I believe I saw Mozart’s ghost one night in Prague.
It was in a little street off the road that connects Wenceslas Square with the Old Town Square. He was wearing a long, dark cape and one of those 18th century hats. There was a comforting lightness about him.
I remembered this the other day when I was interviewing soprano Anna-Maria Rincon.
Anna-Maria was telling me how much she loves Vivaldi and the spirit of Venice expressed in his music.
I feel the same about Mozart and Prague.
Close your eyes and listen to Mozart’s ‘Prager’ symphony. You can see the hills of South Bohemia stretch in front of you. And you feel as if you were in an 18th century carriage, looking through a velvet curtain at the fields, the apple threes. All that beauty makes your heart ache.
But my favourite piece in the whole wide world is the first movement of Mozart’s Requiem, Introitus: Requiem aeternam.
It is as if it had been written for my soul.
Sometimes when I am really stressed, I listen to it and in a second I have forgotten where I am. I am back in Prague.
My spirit is free to soar higher and higher. Like curling incense smoke, it follows the shape of Prague’s thousand spires and disappears high up in the snowy Bohemian sky.
Photo: thanks to Suzanne Salvo and salvoatlarge.blogspot.com
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