He was a tiny, little man, probably standing around five feet tall, weighing little more than a hundred pounds, all hair and eyes--and by many accounts, all mouth as well, with opinions to spare.
He was also the nearest thing that ever lived to a truly magical human being.
Mozart was so much larger than life, so completely unique; no writer of fiction could have ever invented him, though many have tried to re-invent him over the years. Not even the most gifted and imaginative of authors could have dreamed up such a hero with such a life and such a great command of his special and private universe -- he could only have been real.
I hope that those of you who have toured the Mozart Cafe have been entertained, and I hope that my silliness has offended no one. Because as outrageously silly as I can sometimes get on the subject of Mozart, I assure you that I take him very, very seriously indeed.
He and I go back a long way together--from the time my grandmother played her old 78rpm recording of a Mozart piano sonata. She gave me a music box which played a now-forgotten Mozart melody while a genuine Dresden china lady in porcelain lace and panniers curtsied toward me. I played with the little figure until her delicate arms cracked off, and I was heartbroken. Then I played the music box until it wouldn't play any longer. I still don't recall the melody -- but I remember Grandma saying that it was also something by Mozart.
On some level or other, he has followed me over the years. I first heard the anecdotes about him in high school, where I was fortunate to have the world's greatest music history teacher--back in the days when high schools really taught something. I went to college with Mozart's operas in my head, and wore out my roommates with Gilbert & Sullivan, Puccini, and always Mozart. "Figaro" and "Zauberflöte" reigned supreme in my opnion. In fact, my first "professional" art commission was for a set of illustrations drawn for three of the Mozart operas.
Like so many others, I met the person of Mozart when the film "Amadeus" hit the screen and I was swept away.
Unable to sleep until I dug up the truth, I began to hit every library and bookstore I possibly could to get to the truth; to the real Mozart. I soon discovered what an impossible, daunting task I had taken on! There were more books, more magazines, more conflicting opinions that I was ever prepared for. My opinions changed and shifted with infuriating regularity as I continued my search, all the while listening to more and more of the most wonderful, soul-reaching music that God ever put into the heart and mind of any man. It was an excursion of pure magic.
I think it was around the time I went to Europe, back in 1991, that all of the research came together for me. I was able to walk in his footsteps; see the things he had seen, go to the places he had gone, touch the precious things he had touched. I saw letters, manuscripts, artifacts, buildings and gardens that boggled my mind and filled my imagination. The greatest regret, of course, was that I was all too often not allowed to take indoor pictures -- and, of course, that I didn't have enough time to stay. But in three weeks, I learned more about the real Mozart than in any of the dozens of books I had read as an armchair Mozartean. And by the time I was done, Mozart had become like a living, breathing member of my family whom I deeply adored and respected.
The Mozart Cafe came to me as a brainstorm, and it has been the most exciting part of my Mozart hobby to date. The idea of Special Agent K.007 also came to me in an odd moment of inspiration, allowing me to poke fun at the absurd, to educate through the outrageous, and to simply have a little fun. Artistically, I am a cartoonist and sometimes a writer. I can't play an instrument. I can no longer really sing. I have friends who can celebrate his music the way he himself would best understand it -- but since I cannot, I celebrate him in my own way, with the tools God gave me in which to do it.
In the end, Mozart is my hero, my muse, and one of my favorite "companions" in the temporal world
I also would like to take a moment to thank my very patient, beloved husband who has put up with my Mozart ramblings for the past twenty-five years, encouraging me and even laughing at my cartoons, and for understanding the special place the little wizard from Salzburg holds in my heart.
May all of your experiences with Mozart be happy ones, too.
...Daisy Brambletoes
"Here dwells happiness -- let no evil enter here."
Words found in a Roman mosaic at the foot of the statue in Salzburg's Mozart Square
