From the Narrow Desert

Emanuel Schikaneder in the role of Papageno, and the Visconti-Sforza "Fool" card

Some free-association here.

I was rereading some comments on one of my posts about The Magic Flute. I had compared Prince Tamino and his feather-covered sidekick, Papageno, to Gilgamesh and Enkidu, and William Wildblood added, "They are almost like Frodo and Sam!" Rereading that, I suddenly thought, "Or Don Quixote and Sancho Panza!" -- but I refrained from posting that because, never having actually read Don Quixote, I owe to cultural osmosis whatever superficial idea I may have of the Don and his squire and thus can't really say how similar they may or may not be to the characters in the Mozart opera.

Anyway, my curiosity was piqued enough that I read a few paragraphs of the Wikipedia article on Sancho Panza, and I was intrigued to find this: "Sancho's wife is described more or less as a feminine version of Sancho, both in looks and behaviour" -- obviously calling to mind Papageno and Papagena ("But what if Sarastro had set aside for you a girl who was just like you in colouring and dress?").

Shortly after suddenly becoming (mildly) interested in that particular Cervantes character, I happened to read Oswald Wirth's short chapter on the 16th Tarot trump, "The House of God," which depicts a tower struck by lightning. Wirth ends this chapter thus:

When this arcan[um] ceases to be unfavourable, it puts one on guard against what it threatens. Salutary fears, reserve, timidity which preserves one from ill-considered risks; simplicity of mind remote from errors of learning, common sense, the wisdom of Sancho Panza.

Sancho Panza again! The context of a House of God being struck by lightning also seemed to be a link to Papageno -- who is told, inside the Temple of Isis and Osiris, "Papageno, whoever breaks silence in this place is punished by the gods with thunder and lightning."

"The wisdom of Sancho Panza" -- and did Papageno have any wisdom to offer? Suddenly I thought of an anecdote I had heard years before from a philosophy professor.

The professor, wishing to demonstrate how easily we fall for logical errors, gave his class this syllogism: "All men are mortal. Socrates is mortal. Therefore, Socrates is a man" -- and asked them if it was valid. They rose to the bait and said that it was. The professor then presented a logically equivalent syllogism: "All birds are mortal. Socrates is mortal. Therefore, Socrates is a bird" -- and asked what they thought of that. Not valid, said one of the students. The professor asked why. "Because Socrates doesn't have feathers."

Simplicity of mind remote from errors of learning.

The Three Ladies save Tamino from a serpent . . . for some reason.

For starters . . .

1.

By the end of the opera, it is pretty well established that the Three Ladies, like the Queen of the Night whom they serve, are baddies -- but we first see them in the role of good Samaritans, rescuing Tamino (a stranger) from the serpent that is pursuing him. Their motive for doing so is not clear. They then report him to the Queen, thinking that he may be able to help her by extricating her daughter Pamina from the clutches of Sarastro. Why they think someone they themselves have just had to rescue would be a good choice for rescuing someone else is even less clear. Since the Ladies are clearly much more powerful than Tamino, why don't they go rescue Pamina themselves?

2.

Papageno says that he makes a living by catching birds for the Queen and her Ladies in exchange for food and drink. We never find out why the Queen wants or needs a steady supply of live birds or what she does with them.

3.

The Three Boys seem to be clearly good, but they also apparently work for the Queen. At any rate, it is the Three Ladies who inform Tamino and Papageno that the Boys will be their guides.

4.

Sarastro says that the whole reason he seized Pamina from her mother (the Queen) was so that he could have her marry Tamino -- but the Queen apparently has no objection to that marriage, since she later offers Tamino Pamina's hand of her own initiative. If Tamino successfully returns Pamina to the Queen, the Queen will give her to him in marriage; if he fails, and she remains under the power of Sarastro, then Sarastro will give her to him in marriage. He is, so to speak, damed if he does and damed if he doesn't! It would appear that both Sarastro's abduction of Pamina and the Queen's rescue efforts are completely pointless, since they both want the same thing.

The most natural explanation is that Sarastro is simply lying to save face -- that his original intention was to marry Pamina himself but that, having found that she loves Tamino, he attempts to make a virtue of necessity. However, this is hardly in keeping with the godlike character Sarastro has been given.

Another possible explanation is that Sarastro's plan was to use the offer of Pamina to attract Tamino into joining their order -- and that the Queen is attempting to use the same bait to make Tamino into Sarastro's sworn enemy. But in that case it is strange that no representative of Sarastro ever attempted to contact Tamino. Perhaps Sarastro knew that his abducting Pamina would lead the Queen to send a hero to rescue her, and he was confident in his ability to convert that hero (whoever he might turn out to be) to his own side. Perhaps he even saw to it that Tamino would be chosen by sending the serpent to chase him to where he would be found by the Three Ladies? But all these possible plans of his seem unnecessarily convoluted.

5.

Papagena originally comes to Papageno disguised as a very old woman -- but then proceeds to tell him that she is 18 years old! Is she or is she not trying to deceive him regarding her age? The point of the disguise is never very clear. If it is to test whether Papageno can manifest True Love without regard to outer appearance, he can't really be said to have passed the test. He agrees to marry the old women only because he has been told (and he believes everything he is told) that he will die alone otherwise, and he promises to be faithful to her only "unless he finds someone prettier." Later the priests take Papagena away from him, saying he has not yet proven himself worthy -- but in the end she is given to him, and the only thing Papageno has done in the interim to prove his worthiness is to try to hang himself!

6.

Tamino is promised at the beginning that the titular magic flute can transform the passions of men -- but it never does that. Wild animals are attracted to its music, and he uses it to attract the attention of Papageno and Pamina, both of whom are already his friends. In the end, it is apparently the flute that allows Tamino and Pamina to pass through the fire and water unharmed -- the only remotely magical thing it ever does. Nowhere does it make mourners merry or make bachelors fall in love.

My plan to listen to the essential works of Mozart and Beethoven has already gotten sidetracked -- but that was always the larger plan anyway: to find what resonated with me and then get sidetracked by it! More than a month after making myself a list of 22 pieces to listen to, 11 from each composer, I have listened to a grand total of one Beethoven symphony, two Mozart concertos -- and (over and over and over again!) The Magic Flute.

It was rough going in the beginning. I had to overcome a general aversion to video, complete unfamiliarity with the idiom of opera, and a libretto that doesn't make a lick of sense even if you speak the language, which I don't really. (In addition to the original German, I've also read it in English, French, and Spanish translations. It doesn't help much.) After listening to the whole thing once through, I slept on it, and it all came together for me during a night full of vivid dreams, in which I heard every aria in the opera (or a lot of them, anyway) being sung simultaneously and yet was somehow able to give them all my full attention. I felt as if a whole new planet had swum into my ken, and I awoke feeling as if I had experienced the real opera, of which all earthly performances were but feeble approximations. Knowing what they are feeble approximations of has made all the difference to the listening experience, and I've just been listening to it again and again ever since that night. YouTube has a seemingly endless supply of different performances, and I can't imagine it'll be long before I've listened to them all (excluding, of course, the few that are deliberate acts of musical vandalism).

Whether or not I'll ever get back to my original to-listen lists remains to be seen. For now, having discovered this one piece has been more than enough to make the whole project worthwhile.

My appalling ignorance of classical music is something I have had occasion to mention before.

A few days ago I happened, in the course of my work, to listen to the Lacrimosa from Mozart's Requiem, and the spiritual effect was immediate and unmistakable -- a sudden plunge into a deeper, stiller level of consciousness. (Yes, I know "higher" consciousness is the standard metaphor, but that's not how I experience things.) I then went about the rest of my working day, returned home, and, as is my wont, put on some music while I did my evening chores -- the same sort of music I usually listen to, which is to say definitely not Mozart. At some point the contrast hit me, and I thought, What am I doing? Having just been touched by music of astonishing spiritual depth, and having basically all the music every recorded at my fingertips, here I am listening to the Temptations sing "Papa Was a Rollin' Stone"! Granted, "Papa Was a Rollin' Stone" is a great song, perfectum in genere, but is it really what I need right now?

So, after thinking about such things for a bit, I've decided to make one more effort to become familiar with classical music, starting with the two composers generally acknowledged to be the greatest of the great, and working my way down from there.

After comparing and collating dozens of "top 10" lists, I've come up with the following shortlists of what are apparently the essential works of Mozart and Beethoven. However, I cannot overstate the depths of my ignorance in this field, so if anything seems strange about these lists, or if anything absolutely essential has been omitted, my more musically literate readers are invited to chime in in the comments.

Mozart

1. Clarinet Concerto
2. Piano Concerto No. 20
3. The Magic Flute
4. The Marriage of Figaro
5. Symphony No. 40
6. Symphony No. 41
7. Concerto for Flute, Harp, and Orchestra
8. Requiem
9. Don Giovanni
10. Piano Concerto No. 23
11. Sinfonia Concertante for Violin, Viola and Orchestra

Beethoven

1. Symphony No. 3
2. Symphony No. 9
3. Piano Concerto No. 5
4. String Quartet No. 14
5. Symphony No. 5
6. Piano Sonata No. 23
7. Missa Solemnis
8. Symphony No. 6
9. String Quartet No. 15
10. Symphony No. 7
11. Piano Sonata No. 8