JUST over two years ago, seventy-three
voices, including mine, and an orchestra
of thirty-one raised their voices, violins, violas, cellos, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, French horns, trumpets, trombones, and a timpani, making glorious music! There must have been a smile on Mozart’s face somewhere in the heavens as he heard Indians from Mumbai, Chennai and Sri Lanka, and musicians from the former states of the Soviet Union, soloists from Italy, all blending their talents together to form melodious harmony!
Not once did a tenor from India turn to another from Sri Lanka, or a soprano from Mumbai to one from Chennai, or soloist from India to an Italian and say, “Hey, that’s not how we sing here!” Instead, together they produced divine harmony! Music from around the world sounded the same: Voices sang same notes, same way! Music scores had same print, similar notations, quite often same numbered page. How unifying, the power of music! And as my ears still hear the awesome voices singing Mozart’s Requiem and his Coronation Mass, the instruments sensationally resounding in the auditorium, as my eyes still see the petite figure of conductor Coomi Wadia, producing divine harmony with such a diverse group, I ask but one question, “Why can’t it be so with the world?”
Mozart composed, with his mind filled with pictures of magnificence. He drew from those images of peace, of love, and with quill and ink made the divine, worldly for us. Can’t we who look for differences amongst our fellow men, raise our vision, and instead of seeing dissimilarities with our neighbour, differences of colour, unfamiliarity of language, and variation in worship, instead raise our glances like Mozart did, and feel same abiding peace and love, and gathering those grand emotional passions, raise our thoughts to a blending of glorious harmony?
Today, our world needs the harmony of Mozart. As presidents talk of building walls to shut others out, as leaders plant discord in the minds of communities, as men and women with bombs strapped on themselves or carrying sharp edged stones inflict injury, physical and mental on innocents, it is time to lift our eyes, so that, instead of producing screams of agony, shouts of vengeance, cries of anger, those same sounds will change, voices soften, tones sweeten, and divine music fill the world’s air!
’Twas just over two years ago, seventy-three voices and an orchestra of thirty-one raised their voices, violins, violas, cellos, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, French horns, trumpets, trombones, and a timpani and made glorious music! All blending to form melodious harmony! Let us, like them, raise our eyes, our minds, and imbibe the strains of glorious thought, flowing, blending, balancing, and producing a divine blend of worldly harmony! Let us together, in all that we say, think, and do, produce delightful music together..!
