HORSES FOREGROUND

HORSES FOREGROUND

Another November sunset; a Thanksgiving evening sunset, and I stand watching the blue to amber sky reddening. My dogs are with me on the back barn-deck. We face the western glare and breathe the fresh, cold air. From the barn's loft the CD player is issuing Mozart's 40th symphony, -Molto allegro, Andante, Menuetto, Allegro. I play it as a tradition these days after the day is done and I climb to my normal station on the back deck with my dogs. To me, it is as Wolf Mozart once stated in a letter that summer while writing it, "for my lost, stolen childhood!" He was without money and it was not a historically popular time for the 'symphonic form'. It is said that Wolfgang Mozart wrote the last 3 symphonies of his life that long ago summer of 1788 in a time span of 6 to 8 weeks. He wrote them 'for himself' it has been evaluated as there was never a demand or a 'sale' documented regarding any of the last symphonic works.  

He wrote the complex and powerful 39th Symphony. Then he wrote his Symphony Number 40 proclaiming a fleeting childhood and youth. His last, and most notable, was the 'Jupiter' Symphony, (Number 41) which, again, one can hear the flaring, oscillating beauty of the notes as a certain challenge to mankind (and to all that will ever listen) to 'carry on without me!" Jupiter is a symphony that inspires and in the last movement (Molto allegro) one can hear the reluctance to 'finalize'. It is as though Mozart did not want this great piece of music to 'END'! There is still a great deal of conjecture on just why it was 'coined' the 'Jupiter'.  One theory is that the symphony was premiered on a clear, bright, star-filled night in London, England, with Jupiter as a dominant, brilliant heavenly body showing to all who attended that evening prior and after the hearing of it for the first time. But, this is only a guess on everyone's part. Anyway, this is of no real matter. The name just kind of fits as a monumental 'tag', -Jupiter; the great planet named after the Roman god 'Jupiter'. (All of this, at least, to my line of thinking) The first movement (Allegro vivace) of the Jupiter Symphony ascends upon the ears of the listener a barrage of images pertaining to that of a great and profound existence of something. What that great, powerful 'something is' can only be discovered by the person listening. The senses, heart and brain must talk to one another. Then, and 'only' then, can all of it be understood. 
But, it is the 40th Symphony that I have taken to habitually listening to each and every evening as the sun sets in the Missouri western horizon. I stand and become as lost in my thoughts as a person ever can. My Great Pyrenees Mountain dog (Cassidy) lies at my feet and my Yorkshire Terrier pal (Elijah) stands beside me. We watch the sky change and the air begins to buffet us a little more. The temperature is dropping quickly. In the distance across the browned pasture stand the horses grazing bathed in the final sunlight of the day. These horses standing peacefully in the foreground appear as mystical beings in a prolific painting done in oil, acrylic, any. (Plein Air) They lift their heads occasionally. The day surrenders. Mozart's notes circle about in the open air of the countryside. It is November. Winter has not yet arrived. But, winter is very near and approaching. I think of the happy things that took place over the course of the last year and I think of the tragic things that took place over the course of the last year also. I whisper aloud as I listen to the music and think all of the thoughts that I do, 'Thank god for Mozart.' I take a short drink from the bottle of 'Old Granddad' bourbon and feel the warming of it tumble down me as I swallow. I lift my can of beer and follow it with the very, cold liquid. The sky is a pink and crimson color now. The sun has dropped behind the brown-black tops of the trees shaped like scraggy, crooked arms and fingers. The breeze begins to speak. It communicates in a harsh voice. The beauty of the moment competes with it however.  I will stay and listen to all four movements of the symphony. "Always!" For I have my great fellows, -my dogs, on this Thanksgiving. I have health and I have the thought process of memory and evaluation. I can cheer and I can suffer. There is childhood and there is adulthood. One only has to live long enough to realize that there is really no difference between the two, that is, if you are lucky enough. I may have just lived long enough now to understand this. Mozart knew all along I believe. Listening to the great gifts of his notes and words left to us all I honestly believe he understood the meshing of childhood and adulthood. He only lived a short 35 years. But he knew. I'm certain of it. It has taken me 54 years to understand and grasp it, and because of it, -I do not give a damn about the serious sides of things. The horses graze and I ponder. And the sun sets. The dogs yawn. The breeze billows my outer clothing. The notes circle and circle still. "And a child shall lead them."

-RSC. Elijah, Missouri.