Mozart, The Masons, and The Magic Flute Opera

Undeniably, it has comic elements, but spiritual threads where also interwoven with it throughout the opera.

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The Magic Flute was labeled by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart as a comic opera. Undeniably, it has comic elements, but spiritual threads where also interwoven with it throughout the opera.

When actor, stage director and poet Emanuel Schikaneder organized a company for the Theater auf der Weiden in Vienna, he asked his composer friend Mozart to write for him a Sinspiel, a new type of comic opera incorporating music and spoken dialogue. Mozart completed it on September 28, 1781 and was presented two days later, with tremendous success.

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Since both collaborators were Masons, it is understandable that the libretto of this magical fairy-tale is filled with all kinds of obscure Masonic references, symbols and figures. Tamino’s journey represents initiation rituals for new Masons in Vienna. The basic struggle between good and evil was personified by Sarastro and the Queen of the Night. Pamina and Tamino , the idealistic young lovers, can come together only after the trials of fire and water. The use of the number three, which is an important number in masonry was generously used throughout the opera: at the beginning of the overture, there are three long and solemn chords that evoke Sarastro , the awesome priest of high ideals; the main key of the music is in E flat major having three flats. In the characters, there are three young boys, three ladies, and three trials. The trials symbolize Masonic rituals and ceremonies.

The opera concludes with a lively tune that is fully elaborated upon, giving a foretaste of the charming bird seller Papageno and his comic mate Papagena.

The Original Libretto Cover – image credit Phil Norfleet

Cosi Fan Tutte: An Opera by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

A brief background on Mozart’s opera Cosi fan tutte.

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Composed in the years 1789-90, Cosi fan tutte was first performed on January 26, 1790 in Vienna under the composer’s direction. The opera is in two acts to a libretto by Lorenzo da Ponte. The story revolves around the character Don Alfonso’s bet with two young men, Ferrando and Guglielmo, that their much-enamoured ladies would not remain faithful to them under temptation. Accordingly the two young men leave their beloveds, ostensibly to go to war, but to return disguised as Albanians. Each attempts to seduce the other’s woman and eventually succeeds, which makes Don Alfonso win his wager. The plot is a tapestry of numerous intricacies, the details too many to mention, but the title, Cosi fan tutte, explains it all, as it is freely translated as “All women do it.”

A critic in Berlin in 1805 noted that “this evidence of infidelity of all women was regarded merely as a jest is precisely the delicate charm of the whole opera, and that this infidelity, on the other hand, is let off so easily is proof of the playful sense of beauty on the part of the composer. Everything is only masquerade, playfulness, jest, dallying, and irony.” This type of opera is called opera buffa, or old-fashioned Italian comic opera. True to its genre, the opera is set in 18th century Naples. Although the premiere in Vienna was favorably greeted, it was only during this century that Cosi fan tutte became a consistent feature of the international repertory.

The Overture is marked with the ebullient wit abounding throughout the opera, accompanied by a mock sentimental tune played by the oboe after the opening chords. The phrase “cosi fan tutte,” as sung by the men in Act II, is then stated in the low strings, and the Overture whirls to an effervescent presto conclusion with sparkling woodwinds and strings.

Handel’s Water Music And Royal Fireworks Music Highlights

Two of Handel's famous works used by royalties for celebrations are The Water Music and Royal Fireworks Music.

Orchestral music had attracted Georg Friederich Händel’s attention right from his earliest years in England. Orchestral writing, for Handel, usually took the form of a concerto grosso, in which an inner group of soloists is pitted against the remainder of the orchestra. Two of his famous works used by royalties for celebrations are The Water Music and Royal Fireworks Music.

London was the setting for the Water Music in 1717, when the royal family and members of nobility took part in a royal water-party on barges floating on the River Thames. For this event, Handel created music for a large orchestra of over fifty musicians including horns, oboes, bassoons, flutes, trumpets, and strings. There were twenty-two compositions pieces in three suites: No. 1 in F Major, No. 2 in D major, and No. 3in G Major. Music historians question exactly how many pieces Handel wrote for this event. They concluded that it was very possible that he composed perhaps two-thirds of them for this royal evening, adding others later for similar occasions. After all, in those days such music was written and used for special events as needed. The Allegro is a lively dance, the Air a melodious English-type folk song, the Bourrée and Hornpipe two more jaunty pieces that typify many selections that make up the Water Music.

The Royal Fireworks Music came much later, in 1749. The occasion was a peace treaty signed at Aix-la-Chapelle, in 1748, to end the conflict between France and England. The celebration was set for Green Park, London, on April 27, 1749. These festivities –marred when the fireworks set off a blaze which completely destroyed the structure especially built for the event – were launched by an Overture which, in Handel’s original orchestration, required 24 oboes, 12 bassoons, 9 trumpets, 9 horns, one contrabassoon, three pairs of timpani, and a kind of cornet known as a “serpent horn.” There followed a royal salute from 101 brass cannon and various pieces by Handel, all originally scored for winds and a large force of strings, bringing the number of original players to well over 100. Fortunately, the magnificent ceremonial music was completed before the fire caused complete pandemonium. The Royal Fireworks Music was next heard on May 27, 179, played by a much smaller band in the chapel of the Foundling Hospital during the benefit attended by the Prince of Wales. Again, an introductory Overture is followed by a series of dance rhythms, including a bourré, a Siciliana called “La Paix” (the peace), a brilliant “Le Rejouissance,” and endw with two minuets – all conveying a spirit of celebration and rejoicing. As a biographer Herbert Weinstock has said of Handel, his is “one of the most majestic, tender, and human voices ever lifted in praise of life, love, of beauty, and the art of music.”

The Messiah Oratorio: Handel’s Musical Legacy

As Sir Newman Flower, one of Handel’s biographers rightly noted: “It is questionable whether any music, composed in England or imported into it, has reached the heart of the people so truly as Handel’s.” The most remembered work of Handel is his oratorio Messiah – the single work that made him a household name. Paul Henry Lang, in his exhaustive study of the composer writes, “Messiah is perhaps the only major work about which public sentiment is unanimous. Its freshness, its warmth, its beautifully rounded forms and sculptured melodies offer universal experience to men of all walks of life and all shades of faith. Handel achieved with this work the most widespread critical recognition ever accorded a composer, for among his acclaimers are not only every English-speaking church congregation, small or large, but also Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Brahms and every musician who ever tried his hand at choral writing.”

Handel composed music in almost every form known in his day: oratorios, operas, harpsichord music, organ concertos, masques, church works, anthems, concerti grossi, orchestral suites, etc. Musicologists have explored this wealth of musical compositions and prepared editions of many of Handel’s compositions in order that these can be performed in the most authentic way, the manner in which they were originally written. Only during the twentieth century that the world came to know the full range of his works. This is due to the extensive research and series of studies. For the general public, Handel’s Messiah remains to be an epic

creation of its kind.

The popularity of Messiah began in London in 1749 when Handel led a benefit performance for the Foundling Hospital. This was its premier performance, and for the next nine years that followed, Handel conducted the oratorio annually. Since that time, its universal popularity has hardly wavered, for it is music of strength, sincerity, religious passion and meaning, set down with the greatest skill for chorus and soloists. Handel cast it in three parts, the first telling of the prophecy of the Messiah’s coming, the second relating the suffering and death of Christ, and the third describing the resurrection of the son of God. Jennens, the compiler of the libretto, sent a text to be printed at the head of the oratorio, summing up its spirit: “And without controversy, great is the mystery of Godliness; God was manifested in the Flesh, justified by the Spirit, seen of Angels, preached among the Gentiles, gave man belief in the world, and was received up in Glory. In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”

Hallelujah Chorus Sheet Music

The Brandenburg Concertos of Johann Sebastian Bach

The famous masterful set of Six Brandenburg Concertos was composed bye Johann Sebastian Bach during his service as Kapellmeister to Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cöthen. Christian Ludwig, the Margrave of Brandenburg, commissioned composers to write works for his court orchestra. Impressed after meeting Bach in 1719, he asked him to write a set of concertos. The assignment was finished ahead of time in 1721. Bach named the set ‘Six Concertos for Divers Instruments.’ Humbly, he submitted the compositions to his benefactor with the plea that he not judge ‘their imperfections too harshly,’ and that he try to find in them ‘the profound respect and the very humble allegiance that they seek to convey.’ Bach used the Italian form of the concerto grosso he inherited from Vivaldi and others. This work, a remarkable expression of Bach’s adventurous mind, stands as his earliest essay in absolute music on a grand scale.

His felicitous idea of contrasting the ripieno (large instrumental group) with the concertino (small cadre of solo players) was done by using a different set of solo instruments for each of his concertos – except No. 3 where the orchestra is divided into three parts (violins, violas, cellos) to replace the solos. No. 1 is scored for a wind ensemble of horns and bassoon added to the strings, while the violino piccolo is prominent. No. 2 has a flute, oboe, trumpet and violin in solo positions. No. 4 features a violin and two flutes (or recorders); No. 5 the flute, violin, and harpsichord; and No. 6 only the strings as in No. 3. The originality, variety, vigor, and glorious melody are audacious statements of Bach’s genius.

Karl Geiringer, in his expert study of Bach writes, “The Brandenburg Concertos seem to embody the splendor and effervescence of court life at Cöthen, and, moreover, they reveal the composer’s delight in writing for a group of highly trained instrumentalists. There is an exuberance and abundance of inspiration in this music which only a genius, aware of his newly achieved full mastery, could call forth. Craftsmanship and richly flowing melodic invention, logic and zest for experimenting, counterpoise each other here to an extent rarely equaled again even by Bach himself.” Ernest Human declared Bach’s position far ahead of his own time in his luxuriance of melody, his intensity in harmony “or the way he could force the most complex polyphony into the service of the profoundest emotional expression, or the freedom and variety of musical speech to which he could attain even while he fettered himself with seemingly the most crabbed forms…Within the…older forms that lay ready to his hands…he could indulge himself to his heart’s content in the sounding of the very depths of human soul…There is hardly an emotion that is not expressed, and with a poignancy that remains undiminished even after three generations of post-Tristan developments.”