Let Us Help One Another To See Excellence (June 27, 2004)

If you ever rent the movie Amadeus, watch for the scenes where Salieri describes Mozart’s music. At one point Salieri tells a priest about a time when he looked at some sheet music Mozart had written. As the aged composer replays the notes in his head, he speaks with increasing rapture about the effect the music had on him. He says,

On the page it looked...nothing. The beginning: simple, almost comic. Just a pulse - bassoons, basset horns. Like a rusty squeeze box. And then, suddenly, high above it, an oboe. A single note, hanging there, unwavering. Until...a clarinet took it over. Sweetened it into a phrase of such delight. This was no composition by a "performing monkey." This was a music I had never heard. Filled with such longing. Such unfulfillable longing. It seemed to me I was hearing the voice of God.

What makes the scene so effective is that we hear the music as Salieri is describing it, and so we get to share his wonder. Without Salieri's commentary, we (or at least I) could not fully appreciate the glory of the music. But when he speaks of the oboe's unwavering note, and the clarinet's "sweetened phrase of such delight," we ourselves feel just how they convey that unfulfillable longing, and we agree that Mozart, despite himself, was inspired by God.

Praise excellence, especially when you have the gift of seeing it where others do not. When you give voice to your appreciation, you increase others' joy by enlarging their experience of what is good. My own experience of what is good has been enhanced by Bob Costas when he describes the brilliance of a Willie Mays' catch, or by Gary Wills when he traces the power of Lincoln’s phrasing in the Gettysburg Address, or by Michael Behe when he explains the complex design of a bacterial flagellum.

We ought to tell one another the things that we love, and why we love them, and how they fill us with wonder. Excellencies can lead the mind to contemplate God, for he is Father to all that is good and right and beautiful and sweet. Salieri was right: through Mozart's music we hear the voice of God. We can hear his voice in other things too, but need one another's help to detect it.