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In a poll of 20th century Christian personalities as to their favorite composer. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart would probably win in a landslide. Protestant theologian Karl Barth once said that when he arrived in heaven he would seek out Mozart, a Catholic ahead of Luther or Calvin – for the ultra-Protestant Barth, perhaps the highest compliment imaginable. Liberal Swiss Catholic theologian Hans Küng wrote a paean to Mozart titled “Traces of Transcendence,” and his more conservative Swiss counterpart Hans Urs von Balthasas said Mozart’s music evokes the risen Christ. Jesuit Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini uses Mozart in morning prayer. Now hobbled...

A print of the only photograph of Mozart's widow, Constanze Weber, has been found in Germany. The photograph was taken in 1840 in the Bavarian town of Altoetting when she was 78. She died two years later. The local authorities say detailed examination has proved the authenticity of the image, which is a copy of the original daguerreotype. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart died at the age of 36 in 1791, when Constanze was 29. She later married a Danish diplomat. The print is one of the earliest examples of photography in Bavaria. It was found in the town archives. The daguerreotype...

Her hair severely parted, Constanze Weber Mozart looks unsmilingly away from the camera. She appears to be staring at her feet. Next to her is Max Keller, a Swiss composer and old family friend, surrounded by his daughters and the rest of his family. In the background is a cottage with two garden-facing windows. The newly discovered black and white image is the only photograph ever taken of Constanze Mozart, the widow of the Austrian composer and genius Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The previously unknown print was discovered in archives in the southern German town of Altötting, local authorities said on...

ZAGREB (AFP) - Suma, a 45-year-old elephant and long-time resident of the Zagreb Zoo, was bereaved and inconsolable after her pachyderm partner of tens years died of cancer. Until she heard Mozart. "Suma became very depressed after her roomie Patna died in early May," head of Zagreb Zoo Mladen Anic told AFP on Thursday. "She was refusing to eat, became uncommunicative, showed all the signs of a serious depression." Then, by sheer accident, Suma's keepers discovered that the healing power of Mozart extends to the animal kingdom too. Earlier this month, the zoo the zoo organized a concert of classical...

Suma, a 45-year-old elephant and long-time resident of the Zagreb Zoo, was bereaved and inconsolable after her pachyderm partner of tens years died of cancer. Until she heard Mozart. "Suma became very depressed after her roomie Patna died in early May," head of Zagreb Zoo Mladen Anic told AFP on Thursday. "She was refusing to eat, became uncommunicative, showed all the signs of a serious depression." Then, by sheer accident, Suma's keepers discovered that the healing power of Mozart extends to the animal kingdom too. Earlier this month, the zoo the zoo organized a concert of classical music just opposite...

Part 1: The German Enlightenment and Amadeus The following is the first of a five-part series of articles. It contains references to numerous works of music by Mozart. We encourage readers to listen to these pieces, long samples of which are available free of change on www.classical.com. January 27, 2006 marked the 250th anniversary of the birth of one of the greatest of all musicians, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. To the extent that genius has a popular name, it is Mozart. The monumental scale of his opus lends itself easily to myth and legend. How can one explain and comprehend creativity...

Mozart 'UK's favourite composer' Mozart's Clarinet Concerto in A Major has been named Britain's most popular classical work in a Classic FM poll. It is the first time the Austrian-born composer has come first in the radio station's annual Hall of Fame survey. A spokesman for the station said it was "fitting" Mozart should lead the chart for the 250th anniversary of his birth. Rachmaninov's Second Piano Concerto, as featured in the classic film Brief Encounter, had previously topped the survey for five years in a row. Mozart has 24 entries in the Top 300, three more than his nearest...

He wrote about 650 pieces; why do we always hear the same old six? By Gavin Borchert Man of the moment.It's Mozart's 250th birthday, and almost as prevalent as concerts of his music are complaints by critics that everyone plays Mozart all the time anyway. How do you keep standard repertory fresh and bring in audiences in such a situation? With Mozart's birth (1756) and death (1791) both celebrated every 50 years, we've barely had time to get over the 1991 party. Any music festival's first responsibility in programming, I suppose, is to justify itself—to convince concertgoers that saturation bombing...

VIENNA, Austria - For centuries, historians have portrayed Mozart as poor, but new documents suggest the composer was not nearly as hard-up for cash as many have believed. Scholars who combed through Austrian archives for an exhibition opening Tuesday on Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's later years in Vienna found evidence that he was solidly upper-crust and lived the good life. Letters show that Mozart repeatedly borrowed money from friends to pay for his travels and his social obligations, and that his family was forced to move at least 11 times. The new documents, on display at Vienna's Musikverein, reveal that he...

Man Who Vandalized Modernist Mozart Statue in Salzburg Could Face Prison Time SALZBURG, Austria — A man who said he vandalized a modern statue honoring composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in order to protect society from such art may face jail time for his action, a prosecutor said Monday [October 17]. Martin Humer, 60, has admitted tossing paint and feathers at the statue in central Salzburg in August, prosecutor Barbara Feichtinger said. He is being investigated for allegedly causing serious damage to an item of public value — a crime that carries a penalty of up to two years in prison...

Ananova: Does Mozart help newborn babies? Doctors are to run trials to see if playing classical music to newborn babies helps them recover from the trauma of birth. Doctors are to run trial to see if playing classical music to newborn babies helps them recover from the trauma of birth. The decision follows a pioneering project at Kosice-saca hospital in eastern Slovakia The decision follows a pioneering project at Kosice-saca hospital in eastern Slovakia where Mozart and other classical music is piped to newborns via headphones in the maternity ward. Doctors there believe the music is the perfect way to...

March 12, 2006The Mozarts We Don't Know By BERNARD HOLLAND ANYONE with the faintest connection to classical music likes Mozart. Hating "Don Giovanni" or the "Jupiter" Symphony would be like hating a sunset. Mozart has come not just to represent musical beauty but, in a way, to define it. We know the Mozart landmarks. In concerts, recordings, radio and television, they come at us from every side. Familiarity makes us forget how new this music was to the audience of his best years; from 1782 to his unexpected death in 1791. Did contemporary listeners adore him as we do? Relatively...

HOW did an unknown version of Mozart's unfinished Requiem find its way into the archives of a former cathedral in Brazil? That's the question facing the musical world this week, following the release today of a new recording of the Requiem on the specialist K617 French label, in a version written 30 years after Mozart's death by an Austrian-born composer, Johann Sigismund Neukomm. It has lain forgotten in a Rio de Janeiro vault for nearly 200 years. The answer to the basic question is simple: we know Neukomm had an unquenchable thirst for travel. He was born in Salzburg in...

Original manuscripts by Bach, Mozart and Brahms form part of a 139-item collection of sheet music donated to the Juilliard School in New York. The artefacts - donated by collector Bruce Kovner, chairman of the music acedemy's board - will be housed in a reading room from September 2009. Highlights include working manuscripts of Beethoven's only opera Fidelio and Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No 9. School president Joseph Polisi said it was "by its very definition priceless". A lifelong music lover, Kovner began collecting manuscripts more than 10 years ago when he noticed a flow of rare artefacts coming onto the...

Top, Alinari/Art Resource; Associated Press HARMONY OF THE UNIVERSE Einstein, who learned to play the violin as a child and often turned to music in difficult times, was especially fond of the sonatas by Mozart. Last year, the 100th anniversary of E=mc2 inspired an outburst of symposiums, concerts, essays and merchandise featuring Albert Einstein. This year, the same treatment is being given to another genius, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, born on Jan. 27, 250 years ago. There is more to the dovetailing of these anniversaries than one might think. Einstein once said that while Beethoven created his music, Mozart's "was...

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...

Wherever you are, Happy Birthday!

One night a group of highly advanced scientists from another galaxy abduct me in their space craft. They tell me that they have good news and bad news. The good news is that they have been so impressed by my TCS articles that they had chosen me to make an important decision that will affect the way other intelligent life forms in the universe remember the human race. The bad news is that they are going to destroy the planet earth, me included, because they have come to despair of our ever becoming sufficiently rational to be members in good...

IN BEYOND Good and Evil, Nietzsche rejoices that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, "the last chord of a centuries-old great European taste . . . still speaks to us" and warns that "alas, some day all this will be gone." Nietzsche was unsure whether the future held the triumph of the despicable, bourgeois "last man" who is no longer even ashamed of himself or, as he hoped, of the newly heroic and disciplined races that the "new philosophers" would mold. Either way, he thought Mozart would become incomprehensible--though probably not to the new philosophers or Overmen themselves. So, does Mozart still speak...

The case for past lives BY DAVE BARRY (This classic Dave Barry column was originally published on Jan. 19, 1997.) To be honest, I had completely forgotten that in a former life I was Mozart. You know how certain things tend to slip your mind, like where you left your car keys, or the fact that you used to be a brilliant Austrian composer who died in 1791? Well, that's exactly what happened to me. I was reminded of my former life recently when I received a book called ''Spirit at Work,'' by Lois Grant, who has had a number...