Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - The Complete Masonic Music

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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - The Complete Masonic Music

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Mozart was admitted as an apprentice to the Viennese Masonic lodge called “Zur Wohltätigkeit” (“Beneficence”) on 14 December 1784. He was promoted to journeyman Mason on 7 January 1785, and became a master Mason “shortly thereafter”. Mozart’s position within the Masonic movement, according to Maynard Solomon, lay with the rationalist, Enlightenment-inspired membership, as opposed to those members oriented toward mysticism and the occult.. This rationalist faction is identified by Katherine Thomson as the Illuminati, a masonically inspired group which was founded by Bavarian professor of canon law Adam Weishaupt, who was also a friend of Mozart’s. The Illuminati espoused the enlightened, humanist views proposed by the French philosophers Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Denis Diderot. For example, the Illuminati contended that social rank was not coincident with nobility of the spirit, but that people of lowly class could be noble in spirit just as nobly born could be mean-spirited. This view appears in Mozart’s operas; for example, in The Marriage of Figaro, an opera based on a play by Pierre Beaumarchais (another Freemason), the lowly-born Figaro is the hero and the Count Almaviva is the boor. The Freemasons used music in their ceremonies, and adopted Rousseau’s humanist views on the meaning of music. “The purpose of music in the {Masonic} ceremonies is to spread good thoughts and unity among the members” so that they may “united in the idea of innocence and joy,” wrote L.F. Lenz in a contemporary edition of Masonic songs. Music should “inculcate feelings of humanity, wisdom and patience, virtue and honesty, loyalty to friends, and finally an understanding of freedom.” These views suggest a musical style quite unlike the style of the Galant, which was dominant at the time. Galant style music was typically melodic with harmonic accompaniment, rather than polyphonic; and the melodic line was often richly ornamented with trills, runs and other virtuosic effects. The style promoted by the Masonic view was much less virtuosic and unornamented. Mozart’s style of composition is often referred to as “humanist” and is in accord with this Masonic view of music. The music in this box includes not only those works which Mozart composed for Masonic ceremonies, but also thos which embody the Masonic spirit, even including works written for Catholic liturgy.