Maestri
Bach
Even he was just a baby once,
and throughout his infancy
caught hold of music by its wings,
feeding on heaven-sent manna,
learning the needed disciplinary things.
Nourished by inheritance
and family guidance, finding his way
through labyrinthine pathways of sound
he became the master of his art, till one day
his Sanctus would out-dazzle all others
as only later centuries found.
Bearing the weight of God-bestowed gifts,
an ocean flowing from his pen,
superhuman yet only human,
modest, homely,
fecund in flesh as well as in his art,
faith and family lived without taint,
how could he, whose mind dwelt
on earthly labours and Olympian heights,
also be a saint?
Mozart
The little trio,
Wolfgang, father Leopold,
sister Nannerl,
a craze in European circles,
the boy a curiosity
paraded before the VIPs,
becomes one who embraces the music
of humanity's conception,
speech and thought,
a glittering comet only once seen,
lightening-struck by gift of sounds
the world would come to know,
to understand and love,
its logic, balance, symmetry and melody
sung to him by cherubim and seraphim.
Even a nursery rhyme
he could make into something celestial,
all given in generous outpouring,
the mischief and zany humour
hiding his conversation with the divine.
Beethoven, 1809
Canon fire, Vienna under siege,
the tyrant storming through the city,
an inferno of fire and thunder,
everyone living in fear,
the composer hiding in a cellar!
Long gone his admiration
for the self-appointed emperor,
revolution betrayed,
no longer bliss to be alive.
Beethoven pens his farewell
to the Archduke in his sonata,
unable to suppress arising springs of sound,
seeking still to sing with us
of light and darkness,
what might have been and what is,
of capacity for sufferance.
If no other had appeared before or after,
All solace we could need lies in his utterance.