Remembering Mozart

National Review, Jan 27, 1997 by William F. Buckley, Jr.

Events crowd around, and the journalist/commentator is especially aware of imminent developments. Will the hostages survive? Will Bill Clinton resign? Between this deadline and the appearance of these words, reflections on minute-by-minute crises run the risk of appearing rancid, or insensitive, or outside any general concern.

At home, before the deadline, we tuned in to A&E for its daily biography and got--Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart! That roaring genius! And so my mind went back to my one very direct touch with Mozart.

It was some years ago, and the club I go to for a few days every summer imposed on me, as is its habit in its dealings with amateurs, a challenge. Would I perform on the harpsichord a stretch of music by Mozart?

One is conditioned to say yes, in such circumstances, the governing muse being: Everybody has to do his (not her) bit in order to fly the banner of amateur art.

I selected to conquer Mozart's 12 variations on the theme of "Ah, vous dirais-je, Maman." That was one of the musical trifles Mozart brought off in his 21st year, taking a few hours off between operas, concertos, and symphonies. The English version of the French tune is "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star": Tum tum TUM TUM tum tum TAH, Tum tum tum tum what you are.

Mozart lovers can imagine him, perhaps on his 21st birthday, in a crowded salon:

"Wolfgang, give us a tune!" Wolfgang: "On what theme?"

"Oh, how about . . . 'Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star'?"

So he has another drink and then sits down at the keyboard and thrums out the theme. But Mozart being Mozart, he then improvises a variation on it. The crowd is delighted. "Wait!" he says. "I've just started!" He goes on to a second variation. And on and on, finishing with a 12th.

The young crowd is ecstatic over the variations, which go from playful to solemn, from grand to sleepy, from sweet and simple to a crashing finale. More drinks are served and other things occupy the company, but the next morning an admirer says, "Wolfgang, you really ought to write down what you did last night."

Two hundred years later I am slaving away, trying to stuff his extemporaneity into my fingers, spending more time in the effort than Mozart would have taken to write five symphonies and four operas.

The dreadful moment approached, and there were 1,500 happy people there, warmed up by a dozen episodes preceding my nervous ordeal: rousing comedy sequences, songs, jokes, laughter. During that period I was backstage, struggling to keep my fingers warm and my heart stable.

I had read that the great Glenn Gould nurtured his fingers before concert time by immersing them in bowls of warm water. I asked, imperially, for the same treatment, and a high official of a major U.S. corporation, doing his service to the muse, was designated to keep me supplied with warm water during the agonizing hour awaiting my tribulation.

I could hear, through the heavy curtains, the roars of delight from the audience. The awful moment arrived when the master of ceremonies announced, "And now we will have something really unusual! Our camp mate will perform on the harpsichord [the what?--I could almost hear the crowd wondering] Mozart's 12 variations on the theme, 'Ah, vous dirais-je, Maman," which, folks, translates into English as, 'Twinkle, twinkle, little star."'

The stage wheeled around, and suddenly I was front and center, and the temperature dropped from 80 degrees backstage to 50 degrees in the California redwood country. My limpid warmed fingers turned to ice. I started in. "Tum tum TUM TUM tum tum TUM, How I wonder what you are."

I hit as many false as correct notes, and was sustained only by the hope that the mistakes did not affront a permissive audience, most of whom had not heard a harpsichord before, many of whom patiently assumed that Variation Two would feature a kangaroo jumping out of the instrument and everyone would roar in amusement, and they could go on to the next act.

You know about the speaker who goes on and on? Adlai Stevenson once quipped, "What happens after a Saturday-night speech by Hubert Humphrey? Sunday." Mozart's 12 variations take a certain amount of time to get through. A lot of time, by the measurements of hyped-up audiences who are treated to a joke or a jazz exuberance every minute or two. A few months before my ordeal, the people of California had voted yes on the famous Proposition 13, which would require the legislature to limit taxation on property. "Vote Yes on Proposition 13" was the great rallying point of the political season. After about five minutes of tortured effort, with another five minutes to go, a voice rose from the crowd, "Vote no on Variation 13!"

Aaabh. A huge squirt of ice water in mid-performance. But I got through it, and the crowd was very kind, and I thought then, as I did after listening to A&E, how wonderful was Mozart, and how many, underendowed, have suffered from attempting to imitate him.