Truth Tellers: Mozart’s Laughter

Marlis Petersen and Ildar Abdrazakov in "Le Nozze di Figaro" ("The Marriage of Figaro"). Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera

There is an old German proverb: “Bach gave us God’s word, Mozart gave us God’s laughter, and Beethoven gave us God’s fire.” It would be better to say that all three musical saints gave us all three gifts, but only Mozart has laughter in abundance. Bach and Beethoven said that their music came straight from God; Mozart, on the other hand, said “from where it comes, I know not.” Whatever its source, however it comes, it tells us marvelous things if we listen with all our hearts.

Mozart’s music is not just tinsel on a Christmas tree. It’s not even the whole, decorated tree, but something far greater: It’s the promise of joy, the assurance of an order beyond our comprehension, and the presentment of a higher world to which we belong.

Laughter came easily to Mozart, a diminutive man with brilliant eyes, a large head and a large nose. Perhaps all his compositions are works of genius, perhaps not; some were written to fill a commission, while others simply came from the depths of his heart, shot to the surface of his mind out of urgent necessity.

The 7-year-old Mozart during his stay at the Versailles Palace. Public Domain

I want to share with the readers a few of his works, known to me for almost 80 years, that seem to be exceptionally inspired, that seem to become more beautiful, more meaningful, more moving, as years pass.

Irrepressible Joy

No one can describe music—it’s beyond words—but one can speak of a sight or a feeling it brings to mind, or a gesture it reflects, like running, dancing, ... or laughing. We might read in a lexicon that laughing is a repeated and punctuated series of the vowel “ah.” That this spontaneous, primitive gesture—a remnant of our speechless days—became part of the refined language of music is nothing short of a miracle, and no composer speaks that language so well as Mozart.

In his 16th year, he wrote the work “Exsultate, Jubilate” for soprano and orchestra. It’s an outpouring of joy in life itself, and a celebration of his early success as a composer and musician. “Rejoice, good people, sing your sweet songs. I too, will sing, along with the heavens,” the soprano sings. The heavens not only sing but laugh in Mozart’s notes, especially in the opening verses and the final “Alleluias,” with what the linguist describes as a repeated and punctuated series of the vowel “ah!”

Three years later, Mozart conceived the third violin concerto. It’s filled with the vigor of youth, its happiness, its hopes, its awakenings to love. There is an endless succession of beautiful melodies. As Mozart, a virtuoso, first played the piece himself, one can imagine the delight he took in his technical powers, especially while performing the cartwheels that accompany a local folk dance he had incorporated in the finale.

Mozart’s marriage, when he was 26, proved promising. Happiness seemed an inevitable constant, considering his charming new wife, the birth of his first child, and his journey from Vienna to Salzburg to introduce his bride Constanze to his father.

A portrait of Constanze Mozart (1762-1842), wife of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Public Domain

During their return to Vienna, they visited his close friend and patron, Johann Thun in Linz, which lies on the banks of the Danube. They were welcomed so warmly by the court and the public that he wrote his great Linz Symphony in four days, for a hastily planned concert in his honor.

The entire work has a jubilant nature, reflecting the stateliness of the city, the beauty of its surroundings, and the gladness of his life. The second movement, especially moving, is a portrait of the expansive Danube on its serene, purposeful way to the sea, reflecting, perhaps the felicity of the newly married couple. They did not know that their firstborn child had died while they were away.

Forgiving Human Nature

Every reader knows that in the midst of happiness, pain lies quiescent, waiting for its moment. Only art can make us believe for a moment what is said at the closing of the “Marriage of Figaro”: “Ah, we shall be happy now.” Thus, the 30-year-old Mozart states as an indisputable fact the wish that is in all our hearts.

Pierre Beaumarchais’s play, upon which the opera is based, is complex, clever, and full of plots and surprises. The most astonishing surprise, revealed in the final act, is that not one of the characters is malevolent; they are only mischievous. High or low, count or commoner, they are each simply seeking their own little happiness through their own little plans. They are all worthy of ridicule, all worthy of reverence.

Music can do what cannot be done in a play: A multitude of characters can express their thoughts and feelings at the same time. Mozart has a special genius for these simultaneous expressions in his magnificent ensembles. Perhaps his greatest achievement is the finale, when after an endless series of complicated pranks, the warring parties—and there are many—are reconciled.

Most importantly, Figaro and his bride Susanna, make their peace. With lightness of heart, Figaro reveals the full gravity of our own hearts, the necessary bond between one human and another. “Peace, peace, my sweet treasure,” they sing as their doubts are resolved. The weaving of their voices, like two vines on the same stock, makes us take an old word off the shelf, and say, “Sublime!”

Marlis Petersen as Susanna and Peter Mattei as Count Almaviva in Mozart’s “Le Nozze di Figaro,” in a Met Opera production. Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera

Another sublime moment comes when the Count Almaviva asks forgiveness for his faithlessness. His phrase “my Lady, forgive me,” and her reply, “I am more kind than you, and I do,” follows. Before each of these phrases, Mozart asks for a long silence. The sustained absence of sound makes this marvelous music still more beautiful. “My music is not in the notes, but in the silence between,” Mozart said.

Foretelling the End

In the year after “The Marriage of Figaro,” Mozart penned his great song “Abendempfindung,” “Evening Thoughts,” his first presentment of an early death. I suspect the words, probably his own, are a personal message to his wife. “Evening has come, the sun has disappeared, and the moon sheds its silver light. So it is with life which passes so quickly.” And what was most important in his last few years? Not his success, not his fame; it was the love he had come to know, his most precious treasure.

This presentment did not leave him during the four remaining years of his life. Although he was to write his charming folk opera “The Magic Flute” and the jolly D-major horn concerto, his mind was occupied with serious matters, especially the composing of his Requiem Mass, which was left far from complete.

The first page of Mozart's "Requiem Mass." Public Domain

A shorter religious work appeared, “Ave Verum Corpus.” It is, perhaps, the zenith of his achievements, as perfect as anything in this imperfect world can be. The laughter has ceased, the lights of the world and its ways are extinguished, revealing the starry heavens; acceptance has come. A serene melodic line threads its way through an ever-changing succession of harmonies, creating the sense of a soul, free from the weight and pull of the world, trusting in the unknowable creator and comforter who sang to him so many sweet songs.

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