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    Sun rays streaming through spring-green trees

    Mozart’s Music of Forgiveness

    By Marianne Wright

    June 25, 2014
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    • vashti sankar

      I never knew there were Christians who thought like I do. For years I associated with brutal and barbaric Christians who needed forgiveness and love from their evil deeds but did not extend it to children who made mistakes while growing up a process of life. My father a true example of Mozart words and music and a Christian who suffered injustice and yet live as a Christian.

    The Plough Music Series is a regular selection of music intended to lift the heart to God. It is not a playlist of background music: each installment focuses on a single piece worth pausing to enjoy.


    Mozart’s opera The Magic Flute whimsically portrays a cosmic contest between two forces: one of light, enlightenment, and love, represented by Sarastro, priest of the sun, and the other of darkness, craft, and vindictiveness, represented by the Queen of the Night. This contest comes to a head in scene three of the second act, where the Queen of the Night, furious that her daughter Pamina wishes to join Sarastro’s company, gives her a dagger and – singing at the highest pitch of excited anger and vocal range – commands her to kill him “else you will never again be my daughter.”

    She leaves, Sarastro enters, and Pamina begs him not to avenge himself against her mother. Sarastro responds with an aria of great beauty and incredibly low notes (the low E is at 3:40): only those who embrace love and forgiveness are worthy to be considered human.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vW9KsoW2ZT0

    In diesen heil’gen Hallen
    Kennt man die Rache nicht
    Und ist ein Mensch gefallen,
    Führt Liebe ihn zur Pflicht.
    Dann wandelt er an Freundes Hand
    Vergnügt und froh ins bess’re Land

    In diesen heil’gen Mauern,
    Wo Mensch den Menschen liebt,
    Kann kein Verräter lauern,
    Weil man dem Feind vergibt.
    Wen solche Lehren nicht erfreun,
    Verdient nicht ein Mensch zu sein.

    Within these holy halls
    Revenge is known to no one.
    And should someone fall,
    Love will guide him to duty.
    Then, on the hand of a friend, he will wander
    Cheerful and happy into a better land.

    Within these holy walls,
    Where each one loves the other,
    No traitor can lurk,
    Because each forgives the enemy.
    Whoever is not pleased by these teachings,
    Is not worthy to be a man.

    Contributed By MarianneWright Marianne Wright

    Marianne Wright, a member of the Bruderhof, lives in southeastern New York with her husband and five children.

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