Thanks so much to Calvary Episcopal Church for imagining and sponsoring this past weekend’s Mozart Festival here in Tarboro!

This makes for harmony among the members, so that all the members care for each other. If one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it, and if one part is honored, all the parts are glad. All of you together are One Body, and each of you is a part of it….” – 1 Corinthians 12:25-27

Voca me cum benedictis, (“Call me among the blessed…”) Gere curam mei finis (“My destiny is Thine”). – from Mozart’s Requiem

If you have not yet read yesterday’s “Mozart Festival Part 1” post, then you will want to enjoy the photographs and video clips from Saturday’s scintillating piano recital and pitch perfect arias, featuring samples from a wide variety of the prolific 18th Century composer’s work

Then, Sunday evening, the Tarboro Choral Society’s presentation of Mozart’s magnificent Requiem in D minor offered an in depth experience of what proved to be – in my view – not only his final work but his magnum opus. Mozart, who was still only 35 when he died, “willed his last creation into life,” one writer noted, “with his final breaths.”

Wonderful Music!

The concert was presented in Tarboro’s beautiful Keihin Auditorium as part of the community college’s Edgecombe Performance Series.

The admirable choir, an excellent 30-piece orchestra, and four accomplished soloists were all directed by the irrepressible Dr. Nettie Williams, who told the enthusiastic audience she has always believed music of this caliber can find a home here in Tarboro.

Here is a brief excerpt from one of the more memorable selections. Then please read my hope-filled observation below:

The United States is also a Masterwork!

There on the stage, working together from a score written 233 years ago (back when the USA was brand new and George Washington was still in his first term as president) somewhere around 60 individuals made beautiful music together, using voices and instruments – all contributing their special gifts.

These 60 people represent many and various beliefs, ideologies, tastes and preferences. Culture, politics, religion, even musical points of view – all fuel for lively conversation and disagreement and debate.

But for a little more than an hour, 60 disparate individuals made harmony, because they all know that a work of this importance, music that stands the test of time, can only be achieved via cooperation and compromise and fidelity to the composer’s vision.

Voca me cum benedictis, they sang (“Call me among the blessed…”) Gere curam mei finis (“My destiny is Thine”).

Mutual Trust and Honor

We live in a nation where the original score was adopted (after a series of compromises arguments and debates) under the assumption that We The People will work together and continue to compromise and argue and debate… and also honor the huge element of mutual trust required if this nation is going to work at all.

The United States of America is essentially a huge orchestra and chorus, and we need to remember and honor and practice and trust – or we are going to be booed off the stage and the music will be lost!

This Mozart Festival, and especially the concert Sunday evening, reminds me of what is possible when we work together for something beautiful. And this country, this United States, is something beautiful, something worth preserving.

We are in a sense a masterwork. – DEREK