Mozart’s Finger in the Eye of Religion
The composer had a way of running afoul of propriety
To me, Mozart will forever be as he appears in his first scenes in the 1984 film Amadeus: He chases a buxom young woman, laughs in a high-pitched whoop, and represents unrestrainable (and clueless) joie de vivre in stuffy surroundings. Judging from this portrait of the man, however historical or unhistorical it may be, one wouldn’t expect him to be the sternest of religious stewards, and so he wasn’t.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was already irritating the highest religious authorities by age 14. As related by Alexander Kennedy in Mozart: Requiem of Genius, Wolfgang and his father Leopold visited Rome in 1770, when they were privy to a hearing of Misrere mei, Deus, a setting of Psalm 51 to two choirs by the Italian composer Gregorio Allegri. The Vatican kept the piece shrouded in mystery, restricted to performances in the Sistine Chapel, so few alive had ever heard it. Mozart memorized it on the spot, then went on to transcribe it, which inevitably led to copies going into circulation.¹ Now we can listen to it on YouTube.
Even Mozart’s church sonatas, written for church, would purse the lips of the Church Lady. Mozart composed them from 1772 to 1780,² around the time that the Salzburg court of Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg Hieronymus von Colloredo hired him as a court musician,³ a post he later left after one conflict too many with his employer.⁴ Intended for playing during Mass, all 17 of the church sonatas are single movements, most scored for only organ and strings. Two add woodwinds, horns and drums. This makes them relatively simple affairs.
Simple, however, does not mean staid. When I listen to Mozart’s church sonatas, I always listen to them on vinyl via Mozart: The Complete Church Sonatas (1974). The back cover commentary by Kenneth Henry provides insight into the tenor of the music, often difficult to grasp in our pop music-saturated times. Regarding church sonata №14, Henry quotes Théodor Wyzewa and Georges de Saint-Foix,⁵ who make the piece sound more appropriate for an opera house than a house of worship:
“The style is that of an overture of pompous aspect, without any contemplative aspect, without the least religious appearance . . . One has, summing up, the impression of a piece which has a solemn character, but completely secular . . . ”
In addressing №15, Henry quotes Alfred Einstein’s description of it as too light-hearted, even comical, for sacred music:⁶
“ . . . the style is as unsuited to the organ as it can be. Even the opportunity for a virtuoso cadenza is not lacking . . . It contains scales, broken chords, trills — the whole apparatus of buffo instrumental music.”
Henry summarizes the whole batch as follows:
“Some people have leveled the charge against Mozart’s church music, and against these sonatas in particular, that they are not religious enough. But Mozart was always more concerned with the music than the occasion, and these sonatas were written for a patron who liked his church services short and lively.”
The flute quartets (1777–1787), the opera Don Giovanni (1788), Requiem in D Minor (1791) . . . Such was Mozart’s gift and prolificity that even a Wagnerite such as myself finds it hard to pick favorites, but I include the church sonatas among them. The music is one thing, but I also love to imagine one pew-warmer turning to another and raising an eyebrow as if to say, “A bit spicey tonight, isn’t it?”
Mozart even defied religious orthodoxy. His final opera, The Magic Flute was first performed in 1791,⁷ just months before his death at age 35 due to illness.⁸ Developed with librettist Emanuel Schikaneder,⁹ it opens with the slaying of a serpent and the assignment of a quest.¹⁰ Tamino must rescue the beautiful Pamina, whom Three Ladies in service to the Queen of Night claim is prisoner to an evil magician.¹¹ From there, it’s all heroic ordeals, magic items and Masonic symbolism.¹² A member of the order, Mozart would also compose the last of his Masonic cantatas around this time¹³ — all this despite the Catholic Church’s condemnation of Masonry.¹⁴
Mozart Project assures me that Mozart was “deeply religious.” Indeed, his sacred music wasn’t always so unruly. In his liner notes for the composer’s Great Mass in C Minor (1783), Stanley Sadie describes the music as “conservative,” with a “touch of archaism” and “statuesque gravity.” Nonetheless, when the mood struck, Mozart did have a way of running afoul of propriety, and we are all the richer for even the least of his playful, peccadillic compositions.
References and Footnotes:
[1] The Wikipedia page on the Miserere casts doubt on this account, linking to an article by Ilia Chrissochoidis on JSTOR: London Mozartiana: Wolfgang’s disputed age & early performances of Allegri’s Miserere on JSTOR
[2] “Church Sonatas (Mozart),” Wikimedia Foundation, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Sonatas_(Mozart)
[3] “Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart,” World History Encyclopedia, https://www.worldhistory.org/timeline/Wolfgang_Amadeus_Mozart/
[4] Fred Child, “Mozart’s Less-Than-Warm Relationship with Salzburg,” NPR, January 27, 2006, https://www.npr.org/2006/01/27/5174382/mozarts-less-than-warm-relationship-with-salzburg
[5] Possibly from the authors’ multi-volume work W.-A. Mozart: Sa vie musicale et son oeuvre, 1912: https://searchworks.stanford.edu/view/2218564
[6] Possibly from Alfred Einstein’s Mozart, His Character, His Work, 1962: https://books.google.co.jp/books/about/Mozart_His_Character_His_Work.html?id=Ep4PXMszMv4C&redir_esc=y
[7] “Die Zauberflöte,” The New Milton Cross’ Complete Stories of the Great Operas (Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1955), 633.
[8] “The Tragic End: Exploring Mozart’s Mysterious Death,” This Week in Libraries Magazine, January 23, 2024: https://thisweekinlibraries.com/the-tragic-end-exploring-mozarts-mysterious-death/
[9] “Zauberflöte, Die (The Magic Flute),” The A to Z of Opera (HNH International Ltd., 2000), 604.
[10] Ibid., 606.
[11] Ibid., 606.
[12] Ibid., 606.
[13] “Mozart and Freemasonry,” Wikimedia Foundation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozart_and_Freemasonry
[14] Condemnation that continues to this day. See Courtney Mares, “Vatican doctrine office reaffirms that Catholics cannot be Freemasons,” EWTN (November 15, 2023): https://ewtn.co.uk/article-vatican-doctrine-office-reaffirms-that-catholics-cannot-be-freemasons/
