This New England

"We have learned from history that enlightenment, liberation, and doom may go together.
For every avenue liberation opens, two are closed. Within Mozart's cheerful daylight secularity there is always an otherworldly darkness. And the freedom he expresses is never without sadness, a deep submission to melancholy. We are endowed -- so I interpret him - with comprehension, but what we are required to comprehend is too much for us.''

From "Mozart: An Overture,'' an essay by Saul Bellow (1915-2005) found in his collection It All Adds Up.

From posthumous painting of Mozart by Barbara Krafft, done in 1819.
(Mozart, born in 1756, died in 1791.)

 Tags  Mozart

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