It’s Halloween!!! My number-one favorite holiday. I spend weeks planning decorations and costumes, even for my dogs (my Pug is going to be a cowgirl this year, my Poodle a ballerina. The cats will have nothing to do with clothes). I’ve really loved the posts here at RR the last few days–paranormal Regencies, old Gothics, body-snatching. It’s been wonderfully Halloween-ish. But I wondered–what is left to blog about? Something that is both spooky and Regency.
Then someone sent me a terrific article titled “Esotericism and Western Music” by Gary Lachman. It combines so many of my favorite things–classical music (my “day job” is being an announcer at a classical music radio station), weird paranormal doings, and the Romantic period.
The article starts off with a description of Mozart attending a masquerade ball in Vienna in 1786. He dressed as a Hindu philosopher, in a turban and flowing robes, and handed out pamphlets with various puzzles and strange sayings, said to be “Fragments of the Writings of Zoroaster.” In Vienna that year, Freemasonry and groups like the Order of the Illuminati were all the trend.
Mozart became a Mason in 1784, and many of the motifs of Masonry started appearing in his work, especially “The Magic Flute” (1791). I love this opera, with all its weird themes of Darkness and Light, its hidden elements of Masonry and “Egyptian” culture and mysteries. The Illuminati was then a forbidden group, and Mozart had to conceal all this within a fluffy fairy-tale. Of course, all the wanna-be alchemists, Rosicrucians, astrologers, and esotericists could see right through it. 🙂
The Romantics who followed Mozart were also big on the connection between music and magic. Beethoven had a deep interest in “oriental mysteries” and “Indian literature.” Magical and esoteric ideas were spreading across Europe, culminating in the witchcraft of Berlioz’s “Symphonie Fantastique” and the mythical operas of Wagner.
So, whether it be the Queen of the Night’s aria or “Monster Mash,” I hope you’ll put on some scary music tonight, and have a great, Risky Halloween.
Rumor has it that the Hell-fire Club and the Illuminati had a competition for the soul of Napoleon (the competition was in the writing of Italian sonnets in Portuguese, and in tatting), but no one won. The man was born lacking a soul. Sad to say.
Bertram St James
Amanda:
Wow! Who knew? I mean, obviously you did, but I didn’t. Another reason to love Mozart. Happy H. right back at you!
Wow, what an interesting post, Amanda! I didn’t know that about Mozart, either. I enjoyed The Magic Flute the one time I saw it, but mostly on the basis of the music and the magical elements; I didn’t know much about the background.
Hope everyone had a happy Halloween and did not eat too much candy (my definition of “too much” is pretty liberal).
Elena 🙂
I’m sorry, Mr. St James, but what??? Did you by any chance eat too much chocolate last night???
Cara
Eat too much chocolate??? I am still in amazement that one can eat chocolate at all. What an innovation. If only it did not get all over one’s cuffs.
Bertie the Beau (who has a bit of a head-ache this morning)
LOL!!!
I did know that there was Masonic symbolism in The Magic Flute (I’m a big opera biff), but couldn’t tell you what most of them are. I had never heard that anecdote about Mozart and the masquerade ball, though, and thought it was fun. 🙂
It’s funny how different people’s takes can be on the same thing. I’ve always found The Magic Flute to be charming and light-hearted, with the weird rituals and stuff a kind of interesting backdrop. But I have a friend who finds the opera absolutely infuriating, because in the end it all turns out to be nothing but a test–a completely artificial series of challenges made up to prove that the hero and heroine are really worthy. My friend’s reaction was: what gives these guys the right to go around testing and judging everyone? The nerve of them!
The moral of which is, if you draw a moral from something, you will undoubtedly offend people who hate it when you draw morals.
Todd-who-is-amoral
Bertie, old thing,
The solution to the chocolate-on-the-cuffs problem is simplicity itself: one should eat the chocolate completely nude, while standing in the bathtub. I realize that the lack of fashionable attire may be a blow for such an exquisite as yourself, but it does facilitate showering afterwards.
Your most obedient,
Todd-who-writes-Portuguese-sonnets-in-Italian
Todd old chap, the bath-tub chocolate suggestion has solved my little cuff problem, but what about the head-ache? The more chocolate I eat, the more my poor head aches. Might there be a connexion?
Bertie in the Bath-tub
Yes, Mr St James — eating too much chocolate can indeed give one a headache. I suggest you try a little bread for a change of pace. I know chocolate is a beautiful thing, but moderation even in chocolate is wise.
Cara
We also have a thing in this modern age called aspirin, Bertie. By alternating binges of chocolate with doses of aspirin, I can almost guarantee that you will convert your headache to a stomachache in no time.
Todd-who-takes-aspirin-in-the-bathtub