Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Happy Birthday, Mozart!

^Mozart in 1782, the year he married Constanza Weber, and a year after he moved to Vienna.

Today is the 253rd anniversary of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's birth. It was Garrison Keillor on NPR this morning who reminded me, reading this most famous of Mozart's quotes on The Writer's Almanac:

"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."

To commemorate the occasion, enjoy this clip of the sublime Act I trio from Cosi fan Tutte, "Soave sia il vento" (with Fiordiligi, Dorabella, and Don Alfonso wishing a safe journey to Guglielmo and Ferrando--you may recognize the music from Mercedes ads!):



For a compendium of Mozart links and Cosi fan Tutte background information, download our Click/Read/Watch/Listen PDF.

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