By DONALD DeMARCO
Because of the COVID-19 virus many people are confined to their homes. They will not be taking pilgrimages to holy places. Nonetheless, there is a way in which they can make a pilgrimage without traveling or even vacating their domicile.
I am thinking of a spiritual pilgrimage of reparation in which we can appreciate holy things that have been downgraded or defiled. The commercialization of the holy is one form that cries out for reparation.
A current TV commercial for Nike is accompanied by a chorus singing the Lacrimosa from Mozart’s Requiem. The circumstances surrounding the creation of this music are profound and deeply moving. In fact, I would venture to say, they belongs to the realm of the sacred.
The great composer believed that he was writing the Requiem for himself. He was not far off the mark. He was, indeed, dying. And, as death approached, Mozart was dictating the very last piece he ever composed — Lacrimosa dies illa (that day of tears). A few singers from The Magic Flute came to see him at his request and sang from the pages he had just written.
After a few measures, as biographer Marcia Davenport describes it, “Wolfgang burst into a flood of tears.” The singers were obliged to stop. It was not easy to die. There was so much that was yet unfinished. “I have come to an end,” he lamented, “before having realized the fullness of my talent.” Thirty-five years was too short a lifespan. Shortly after midnight, the soul of one of the greatest composers who ever set pen to paper passed on to his eternal reward. It is perhaps fitting that the Lacrimosa would be his parting gift to the world.
Fr. Owen Lee, CSB, was deeply moved by the disrespect shown to Mozart during the composer’s lifetime. As a musician, he had a great admiration for Mozart, both the man and his music. As a Catholic priest, he had a great deal of sympathetic affection for the man who, as a boy was the toast of Europe, but as a man lived in poverty, was exploited, abused, and neglected.
“I decided to make a pilgrimage to Mozart’s grave,” he wrote. “I wanted to do what none of his family or friends or even the priests had done.”
The conscientious Basilian wanted to make some kind of atonement. In an article he wrote for Sign magazine (December 1971) entitled “Mozart Made Me a Pilgrim,” he stated that he wanted to make amends “for all those who had oppressed and cheated and abused and ignored Mozart in his lifetime and those who, since his death, have done the same — for the artists who turned him into a pretty plaster cupid.”
We can think of a pilgrimage as an arduous journey to a holy place. Was Fr. Lee successful in making amends? He tells his reading audience that the best form of reparation is appreciation. Mozart was “God’s instrument, sent to bear witness, in his music, to the glory of flesh and blood, heart and mind — and to the existence of truth and beauty beyond these.”
Marcia Davenport, author of Mozart (1932), a highly acclaimed biography, conjectured that more of the Austrian composer’s music is performed, recorded, and listened to at this time than of any other composer.
Therefore, she averred, “It is a long time since a pilgrimage to Central Europe was necessary in order to hear Mozart in abundance.” The injustice paid to Mozart during his lifetime may be unmatched in the annals of the lives of great composers.
Vienna is the eternal resting place for a number of great composers. Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Gluck, and the two Johann Strausses are buried in that city’s central cemetery. Fr. Lee sought to find the spot in Vienna where Mozart was interred. He searched at length, but finally concluded that no one can locate Mozart’s grave. As Davenport wrote, “No one had thought to order a cross or a marker for his funeral.” It remains an enigma as to why Mozart was treated so poorly. Some form of reparation seems to be in order.
Fr. Lee distinguished himself as a pianist and an expert on the opera. He authored 22 books, including Wagner’s Ring which is regarded as the best introduction to that composer’s cycle of operas. His priesthood spanned 68 years from 1951 until his death in 2019 at the age of 89.
He has offered us some sound advice. We cannot, obviously, go back in time and assist Mozart in any way. However, we can be homebound pilgrims by appreciating his music as it was meant to be.
The Nike commercial is about death, but not real death. It is about a basketball team losing a game. It is about momentary defeat. Here both Mozart and death are downgraded. Mozart serving as a shoe salesman! He would have received more money from the Nike commercial than what he received for The Magic Flute. The secular world operates on the basis of revenue, not reverence. In Mozart’s case, the terms revenue and reverence are reversed. Mozart continues to be disrespected. The Lacrimosa is also set to a “Mucho Burrito” commercial. Mozart serving as a snack food salesman!
We may take Fr. Lee’s advice and make reparation for the downgrading of anything that is holy. In our own way we can make a pilgrimage of the heart and do what we can to maintain a sacred attitude toward all that is sacred. Appreciation is the only appropriate response.
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