Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

By Karl Barth, John Updike and Paul Louis Metzger

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Release date: Dec 11, 2003
• ISBN: 9781498270854

Karl Barth

  (1886–1968) Karl Barth was professor of dogmatic theology at the University of Basel, Switzerland. He is considered by some to be the greatest Protestant theologian of the twentieth century and possibly the greatest since the Reformation. Among his most famous works are Church Dogmatics and The Epistle to the Romans.

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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

By

KARL BARTH

Foreword by

John Updike

Translated by

Clarence K. Pott

New Foreword by

Paul Louis Metzger

Translated from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, 1756/1956 © 1956 by Theologischer Verlag Zürich

Wipf and Stock Publishers

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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

By Barth, Karl

Copyright©1986 Theologischer Verlag Zurich

ISBN: 1-59244-436-9

EISBN: 978-1-4982-7085-4

Publication date 12/11/2003

Previously published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1986

English translation copyright ©1986, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

Foreword to the Wipf and Stock Edition

Barth was sometimes asked if his theology demanded a different master in music than Mozart. Barth’s response noted in this volume was emphatically, and characteristically to some, negative—Nein. Regardless of what one makes of Mozart, or of Barth’s view of him (his writer friend, Zuckmayer, found him rather one-sided at this point, and Zuckmayer was not alone), the reader gains a greater understanding of Barth’s theology through attention to his reflections on Mozart. For the evangelical Christian, Barth’s fascination with the Catholic and Freemason Mozart was by no means an anomaly that strikes a dissonant chord in Barth’s theological symphony. Rather, it resonates with the melodic line. Like a magic flute, Barth’s tribute to Mozart serves as a key to unlocking the door to the mysteries of Barth’s view of God’s ways with the world. So, what did Barth hear in Mozart’s music, and how did it resonate with his view of the Creator’s dealings with the creation?

The Protestant Barth—one of the twentieth century’s most prolific theologians—preferred Mozart to Bach with his Christian messages and Beethoven with his personal confessions. For Mozart "does not reveal in his music any doctrine and certainly not himself … Mozart does not wish to say anything: he just sings and sounds." Like Barth, his Mozart prized objectivity. Such objectivity freed Mozart to resound the secular praises of creation to the Creator.

Freedom within appropriate limits marked Mozart’s music, and Barth’s theology of the Word, too. Mozart’s operatic as well as church music served as the free counterpart to the particular word given Mozart. Barth’s dialectical theology of the Word serves as a free counterpart to Mozart’s music and as an appropriate response to revelation. For just as Mozart’s music leaves his listener free, so, too, Barth’s words are intended to free the reader to be truly human in view of the God who comes to us in His Word to free us from having to take matters into our own hands. Whereas Mozart’s music celebrates the wholly other and free God through attention to the creation in its freedom and otherness, Barth’s well-developed dialectical theology of the wholly other God revealed in His incarnate Word celebrates this God’s liberation of humanity and the whole of creation to a life of true creatureliness.

Mozart’s objectivity and freedom not only allowed Mozart to hear creation’s secular praises, but they also allowed him to be playful in his musical mastery with its iron zeal, and so be truly human. For Barth, God’s sovereign togetherness with humanity in Christ frees us to be human—nothing more and certainly nothing less—and so provides the space and time for us to be free to work and play and to

Reviews for Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

[trevor_f_3 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A small interesting book - how Barth so loved and appreciated Mozart - starting his day listening to his music.