Mozart and The Pope

Actually just before I log off and just before the day turns I have one last thought for Friday…

In case you’re reading this many months from now, today Friday April 8th 2005 was the day of the funeral of the late Pope John Paul II in Vatican City. I should be upfront on all of this and say that, like so many of my generation, I’m a spectacularly lapsed catholic with a quite strong belief in God and that’s why what happened to me yesterday made me pause for thought.

The lovely folk at Deutsche Grammophon (who don’t send me stuff ever unfortunately!) sent in a CD of The Pope celebrating mass in St Peter’s in 1985 with the immortal Herbert Von Karajan conducting the Vienna Philharmonic in Mozart’s Coronation Mass. Beautiful, haunting and, as I found out when I played it here at home, strangely moving.

To hear a man who, in his later years, had been so infirm and such an almost ethereal figure speaking (and singing!) a full mass in Latin almost brought tears to my eyes (although I’ve always been a sucker for the power of religious music – I could listen to Ariel Ramirez’s Misa Criolla all day long….)

I suppose we tend to forget what a charismatic, almost rock and roll figure he was in the early days of his papacy and I think to have that contrasted with the recent heart-rending images of a very sick man being wheeled out for partial public appearances was what caught me off guard. Felt the same way when I saw the supplement with the Irish Times today of candid and posed photos of the 1979 papal visit. Maybe it’s one of the reasons so many felt the need to grieve so publicly over the last few days…

It’s DG 463 292-2 if you’re interested…

R