265 years of Mozart

Today is the birthday of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, my favourite composer. He would have been 265 years old if he was sitll alive, so this means that human civilisation has more or less lived for 265 years with Mozart's music (since he started composing at a very early age). With such considerable body of work, I never know what to share on this blog to celebrate. I thought a lot about it and decided to go for an aria from Cosi fan tutte. I came to love Mozart through his operas and this is because of his operas that he is my favourite composer. Also because it will allow me to share an observation on this aria, Per pieta, here so beautifully interpreted by Swedish soprano Miah Persson. It is a love song, but one that is about contradictory feelings: Fiordiligi has started to fall in love, or at least be infatuated, with another man than her fiancé Guglielmo. In the orchestra, you can hear the horns part quite distinctly. Now in a love song, you would generally not expect to the brass to be so preponderant and to be paired with a soprano. In one of the YouTube comments about this aria, you can read a possible explanation of why Mozart paired French horns and a soprano voice: Fiordiligi is contemplating adultery. She might cuckhold Guglielmo (and spoiler alert: she will later on). In effect, she might give him horns. Later on, when the deed is done, Guglielmo will in fact lament that she has given him horns. So the horns, with their upbeat and pleasant tune striking against the rather sorrowful rest of the partition are basically expressing temptation. A temptation that will eventually overcome her guilt. I read this, listened to the aria again and again, and I was flabbergasted. Now that is just pure Mozart's musical genius.