A Quick Toast To Mozart

It only takes five minutes! Join me in celebrating his birthday

Mozart with a powdered wig in Delaware Park in Buffalo, N.Y. Photo by the Author.

This being Mozart’s birthday, we should celebrate. Buffalo needs something to celebrate, what with that annoying Bills loss yesterday.

Was that a bust or what?

Speaking of bust, above is the, ahem, bust of Mozart that stands in Delaware Park. I love this sculpture, his down-home German look — I always think he looks like the famous German-American baseball player Babe Ruth. I love photographing him when he wears a powdered wig. I think this picture captures it.

One thing, in Mozart’s lifetime, he celebrated his name day, not his birthday. This used to confuse me when I was a teenager reading his letters. He would be wishing people a happy name day and they would be wishing him a happy name day and you would get and give presents on those occasions, and I had no idea what that was about.

Mozart’s name was Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgang Gottlieb Mozart. He got the Johannes Chrysostomus because he was born on Jan. 27 — today — the Feast of St. John Chrysostom. St. John Chrysostom is known for his beautiful liturgy — his name means literally “golden-mouthed.” There is something appropriate about Mozart being born on his feast day, because Mozart, too, created such beauty.

The name day that Mozart celebrated every year was the Feast of St. Wolfgang, which is October 31.

So Mozart’s name day was Hallowe’en! That was when he would clean up with good wishes and congratulations and presents.

It is a complicated Catholic thing and I think we should bring it back.

All that being said, what I want to do today is just listen to something. I do not take the time often enough. Music requires time from you. This is why you do not get many classical music questions in trivia contests. It is not something you learn quickly from a book or anything. You have to spend hours with it. Years with it.

It is a way of life!

So. What will it be? I am going to suggest something that will let us all take five minutes and celebrate.

Here is a record of Mozart overtures conducted by the great Josef Krips, the great Viennese conductor who was the music director of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra. I have always loved listening to Mozart overtures. I had a record when I was a kid that I all but wore out. I mean I listened to it daily.

This Krips record starts with “The Marriage of Figaro,” the overture I was going to recommend. However depending on what time you have, you can bask in the whole record. I chose this video in part because it does not have video of the orchestra playing or anything. I do not like that distraction. I just want to listen.

That being said, at 3:06 there is Krips and Glenn Gould. Not as cool as the pictures I have of him and Leonard Pennario, I have to say that. I will have to post those pictures another time.

Oh, listen. It moves on from “The Marriage of Figaro” to “Don Giovanni.” The opera of operas!

Go on, pour a cup of that special tea, or a glass of that wine you have been saving, and have at it.

Enjoy!