Article August 15, 1908 Issue

"THE SOUL OF MUSIC"

ALTA GRETTON

There is one passage in our text-book which has been a great help to me, and in many ways, especially in my work as a teacher of music. It is found on page 213 of Science and Health, where Mrs. Eddy says, "Sound is a mental impression made on mortal belief. The ear does not really hear. Divine Science reveals sound as communicated through the senses of Soul—through spiritual understanding. Mozart experienced more than he expressed. The rapture of his grandest symphonies was never heard. He was a musician beyond what the world knew. This was even more strikingly true of Beethoven, who was so long hopelessly deaf. Mental melodies and strains of sweetest music supersede conscious sound. Music is the rhythm of head and heart." With a sense of deep thankfulness to our Leader for giving us this thought, I would like to quote from a letter written by Mozart to a friend, in which he describes so beautifully the way he composed and which proves, even as Mrs. Eddy tells us, that "music is the rhythm of head and heart." Mozart writes,—

"If I am quite by myself, and in a good humor,—perhaps on a journey in the carriage, ... or on a walk, and at night, when I cannot sleep,—then my thoughts come in streams and at their best; whence and why, that I do not know, nor have I anything to do with it. Those that please me I keep in my head and probably hum them over to myself, at least people have told me so. If I hold fast to one theme, another comes to keep it company, and still another, of which I can use a bit to make a pasty of the whole, according to the counterpoint and the nature of the various instruments, etc. That sets my spirit aglow. ... Then it grows and grows, and I keep extending it and making it clearer, and the whole piece becomes complete all in my head, even if it is a long one, until at last I survey it in my mind like a beautiful picture or a handsome person; and I do not hear it all in succession, as it must come eventually, but, as it were, all at once. That is truly a feast! All this inventing and working over happens as if in a beautiful, vivid dream. But the hearing of it, all together, in my imagination, that is the best of all. What has thus come into being I do not easily forget, and this is probably the best of all gifts the good Lord has bestowed on me. Later, when I sit down to write, I take out of the bag of my brain [thought] what has been brewing there, as I have told you. So the notes come very quickly, for, as I have said, it is really all finished, and I rarely make any changes from the way it has been working in my head. Hence I cannot be disturbed in writing, and all kinds of things can be going on about me. I simply write on and can even chat myself about chickens and geese, etc."

Mozart's life was short, extending over but thirty-five years, but what a great amount was accomplished in that brief period, proving that time makes no difference in the amount of good we can do. Mozart lives on in his music and in our hearts.

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