I was 14 when Peter Shaffer’s movie “Amadeus” came out. This was my coming of age movie, for it was through watching Antonio Salieri wrestle with his shortcomings that I recognized my own. When the credits rolled I could no longer view myself through my parents’ hopeful eyes—a child bright with promise—but instead I was left with an honest awareness of my human deficiency.
I identified passionately with F. Murray Abraham’s Salieri. I had considerable musical ability, and even my own “Mozart” (a rival in band who lately bettered me more often than not). But it was Salieri’s intense longing to create beauty—coexisting painfully with his personal limitations—that bonded me to him.
In the video clip above, Salieri describes Mozart’s Adagio Serenade (K.361) as follows:
"On the page it looked nothing. The beginning simple, almost comic. Just a pulse - bassoons, basset horns - like a rusty squeezebox. And then suddenly - high above it - an oboe, a single note, hanging there unwavering, until a clarinet took it over and sweetened it into a phrase of such delight! This was no composition by a performing monkey! This was a music I’d never heard. Filled with such longing, such unfulfillable longing. It seemed to me that I was hearing a voice of God.”
This scene is not the recollection of one who simply appreciates a beautiful creation, but of one who longs to create something beautiful himself. It would not be enough to reproduce or imitate another’s work. It is absolutely the unique, personal creation that must be attempted again, and again.
It is from this place of longing that I am motivated, according to Albert Einstein, all of the time. If you are reading this blog, chances are you are, too, and I’m happy to make your acquaintance. C. S. Lewis wrote, "Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: "What! You too? I thought I was the only one." I look forward to our journey together.
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