Mozart's Birthday

Today is the birthday of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, only three days before my own birthday. I feel a bond with Wolfgang because I had one of the greatest moments of my life because of him. In 2003 I was extremely fortunate to travel to Europe with a choir. My solo in the concerts was Laudate Dominum by Mozart. That by itself was wonderful, but I actually got to sing it in Mozart's church - the Salzburg Dom. The beauty of Salzburg was breathtaking and it had been my dream to go there ever since I was ten and fell in love with The Sound of Music and everything to do with it. I stood in places that Julie Andrews had stood!!!

I do not have a strong voice but I will never forget the moment of singing Mozart in Mozart's church, gazing up at his organ, my voice filling the beautiful cathedral without effort. A once in a lifetime moment.

So today I honor Mozart on his birthday. He'd be 252 years old now. He said,"When I am, as it were, completely myself, entirely alone, and of good cheer - say traveling in a carriage or walking after a good meal, or during the night when I cannot sleep - it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best, and most abundantly. Whence and how they come, I know not, nor can I force them."

The Dome of Salzburg Cathedral

A white city, a floweret in green hills

and mountainous sheets of rock,

a fortress of turrets and spires guarding

from above, the dome of a cathedral, survivor

of aerial bombings, conspires to heaven.

Inside I tremble before the silent divine.

Mozart's organ, in a tailored balcony

stares at me from its place in the beauty.

The voluptuous sound of music streams

through the communion peace.

Awe resurrects the spirits and I,

insignificant under the immensity of a dome

hovering with angels and saints, open my mouth

and Laudate Dominum comes, saturating a space

too vast for one voice to be heard, but it is.

Mozart's song in Mozart's church.

Nameless and tranquil I rise

into the dome to survey a

frozen moment in my earth-life,

an offering of the Almighty.