Blunderov
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RE: virus:A Genius Finds Inspiration in the Music of Another
« on: 2006-02-01 05:28:59 » |
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[Blunderov] The Polituro is a hardcore Mozart fan. She sent this along.
(f/w)
January 31, 2006
Essay
A Genius Finds Inspiration in the Music of Another
By ARTHUR I. MILLER
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 so
pure that it seemed to have been ever-present in the universe, waiting to be
discovered by the master." Einstein believed much the same of physics, that
beyond observations and theory lay the music of the spheres - which, he
wrote, revealed a "pre-established harmony" exhibiting stunning symmetries.
The laws of nature, such as those of relativity theory, were waiting to be
plucked out of the cosmos by someone with a sympathetic ear.
Thus it was less laborious calculation, but "pure thought" to which Einstein
attributed his theories.
Einstein was fascinated by Mozart and sensed an affinity between their
creative processes, as well as their histories.
As a boy Einstein did poorly in school. Music was an outlet for his
emotions. At 5, he began violin lessons but soon found the drills so trying
that he threw a chair at his teacher, who ran out of the house in tears. At
13, he discovered Mozart's sonatas.
The result was an almost mystical connection, said Hans Byland, a friend of
Einstein's from high school. "When his violin began to sing," Mr. Byland
told the biographer Carl Seelig, "the walls of the room seemed to recede -
for the first time, Mozart in all his purity appeared before me, bathed in
Hellenic beauty with its pure lines, roguishly playful, mightily sublime."
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