Benedict XVI, Mozart and the quest for beauty

This is a beautifully written article by Mark Freer, a leading Church musician and concert pianist. He is organist and choirmaster for the Latin Mass at Holy Name Church in Adelaide, and has performed and broadcast in Australia, Switzerland, Germany and Italy.

Freer writes:
In the extended interview that was published ten years ago as Salt of the Earth, we read:
"You are a great lover of Mozart?".

"Yes! Although we moved around a very great deal in my childhood, the family basically always remained in the area between the Inn and the Salzach. And the largest and most important and best parts of my youth I spent in Traunstein, which very much reflects the influence of Salzburg. You might say that there Mozart thoroughly penetrated our souls, and his music still touches me very deeply, because it is so luminous and yet at the same time so deep. His music is by no means just entertainment; it contains the whole tragedy of human existence."

"So luminous ... so deep ... contains the whole tragedy of human existence", says the man who is now Pope. Many, including myself, would agree.

The deeper one enters into Mozart's music, the more one anticipates insights in between those little quavers and crotchets; in short, the more one allows it to "penetrate the soul", the more it is felt as transcendent, sublime, consummately beautiful.

All that he shares about the Holy Father confirm my impressions of him -- a gentle, loving, well-educated, sensitive and very holy man who has a deep love for the beauty of God that surrounds him. I love the fact that he enjoys Mozart as much as I do.
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