Requiem

If Sundays are for the sacred, then surely spending an hour or so with opera and Mozart’s Requiem will count towards my score in heaven. Wandering through the house, I heard bits of it coming from the living room where my housemate watched the film Amadeus.

The film is about mediocrity, really - the mediocrity of the composer Salieri (the fictional character portraying real-life composer Franz Sussmayr) who pales in comparison to the great Mozart. The two characters continually oppose one another in both talent, desire, and virtue. Salieri has such desire, warped but sincere, while Mozart’s inane giggle is runner-up for the most enduring noise in the film; certainly it is the most annoying. But the former is doomed to a small place in musical history, while the latter grabs glory without even trying.

Does it matter, desire? Or discipline, or industry? Does any of it matter compared to sheer talent and genius, those things that are indefinable? Genius can be self-destructive, of course, but it cannot be constructed. And there is nothing left to follow genius, nothing but echos and empty pride.