most of his own children.....:)
Salzburg is doing a HUGE 350 year celebration this year.....they MUST know something you don't!!
DNA from matter extracted from two teeth did not match samples from the remains of other descendants of Mozart's father, Leopold.
No remains or resting places of his mother or other of her descendants have ever been discovered.
The U.S. Army's DNA testing lab in Maryland conducted the tests.
Mozart's most popular and enduring operas:
The Marriage of Figaro (1786)
Don Giovanni (1787)
Cosi fan Tutte (1790)
The Magic Flute (1791, uncompleted at his death, age 35)
Leni
It is still the feast of the translation of his relics in Orthodoxy.
Leni, I believe "Die Zauberflote" was completed; however, his "Requiem" was finished by one of his students, Sussmayer, I think his name was.....
My source was www.bohemianopera.com/mozart.htm. I quote: " 'The Magic Flute', the apotheosis of singspiel, was an immediate success that has remained enduringly popular. The work, uncompleted at Mozart'z death, proved to be his last musical effort."
Well, I don't claim to be that much of an opera expert, but new things come up every day in the music world. I never even knew till yesterday that Mozart's skull has been on display in his native city for over a century and that DNA tests were performed on it recently.
So you are correct of course, it was the Requiem, and thanks for catching the error.
By the way, "The Magic Flute" was on last Saturday's live Metropolitan Opera radio broadcast. I managed to listen to it in full although I'm not a fan of the operas of Mozart's era.....at all.
However, so many of Mozart's shorter compositions and melodies found in his operas and other works are so brilliant, so intricate, and many so charming, that one becomes enchanted with him as a composer.
Leni
More that he wrote great music.
Appropriate timing! For what it's worth, isn't Wolfgang
Mozart Pope Benedict's favorite composer? I can just see the Holy Father tinkling the ivories at night, playing some Mozart opus, with a cat sitting in rapture on the papal piano. It's a nice thought.
Nope. Can't be Masons at all, mainly because Masonry represents a naturalistic quasi-religion.
Masonry in Europe and Latin America has a much less benign history than that of Masonry in America.
An excellent account of the horrors of Mexican Masonry here, including American complicity in Masonic atrocities.
Freerepublic is probably the last source you want to get information about Freemasonry.
Silvio Berlusconi (prime minister of Italy) is a Roman Catholic, a known freemason (in fact there was a big stink about him being one, as it's a no-no for politicians in Italy), and routinely gets communion from the Pope, if that tells you something about the issue.
And to clear something up --- FM is not a religion or an "natualistic" whatever.
That's just hogwash repeated by idiots who believe Jews and Freemasons control the world.
That said, it does require one to believe in the God of Abraham and that the Bible is the Word of God, which a mason must swear to take as his rule and guide for his life.
Terrible things that. LOL.
The RCC and masons got (and the nut factor within the RCC remain) crossways because the masons used to be a trade union of masons and got into huge financial fights with their big customer --- the RCC. It's no big mystery.
A pope way-back-when decided to union bust and make the joining of the union illegal.
Regardless, as a result of the decree, the masons became primarily protestant and Jewish, which really aliented the RCC further.
That said, the organization is about charitable works and giving (Scottish Rite Hospital for Children, Shriner's Burn Centers, etc) and if people think that is a bad thing, well, then they are idiots.
Ping
Dear rustbucket,
Thanks for the ping! I thought I'd pinged this before, but I guess I just thought I did. LOL! My memory slips as I age...
Classical Music Ping List ping!
If you want on or off this list, let me know via FR e-mail.
sitetest
The York Rite is strictly Christian, and Christ is mentioned throughout.
I am not Scottish Rite, but I have seen the supposed "secret" 33 degree ceremony (it's public in reality), and there was no smashing of anything. There was the pledge of allegence to the US and Texas flags, a prayer to the God of Abraham, in the name of the Lion of Judah (that's Christ, BTW), and a speech about how the recepient had done so much for his community flying chidlren to Dallas for cancer treatment and other treatments.
Then he was given a Golden Trowel, which was to remind him to spread the cement of brotherly love to among all men.
We then ate fried fish and had some beer. Our wives took picutres.
Terrible stuff.
As for the other nonsense you spout (without actual knowledge), there are lots of people who call themselves freemasons who are not, just like those two RC nuns who took oaths and now call themselves priests and that nut who shows up at funerals and calls himself a Baptist minsiter.
If you think Paul Revere, George Washington, Ben Franklin and all the rest are such bad people with bad ideas, perhaps you should leave the country.
Well, I guess the Salvation Army, the Boy Scouts, the US Marines, and Baylor Baptist University were all founded by Satanists, not to mention the old hard-ass ArchBishop of Canterberry before the current weak-kneed loser.
In seriousness, the source of all those slanders can be traced to a Frenchman who got kicked out and published a memoir. He later recanted.
The Nazis were deathly afraid of the Masons and republished his tracts becasue the Masons were virulently anti-Nazi and active in helping Jews flee the country.
The people who spread the nonsense like the website you linked to continue the Nazi's slander.
It does the Devil's work to mindlessly slander a good organization parroting this old nonsense.
Go to any long list of masons and look at the good men and good works they have done --- Paul Revere, George Washington, Ben Franklin, about half the Medal of Honor recepients, etc.
Then look at who has hated masons: Nazis, Hamas, Osama Bin Landen just went on a rant against masons, etc.
Pick your side.
Well, Mary Hardin Baylor was rescued by a relative of John Wesley Hardin (the guy who who shot a man for snorring.)
Delightful post and excellent epilogue. Thank you.
In case any FReepers are unfamiliar, the Miserere is a pretty straightforward piece of music to copy from memory if you are a genius like Mozart.
It consists of two 4-voice SATB choirs, each of which repeats its 1 minute section about 8 times note-for-note, with only the lyrics changing. Between each choir's part there is a chant segue. Then there is an ending movement, about 1 minute long.
Assuming he was able to get the lyrics elsewhere, I find the story fairly easy to believe.
I've seen The Magic Flute performed quite a number of times. I have reservations about the Masons, but I can't see any great problems with the Opera.
There are distinct signs that Mozart changed his opinion about what The Queen of the Night represents--good or evil--during the course of the opera, but who cares? There's so much wonderful music, and also comic music in it.
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