What could have been
February 14th, 2010 § Leave a Comment
A fleeting fugue tells me what could have been
fountain of glittering gold, for beauty’s sake
one last gesture of grandeur: lift your hand
before your life succumbs one movement make
And then relent, released into death’s silence
we will remember, muster all our power
to grasp and touch the master’s perfect hand
grand sweep of all we hope in this life’s hour
Death waits incumbent on fate’s fugitive
too soon you go – your fleeting youth betrayed
by a relentless and unyielding trampling
unsurpassed you pass away and fade
Reflection on the last movement of Mozart’s 41st Symphony. This was Mozart’s last symphony. He wrote it approximately two years before his death. He would die at the age of 35. Too soon for such a genius. The depth of this movement is unparallelled. When you listen to it you can easily hear the complexity of this ‘fugue-ridden’ piece as well as get a sense of the incredible emotional and intellectual maturity. He had so much more to offer but it was not to be. I’ve been listening to it again and again and had to respond to its objective statement of aesthetic beauty and its subjective cry for what could have been.
