Mozart in Literature

Mozart in Thomas Hardy's poem and a novel by Chinese author Dai Sijie (trans. by Ina Rilka) Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress Literature

The information was sent to me by Terry McIntee, a friend from one of my early Mozart groups way back 2006.  I originally posted his email in my first classical music website CM Lounge. I'm republishing the content to share with Mozarteans and other Mozart enthusiasts. (Thanks a lot, Terry.)

Terry found a couple of things that connects Mozart to literature. He knows that I've always been most interested with any trivia relating to Mozart, including this musical genius's mention in books, movies, to about anything worth knowing.


The first is a poem by Thomas Hardy called: LINES to a movement in Mozart's e-flat symphony

It begins with : Show me again the time


              When in the Junetide's prime

              We flew by meads and mountains northerly! -

              Yea, to such freshness, fairness, fulness, fineness, freeness,

              Love lures life on.

There are another four stanzas, all with the same rhythm.

The second comes at the beginning of a great little novel called: Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Chinese author Dai Sijie (trans. by Ina Rilka)

It is 1971 during Mao's Cultural Revolution. The author, the 'I' of the story, has been sent, with his friend, Luo, both the sons of professional parents, to a village in the mountains for 're-education'. The headman and most of the villagers have come to inspect the newcomers. The headman examines the author's violin, decides it is 'a bourgeois toy,' and tells someone to burn it!

Luo pipes up: "Comrade, it's a musical instrument, and my friend here's a fine musician."

The headman holds the violin out for the author to play. The story continues -

"Forgive me, comrade," I said, embarrassed, 'but I'm not that good.'

I saw Luo giving me a surreptitious wink. Puzzled, I took my violin and set about tuning it.

"What you are about to hear, comrade, is a Mozart sonata,"  Luo announced.

I was dumbfounded. Had he gone mad? All music by Mozart or indeed by any other Western composer had been banned years ago. In my sodden shoes my feet turned to ice. I shivered as the cold tightened its grip on me.

"What's a sonata?" the headman asked warily.

"I don't know," I faltered. "It's Western."

"Is it a song?"

"More or less," I replied evasively.

At that instant the glint of the vigilant Communist reappeared in the headman's eyes, and his voice turned hostile.

"What's the name of this song of yours?"

"Well, it's like a song, but actually it's a sonata."

"I'm asking you what it's called!" he snapped, fixing me with his gaze. Again I was alarmed by the three spots of blood in his left eye.

"Mozart . . . " I muttered.

"Mozart what?"

"Mozart is Thinking of Chairman Mao," Luo broke in. The audacity! But it worked: as if he had heard something miraculous, the headman's menacing look softened. He crinkled up his eyes in a wide, beatific smile. "Mozart thinks of Mao all the time," he said.

"Indeed, all the time," agreed Luo.

As soon as I had tightened my bow there was a burst of applause, but I was still nervous. However, as I ran my swollen fingers over the strings, Mozart's phrases came flooding back to me like so many faithful friends. The peasants' faces, so grim a moment before, softened under the influence of Mozart's limpid music like parched earth under a shower, and then, in the dancing light of the oil lamp, they blurred into one . . .

Read the whole novel if you get the chance. It's really good.