Lynda
McKinney Lambert is a retired fine arts and humanities professor from Geneva
College, Beaver Falls, PA. She
resides in a small village in western Pennsylvania with her husband, Bob, 4 cats
and 2 dogs. Lynda is the author of
Concerti: Psalms for the Pilgrimage, published by Kota Press. She writes
articles on the humanities, contemporary poetry and inspirational
human interest stories. Her teaching career took her to Europe each
summer where she taught drawing and writing to college students.
She also
taught a course in Puerto Rico every spring semester for the college. Lynda
loves to write, knit. and travel. She is a freelance
writer who specializes in essays and poetry. Currently, she is working on two
books for publication later in 2016. One is a book of essays and memoirs; the
other a book of poetry.
When I
Begin my Day with Mozart
I put the
morning coffee on to brew, and then reached for a CD of Mozart’s Violin Sonata
in B flat. The soft, slow opening lines of the Largo-Allegro began. A piano and
violin gracefully moved me to listen closely to this composition written
centuries ago.
There is
something compelling about Mozart’s music. The music takes me back in time-but
not to the time in the Eighteenth century when the music was first performed for
a royal audience. It is my own time. The music of Mozart became a core element
in my personal contemporary life. I remember my first days in
Austria.
When
Mozart first performed this original composition on April 29, 1784 in Vienna,
there was a surprising bit of information that came out of this special first
performance. It’s a unique
story that lies behind the music I am listening to today. In the audience that day was
Emperor Joseph II. During that
first performance, as Mozart played the piano, the Emperor made a discovery. He
saw the Mozart had blank sheets of paper up on the piano – because he had
arrived for his performance and had composed the piece in his mind, but had not
yet had time to write it down!
My first
trip to Austria was in the summer of 1991. It was a gift to me to celebrate the
completion of an important goal. I had finished my Master of Fine Arts (MFA)
degree.
Soon after
graduation, I arrived in Salzburg, Austria at the beginning of a celebratory
time for the city. I was just in time to join the festivities for the
200th anniversary of Mozart’s death. My month-long holiday was filled
with visits to special art exhibitions in palaces and museums – each one focused
on some aspect of Mozart’s life or music.
Yes! I was
hooked on Mozart! I walked through his birth house, and death house, and stood
inside the churches where Mozart once performed the music he had written for
services. I found the gravesites of his wife, Costanza, and other family
members. I purchased Mozart candy, wore Mozart T-shirts, and sent Mozart
postcards to my family and friends.
I had
enrolled in a drawing class and that is why I had come to Austria in the first
place. I created an entire body of
work on the theme of Mozart’s death and his music. I wrote continuously as I traveled and
viewed exhibitions and listened to concerts. I made many ink sketches on white
paper. I chose to do all the art works black and white, on paper. The works on
paper would make it easier for me to transport them back to the US when I left
Austria. After I was back home, I
put the work all together - it became a traveling art exhibition that appeared
in several states in museums and galleries. I called it, “Memory of a Requiem.”
Ten years
later my poems and reflections from that summer trip were part of a series of
poems and drawings that appeared in my book, “Concerti: Psalms for the
Pilgrimage.”
Before I
made that first trip to Austria, I was in graduate school pursuing my MFA
degree. I worked diligently during
those two intense years, and at times was so exhausted from working days and
nights in my research and writing. When I went back to my apartment for a rest
and meals, I often refreshed my mind by listening to Mozart’s music. I was
particularly drawn to his Requiem Mass because it echoed my own weariness. So,
at the end of this phase of my education, my visit to the city of Mozart’s birth
and death was a natural choice.
While in
Austria, I came to a conclusion about an intention for my own life. I realized I
had fallen in love with Austria - the culture of art and music, the people, and
the music of the masterful composers who lived in Austria over the centuries. I
intended to order my life in such a way that I would spend my summers there
every year. Of course, I had no idea how that would happen, or if it could
happen. (I had read about an idea of a “dreaming prayer” in a book by Catherine
Marshall). And that was my dream to return again many more times in my
future.
Eventually, my own professional teaching career began
when I accepted a tenure track position at a private college in western
Pennsylvania. During my first year
of teaching at the college, I created a course to take students to Austria to
study drawing and writing. The following year I was back in the city I love! I
had the joy of bringing students to Austria every summer ever year.
We lived
in a small village in the Alps. Most days we met early in the morning and
then traveled somewhere in the area to draw and write from the different places
we explored. It was my dream that became a reality. I shared this magnificent
city for a month-long sojourn each summer. On our weekends, we traveled together
to other countries, too. We climbed mountains and locked our arms together as we
skipped down steep mountain paths. We kept journals, wrote about the cultural
experiences we found, made drawings and paintings in the streets and mountain
paths, went to concerts, shopped and trekked our way through the new places we
found.
Gradually,
over the years, I began to realize that the seeds of what we love become the
life we live when we set our intentions in that direction.
Now, sitting here in my office typing up this essay, I
listen closely as the final piece of music comes to a conclusion. The piano and
the violin have been playing together as I write.
The violin
sonata plays on and I listen to the rapid notes of the piano moving of playfully
through the house in what seems like a race with the violin. I can envision a spring afternoon and
the violin and piano romping in the sunshine, chasing each other about on the
lawn. At times, it sounds like the piano takes the lead, yet, this is not the
case. The violin weaves through the many notes and in the end they are one. I listen as applause breaks out
immediately as the piano and violin strike the final note together.
At special
moments throughout my day, I just might hear a few bars of Mozart’s Violin
Sonata in B flat in my mind. And, at the end of the day, all I truly want is to
know that God and I have also ended up on the same note.
~Lynda McKinney Lambert
