Mozart at Seventeen 

Claire Keyes 

I’d done it again: locked out of my car

that evening after the concert.

No friendly red salute as I flicked the unlock icon.

No keys and my stupid car remained indifferent

while I made the dreaded phone call

to my husband with the news

and could he come to the rescue.

The only bright thing that night was the symphony

Mozart composed at seventeen,

the year his father brought him to Vienna

to seek a position in the court of Empress Maria Theresa.

Only Salieri had won the keys to the court

and there was nothing for Amadeus.

So what does he do?

He attends the symphonies of Haydn,

glorious and inventive,

and over a period of weeks produces a music

filled with restless, angular melodies,

the oboe and flute freed into colorful bursts

that force the violins to yield. Only in the andante

does he settle into more introverted passions.

He was a teenager after all, destined

to trump Salieri, some say even Haydn.

Though he doesn’t know this at the time.

Maybe suspects it, so that three centuries later

as I was walking towards my car one evening

after a concert, fishing for my keys,

Mozart seemed to whisper: In clarity lies the serene.

....................................................

Yeah.

in clarity lies the serene

clarity

clearness or lucidity as to perception or understanding; freedom from indistinctness or ambiguity

serene

calm, peaceful, or tranquil; unruffled:

a serene landscape; serene old age