St Germain-Mozart and the Adagio of Time
Between 1784 and 1787, Mozart lived in the so called " Figaro-Haus "where he composed many masterpieces including the Marriage of Figaro opera.As a child, Mozart had met Anton Mesmer In London in 1767.Mesmer was a physician and a proponent of the theory of "animal magnetism". Mesmer even commissioned an Opera from Mozart.
Mesmer had also studied music and played the cello and keyboard as an amateur. His Vienna home was the site of regular musical performances. In 1768, when court intrigue prevented a performance of Mozart’s early opera La Finta Semplice, K. 51, Mesmer – already known to the Mozart family and a fan of the twelve-year-old composer’s music – arranged for a performance in his garden of Mozart’s singspiel Bastien und Bastienne, K. 50. Mozart and Mesmer maintained their friendship over the next several years. It is through letters exchanged between Mozart family members that details are known about one of the first successes of Mesmer’s animal magnetism treatment, Franziska Oesterlin, who later married Mesmer’s stepson.
One of the things that Mozart, Mesmer, and Benjamin Franklin had in common – aside from the fact that they were all Freemasons – was a musical instrument, the glass harmonica. Also known as the glass armonica, bowl organ, hydrocrystalophone, or just armonica – the word hydrodaktulopsychicharmonica, which translated from Greek means something like “harmonica to produce music for the soul by fingers dipped in water,” has also been used – the instrument produces sound through the rubbing of glass or crystal bowls.
In 1773, the seventeen-year-old Mozart and his father Leopold visited Mesmer’s house, where they were first introduced to the glass harmonica. Leopold wrote to his wife: “Herr von Mesmer, at whose house we lunched on Monday, played to us on Miss Davies’s armonica or glass instrument and played very well. It cost him about fifty ducats and it is very beautifully made.” Apparently his son also tried the instrument out during a later visit: “Do you know that Herr von Mesmer plays Miss Davies’s harmonica unusually well? He is the only person in Vienna who has learnt it and he possesses a much finer glass instrument than Miss Davies does. Wolfgang too has played upon it. How I should like to have one!”
Mozart didn’t write any music for the glass harmonica until many years later. But he sporadically maintained his friendship with Mesmer through the years and even included a reference to him in his 1790 opera Cosi fan tutte ( Italian for " so do they all")
The Stephansdom, the great Cathedral that Mozart lived next to was where he and Constanza Weber were married on August 4th 1782.I have personally performed there for a funeral, yet oddly, even though Mozart lived right next door to this acoustic palace of music, it does not seem that he ever performed there.
So I have envisioned just such a performance and brought along St Germain for good measure.
Since Piano is rarely played in Cathedrals,this composition was a product of imagining how a funerary work might sound bouncing off the hollow bones of the Cathedral arches.
Versuchen Sie dies nicht zu Hause!
Bitte genießen Sie die Musik
Bitte genießen Sie die Musik
Bitte genießen Sie die Musik
Thomas