Amadeus

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

Without doubt, one of the most talented and creative geniuses the world has even seen in the field of western classical music.

He wrote his first full scale opera at the age of fourteen and had become a close favourite of the local monarch. His music is of such class that doctors advise pregnant women to listen to Mozart while they’re expecting – research claims that it makes babies more intelligent.

My father is what you can call a bonafide Mozart aficionado. So much that even I have probably had the good fortune of hearing hundreds of his compositions.

As I have mentioned several times before, my brush with western classical is all owed to him, and our trips to listen to the Royal Oman Symphony Orchestra (ROSO) at the Al Bustan Palace Hotel in old Muscat.

Last evening, they had organised a special selection dedicated to Mozart and it went without saying that we were a part of the audience. The ROSO played some of Mozart’s best known compositions and even one which he had composed at the age of thirteen.

As expected, it was a spectacular show mainly composed of string (Violin, Cello and Double Bass) and wind (French horn, Oboe and the Clarinet) instruments. I couldn’t keep my eyes off the violinists’ fingers and how nimbly they moved and what magic they created.

Guest composer, Simon Wright, correctly asked us all at the end of the performance – what were you doing at age thirteen?

If anyone is interested in Mozart and doesn’t wish to read up pages, try watching Milos Foreman’s eight times Oscar winning masterpiece – Amadeus.

For appetisers, here is a special track from the film, which was played yesterday. Symphony Number 25 in G Minor.