MOZART’S DIE ZAUBERFLÖTE:

A KINGDOM OF NOTES AND NUMBERS

by

Daemon Garafallo

A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of

The Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of

Master of Arts

Florida Atlantic University

Boca Raton, FL

May 2016

Copyright 2016 by Daemon Garafallo

ii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author wishes to express his thanks to his committee members for their guidance, especially to his thesis advisor, Dr. Ken Keaton, for helping the author through a difficult time these past few years, and to Dr. Sandra McClain for going above and beyond in her dual role of committee member and academic advisor and for doing an excellent job at both. He also would like to acknowledge Dr. James Cunningham for his help and guidance throughout his degree.

iv ABSTRACT

Author: Daemon Garafallo

Title: Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte: A Kingdom of Notes and Numbers

Institution: Florida Atlantic University

Thesis Advisor: Dr. Ken Keaton

Degree: Master of Arts

Year: 2016

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart composed Die Zauberflöte in the last year of his life.

It was intended in part to glorify Freemasonry as a new Emperor, more hostile to the

Masons, took his office. After a brief survey of his life and works, this paper shows how

Mozart used number symbolism in the opera, and will equip the reader with an understanding of this as practiced by the Freemasons. Further, it will show how Mozart associated the characters of the opera with specific musical tones. It will expose a deeper understanding of the question of meaning in word and text in his opera.

v DEDICATION

This manuscript is dedicated to Harold Brown, a great teacher and a great friend.

Here’s to never stopping trying to find the meaning in music. It is also dedicated to my mother and sister whose support the last few years, among other things, meant finishing this degree.

vi MOZART’S DIE ZAUBERFLÖTE: A KINGDOM OF NOTES AND NUMBERS

I. INTRODUCTION AND LITERATURE SURVEY ...... 1

II. MOZART’S LIFE ...... 6

Mozart The Prince ...... 6

Mozart The Man ...... 11

Mozart The Freemason ...... 14

The Zoroastran Riddles ...... 17

Mozart’s Works ...... 18

IV. DIE ZAUBERFLÖTE ...... 33

Opera ...... 33

Background ...... 34

Synopsis ...... 36

Authorship Of The Libretto ...... 41

The Change Of Plan ...... 43

Freemasonry and Women ...... 44

V. DIE ZAUBERFLÖTE, MASONIC OPERA ...... 46

Political Allegory ...... 51

Fairy Tale ...... 52

Jungian ...... 53

VI. ANALYSIS OF DIE ZAUBERFLÖTE ...... 56

vii Structure of the Opera ...... 59

Characters as Tones ...... 63

Visual Representations in Die Zaberflöte ...... 71

VII. NUMBER SYMBOLISM AND DIE ZAUBERFLÖTE ...... 78

The Number “One” ...... 78

The Number “Two” ...... 79

The Number “Three” ...... 80

The Number “Four” ...... 81

The Number “Five” ...... 82

The Number “Six” ...... 83

The Number “Seven” ...... 84

The Number “Nine” ...... 85

The Number “Ten” ...... 85

VIII. INTERPRETING THE RESULTS ...... 87

The Overture ...... 87

A Pattern in the Opera ...... 87

The Number Three, Masonic vs. Catholic ...... 89

Papageno as the Great Architect ...... 90

IX. MOZART’S DEATH ...... 93

X. CLOSING ...... 96

XI. APPENDICES ...... 98

APPENDIX A ...... 99

viii APPENDIX B ...... 100

APPENDIX C ...... 101

APPENDIX D ...... 102

APPENDIX E ...... 103

APPENDIX F ...... 104

APPENDIX G ...... 105

REFERENCES ...... 106

ix FIGURES

Figure 1. Icosahedron viewed from an apex ...... 28

Figure 2. The tetraktys, 10 dots arranged in a triangle ...... 29

Figure 3. the section of the score where the three ladies save Tamino from the serpent ...... 65

Figure 4. "No. 3 Aria" showing vii/V chord on the word "love" ...... 67

Figure 5. Sarastro's “No. 10 Aria” showing F and BbM7 chords on the names Isis and Osiris ...... 69

Figure 6. “No. 14 Aria” the Queen of the Night's musical description of Sarastro's death ...... 71

Figure 7. Melodic description of the words in Sarastro's "No. 15 Aria" ...... 73

Figure 8. Melody notes from Sarastro's “No. 15 Aria”, "the seven-fold circle of the sun" ...... 74

Figure 9. Sarastro uses his weapon, "the seven-fold circle of the sun" ...... 76

Figure 10. The key centers of act 3a plotted on a circle of F-Major scale notes ...... 77

Figure 11. The trinity of the Catholic Church through Mozart's use of flats and sharps of act 1a ...... 91

Figure 12. Two-dimensional masculine triangle above three-dimensional feminine pyramid...... 92

Figure 13. The opening chords of the overture ...... 100

Figure 14. The key centers from the opening and the notes from "No. 14 Aria" around the notes of the C-minor scale compared to a priest's stole ...... 102

Figure 15. The banishing into eternal night in the finale ...... 104

x TABLES

Table 1. The Platonic solids associated with the four elements and numbers ...... 27

Table 2. Aria numbers as scale degrees ...... 62

Table 3. The numbers of pieces with the overture as No. 1 ...... 62

Table 4. Characters and ideas with associated chords...... 63

Table 5. The numbers and their associations ...... 86

Table 6. Characters and their number association ...... 86

Table 7. Characters, weaknesses, and saviors ...... 88

Table 8. Structure of the opera without counting the overture (1) and with counting the overture (2) ...... 99

Table 9. The numbered pieces and keys of Die Zauberflöte ...... 101

Table 10. the numbered pieces and keys divided by where the natural breaks in the plot occur ...... 103

xi I’d say that in opera the poetry must definitely be the obedient daughter of the music. … It’s because there the music reigns supreme and so you forget everything else. An opera is all the more likely to succeed when the plot is well worked out in advance and the words are written solely for the music, … I mean words or even whole strophes that ruin the composer’s whole idea. … The people who set to work in this pedantic manner will always come to grief, together with their music. – It is when a good composer who understands the theater and is himself in a position to offer his advice encounters that true phoenix, an able poet – there’s no reason then to be afraid of the applause of the ignorant. … If we composers were always to stick so closely to our rules (which were all well and good when no one knew any better), we’d produce music as worthless as their librettos. —Mozart to his father, October 13, 1781

xii I. INTRODUCTION AND LITERATURE SURVEY

The opera Die Zauberflöte is a symbolic work that was intended in part to glorify

Freemasonry. This came at a time in which Leopold II was emperor. He was more hostile to the Freemasons than his predecessor Joseph II. This paper explores how Mozart represents the drama of the opera in the music and it explores the use of Pythagorean number symbolism, because this is the known precursor to Masonic number symbolism. I will consider three questions: How did Mozart represent the drama in the music? What significance does number symbolism play in the drama? And finally how did he represent the number symbolism?

Beginning this exploration with Mozart’s life shows that as a child prodigy he was always thinking about music and he had an intense ability to focus. He also had a remarkable imagination, which included an imaginary kingdom. This was never forgotten throughout his life. In this kingdom he was the king.

He found in his father a mentor and longed to be a father himself. His father went to great lengths to assure his son got the best education. He also tried to make sure

Mozart was known by the aristocracy to help him get a job later as an adult. After his early days of traveling across Europe when it seemed he could do no wrong, his first steps out in the world were filled with grief. With the death of his mother, failed love, and failing to get a job he returned home defeated.

1 When he finally started life with a family of his own things weren’t any better. He relied on Freemasonry and on the people he met through becoming a member. Looking at his life as a Freemason, it becomes clear what being a Freemason meant to him.

Mozart had a longstanding preoccupation with riddles, wordplay, and secret languages. He applied this to his music in different ways. He used number symbolism that he probably learned through Freemasonry but had multiple ways he could have known about it, given that its origins go back to the same person who is responsible for the early knowledge we have about music, Pythagoras. Ancient Egypt also was a popular subject and with that came the subject of Pythagoras since he is known to have studied there.

Then this paper looks at his compositions and finds some patterns that he used his entire life and that are present in this opera. He was an innovator with form in his piano concerti, vocal works, as well as opera and other compositions. The exploration continues with a look at the history of number symbolism before considering the opera. It looks at how number symbolism was carried forward through time and adopted by Christians along the way. It also looks at ways works of art used number symbolism through the

Renaissance and Baroque.

There have been questions asked about the opera throughout its history. Was there a change of plan in the making of the opera? Who was the true librettist? How can the inconsistencies in the plot be explained? This paper finds that a change of plan was highly unlikely given the consistency of the work and, like Chailley suggests in his work

The Magic Flute, Masonic Opera; an Interpretation of the Libretto and the Music, if there was a change of plan it likely was when Mozart first received the libretto.

2 This author finds it likely that Chailley is correct in his assertion that Mozart was coauthor of the libretto. It seems likely that he was at least highly involved given how closely the words are tied to the music. Also there is his previous dealing with his librettist Stephanie in which he gives accounts of how the libretto of Die Entführung is changed to his liking. How much further did Mozart go with Schikaneder in the libretto of Die Zauberflöte almost ten years later?

The inconsistencies in the plot can be explained through music theory. Mozart was adamant that in opera the words should be secondary to musical considerations.

Some of those musical considerations are going to be explored.

Interpretations of the opera are plentiful. This paper explores some of them including, but not limited to, Masonic, political, and Jungian interpretations. The Masonic interpretation is by far the most widely accepted interpretation of the opera. This paper finds through its analysis additional evidence that supports that interpretation, including that Mozart seems to have hidden within the notes visual representations of the Jesuit priests and the Freemasons through the Queen of the Night’s aria and the structure of both acts.

Mozart associates the opera’s characters with tones. He did this through the first aria they sing and through the first chord they sing. How the chords respond is directly related to how the characters respond with their actions and words.

In this way the music paints the words and actions of the characters. Mozart played with how the meaning of the libretto coincided with the music to the point that he personified the musical tones. In doing this he is bringing us into his childhood’s

“Kingdom of Back” in which he was ruler, but now in the real world he has to prove

3 himself worthy of ruling. This is much like the Freemasons believed that one has to prove oneself worthy of holding an office in society rather than gaining it through birthright.

Through this opera he shows us his view of Freemasonry. It is a view that he holds in high esteem but it isn’t without its problems. Freemasonry, as an organization, still doesn’t allow women to join as equals to men. It is clear Mozart and Schikaneder were not of the same opinion as the established order of Freemasons. This can be seen as one of the reasons why he wanted to start his own secret society called “the Grotto.”

He used number symbolism in the opera through the number of sharps and flats in the key signatures, the number of the pieces, and the scale degree that the tones fall on in the overall key. The number symbols point out the role of the characters in the opera.

Most of the characters have only one role in the opera and show little if any character development with the exception of Papageno. Thinking in Jungian terms of all the characters as being of one mind and with the knowledge of Mozart’s childhood

“Kingdom of Back” the conclusion is drawn that Papageno is the only real person in this opera. The rest of the characters are only in his head. The interpretation of Papageno as the only real person in the opera leads this paper to explore Papageno as the Freemason’s

“Great Architect of the Universe.” It completes its journey with Mozart’s final days and the joy that Die Zauberflöte brought him shown through his words and actions at the end of his life.

This author found the text Number Symbolism by Christopher Butler (1970) to be most helpful in learning about number symbolism. He also found the text Medieval

Number Symbolism, its Sources, Meaning, and Influence on Thought and Expression by

Vincent Hopper (1938) helpful. These writings were essential in the process of

4 uncovering the number symbolism in Die Zauberflöte.

The Magic Flute, Masonic Opera; an Interpretation of the Libretto and the Music by Jacques Chailley (1977) also was instrumental in leading the author to his conclusions about number symbolism in Die Zauberflöte. Also helpful was W.A. Mozart, Die

Zauberflöte by Peter Branscombe (1991) and The Operas of Mozart by William Mann

(1971). This author owes the findings in this paper in part to these authors.

5 II. MOZART’S LIFE

He would think out a kingdom for himself as we traveled from one place to another, and this he called the Kingdom of Back [das Königreich Rücken] …He was the King of this land – and this notion became so rooted within him, and he carried it so far, that our servant [Sebastian Winter], who could draw a little, had to make a chart of it, and he would dictate the names of the cities, market towns and villages to him. —Marianne von Berchtold, Anecdotes About Mozart Published in Leipzig (Solomon 1995)

Mozart The Prince

Joannes Chrysostomos Wolfgang Amadeus Theophilus Gottlieb Mozart was born

January 27, 1756, at 8:00 pm in Salzburg, now part of Austria. He was named Joannes

Chrisostomos after the saint on whose name day he was born and Wolfgang after his maternal grandfather (Solomon 1995, 37). He was one of two children out of seven in his family to live past infancy (Abert 2007, 18-9). The other surviving child, his older sister nicknamed Nannerl, was born Maria Anna Walburga Ignatia Mozart on July 30 or 31,

1751 (Solomon 1995, 37).

Wolfgang was a bright, happy, and loving child who always required words of approval from those around him. Johann Andreas Schachtner, a friend of the Mozarts during Wolfgang’s youth, said that Wolfgang would ask him profusely if Schachtner loved him, and would begin to cry when Schachtner “just for fun” would say no

(Solomon 1995, 5-6).

6 His sister, Nannerl, started piano lessons when she was seven. Wolfgang was only three years old at the time and showed a great interest in the keyboard. When he was four years old he learned minuets. His father proudly wrote, in the collection of pieces he gathered for the purpose of the children’s musical education, that Wolfgang learned them

“in half-an-hour!” (Solomon 1995, 38).

Music was so interesting to him that it’s all he seemed to think about. Johann

Andreas Schachtner wrote, “even children’s games had to have a musical accompaniment if they were to interest him” (Solomon 1995, 39). To say that he loved music seems to be an understatement. Nannerl confirms this, “in drawing and adding he showed much skill, but, as he was too busy with music, he could not show his talents in any other direction”

(Solomon 1995, 39).

Wolfgang’s father, Leopold, readily recognized and nurtured his talent for music, but that he saw an opportunity in Wolfgang for greatness and neglected his own career to live only for his sons, isn’t true (Abert 2007, 5). As a child prodigy, he and his sister played for royalty and the aristocracy. They were lavished with attention and gifts and the

Viennese court was amazed (Anderson 1966, 5) as the emperor called him a “little magician” at the keyboard (Solomon 1995, 41). Leopold took them around Europe to perform and start building a name for Wolfgang so they would know him later on when he was starting his career (Abert 2007, 27).

His father was responsible for Wolfgang’s musical and religious education as a child. It’s not known where or if he studied at an actual place for his general education

(Abert 2007, 67-8). His musical education is largely known through a collection of pieces his father had made for him to study. This was customary for the eighteenth century.

7 Three groups are contained within the pieces Leopold collected for him. The first and largest is German folksongs. The second is a compilation of “fashionable music,” like works of Domenico Scarlatti. The third group is of French inspired dance movements

(Abert 2007, 24-5).

As Catholics, religion was very important to the Mozarts. Wolfgang surrendered to his father’s ethical rule until he was ready to marry and start his own family (Abert

2007, 343-4). Leopold had remarkable self-discipline that Wolfgang learned through watching (Abert 2007, 7). Wolfgang showed this through his remarkable work ethic that is obvious to anyone who reads his letters. It is known that his religious life was very important to him, at first, when he was young, as a Catholic. His later devotion to the ideal of Freemasonry overlapped Catholic concerns for justice and truth.

As far as the rest of his education, it is not known where he studied. Through what is known of the letters, he was quite brilliant and he threw himself completely into anything he studied. Schachtner writes in a letter dated April 24, 1792, “Whatever he was given to learn occupied him so completely that he put all else, even music, on one side; e.g. when he was doing sums, the table, chair, walls, even the floor were covered with chalked figures” (Abert 2007, 20).

That Wolfgang was proficient in math is well known and this needn’t be thought as being separate from music. In the Middle Ages mathematics, music, theology, and astronomy were treated as one discipline (Butler 1970, xi-xii). This was especially the case with the ancient Greeks, specifically Pythagoras, who believed that everything was essentially a number (Butler 1970, 3-5).

It is no doubt he would have heard about Pythagoras in some capacity, given that,

8 among other things, Pythagoras was responsible for discovering the harmonic series.

(Butler 1970, 4-5) He also was well versed in Greek myth, as most people were at the time, and as a young person even composed an opera on one myth entitled Apollo et

Hyacinthus (Zaslaw and Cowdery 1990, 42).

From June 9, 1763, to November 29, 1766, the Mozarts took a trip performing and composing throughout Europe. It’s referred to as “the grand tour” (Solomon 1995,

43). Among the cities they traveled included Frankfurt, Germany; Paris, France; London,

England (Abert 2007, 43-54); and throughout Italy including Verona, Milan, Florence,

Rome, and Naples (Solomon 1995, 77).

It was in Frankfurt that Johann Wolfgang von Goethe the writer and poet first heard Wolfgang Mozart play and in Paris Nannerl had said that Wolfgang was better than the best virtuosos among the Parisians. Opera was favored by the Parisians over instrumental music and therefore had the attention of the Mozarts while there. In Paris,

Wolfgang was said to be “the greatest Prodigy that Europe or that Human Nature has to boast of.” This all while Wolfgang was only seven years of age (Abert 2007, 35-42).

At that time in history any German who wanted to be a famous composer would have had to study in Italy. Therefore Leopold included, in their travel plans, an emphasis on the Italian cities (Abert 2007, 122-3). Wolfgang was set up with opera commissions while both children continued to play for royalty and the aristocracy (Solomon 1995, 77-

94).

Italian dominance was well established over opera and in German courts they played Italian operas as well as had Italian poets. In fact the Italian dominance over music

9 in general in Germany came to an end mostly as a consequence of Mozart’s Die

Zauberflöte as well as the influence of Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) (Abert 2007, 122-3).

On the Italian journey he gained the experience of hearing different operas first hand and had access to the best orchestras of the day. He composed songs for famous singers, music for the best symphonies, string quartets, masses for churches, and music for opera companies. He had many successes especially from his operas (Abert 2007,

126-43). Wolfgang also came in contact with many different people on the grand journey, people of different social classes and backgrounds. Now he could see for himself what the people he depicted in his operas were actually like (Abert 2007, 146-51).

After listening one day to Gregorio Allegri’s Miserere at the Sistine Chapel,

Wolfgang wrote out, from memory, the entire work. Works played there were closely guarded from being stolen and when a member of the choir heard what Wolfgang did, he told the Kapellmeister and as a result, instead of excommunication and imprisonment, the

Pope awarded him the Chivalric Order of the Golden Spur for his musical abilities (Abert

2007, 126-143).

The Mozarts’ travels must have a profound effect on young Wolfgang. They were living in this world always in the favor of kings, the pope, the aristocracy, as well as the general public, able to do no wrong. What an extraordinary adventure for a young person to spend three years traveling around Europe, from the age of seven to ten. To spend those years in everyone’s favor, he must have felt like a prince.

The quote at the beginning of this chapter, given by his sister years after his death, gives us some insight into the inner workings of his mind. He was already planning for the day he would reign over his kingdom.

10 Leopold was worried when they were to return home that he might not have a job.

He had extended the grand tour way longer than originally planned and for the deputy

Kapellmeister to take off and travel around Europe in search of fame and fortune was unheard of. Now he had to return to Salzburg hoping that they would understand and to his relief they did. He not only brought fame for Wolfgang but also for Salzburg and for that they were grateful (Solomon 1995, 67-8). Wolfgang returned to a post of concertmaster for the Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg— a post he received before he left for the grand tour (Abert 2007, 146-51).

Mozart The Man

Next to God comes Papa was my motto or axiom as a child, and I still cling to it. —Mozart to his father, March 7, 1778

In September 1777 Mozart left his position as concertmaster to go out in the world and find a position at one of the other courts. He returned to Salzburg unsuccessful a year-and-a-half later. Maximilian III Joseph, Munich’s elector, later summed up the probable reason why Mozart didn’t find a job. He said that Mozart was inexperienced and still had to establish his reputation (Solomon 1995, 137-9).

Mozart left for his trip with his mother as chaperone because his father, Leopold, couldn’t get the time off from the Salzburg court. They left him home with Nannerl. They passed through Augsburg on their way to Mannheim from Munich and got there on

October 26, 1777. They remained in Mannheim for five months (Solomon 1995, 137).

Here in Mannheim Mozart fell in love with Aloysia Weber, with whom he was spending

11 more and more time and neglecting his composing. The Webers were friends of the

Mozarts and Mozart felt a kinship between their family and his. He delayed going to

Paris long past what his father felt was appropriate. He wasn’t obtaining work and therefore should move on (Abert 2007, 387-441).

That Mozart’s parents didn’t want him to marry seems evident by their letters.

The reasons why could be that they were concerned about his ability to support a family or a more selfish concern could have been that they wanted to keep him forever young and under their control as suggested by Solomon (Solomon 1995, 177-86). Whatever their true reasons were, their claim that Aloysia was taking advantage of their son in time turned out to be true (Abert 2007, 527-34). For now, he wasn’t about to go against his father’s wishes and had to listen to the command he gave, “Off with you to Paris!”

(Anderson 1966, 478).

When mother and son arrived in Paris on March 24, 1778 (Solomon 1995, 137),

Mozart was expecting it to be like when he was younger. Unfortunately for him, Paris didn’t treat him as well as it did before, because now he wasn’t a child prodigy and his abilities, although great, were not so extraordinary for a grown man (Abert 2007, 445-52;

493-5). Like Maximilian III suggested he would have to prove himself.

In Paris Mozart’s mother, Anna Maria Mozart, died on July 3, 1778. Mozart wrote to a friend of the family asking him to prepare his father for this news in person

(Abert 2007, 527-34). Leopold blamed Mozart at first for Anna Maria’s death saying that he was neglectful in taking care of her. He also said that she was in Paris because of her concern for Mozart’s loyalty to his family, referring to his falling in love with Aloysia.

12 Mozart naturally disputed these accusations but they must have left him feeling guilt on top of his grief (Solomon 1995, 177-86).

Mozart was unsuccessful in getting a job with the courts as had been planned and his mother’s death left him longing to see the rest of his family (Abert 2007, 527-534).

He would have started his career away from Salzburg as a freelance composer but his father claimed that they, Leopold and Nannerl, could not get by without Mozart. Leopold said they had incurred a lot of debt over the recent month from the trip and that Mozart had “owed them this much” (Solomon 1995, 137-9). Even though he hated Salzburg, out of a sense of obligation to his family, he returned on January 15, 1779, (Abert 2007, 527-

534) to except a position as court organist to the archbishop of Salzburg (Solomon 1995,

137-40).

After a few years of staying in Salzburg and working for the courts, Mozart was getting tired of the way the archbishop was treating him. He was also tired of the people.

Besides Salzburg didn’t have much in the way of good musicians or a theater. Against his father’s wishes, had given his letter of resignation in May 1781. The letter was eventually accepted and he was free to move to Vienna (Abert 2007, 561), “the land of the clavier

[keyboard]” as he called it (Anderson 1966, 739).

When he first arrived in Vienna he stayed with his old friends, the Webers, renting a room from them. The Webers had moved to Vienna to be close to Aloysia after she got work there. Aloysia was married to Joseph Lang an actor. Mozart now fell in love with another Weber, Constanze (Abert 2007, 686).

They were married on August 4, 1782, without his father’s consent that he asked for repeatedly. His father finally gave in and sent his consent, which arrived by letter

13 three days after the wedding. (Abert 2007, 695-8) Mozart and Constanze had two surviving children, Karl Thomas and Franz Xaver Mozart (Solomon 1995, 266).

On a number of his marriage documents Mozart put the name Wolfgang Adam

Mozart. Solomon talks about how Mozart was, through his marriage, making a connection between himself and the first man of the Bible (Solomon 1995, 277-83).

Mozart the family man worked to make his way in the world by all means at his disposal: composing, performing, and teaching, although he disliked teaching. He had now to prove he was capable of competing in a key European market. His performing and composing took precedence and he performed much more than was the usual amount

(Solomon 1995, 285-305).

After Mozart finally achieved some success through his opera Die Entführung aus dem Serail, he still hadn’t received a job with the courts of Vienna. He was thinking of moving to Paris, and later England, but listened to his father’s advice to stay in Vienna.

Eventually, he was awarded an appointment with the courts as chamber musician. It had a beginning salary that didn’t allow Mozart the freedom to quit his other ventures, but at least it was a salary. His father didn’t live long enough to see Mozart get this appointment though. He died on May 28, 1787 (Abert 2007, 702-6).

Mozart The Freemason

As death, when we come to consider it closely, is the true goal of our existence, I have formed during the last few years such close relations with this best and truest friend of mankind, that his image is not only no longer terrifying to me, but is indeed very soothing and consoling! —Mozart to his father, April 4, 1787

14 According to the Masonic Lodge of Education website, Freemasonry claims its roots going back to the mason guilds of the middle ages. The compass and square is their symbol indicating an analogy between the construction of a man’s morals and the construction of a physical building.

Principals that Freemasons hold as important are the following: self-improvement, social equality, individual liberty, religious freedom, democratic government, schooling for everyone, and philanthropy and volunteerism. The letter G in the symbol stands for

“geometry under the Great Architect of the Universe,” the G in “geometry” as well as in

“Great Architect of the Universe.” The previously mentioned website also talks about the letter G in different languages (http://www.masonic-lodge-of-education.com/freemasons. html).

Freemasonry was a powerful force in the life of Mozart. Not many letters remain where he speaks of it because they were all destroyed. Secrecy was of the utmost importance to the eighteenth-century freemason and is still today. As part of the vow to join freemasonry, initiates are made to say that they keep the secrets of the Freemasons

“under the Penalty of having my Throat cut, or my Tongue pull’d out of my Head”

(Landon 1988, 132).

In the Eighteenth Century, Freemasonry was under attack mostly because of the connection between Freemasons and the numerous revolutions happening. The American

Revolution had already happened in 1776, most of the leaders of the revolution were

Freemasons, and the French Revolution was underway by the time of Mozart’s death in

1791 (Abert 2007, 774-82).

The Catholic Church also wasn’t in favor of Freemasonry since 1738 when Pope

15 Clement XII issued a papal bull against the Masons (Henry 1991, 4). However, there were plenty of Catholics in Freemasonry (Abert 1995, 776). According to the Masonic

Lodge of Education website, it is stated that Freemasonry actively separates itself from religion. In this way people from every religion can become a Freemason.

There are three stages of membership. Mozart joined freemasonry with the first stage, apprentice mason, on December 14, 1784, (Solomon 1995, 321-2) into the lodge

Zur gekrönten Hoffnung im Orient in Wien (Abert 2007, 777). He became a Journeyman, the second degree of Freemasonry, on January 7, 1785, and finally he became a Master

Mason, the third and final stage, shortly after that (Solomon 1995, 321).

The fact that many members of his lodge were members of the aristocracy and therefore well off financially must have been incentive for Mozart to join. Other than this reason, Abert says that the Catholic Church couldn’t satisfy him any longer and he had a

“desire ... to separate faith from the superficialities of the church service” (Abert 2007,

774-82).

Mozart’s dissatisfaction with the Catholic Church was expressed often since he was a child in his distaste for priesthood “for a priest is capable of anything” (Anderson

1966, 849). He undoubtedly received this attitude from his father who, although a strict

Catholic, was in favor of the disbanding of the Jesuit monasteries as well as the nunneries

(Solomon 1995, 328).

Abert says, in regard to his search for something more, Mozart found that “a close personal relationship with God was his relationship with his brother and fellow human being” (Abert 2007, 777). Mozart would have found this relationship in his fellow

16 Freemasons. They helped him throughout the rest of his short time on this earth, if only financially and artistically, before he met that “best and truest friend of mankind,” death.

The Zoroastran Riddles

Mozart had a love his entire life of word play, codes, and encrypted messages as well as secret languages and societies. He even learned sign language and this was certainly part of his attraction to Freemasonry (Solomon 1995, 344).

The reasons for his intrigue with secret languages and coded messages can in part be attributed to when he was a child the family coded their messages in their letters. This was because at that time of kings and aristocracies if a letter ended up in the wrong hands where they were saying something deemed not proper it could be very bad for the social standing of the family, to say the least, maybe even their lives. He also was a genius and it probably gave him pleasure to out smart people through these riddles.

Mozart sent a series of these riddles to his father in 1786 called the Zoroastran riddles. These riddles had simple solutions but they also had more complex solutions, though often the person solving them would come to the easy conclusion and stop. The more complex solutions of these riddles had sexual connotations. Solomon says that

Mozart was daring his father to solve them (Solomon 1995, 338-45).

Solomon makes a connection between these riddles and Die Zauberflöte in that

Sarastro was the “reincarnation” of Zoroaster. Chailley also make a connection and says that it has been accepted for a long time that Sarastro originated from Zoroaster (Solomon

1995, 338-45; Chailley 1971, 101).

Zoroaster lived in Persia about 900 B.C. His teachings had to do with free will

17 and the concepts of aša (the truth) and druj (the lie) and he believed people had the choice to choose between aša and Druj, and that it was mankind’s purpose to sustain aša by participating in life (Encyclopedia Britannica 2016, “Zoroaster”).

Solomon says that “we sense that many of Mozart’s long-standing preoccupations merge to create the carnival riddles (Zoroastran riddles) of 1786” (Solomon 1995, 344).

That they were long-standing preoccupations tells us that Mozart putting “riddles” to be solved in the opera Die Zauberflöte is likely.

There were eight riddles and fourteen proverbs. The pieces of the first act of Die

Zauberflöte were eight in number. Because there is thought to be a missing piece in the second act (see No. 11a The Missing Piece in chapter X), there should be fourteen pieces in that act. 8+14 = 22 which is the same number of pieces as riddles in total. Thinking of the first act as the riddles and the second act as the proverbs makes sense because of the lies the Queen tells at first and the confusion caused by them. This is further evidence that there is a connection between the two.

Mozart’s Works

Mozart composed hundreds of instrumental works over the period of his short life; among them are sacred works, works for piano, chamber music, symphonic music, sonatas, and concertos. He was and is still today thought to be both a great composer of opera and a great composer of instrumental works. The great operatic composers (Verdi,

Wagner, Puccini, Rossini) and the great instrumental and song composers (Beethoven,

Schubert, Chopin, Schumann, Liszt, Brahms) are for the most part a separate group; only

Mozart achieved real distinction in both areas.

18 Mozart also saw a chance to network through Freemasonry as a composer. This can be seen by the multiple works he composed for the brotherhood including vocal pieces K. 468, written to commemorate the second stage of Journeyman, K. 471, written in honor of Ignaz von Born, and K. 484, for the commemoration of a new lodge (Zaslaw and Cowdery 1990, 36-9).

He also wrote more than eighteen piano sonatas mostly for specific people, usually for teaching purposes. In some of these piano sonatas he uses, as part of the overall structure, the III chord or V/vi but moves directly to the I in the recapitulation without going through the dominant. He used this method very often in the key of F-

Major, K. 280, first and third movements, and K. 332, first movement, are among two examples (Beach 1983, 1-2). As Beach points out, this shows he made associations with certain keys, specifically the key of F-Major with the A-Major chord, but he also used this method in his piano sonata in Bb, K. 333 first movement. That means he made an association with the key of Bb-Major and the D-Major chord also, though less frequently

(Beach 1983, 1-2).

These associations can be found from early on in his life since piano sonata, K.

280 was written when he was eighteen years old. But he used it throughout his life and it crossed over to his string quartets as in Quartet in F, K. 590 (Beach 1983, 1-2). These associations, though it’s not known exactly what they are, also cross over, as will be shown, to the structure of Die Zauberflöte, though in a slightly different way.

Mozart composed multiple kinds of chamber music including six string quartets dedicated to Haydn. Haydn was instrumental in bringing to maturity the genre of string quartet (Abert 2007, 845-69). He also composed other string quartets (including the

19 Hoffmeister and Prussian quartets), string quintets, piano quartets, and divertimenti and other works for various combinations of instruments.

Also among his compositions are violin concertos and wind concertos including his clarinet concerto in A, K. 622, but he is most noted for his piano concertos. Mozart brought the piano concerto to an aesthetic level equal to the symphony and with it he forged a path that all successful pianist have followed since. He composed them mostly for himself and students to perform and he performed them often in Vienna through subscription concerts. He composed twenty-one solo concertos for keyboard of which the seventeen composed in Vienna are the most significant (Zaslaw and Cowdery 1990, 114-

34).

From his first seven keyboard concertos, which were assignments from his father to take material from keyboard sonatas and turn them into keyboard concertos, he showed brilliance (Zaslaw and Cowdery 1990, 119). He most likely used the aria as a guide to develop the piano concerto form. The aria was already a recognized way of dealing with the tutti and solo instruments (Irving 2003).

There can be made connections between his piano concerti and his arias and cantatas. His aria “Ah se il crudel periglio” from act II of Lucio Silla, K.135 (1772) and

Piano Concerto no. 6 in Bb, K.238 (1776). Both include an opening tutti lasting for thirty- three bars; the tutti contains a variety of thematic material; and after a strong tonic opening arrives at a half cadence on the dominant (Irving 2003). There also can be made a correlation between the cantata Exultate, jubilate, K.165 and the concerti in general.

The cantata is basically the same as a concerto for voice with its orchestral exposition, cadenza, and fast-slow-fast movements (Keaton 2014).

20 The concerto’s first movement was not always written exclusively in sonata form.

Donald Tovey in Essays in Musical Analysis. Vol. iii; Concertos argues that many discrepancies exist within the forms. For example, in Piano Concerto no. 25 in C, K.503

I. there is no movement out of the tonic key during the tutti’s exposition and that exposition lasts a while before the solo piano comes in. This creates tension relieved by the solo instrument (Tovey 1936). This happens in Die Zauberflöte also, the creating of tension through restricting keys for a long time.

K.413 – 15 are piano concerti written for orchestra or string quartet and piano.

Mozart describes them in a letter as “a happy medium between what is too easy and too difficult: … There are also passages here and there from which connoisseurs alone can derive satisfaction; but these passages are written in a way that the less discriminating cannot fail to be pleased” (Anderson 1966, 833).

Mozart also composed more than fifty symphonies (Zaslaw and Cowdery 1990,

162-3) including the final “three great symphonies,” K. 543, 550, and 551 in 1788 (Abert

2007, 1115-22). The symphony number thirty-nine in Eb-Major, K. 543 is, of the three, the least analyzed. It has four movements and was written to be played without oboes.

Symphony number forty in G-minor, K. 550, is next. There are differing opinions about its connotations; some say it was about “unhappy love” and others say it has “lightness and grace.” The third of the mentioned symphonies was number forty-one in C-Major, K.

551. It was given the title Jupiter posthumously (Zaslaw and Cowdery 1990, 208-15).

Throughout his life he was a prolific composer who wasn’t afraid to experiment with form. The associations he made with specific keys crossed over between different

21 instruments and forms. There was crossover also between his vocal music and instrumental music with both form and lyrical content.

The quote at the beginning of the paper is taken from a letter Mozart wrote to his father from Vienna dated October 13, 1781. In the letter Mozart was talking about the libretto of Die Entführung aus dem Serail. He sounds off on a topic that has been around since the beginning of opera and his position is quite clear. He was a believer that the music came before the text of the libretto.

Mozart started composing opera from the age of twelve. He had longed to write a

German opera since as early as 1777 in Munich (Abert 2007, 388-9). Now with Die

Entführung he had his chance and persuaded Gottlieb Stephanie, the librettist, to make changes based on his music (Abert 2007, 658-65).

Among his choice of changes that he was to dictate to Stephanie included the following: turning a monologue into an arietta, changing a spoken dialogue into a duet, and adding two arias where previously there were none. Because he wanted a quintet at the end of act II, “an entirely new plot must be introduced” (Anderson 1966, 768-70).

Even nine years before Die Zauberflöte Mozart knew what he wanted and had a librettist who would give it to him. The opera Die Entführung aus dem Serail was a success.

Die Entführung showed at the Burgtheater, which showed German works exclusively in its repertoire (Zaslaw and Corderay 1991, 55-6). In 1788 the Burgtheater stopped showing German operas in favor of Italian operas. Since it had been the only source of

German operas, the general public no longer had access to them (Zaslaw and Corderay

1991, 65-6).

Mozart’s librettist for the three great Italian operas was Lorenzo da Ponte: le

22 nozze di Figaro (1786), Don Giovanni (1787), and Così fan tutte (1790). However, even though Figaro and Don Giovanni were very successful Mozart wouldn’t get another commission to compose operas from the Viennese court (Landon 1988, 122). This was due not so much to a lack of popularity of his works, but Vienna was in a recession, and there was not money to commission a new work from a major composer.

At the beginning of 1790 the emperor, Joseph II, died and Leopold II replaced him. Leopold II didn’t like Mozart or his music. (Zaslaw and Cowdery 1990, 65-6) Also,

Antonio Salieri was the Kapellmeister for the Viennese Court who also didn’t like

Mozart, though more from professional jealousy than personal distaste. (Landon 1988,

122) This loss of opera commissions came at a bad time. The composer was badly in debt and his wife was sick (Zaslaw and Cowdery 1990, 65-6). Mozart desperately needed work

23 III. THE HISTORY OF NUMBER SYMBOLISM

As previously stated, Mozart became a Freemason in 1784. The Freemasons are known for their secret ways as well as their tendency to include number symbolism in their rituals. They came from a tradition of the craft guilds and claim origins going back to the building of the pyramids in Ancient Egypt. Therefore in exploring Mozart’s

Masonic works an exploration of number symbolism is necessary.

There have been thousands of books written in the last 4500 years on number symbolism, usually written on the topics of theology or philosophy. Until the Seventeenth

Century, the study of number symbolism, cosmology, mathematics, and theology in the western world were the same discipline. Number symbols were carried forward thousands of years from early man into the Baroque era and still today are being updated and used in art, theology, psychology, and many other disciplines.

The number symbolism from earliest times are more universal than today.

Number symbolism from this earlier time rarely contradicts any of the later connotations.

The symbols move from the concrete to more abstract, like teaching arithmetic by using oranges (You have two oranges and take away one orange.) It is likely early man did not have words for numbers at first but used the word marriage for the number two, as one example (Hopper 1938, 3-11).

It is believed the Babylonians were the first to actually have a comprehensive number symbolism. They used astrological phenomena as the basis of their number symbolism. The Creation Epic, written during the First Babylonian Dynasty (2225 –

24 1926 BC), describes how they divided up the phases of the moon into 4 phases of

7 days. The estimated solar year of 360 days gave them twelve months of thirty days each. This created the astrological numbers four, seven, and twelve as well as others

(Hopper 1938, 12-32).

In ancient Greece a separate form of number symbolism called Pythagoreanism started, named after Pythagoras (580? – 500? BC), its originator. Although none of his writings remain, Pythagoras’ philosophical beliefs surrounding numbers can be reconstructed through other people’s writings. Aristotle (384 – 322 BC) examines

Pythagoreanism in his Metaphysica:

The first to take up mathematics… [They] thought its principles were the principles of all things. Since of these principles numbers are by nature the first… since, again, they saw that the modifications and ratios of the musical scales were expressible in number; —since, then all other things seemed in their whole nature to be modeled on numbers, and numbers seemed to be the first things in the whole of nature they supposed the elements of number to be the elements of all things, and the whole heaven to be a musical scale and a number.

Pythagoras is believed to have started a secret cult centered on his number philosophy after traveling to Babylon and Egypt. The members swore an oath to be allied for life and their ultimate goal was ethical salvation. They grew in numbers quickly and had much political power, but for either political or religious reason they were persecuted. Pythagoras probably died in that persecution (Hopper 1938, 33).

Although Pythagoras was polytheistic, he believed that one benevolent god, the

Demiurge, created the universe. This Demiurge created everything by the use of numbers. Pythagoreans believed numbers to be the basic elements of everything and everything was reducible to a number. Pythagoras himself tried to tell us about the entire universe with his ‘Music of the Spheres.’ The universe, the soul, music, mathematics and

25 everything else was a number and by studying numbers he thought he could learn about anything (Butler 1970, 4-5).

Pythagoras found, through experiments, musical ratios made up of the numbers one, two, three, and four. These were 1:2 the octave, 3:2 the fifth, and 4:3 the fourth.

These are the proportions of the harmonic series. He also found 8:9 to be the basic tone.

The experiments he used to come up with these ratios are not known, but this contributed to the number four’s power among the Pythagoreans and Neo-Pythagoreans and supported why the Pythagoreans equated music with number (Butler 1970, 4).

Aristotle, who was not sympathetic to Pythagoras, also believed the soul had an

“affinity” with music citing that numerous philosophers use the term harmony when talking about the soul (Butler 1970, 4). Pythagoras said that the soul considers the universe which is “ordained according to number” and since “like is known by like,” the soul therefor is a harmony (Butler 1970, 7).

Plato (424/423 – 348/347 BC), also a Greek philosopher, states in his Timaeus:

… all audible musical sound is given us for the sake of harmony, which has motions akin to the orbits in our soul and which, as anyone who makes intelligent use of the arts knows, is not to be used, as is commonly thought, to give irrational pleasure, but as a heaven-sent ally in reducing to order and harmony any disharmony in the revolutions within us.

This obviously says much about Plato’s opinions of music but it also ties together the study of cosmology, philosophy, theology, and music or the arts in general.

Hopper states two things to be original to Pythagorean number symbolism. First, the decad (ten) includes all numbers and in turn all things. Second, Pythagorean number symbolism has a geometric concept of math.

The first is straightforward since after zero through nine the numbers just recur,

26 but for the second, geometry gives Pythagorean number symbolism something concrete not just abstract philosophies. The number one is depicted by a point, the number two, a line, and the number three, a triangle. Triangles are the first plane figure and consequently three is considered the first “real” number. Because they’re the first plane figures, triangles are considered the basis of all objects a person can perceive with the senses. If a forth point is added above the triangle and connected, you get a pyramid

(tetrahedron). This is the first solid figure made of four triangles (Hopper 1938, 40). See

Table 1.

Triangles were put together by Plato to come up with his Platonic solids. The

Platonic solids as defined by the website Encyclopedia Britannica are any of the five geometric solids whose faces are all identical, regular polygons meeting at the same three-dimensional angles. They consist of the tetrahedron (or pyramid), cube, octahedron, dodecahedron and icosahedron. Plato wrote about them in his Timaeus. He associated them with the four elements fire (tetrahedron), earth (cube), air (octahedron) and water

(icosahedron). The remaining dodecahedron he assigned to the sphere of the stars. Table

1 shows the figures, elements, and the number symbolizing each element.

Table 1. The Platonic solids associated with the four elements and numbers

Sources: Information from Butler’s Number Symbolism and Plato’s Timaeus

The fact that the Platonic solids were associated with the four elements means that the Platonists could now associate numbers with those four elements. They used the

27 number of sides of the Platonic solids as the number associated with the element; air was the number eight, earth was the number six, and fire was the number four.

Water had more then ten sides in the icosahedron. Plato came up with a way of determining how water could be broken down into five instances of fire (5x4) therefore its number was five. “There is nothing to prevent the twenty faces of the icosahedron from reforming immediately as five pyramids” (Cornford 1935, 225). Also, it can be seen in Figure 1 that the icosahedron has five planes meeting at every point or apex.

Figure 1. Icosahedron viewed from an apex

Philo Judaeus (25 BC – 50 AD) said the numeral four is the last of the

“archetype” numbers, which include the point (one), line (two), surface (three), and solid

(four). Four is depicted in the seasons, the lunar phases, as well as in other occurrences.

The archetype numbers add up to ten, which is one revisited, a return to unity. This is represented in geometry with the tetraktys, Figure 2, a triangular figure made up of ten dots (Hopper, 1938 42). The tetraktys was extremely important to Pythagoreanism; which said it was the key to understanding life (Butler 1970, 9).

Philo was a Jewish philosopher who attempted to reconcile Greek philosophy to

Jewish philosophy. His goal was to make the Bible appear supreme over Greek myth.

28

Figure 2. The tetraktys, 10 dots arranged in a triangle

Pythagoras’ ideas were thought to really come from his knowledge of Moses.

Through his exegesis of Genesis, in which he took the numbers and used them allegorically, he attempted to prove this (Butler 1970, 24).

Plutarch (AD 46 – 120), a Greek historian and Platonist, believed even numbers to be feminine and odd masculine in part because when dividing even numbers in half, there is no remainder as there is with dividing odd numbers and because even numbers are “empty in the center,” they are seen as weak. Also an odd number added to an even gives another odd; odd numbers added together give even; but even numbers added together never give odd. Because of this odd numbers were thought to be the masters of even, since they can produce even, but even numbers cannot produce odd (Hopper 1938,

40-41).

Nicomachus (AD 60 – 120), a Neo-Pythagorean mathematician writes about the difference between quantities and numbers. He says that two types of both exist. In numbers there exist absolute numbers, like those that occur in arithmetic (1+1 for example) or numbers exist in relation to each other as in music, in the octave ratio 1:2.

Quantities can be at rest as in geometry or in motion as in astronomy. Nicomachus was the first to make this distinction (Butler 1970, 33).

Iamblichus (AD 245 – 325), a Neo-Platonic philosopher, in his De Vita

Pythagoras, XXXVIII talks about one as “light and right and unvarying and form and noble” and two as “dark and left and varying and unstable and inconsistent” (Butler 1970, 29 38). Combining this with Plato’s opinion of even numbers as “of ill-omen” appealed to dualistic early Christians when trying to adopt the Pythagorean number symbols. Two

“breaking away” from one symbolized to them Satan (Butler 1970, 38).

St Augustine (AD 354 – 430) was one of the church fathers of Christianity whose role in number symbolism was to make the New Testament fall in line with the Greek myths and the Old Testament. They believed that God created everything according to number much like Pythagoras’ belief. Since God created the universe by number, any work of art being created by an artist should mimic divine creation. Butler uses this as part of his argument that number symbolism was present in late Renaissance works of art

(Butler 1970).

In the medieval period, the number symbolism moved more toward the abstract philosophies and away from the concrete. Hugh of St Victor (AD 1096 – 1141) attempted to spell out all the ways in which numbers could be symbolically significant. This move toward thinking more symbolically about number didn’t really take hold until the

Renaissance in which works of art used a type of number allegory (Butler 1970, 29-43).

Butler reaches the conclusion that knowledge of numerological exegesis of the

Bible, after Philo, would have been common among educated Christians (Butler 1970,

30) but goes on later to warn against trying to find signs of numerological

Pythagoreanism and Platonism in works of art, because he says they were secret doctrines. People would have to have special knowledge of them or the occult to know about them (Butler 1970, 52). The fact that Mozart used number symbolism in this

Masonic work means that we have to assume that he had knowledge of it through

Freemasonry.

30 Butler shows how writers of the Renaissance used number symbolism both as a general aesthetic and specifically as allegory of number in the texts they wrote. They used the aesthetic by using proportions, which were 1:2, 3:2, and 4:3 the same as the proportions Pythagoras discovered in musical sound. The allegories were by the number of metric feet in poetry, the number of lines in a work, and by simply stating the number in the text. As God created the world so the artist creates the work of art. Butler also shows how they used number in visual arts and architecture in similar ways such as using the numerical proportion for Noah’s ark in architecture (Butler 1970, 94-104).

Other writers have tried to show Renaissance composers used number symbolism in their compositions, such as in A New Case of Number Symbolism in Josquin? by

Willem Elders. They may have used a form of number symbolism called gematria.

Gematria is a type of number symbolism in which a number stands for a name or word such as the number 88 stood for the cosmos.

Artur Hirsch’s Number Symbolism in Bach’s First Cantata Cycle: 1723-1724, written in three parts, talks about how J.S. Bach (1685 – 1750) may have also used gematria in his compositions (Hirsch 1975, 11). Hirsch points to Wilhelm Werker as the original scholar to mention, in 1922, that Bach used certain numbers repeatedly in the

Well-Tempered Clavier. His work was carried on by Harry Hahn and finished in 1970.

Martin Jansen writings in 1937 say that Bach used numbers symbolically and Friedrich

Smend recognized, around 1950, the many number symbols composed by Bach in works such Credo of the Mass in B Minor (Hirsch 1975, 14-15).

The ways in which Bach used gematria is through the number of notes used in certain sections as well as the number of measures. Hirsch says that Bach used number

31 symbolism more often in works written around the Holy Scriptures than in other types

(Hirsch 1975, 32).

This is not a complete history of number symbolism but it just touches on a subject of complicated history. Starting with the concrete and moving to the abstract from the depths of history, it was carried to the Greeks from ancient Egypt and Babylon, by

Pythagoras. Philo was a major contributor to number symbolism, reconciling it with the

Bible and allowing medieval Christians to partake in the process of helping number symbolism to evolve. Carried to the Renaissance artist and then to Bach in the Baroque and finally, probably thanks to the Freemasons, Mozart in the classical period.

32 IV. DIE ZAUBERFLÖTE

Opera

The most pressing question for opera composers – the question of the relationship between words and music- was solved by the Florentines in favour of the words, a solution which, in keeping with their classical prototype, treating recitative as the basis of opera, and did so, moreover, with a rigour never achieved by any of their successors. The poet enjoyed a unique privilege, and to this the musician yielded on every level. —Hermann Abert, W.A. Mozart

The Italians started opera during the Renaissance. Opera seria was their take on the dramas of classical antiquity and they usually had Ancient Greek mythological subjects for their plots. (Abert 2007, 156) The fact that opera buffa was more of a product of the people, much like the folksong, is seen through how it looked at life through caricature and mimicry. The ability of opera buffa to parody life was most popular among the common people (Abert 2007, 285-6).

The difference between the two was also seen in the way they used the male voice. Opera seria used castrati and didn’t usually use the deep male bass voice. Buffa did use the male bass and tended to glorify it (Abert 2007, 285-326).

Opera seria had its French equivalent in tragédie lyrique but in France tragédie lyrique was tied to nationalism much more than the Italians’ seria. Opera buffa also

33 found a French equivalent in opéra comique. Within opéra comique had been an indication of the French Revolution with its political and social satire (Abert 2007,

445,458).

Germany also had a national opera established by Heinrich Schültz, but in the early 1700’s Italian opera took over, erasing from people’s memory all German opera.

Germans attempting to start again from scratch used the Singspiel (spoken dialogue instead of recitative). This was in opposition to the sung librettos and recitatives of Italian opera seria (Abert 2007, 643-50). One of the problems with German singspiel was that because of the spoken dialogue most of the performers were actors and not professional singers and as a result their singing was insufficient. This problem aside, many people made improvements to the German Singspiel over the years (Abert 2007 640-4).

George Benda used an original method of combining folk and art music and broke up the aria with spoken word. Christian Gottlob Neefe was a composer of German

Singspiel, who had a liking for the German lieder and attempted to introduce classical mythology to the Singspiel, but the German Singspiel didn’t reach its height of artistic achievement until Mozart (Abert 2007, 650-7).

Background

Mozart began to work for his friend and fellow Freemason, Emanuel Schikaneder.

Schikaneder was the director of the Freihaus Theater auf der Wieden. It was a modest size theater and was popular among the less refined public. The theater also showed

German Singspiel. Schikaneder asked Mozart to compose a “magic opera” based on the

34 fairy-tale Lulu oder Die Zauberflöte (Lulu or the Magic Flute) by A. J. Liebeskind

(Zaslaw and Cowdery 1990, 65).

Lulu oder Die Zauberflöte, however, can’t be treated as the only source for Die

Zauberflöte because, although there are similarities, the storylines of the two are very different. Another major source for the opera has been shown to be Oberon, König der

Elfen, a magic opera by Paul Wranitzky. Oberon was a setting of a poem by Karl Ludwig

Gieseke, an actor in Schikaneder’s company (Abert 2007, 1249-50).

Connections can be made between Die Zauberflöte and Mozart’s previous score written to Baron Tobias Philipp von Gebler’s five-act play entitled Thomas, König in

Egypten, K. 345/336a. He was very proud of the music in the score and disappointed that it wasn’t performed frequently (Branscomb 1991, 18-20).

Die Zauberflöte is also said to have “closely imitated text” to a novel at the time entitled Sethos by Jean Terasson. Terasson was a Freemason whose novel was known throughout the brotherhood (Hunter 2008, 102) (Chailley 1971, 39). Still other sources of the opera include Ignaz von Born’s essay “Ueber die Mysterien der Aegyptier” published in Journal für Freymaurer in 1784. The essay is based largely on the writings of

Plutarch, including a writing in which “the saving of the life of the young prince Horus from the serpent the which his evil uncle’s mistress intended to kill him.” This is very close to the opening scene of Die Zauberflöte. Plutarch’s writings were also the basis of

Sethos (Branscomb 1991, 20-5).

Die Zauberflöte premiered on September 30, 1791. The original playbill has survived through the years. It has listed in it as composer Wolfgang Amade Mozart and as librettist Emanuel Schikaneder. Among the cast were Schikaneder as Papageno and

35 Josepha Hofer, Mozart’s sister-in-law, as the Queen of the Night (Abert 2007, 1245-6). It had an orchestra of thirty-five and included five first violins, four second violins, three cellos, three double basses, pairs of flute, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, horns and trumpets, three trombones and a timpanist (Landon 1988, 123).

Synopsis

Act I, Numbers 1-7

The hero Tamino enters being chased by a serpent and is carrying a bow with no arrow. He cries out for God to help him and he faints he just as he is about to be consumed by the serpent. Three ladies show up and kill the serpent saying, "Die monster by our power." The three ladies admire Tamino’s good looks and fight over which one is going to stay with him while the others go back to tell their queen about him. They disagree about who is to stay, so none of them stays out of their distrust of each other.

He awakes and finds himself alive, not knowing who saved him. At that moment

Papageno enters in a colorful bird costume of feathers singing his aria about catching all the "birds" and finding love. Tamino watches and introduces himself after the aria saying he is from a far away land where he is a Prince. Papageno tells Tamino that he is in the

Queen of the Night’s land but says he has never seen her he only trades with her ladies.

Tamino asks Papageno if it was he who saved him. Papageno lies and says it was.

The three ladies now return and hear Papageno's lie so they padlock his mouth for telling lies. They tell Tamino it was they who saved him and show him a portrait of the

Queen’s daughter. He sings an aria now about the love that he feels for Pamina. The three ladies tell him that the Queen has heard his words and that her daughter, Pamina, was

36 kidnapped by an evil demon, Sarastro, but if Tamino rescues her they will be together forever.

The Queen now enters and sings a recitative and aria describing her grief at having her daughter abducted and appoints Tamino as the one who will save her. Then she leaves.

Tamino then sings to Papageno saying that he can't help him and Papageno hums along unable to speak. The ladies then tell Papageno that the Queen has pardoned him and remove the padlock with his promise that he won't lie anymore. Then the three ladies give Tamino a magic flute to protect him on his rescue mission and tell Papageno that the

Queen commands that he go too. He refuses to go for fear of everything so they give him magic bells for his protection. The three ladies then tell them that three boys will lead them on their journey to find Pamina in Sarastro's land and they take their leave.

The scene changes to Pamina and Monostatos. Monostatos, a slave, has captured

Pamina and is going to rape her. Papageno comes in wondering where he is. Monostatos and Papageno now see each other and both think the other is "the devil" and run away.

Papageno comes to his senses saying "there are black birds in the world, so why not black men, too?" He then returns to find Pamina. After comparing her to her picture in a comical manner, he rescues her.

He tells her of Tamino’s love for her and she is overjoyed. He then expresses his grief at not having a girlfriend let alone a wife and they sing the duet "Man and Wife" in which they express the joys of marriage. They continue on to find Tamino.

37 Act I, “No. 8 Finale”

The three boys are still leading Tamino and they arrive at a temple where they tell him to be "resolute, patient, and silent!" and leave him. There are three doors to the temple and he tries two of them to no avail. He then tries the center door and gains entry.

A priest is there and they have a conversation in which he tells Tamino that Sarastro isn't evil.

A mysterious voice tells Tamino that Pamina still is alive and he then in his joy begins to play the magic flute. At the sound of the flute the wild beasts of the forest dance around and are tamed. He then hears Papageno's pan flute and follows it. The scene changes to Papageno and Pamina who are looking for Tamino. Papageno plays the pan flute, and hear Tamino’s response and follow it. They are captured by Monostatos but

Papageno plays the magic bells and Monostatos and the other slaves are enchanted by the music and they get away. Papageno and Pamina sing about friendships as harmony and compare it to the magic bells saying that it is the only thing causing "happiness on earth."

Sarastro approaches and Papageno asks Pamina what they should say and she responds with "the truth." Pamina tells Sarastro she tried to escape because of

Monostatos' attempt at getting "love." Sarastro responds that he knows she loves another man and although he won't force her to love him he won't let her go. The slaves then bring in Tamino and he sees Pamina for the first time and they embrace. Sarastro rewards

Monostatos for his crimes with seventy-seven lashes. He then sends Tamino and

Papageno in to be purified before the test can begin to let them into the brotherhood.

38 Act II, Numbers 9-20

The initiates meet and discuss whether to let Tamino into their society, asking

Sarastro if Tamino is virtuous, if he can keep silent, and is charitable. Sarastro answers yes to all three and explains why he took Pamina from her mother, the Queen of the

Night, saying her mother is full of herself and would ruin Pamina’s happiness. One of the men say that Tamino is a "Prince" in protest. Sarastro answers, "more than that he is a man!"

With Tamino's approval to undergo the tests, Tamino and Papageno now are brought in and Tamino and Pamina are allowed to see each other one last time before

Tamino faces death. Sarastro then sings his aria to Isis and Osiris to ask them to guide the young men through the dangers safely.

Tamino agrees to go through the tests and they convince Papageno to go through them, too, saying that he will never get a wife unless he does. The priests say that there is a wife for him, like himself, named Papagena. They begin the first test in which the men are made to promise that they will not speak to women. They see the three ladies and

Tamino has trouble getting Papageno to keep quiet. They succeed in passing the test.

Monostatos now sings his aria about how he wants love with Pamina. He is singing over her while she sleeps. The Queen arrives and he hides.

The Queen asks where Tamino is and when Pamina answers he has joined the initiates, the Queen is very upset, saying that her daughter is to kill Sarastro and bring her the seven-fold circle of the sun. She explains in a rage that before her husband the king died, he gave the circle to the initiates leaving them in power. She says that unless

39 Pamina does what she asks there will be a curse put on her and all bonds broken between

Pamina and her mother. Then she sings an aria about the burning revenge she feels.

After she leaves, Monostatos threatens Pamina with telling Sarastro about her mother’s plan. Sarastro catches him in the act telling him to go away and sings an aria.

The subject is how he plans on taking revenge on Pamina's mother. He sings an aria saying that no "traitors can lurk because one forgives the enemy."

The two men undergo the next test in which they are to keep completely silent and if they don't, the priest says, “The gods punish whoever talks with thunder and lightning.” Papageno meets an old woman and flirts with her, not keeping silent. She tells him she is 18 years and 2 minutes old and her name is Papagena. Three boys enter and return to the men the magic flute and bells, telling Tamino to have courage and Papageno to keep silent.

Tamino plays the flute and Pamina hears it and comes in. Tamino won't talk to her and, not understanding why, she now sings an aria “Ach, ich fühls,” about how if he doesn't love her anymore she is going to die. He still won't talk. Tamino goes on to the next test and Papageno is spared by the gods but will never join the initiates. He says it's ok, that there are many men like him.

Papageno sings his next aria about how he could compare himself with a prince and enjoy life as a Wiseman if only he had a wife. Papagena appears as an ancient crone and makes him promise he will be hers or he is to be locked up with nothing but bread and water and no girlfriend forever. He promises to love her 'until something better comes along' and she is transformed into a young and pretty Papagena, but the priest says he's not worthy to be with her yet.

40 Act II, “No. 21 Finale”

The three boys hear Pamina contemplating suicide and intervene to take her to see

Tamino. They meet just before he goes into the trials of fire and water and she is allowed to go through the trials with him. He sings that a woman willing to risk death is worthy to be an initiate. She says she will lead him with love being her guide and told him to play the magic flute that will protect them. They sing "through power of music they step into death’s dark night." They make it through the trial successfully. There is rejoicing all around.

Returning to Papageno now he is about to kill himself by hanging because he can't baer life without Papagena. The three boys stop him and tell him to play the magic bells. He does and Papagena comes to him and says she is all his and they sing together about the joy of marriage and having children.

Now the Queen and Monostatos are about to storm the temple. The Queen promised her daughter to Monostatos if he joined forces with her. But they are vanquished into eternal night. The Chorus now sings thanks to Isis and Osiris that

Tamino and Pamina made it through the trials (Mozart 1983).

Authorship Of The Libretto

It has been more than 200 years since the opera opened and certain details remain a mystery. One of those details, which has been under the scrutiny of multiple experts over the years, has been the authorship of the libretto.

The authorship of the libretto for Die Zauberflöte was under dispute soon after

Schikaneder died. Johann Georg Karl Ludwig Gieseke was an actor in Schikaneder’s company. There is an account of him saying to someone that he wrote the libretto for the

41 Magic Flute (Abert 2007, 1253). This is coupled with the fact that Schikaneder had no comparable works to even come close to Die Zauberflöte, neither before nor after its making (Buch 2003, 166).

Critics of Gieseke’s claim say he made this claim only after Die Zauberflöte had become very popular and both of the people who could have proved his assertion were dead, Mozart and Schikaneder. Also it has been pointed out that Gieseke was not as skilled as Schikaneder and Schikaneder made obvious contributions throughout (Abert

2007, 1253).

The fact that Schikaneder never produced comparable works to the opera still remains a question. Chailley thought that Mozart himself had more than a little to do with that fact (Chailley 1971, 20). Still some say the libretto’s inconsistencies are due exclusively to Schikaneder’s amateur ways and that it should not be viewed as anything more than a fairy-tale (Buch 2004). That is part of the reason why so many believe that there is hidden meaning in the music and libretto (There is also the fact that Mozart had a preoccupation with riddles and secret languages).

Through the analysis in this text it can be seen that Mozart must have been involved to the extent that Chailley thought. That is the only way he could have conveyed to Schikaneder the things he wanted in the libretto, not unlike he did with his librettist for

Die Entführung. The fact that the words are closely tied to the music means at times they don’t make perfect sense without an understanding of the construction of that music.

Schikaneder was skilled at putting together a storyline out of multiple sources.

That is why still others believe Die Zauberflöte had multiple authors probably including

42 Mozart (Hunter 2008, 107). Even though the question of authorship of the libretto is still undecided, most agree that Schikaneder wrote a considerable amount of it.

The Change Of Plan

There is also a question of whether or not a change in the planning of the opera was necessary during the first act. The “break” in the plot is supposed to have occured between piece “No.7 Duetto” and the finale to Act I. After the duet between Papageno and Pamina and before the three boys lead Tamino to the temple (Abert 2007, 1252-3).

The story is that because there was another theater that came out with a play also based on Lulu oder Die Zauberflӧte during Die Zauberflöte’s creation, Mozart and

Schikaneder had to change their plan for the opera midway through (Chailley 1971, 24).

That opera was entitled Kaspar der Fagottist oder Die Zauberflöte by Wenzel Müller, with libretto by Joachim Perinet (Abert 2007, 1250).

Proponents of this theory say that would explain the questions of the plot inconsistencies. While the argument against it is that theaters at that time constantly had works come out based on the same story and Schikaneder and Mozart would not think anything of it (Abert 2007, 1250). The analysis in this text will show Die Zauberflöte to be very consistent and a highly unified work.

Abert is among the scholars that believe the change of plan to have happened, but says that Mozart must have “had a hand in it.” He argues that Mozart put some thought into it. The music is too whole and we follow an emotional path from beginning to end.

That is also why he asserts Mozart was coauthor of the libretto and says the change must have happened when Mozart first received the libretto from Schikaneder (Abert 2007,

1252-3).

43 Freemasonry and Women

Another way to understand these supposed inconsistencies is to realize that while

Sarastro is portrayed as good and wise, he is neither omniscient nor omnipotent. He is a wise man, but not divine. He does punish Monostatos for his wrongdoing when it is revealed to him. And as far as the Queen switching roles, it seems possible that when she first enters, she is the evil person that she is eventually revealed to be, but pretends to be good to deceive, and enlist, Tamino to aid her ends.

Perhaps to the modern mind Sarastro is wrong to condemn the Queen because she is a woman, as the libretto seems to indicate. But would this have been a “flaw” to the eighteenth century audience? And does not Sarastro redeem himself from charges of sexism when he not only protects Pamina from the Queen, but allows her to take the trials with Tamino, eventually passing them? It is unclear whether she then gains full admission to the brotherhood, though even today, the Masons do not admit women, who must join Masonic-related entities exclusively for women, such as the Daughters of the

Nile (http://www.msana.com/women.asp).

This was started not long before the time of Die Zauberflöte. The grand lodge named Grand-Orient de France in 1774 recognized the lodge entitled Order of the

Mopses. This was an all female lodge started with the purpose of doing charitable work, but actual mixed lodges started in 1784 with the “Egyptian rite.” (Chailley 1971, 74-7)

The Egyptian rite was started as a separate form of Freemasonry in which the

“Grand Copt,” a title chosen for the male leader, had his equivalent in the “Queen of

Sheba,” a title chosen for the female leader. One of their goals was to raise the inferior level of the female’s position in Freemasonry and make it equivalent to men’s position.

44 The first women’s only Freemasonry was started in the early 1800’s. They were started in opposition of the men’s Freemasonry (Chailley 1971, 77). This is not new to organizations surrounding religion. Even today women are not accepted as Priests in the

Roman Catholic Church.

There is evidence that Mozart was not satisfied with Freemasonry; he expressed the desire to start his own secret society not long before he died. His wife Constanze in

1799 said in a letter to a publisher, who was working on Mozart’s biography, that there was an essay written partly by Mozart and partly by his friend Anton Stadler about how they wanted to form their society called “the grotto” (Solomon 1995, 333-4).

The fact that Mozart wanted to start a society is not proof that he didn’t want anything to do with Freemasonry. Multiple other secret societies were made entirely of

Freemasons like the Illuminati, but it does suggest at least that he wasn’t completely satisfied with it. His views, that a woman should be allowed to take the trials, is showed to us through Pamina. This is possibly one of the things he was protesting.

45 V. DIE ZAUBERFLÖTE, MASONIC OPERA

If the word ‘Symbolist’ had not acquired so precise a meaning in literary history, we could say that Die Zauberflöte is, in its way, as ‘Symbolist’ … the events represented upon the stage are only images and reflection of an invisible reality that alone supplies the background for the real action. …all the logic flows from the linking of symbols, not from a psychology from which all realism has been eliminated. … Mozart applied all the force of his genius to the musical translation of those symbols: his music explores the words and the ‘hidden words.’ —Jacques Chailley, The Magic Flute, Masonic Opera

Many different interpretations of Die Zauberflöte exist. Among them are political,

Jungian, numerological, alchemical, gnostic, cabalistic, and even rosicrucian (Buch 2003,

166). By far the most widely accepted interpretation is the Masonic allegory.

Die Zauberflöte is given the title “Masonic Opera” for a reason, although there are many opinions about whether or not it should be viewed as a symbol of Freemasonry and what Freemasonry stands for. Chailley and Landon believe that it should be (Chailley

1971; Landon 1988) and others do not (Buch 2004, 193). This author finds Chailley and

Landon convincing.

The number three is of high importance in Freemasonry. The opera has within it, prominently featured, the number three in the three ladies, three boys, three doors to the temple and others. The music also begins and ends in the key of Eb-Major, three flats, and we begin the opera with three chords (Abert 2007, 129).

46 Also within the opera is said to be a representation of the Freemason’s secret knock of short – long – long. The music stops and begins again with chords in this “three times three” pattern (Landon 1988, 128). However, some say that three is a highly respected number in multiple older religious traditions as well and can’t be proof the opera is “Masonic” (Buch 2004, 209).

The tradition of the thirtieth degree in the Scottish Rite, one of the sections of

Freemasonry, is the degree of revenge. Monostatos and the Queen attempt to storm the temple of the priest in the thirtieth scene of Die Zauberflöte. There are a total of thirty- three degrees in the Scottish rite and there are thirty-three scenes in total in the magic flute (Landon 1988, 129).

The argument that Chailley makes in his book, The Magic Flute, Masonic Opera, is that the music and libretto point to multiple Masonic rituals. For example, he says that

Act I depicts the preparation for the initiation that the freemasons have. It does this through the preparation of Tamino, the preparation of Pamina, and the request for initiation (Chailley 1971, 169-72).

Act II, Chailley says, depicts the initiatory trials, which closely follow the

Masonic “journeys” into the brotherhood, including but not limited to a vow of silence.

However, he says that Die Zauberflöte doesn’t have any information that you would receive past the first phase of apprentice mason (Chailley 1971, 64,172-6). Critics of the

Masonic interpretation respond with questions such as: the trial Tamino and Pamina go through is of fire and water, so why do the freemasons have a “purification” of all four of the elements (air, earth, water, and fire) (Hunter 2008, 105)? This paper’s analysis of the opera attempts to explain the trials through number symbolism and music theory.

47 Included in these arguments is that Die Zauberflöte contains the Egyptian gods

Isis and Osiris, which are a big part of Freemasonry, and other symbols like the five- pointed star that appeared at the opening of the opera. There is also a strong correlation between two of the songs in Die Zauberflöte and the novel Sethos, which is Masonic

(Hunter 2008, 104-5). Still others say that these symbols were in other popular theaters at the time (Hunter 2008, 105).

There was a fascination among Freemasons in Mozart’s time with the mysteries of ancient Egypt. This was caused by the knowledge that Pythagoras studied in Egypt. As a result the texts about Ancient Egypt were plentiful, but also many of them were not correct. Chailley says that there were plenty of fraudulent people trying to make money off of texts about Egypt (Chailley 1971,58-9).

One of the questions about whether this work should be viewed as Masonic is that

Freemasonry didn’t allow women to join and in Die Zauberflöte, Pamina, at the last second, is allowed to go through the trials with Tamino and become “initiated.” Chailley explains this by saying that there were Masonic lodges to allow female members and even an exclusively female lodge (only in France) (Landon 1988, 127), but were not necessarily recognized by the grand lodges. He states that “the librettists of Die

Zauberflöte were more liberal” than other freemasons (Chailley 1971, 76-8), the librettists being Mozart and Schikaneder. (For further reading on why he believed Mozart to be the librettist see Chailley 1971, 11-20)

Another argument cited against the masonic interpretation is that neither Mozart nor Schikaneder would have taken the time to include an esoteric coded message in the opera because its primary purpose was to win over the public and make money (Hunter

48 2008, 105). This, however, does not preclude the use of esoteric symbolism. After all,

Mozart was quite aware of the different levels of listener, as in the quote describing his piano concertos K. 413, 414, and 415, that there is in them much that will please the learned listener (“Kenner”), while those less sophisticated (“Liebhaber”) would find pleasure, though not knowing why.

In the analogy made by Chailley, Tamino and Pamina are man and woman and

Papageno, he says, is “ordinary humanity.” He says the name is from the word parrot in

Old French and that the Freemasons used a bird in their rituals as a symbol of the

“warning against feminine curiosity.” Chailley also says that it has been established that

Monostatos is a symbol of Jesuit priests and calls them “the foremost enemies of

Masonry” (Chailley 1971, 101-5).

Chailley acknowledges that number symbolism is important in Masonic symbolism and says that Freemasons acknowledge that they owe that to the

Pythagoreans. He points to ways in which five and three are important to the score. He cites cadences on three and five as well as “on the 7 of Wisdom in Sarastro’s aria,” but he doesn’t go any further to explain this (Chailley 1971, 160).

Chailley says that the number five is feminine because of its generative properties citing a text by Matila Ghika published in 1931 in which is stated that it is a combination of the masculine three and feminine two (Chailley 1971, 85-8). According to most

Pythagoreans, since masculine numbers were superior to feminine through the previous stated reasons, five would be masculine. To say that five is both masculine and feminine is to many the best compromise. Saying this is like saying that humans can be men and women.

49 Also Chailley says that the significance of sharps and flats are “the solemn flats of wisdom” and “the fluttering sharps of profane lightness” (Chailley 1971, 160-2), but if the flats are wisdom, why does the Queen lie to Tamino in the aria number four in Bb-

Major and seek revenge in the piece “No. 14 Aria” in D-minor. For the sharps being

“profane” (profane being a term used by Freemasons to talk about non-Freemasons) how does he explain that second aria of Sarastro’s about forgiving your enemies and brotherly love. There is also the trio of the boys in A-Major and the chorus of priests in D-Major.

He says they (the pieces) “breakout of the symbolism.” The pieces having sharps become, through his reasoning, the exception to the rule (Chailley 1971, 160-2). That’s all of the sharp keys in the opera except for the key of G. Rather than saying the sharps are profane, it’s more likely that Mozart thought of them as earthly or of the body compared to flats as being heavenly or that of the soul.

Chailley also says that the score of Die Zauberflöte in the sharps and flats is a visual aspect (Chailley 1971, 160). The aesthetics of number is felt, rather than consciously thought about. This is why poets in the Renaissance used number symbolism keeping track of in how many lines of poetry certain poems had and why visual artists use proportion in their works (Butler 1970).

One cannot argue that there is a visual aspect to the sharps and flats, but there is an auditory aspect as well. Therefore even though most people can’t say exactly that the music moved three scales to the sharp side over the past four pieces, for example, unconsciously the person perceives this.

50 Political Allegory

Die Zauberflöte is also thought to be politically oriented. In the years leading up to the opera’s premiere, Freemasons were under political attack. In 1764 Empress Maria

Theresa put a ban on Freemasonry (Zaslaw and Cowdery 1990, 66). Her husband,

Emperor Francis Stephen, had actually been a Freemason and in favor of it; however, when he died, the Empress was in control and didn’t allow Freemasons to meet (Landon

1988, 55-6).

After her death Emperor Joseph II, her son, though not a member of Freemasonry as was his father was, tolerated it (Landon 1988, 55-6). Though Mozart was notoriously apolitical—with not a word in all of his letters regarding the most momentous political event of his day, the French Revolution—he was certainly aware of the threat to

Freemasonry from the government, and perhaps Schikaneder led him to include the political attention.

There is a connection between Die Zauberflöte and the political workings described above. The Queen of the Night’s husband died and left the “sevenfold circle of the sun” to Sarastro (and the initiates). There are parallels between the plot of Die

Zauberflöte and the history of Freemasonry.

Some also believe Sarastro is based on Ignaz von Born and the Queen of the

Night based on Maria Teresa. Born was head of the lodge Zur wahren Eintracht and ran it well. It was a meeting ground for scientists, artists, and writers. Von Born died shortly before work started on Die Zauberflöte (Landon 1988, 135).

Mann in The Operas of Mozart asserts that Sarastro kidnapped Pamina because of the old way of “matrilinear succession.” He describes this as being a means of

51 succession where when Pamina’s father died, “the tradition of husband sacrifice, characteristic of myths in which all men were subservient to the mother-goddess” would be in effect. Husband sacrifice in this case being that the Queen of the Night would be married again and the new husband would serve for a time and then he would have to die.

This would happen until Pamina was ready to succeed her mother (Mann 1977, 612).

Mann states, “in all these myths the second stage of civilization arrives when one husband rebels and establishes male succession.” Pamina’s father paves the way for this by giving Sarastro the ‘seven fold circle of the sun.’ Sarastro kidnaps Pamina so whomever she marries, Sarastro or Tamino, will be well established as king. Through their marriage there will be a connection to the old matrilinear way (Mann 1977, 612).

Mann says that both Mozart and Schikaneder would have been aware of these myths (Mann 1977, 612), and it makes sense when considering the ways of governing at the time, that they would be in favor of this new way of selecting the king. Consider that

Empress Maria Theresa took power after her husband died and that was not good fortune for the Freemasons, but also that the succession of Joseph II by Leopold II, the former’s brother, was an unfortunate circumstance for Mozart’s job opportunities. Why not be in favor of what the Freemasons believed, which was that members of society should be judged on their merits of what they can do for it, like Ignaz von Born or Mozart himself, rather than on their bloodline.

Fairy Tale

Another way of thinking about Die Zauberflöte is, from the general publics view at the time, as a fairy tale. The opera is based mainly on Lulu oder Die Zauberflöte, one

52 of the fairy tales from the collection Dschinnistan, gathered by Christopher Martin

Wieland. The collection was very popular at the time (Hunter 2008, 106).

One benefit of the fairy tale interpretation is that it takes away the need to explain the inconsistencies of the plot as fairy tales often have them. It also takes away the need to explain the role reversal between the Queen and Sarastro (Hunter 2008, 106).

However, fairy tales serve a very important purpose; they empower young people and show them what different moral paths lead to (Bettelheim 1976).

Buch in his article Die Zauberflöte, Masonic Opera, and Other Fairy Tales uses a quote by Georg Nissen in which he says there is no hidden meaning in Die Zauberflöte and in order to understand the opera you have to “recall childhood” and that Mozart

“commands all the faculties of the child” (Buch 2004, 203). This point of view seems to perpetuate the stereotype of Mozart as the “eternal child” (Hunter 2008, 106).

Solomon in his book Mozart: A Life disputes this view of Mozart and says that it comes from the fact that Mozart held different ideals that were not accepted in the

Eighteenth Century. He maintains that often what happens in that situation is people not understanding him call what he does childish. Solomon cites Mozart’s strong work ethic and devotion to his religious beliefs (though not to the Church itself) as well as other things as proof (Solomon 1995, 3-18).

Jungian

Because of the dealings of basic human drives and two-dimensional characters, the fairy-tale interpretation opens up Die Zauberflöte to Jungian analysis. Carl Gustav

Jung was a psychotherapist who did most of his work in the early Twentieth Century. He

53 was influenced by Freud and did much in terms of dream interpretation and pointed out that there are numerous “archetypes” to a personality that make it up (Jung 1968).

The Queen is a mother archetype. At first she is the good mother to Tamino. After that she changes into the “devouring mother” to Pamina. Monostatos is the shadow figure, the lower aspects of the personality. Sarastro is the wise old man archetype

(Godwin 1979, 488). More associations like this can be made.

The Die Zauberflöte libretto can be read as Jung would describe a single personality, and that all the characters are essentially one person (Koenigsberger 1975;

Godwin 1979). Godwin says that all allegorical interpretations are true, for example, the

“Marxist interpretation … is ‘true’ for Marxists” (Godwin 1979, 473). This helps explain why there are so many allegories with this opera.

Godwin makes a connection between the Catholic Church as the “bride of Christ” and the Queen of the Night. Godwin also makes a connection between Papageno and the church followers (Godwin 1979, 478). Godwin says that the Queen sent Tamino on the quest not expecting him to be swayed by the “Freemasons.” This analogy says that although many spiritual journeys start with the Catholic Church, they very frequently cannot finish within the constructs of that church, for the few seeking true spiritual enlightenment are left feeling incomplete and they require more (Godwin 1979, 479).

That’s where Freemasonry comes in.

Godwin suggests since Tamino and Pamina are not married at the end of the opera that the story is incomplete because the alchemical process of combining the masculine and feminine has not taken place (Godwin 1979, 492). Koenigsberger, however, talks mostly about the alchemical process and does believe it happened (Koenigsberger 1975).

54 Looking at the music for evidence, it can be seen that just before Tamino and

Pamina go through the trials the music moves to Db-Major. Mozart didn’t very often use this key in his compositions. He didn’t use it at all previous to the trials of fire and water in this opera. He used it here in part because it has in its key signature five flats. Five is the marriage number symbolizing the marriage of Tamino and Pamina.

The stages of the alchemical process are explained. The names of the process are named after colors and there are four. They are named in order as the following characters. Monostatos is black; Pamina is white; Papageno is quicksilver; and the Queen of the Night is red (Koenigsberger 1975, 256).

Freemasonry goes back to the masons and “craft guilds” that can be found in the

Middle Ages as already mentioned. Just now people are finding that the buildings built by these guilds have within them more meaningful and complex proportions and measurements than previously thought (Godwin 1979, 475).

This “sacred geometry” was found in other fields also. Godwin says, “It is impossible to understand a Masonic work of art, which The Magic Flute patently is, without a knowledge of its esoteric beliefs” (Godwin 1979, 475).

55 VI. ANALYSIS OF DIE ZAUBERFLÖTE

The music of Die Zauberflöte not only mirrors the meaning of the text, but illustrates all the important actions and emotions of the opera. The dialogue is only needed for explanations, ritual, and extra comedy. —Peter Branscombe

In this section, this author intends to show that Mozart’s musical structures, whether form, harmony, or indeed specific tones, are linked deliberately to the characters and dramaturgy of the story line. Keaton (1992) demonstrated a similar connection in the Act II finale of Figaro.

Eckelmeyer wrote an article about the structure of the opera in which she stated that the structure of the opera is like that of sonata-allegro form. The exposition is piece numbers 1-7 and the finale to Act I is the thesis and antithesis sections. Act II through piece “No. 20 Aria” is the development, and the Finale is the recapitulation. (Eckelmeyer

1986).

Mozart also used sonata-allegro form in the individual pieces as did most composers of opera in his day, but he started using it in a slightly different way.

Previously composers used sonata-allegro form in a way that was inactive. The emotion depicted in it was the same at the end as it was when it started (Branscombe 1991, 113-

5). Mozart started using a different kind of sonata-allegro form and although Mozart used this type of sonata-allegro form in previous operas like Don Giovanni and Figaro, in Die

56 Zauberflöte he used it constantly. This method uses a “vestigial recapitulation”

(Branscombe 1991, 113-5), where only a small part of the recapitulation is the same as the exposition.

An example is found in Tamino’s “No. 3 Aria.” Branscombe describes this in the following way.

But in the other arias and ensembles, the text, in developing new emotions and situations, will not permit a repeat of the same music. In ‘Dies Bildnis’, [piece number 3] Tamino is led through admiration of Pamina’s portrait (first subject) and the awakening of love (second subject in the dominant) to the thought of finding her (development ending on the chord of the dominant seventh). The thought is almost too much for him (a whole bar’s rest). What would he do then? Well, (although he is back in the tonic), certainly not go back to mere admiration of a portrait, as sonata form would demand. The violins lead him on with a tender phrase, while he expresses with gradually increasing confidence his hopes of embracing Pamina. The vestigial recapitulation occurs in bars 52-6 to the words ‘und ewig ware sie dann mein’ (‘then she would be mine for ever’), to the melody originally heard in bars 10-4 to words ‘mein Herz mit neuer Regung füllt’ (‘fills my heart with new emotion’) (Branscombe 1991, 114).

Through this method the storyline is still allowed to develop even during the music. This leaves less to be filled in by dialogue in between the pieces.

He also used the rondo form in a different way. Mozart used the form of the rondo harmonically, but melodically there are few repeats and no recapitulations. “No. 5

Quintet” is an example of this. It is a more suggestive way of using the form. It has no

“melodic landmarks” to point one’s attention toward the returns (Branscombe 1991, 116).

Separating the melody from the harmony is a good way of dealing with the action of an opera and still keeping the form for unity. In this way Mozart was able to show the changing plot through the music and still adhere to the form.

Everette in his article “Voice Leading, Register, and Self-Discipline in ‘Die

Zauberflöte’” uses Schenkerian analysis to show that themes used by Mozart were on a

57 structural level as well as on the superficial level. He says that these types of reductionist analyses can be used in opera because it shows “the influence of a single motive on multiple levels” or it also can be used for detecting an “ambiguous motive.” He argues, contrary to what Schenker himself said about his type of analysis in reference to opera, that in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte, the elements of the story “do seem to have strong effects upon the drama of the musical structure” (Everette 1991, 103-7). This is because the elements of the story are a product of the drama of the music.

The structure of the opera is obviously different from Mozart’s other operas, because of the second act’s seemingly unrelated key centers. Branscombe says Mozart had three reasons why he chose the keys of pieces. He chose for the reasons that the opera begins and ends in the same key, a key had an innate character (Masonic significance), and that he always composed with the specific person who was to sing in mind (Branscombe 1991, 129-31).

Mozart previously used for key centers patterns such as thirds apart, key centers outlining triads, or some other obvious pattern. In Die Zauberflöte’s first act he uses the notes of the C-minor seventh chord as key centers, but in Act II Branscombe says there is

“no real pattern” and that this is because Mozart allows “superfluous sophistication to be cast aside when dealing with essentials” (Branscombe 1991, 129). It’s difficult to accept that Mozart would put so little significance on the form of any musical work he composed.

Mozart used the innate character of the key through his use of the same key for similar topics throughout the years, like C-minor for death (Branscombe 1991, 229n11).

Branscombe states that his association of keys with subjects was most likely done

58 instinctively, without any sort of plan in mind (Branscombe 1991, 130-1). The analysis in this paper shows it’s less likely that this was a product of the unconscious. Mozart had a specific person in mind when he composed the piece and this was always the case whenever he composed.

Structure of the Opera

Mozart structured the first act by having the keys of the pieces outline the C- minor seventh chord. He also began and ended this act with pieces that have the tonal center of C. Taking the overture into account, some think he outlines the Eb-Major chord

(Branscombe 1991, 129).

He used the notes of the F-Major scale as the key centers of the pieces of the second act, pieces numbered 9-20. See Appendix C. He points to this in his numbering of the arias when the missing piece, 11a, is put back in. For example, He used the key center of D-minor for “No.14 Aria.” If the number is adjusted to put the missing piece back in, the new number is 15 (1+5=6). The tone D is the sixth scale degree in the key of F-

Major. See Appendix A (1). He only numbered the arias with this method but the other pieces of the act still have as tonal centers the notes of F-major scale. He also used as the highest note and lowest note in the opera the tone of F (Mozart 1879, No.14 mm 30-31,

No.15 mm 21-24).

When the overture is taken into consideration, the structure of the whole opera is in the key of Eb-Major. He did this again by beginning and ending the opera with pieces in that key, as was customary in the eighteenth century. See Appendix C. When the

59 overture is numbered starting with one, all the other piece numbers go up one pointing to the key of Eb-major instead of F-major. See Appendix A (2).

The pieces of Act I outline the C-minor seventh chord. The tonal centers of the arias of Act I are G-Major for aria “No. 2,” Eb-Major for aria “No.3,” and Bb-Major for aria “No. 4.” As chords, they are used in both C-minor scale and Eb-Major scale.

The second piece is an aria sung by Papageno. In it Papageno plays a panpipe of five notes ending on the fifth note of the scale (Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol). G-Major is the V chord in C-minor scale and doesn’t occur in the F-major scale but is used as V/V in the key of F-major. V/V occurs on the same scale degree as ii. The piece is “No. 2.” It is an important link between the two “kingdoms” of C-minor scale and F-Major scale. The third piece is an aria sung by Tamino in Eb-Major. It is degree III of C-minor scale it is also piece “No. 3” and has three flats.

The forth piece is an aria sung by the Queen of the Night in the key of Bb-Major.

It is aria “No. 4” and Bb is scale degree number IV in the key of F-Major. The tenth piece is an aria sung by Sarastro in the key of F-Major. It is aria “No. 10” and F is scale degree number I in the key of F-Major.

Ten years after the premier of Die Zauberflöte Schikaneder declared in a playbill that two other numbers written by Mozart and given to Schikaneder before he died would be included in that night’s performance of the opera. One of those pieces is speculated to be a duet in Bb sung by Tamino and Papageno. George Richard Kruse found the piece in a manuscript copy of the opera. (Branscombe 1991, 208) Some question whether it is actually written by Mozart,

60 but there seems to be a piece missing between Sarastro’s aria and Monostatos aria according to the aria numbers’ association with scale degrees. Therefore, one is added to the pieces after Sarastro’s “No. 10 Aria,” because of this missing piece.

The thirteenth piece is an aria sung by Monostatos in the key of C-Major. It is aria

“No. 13” but now with one added the piece becomes number fourteen, (13+1=14). The piece now is fourteen (1+4=5) and C is scale degree V in the key of F-Major.

The next aria is sung by the Queen of the Night and it is an aria about “revenge” in the key of D-minor. It is aria “No. 14” but now with one added the piece becomes number fifteen, (15+1=16). The piece now is fifteen (1+5=6) and D is scale degree vi in the key of F-Major.

The next aria, sung by Sarastro, is about “love” and is in the key of E-Major. It is aria “No. 15” but now with one added the piece becomes number sixteen, (15+1=16).

The piece now is sixteen (1+6=7) and E is scale degree vii in the key of F-major.

The next aria is sung by Pamina and is in the key of G-minor. It is aria “No. 17” but now with one added the piece becomes number eighteen, (17+1=18). The piece now is eighteen (1+8=9) but there is no ninth scale degree in the seven notes of F-Major scale.

A ninth above the tonic of F is the same as scale degree ii and G is scale degree ii in the key af F-Major.

The last aria is sung by Papageno and is in the key of F-Major. It is aria “No. 20” but now with one added the piece becomes number twenty-one, (20+1=21). The piece now is twenty-one (2+1=3) and F is scale degree III in D-minor. The aria numbers as scale degrees is summed up in the following Table 2.

Finally he had the finale of act II in the key of Eb-Major also by beginning and

61

Table 2. Aria numbers as scale degrees Key of piece GM EbM BbM FM CM Dm EM Gm FM No. of piece 2 3 4 10 14* 15* 16* 18* 21* Simplified 1+0 1+4 1+5 1+6 1+8 2+1 No. as scale II= III IV I V vi VII ix=ii III degree V/V In over-all FM Cm FM FM FM FM FM FM Dm key of Source: Information from Mozart 1879 *1 added to piece number because of missing piece ending the finale in that key. When getting to the finale, it becomes necessary to take the overture into account. If the overture is counted as one, all the pieces go up one and they become the scale degrees of the scale a major second lower, or Eb-major. See Table 3 below.

Table 3. The numbers of pieces with the overture as No. 1 Key of piece GM EbM BbM FM CM Dm EM Gm FM No. of piece 3 4 5 11 15 16 17 19 22 Simplified 1+1 1+5 1+6 1+7 1+9 2+2 No. as scale III IV V II VI vii VIII x=iii IV degree

In over-all EbM BbM EbM EbM EbM EbM EbM EbM CM key of

Mozart gave us a hint in his autographed scores that he was thinking this way. He numbered the “Overture” number one, the “Introduction” number two, and so on. This was unusual. In most of his other operas he didn’t assign a number to the overture because the published scores don’t ever assign a number to the overture. Sometimes though, Mozart is known to number the overture in the autographed scores, like in Don

62 Giovanni he numbered it “No. 12” (Mozart 1787). It is not known why he numbered the pieces this way.

Characters as Tones

The analysis in this paper shows Mozart closely associated the text with the music not only matching the emotions of the text in the music (as had been the practice since

Josquin), but using the theoretical structures of the music to reflect numbers associated with characters and concepts. A complete explanation of how he used the music and words, while possible, would make this paper too lengthy. Therefore, there are just a few instances cited for each musical explanation. Mozart was highly consistent throughout the work, even in typical eighteenth-century chordal progressions such as I-vi-ii-IV-V-I.

Here I will only cite some of the more unusual structures.

In Die Zauberflöte, Mozart associated specific chords with specific characters. He did this through linking the key of the first aria each character sang with that character. In other cases the relationships between the key and character happen through the chord the character first sang or, in the case of “Love” and “Revenge,” through the subjects of the aria. The character and chord associations are shown in Table 4.

Table 4. Characters and ideas with associated chords. Character Chord Character Chord Papageno G-Major The Serpent C-minor Tamino Eb-Major Revenge D-minor Pamina G-minor Love E-Major

The Queen Bb7 Three Ladies Ab-Major Sarastro F-Major Three Boys A-Major Monostatos C-Major Source: Information about the keys of pieces came from Mozart 1879 63 “No. 1 Introduction” The Serpent

The opera begins with “No. 1 Introduction.” In this piece a serpent is chasing the hero Tamino and he asks the gods to help him. The three ladies, servants of the Queen of the Night, save him “by their power” (Die Zauberflöte, The Aria Database). This is described in the music by the use of the chords Eb-Major, C-minor, Ab-Major, and Bb7/D.

The first piece begins in the key of C-minor while the serpent is chasing Tamino.

The three ladies save Tamino and, at that moment, it changes keys to Eb-Major. The text is “Stirb, Ungeheur! durch unsre Macht!” (“Die Monster! by our Power!”). The music that accompanies this text begins with an Ab-Major chord with the ladies singing the root on the word “die.” It then continues with most of the orchestra playing the tones Eb then

C on the word “monster.”

After that, there is an outlining of the Ab-Major chord backwards with tones Eb, C, and Ab while they say the words “by our.” It then ends now with a complete chord of

Bb7/D on the word “power” with a fermata for dramatic effect. This is happening while the trombones and timpani continuously play the tones Eb and G throughout until reaching the word “Power.” After this point, the music continues in the key Eb-Major.

The musical description can be seen in Figure 3.

The specific description of the hero Tamino, being chased by a serpent attempting to consume him, as having “a bow with no arrow” is a reference to the fact that he is a tone without his chord, Eb without G-Bb. The descriptive nature of the music is such that

Tamino (Eb) was about to be consumed by the serpent (Eb-C) and was saved by the three

64 Figure 3. the section of the score where the three ladies save Tamino from the serpent

Source: Mozart 1879, 29 ladies (Eb-C-Ab) through an undefined power, assuming the power being a third lower. If we continue this musical description they then give way to the Queen of the Night (Bb7), their master. The Queen then allows Tamino’s existence to continue, through her support as V7 in the key now of Eb-Major.

This is how the music describes how not to be “consumed” by the relative minor, vi7 (in this case C-minor), through the use of IV and V7. Through this, one can also make two associations between characters and chords—the three ladies with the chord Ab-

Major and the serpent with C-minor seventh chord.

65 “No. 3 Aria” Tamino

Tamino just learns of Pamina’s (G-Bb-D) existence and immediately sings his aria in Eb-Major. Tamino sings of love he feels for Pamina, although he has only seen her portrait.

Before he says the word “love” the music modulates to Bb-Major and on that word he uses a viio/V and after the word, V (Eo then F-Major chords). Eo is an unusual chord to use in the overall key of the aria of Eb-Major. He uses this to express the anguish of love. Figure 4 shows the music. He is also foreshadowing Sarastro’s second aria about love in E-Major, “No. 15 Aria” and it is also in the key of F-Major that Pamina sings the word “love” for the last time in the finale of the second act on the I chord, F-Major chord.

The promise of love is fulfilled. This is shown in Figure 4. This also connects Tamino’s

Eb to the note E, the center for love (see Table 4).

“No. 4 Aria” The Queen of the Night

The fourth piece is an aria sung by the Queen of the Night. It begins with a recitative in Bb-Major before modulating to G-minor in the aria while describing her grief in having her daughter Pamina abducted. The music returns again to Bb-Major when she appoints Tamino to be Pamina’s savior.

At this point in the music Mozart uses a Bb-Major-Major seventh chord. It is not so common an occurrence to use a major major-seventh chord at this time in history, although it was used. He uses the chord to describe the Queen and her three ladies

66 Figure 4. "No. 3 Aria" showing vii/V chord on the word "love"

Source: Mozart 1879, 47 musically as Bb-D-F-A.

In a section of singing with the words “so sei sie dann auf ewig dein” (“so she will be yours forever”), there is a long melisma on the word “dann” that ends on a Bb-

Major chord. During this melisma the Queen shows her power through her three ladies by the switching back and forth between Bb-Major seventh and Bb-dominant seventh chords, through the switching of A to Ab. This shows she has the power and choice of whether or not to save him from the ever-present danger of the serpent, the vi chord (C-minor seventh chord).

Sarastro (F-Major) has abducted the Queen’s (Bb-Major) daughter, Pamina (G- minor). The Queen plans to send Tamino (Eb) into Sarastro’s land (F-Major scale)

Tamino will obtain Pamina (G-Bb) and through their marriage he will become complete, 67 Eb-Major chord (Eb-G-Bb). Tamino’s and Pamina’s marriage would cause an Eb-Major chord, which is degree IV in the scale of Bb-major. E and Eb is the difference between F-

Major scale and Bb-Major scale. This is how the Queen (Bb-Major) is going to steal back the “seven-fold circle of the sun,” or the tonality, from Sarastro (F-Major).

“No. 10 Aria” Sarastro

In this aria he sings of Isis and Osiris, the Goddess and God from Ancient Egypt.

The Goddess, Isis, is the queen of the living. Her love for her husband, Osiris, goes beyond life, because her husband was killed and dismembered by his brother, Seth, and she wouldn’t give up on their love. She found, put back together, and copulated with his dead body and bore a son, Horus. Once-dead, Osiris became the ruler of the underworld.

The music accompanying their names in the aria has F-Major chord on the name

“Isis,” the C-Major chord on the word “and,” and the Bb-Major Major seventh chord on the name “Osiris.” This is in opposition of the previous action involving the chord. It is here that Mozart links the goddess of the living who loved her husband so much she wouldn’t give up on him even after his death, with Sarastro’s F-Major chord. Also he links the god now reining over the dead with the Queen’s Bb-Major-Major seventh chord.

They have opposite genders than the gods they’re associated with. This again shows the

Queen’s and Sarastro’s role reversal. See Figure 5.

“No. 13 Aria” Monostatos

Up until now, in act II, There still hasn’t been a movement outside the keys of C-

Major, F-Major, or G-Major. The total number of movements passed so far in those keys 68 Figure 5. Sarastro's “No. 10 Aria” showing F and BbM7 chords on the names Isis and Osiris

Source: Mozart 1879, 117 is fourteen, plus the missing piece is fifteen. This is the same number as the break in the finale. It occurred on scene 15.

Mozart’s piano concerto K. 503 in C-Major comes to mind. In that concerto

Tovey (1936) states that the exposition of the tutti lasts a while and doesn’t leave the key of C-Major creating tension. The same thing in Die Zauberflöte has been happening.

Tension has been building.

This is a second “break” in the opera. The previously mentioned break was after the seventh piece. This break occurs after piece “No. 13” Monostatos’ aria (14 if including the missing piece in the count). If the opera is divided at these points, it then receives a third act. We will call these acts 1a, 2a, and 3a. This is shown in the table in

Appendix E.

69 “No. 21 Finale”

The finale is in the key of Eb-Major. Tamino and Pamina are going to get through the trials, Papageno gets his Papagena, and the Queen and Monostatos get vanquished to eternal night

After the three boys save Pamina from suicide, they bring her to Tamino to go through the trials with him. When they bring her, the priest tells Tamino that he may speak with her. At this time the music modulates to Db-Major. This is the only time in the opera Mozart uses this key. He uses it in part because it has five flats. Five is the marriage number. He saved it until now because Db is the last key that they need to conquer the Queen. It completes Sarastro’s Eo making it Eo7 (E-G-Bb-Db).

Tamino and Pamina go through the trials of fire (four) and water (five) successfully. The trials musically are identical. They are very simple harmonically using only C: I, V, IV, and V/IV.

The three boys save Papageno from suicide also. They suggest he play the magic bells to get Papagena. He does and Papageno and Papagena sing a song in G-Major, this time modulating to D-Major, two keys, as a musical description that they are together.

The two sharps that come with D-Major are also symbolic that they are two now.

The Queen, Monostatos, and the three ladies now attempt to storm the temple.

They are banished into eternal night. Tamino (Eb) keeps silent; Sarastro uses his secret weapon, Eo7, and Papageno “chatters.”

70 Visual Representations in Die Zaberflöte

The whole first act of the opera is a representation of Tamino (Eb-Major chord) being consumed by the serpent (C-minor seventh chord). The keys of the piece numbered

1-8 begin and end with the tonal center C. The second four pieces of the act are numbered

5-8 (Bb, G, Eb, and C). This series of tones mimics how the ladies saved Tamino from the serpent (Eb, C, Ab, —Bb) but this time instead of the Ab-Major chord giving way to the

Bb-Major seventh chord, IV-V7, the Eb-Major chord is consumed by the tone of C, I-vi7.

See Appendix C.

“No. 14 Aria” Dagger of Revenge

Now there is a release of the previously built tension in the Queen of the Night’s aria about revenge. Mozart saves this key of D-minor for use as describing the revenge of the Queen. She is singing about her rage and hands Pamina a dagger with which to kill

Sarastro.

In this aria the Queen also uses a melisma in a descriptive way to describe

Sarastro’s death as can be seen in Figure 6. In the melisma she sings a measure of C’s to an F half-note and a measure of A’s to a D half note outlining the D-minor seventh chord followed by the tone F, leading to the highest note in the opera (C, F, A, D- F).

Figure 6. “No. 14 Aria” the Queen of the Night's musical description of Sarastro's death

Source: Mozart 1879, 136

71 These are in the inversion of C-minor seventh chord that was outlined in the pieces numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 (C, G, Eb, Bb, Bb, G). The difference being that her ladies had saved Tamino from the serpent in the first act and now with the inversion of the same chord the Queen means to end Sarastro’s life. But instead of a serpent (C-minor seventh chord) she’s having her daughter use a dagger (D-minor seventh chord).

Take a circle of the seven tones of C-minor scale ordered by fifths and trace the order of the keys of act 1a, originally numbered 1-7 (C, G, Eb, Bb, Bb, G), and also trace the order of the notes sung during the Queens description of Sarastro’s death (C, F, A, D-

F). Take note of the opposite order that happens between the two minor-seventh chords as inversions of each other. The figure in Appendix D is the result. The figure resembles the Catholic stole. According to the website www.newadvent.org, the stole is a liturgical vestment worn by deacons, priests, and bishops, but it is only crossed over the breast by priests and in turn is a symbol of that office. It draws to mind the argument that Chailley makes that Die Zauberflöte is not only a masonic allegory but also that it specifically depicts tensions between the Catholic Church and Freemasonry (Godwin 1979, 471).

“No. 15 Aria” Love

Seven is the number of the degree E holds in the scale of F-Major. It is also the seventh piece from the ending and when at first Tamino said the word “love,” the music had in it viio/V, Eo then F.

The tone E also is the tritone of the Queen’s tone of Bb, on the opposite side of the circle of fifths and opposite in nature. Sarastro says he will show Pamina how he is to take revenge on her mother, with brotherly love. Mozart showed how the Queen plans to

72 destroy him through his tone a minor third below, or the sixth scale degree. Now Mozart shows us how Sarastro will combat this by using her tritone, his seventh degree, love.

With the addition of the missing piece that makes the last piece and this piece numbers fifteen and sixteen. Again the numbers seem to be a symbol of the Catholic

Church and Freemasonry like that of the scenes fifteen and sixteen.

There are two places to look for further clues in the music of this aria for how he is taking revenge on the Queen. The places to look are the only phrase where he uses sharps (leaves the key) and at the low F’s, the lowest tones sung in the opera.

The phrase where Sarastro sing sharps in the music says “Und ist ein Mensch gefallen, führt Liebe ihn zur Pflicht” (“And should a person have fallen, Love will guide him to duty”). The descriptive nature of the melody here plays a role in the way he takes revenge with love. In the previously mentioned phrase, he has Sarastro singing on the words “love will guide him to duty” G# slurred to B, G# slurred to E, D# slurred to F#, E slurred to C#, and finally B with the accompanying orchestra playing B’s and a D#. This describes the falling of a man to his eventual demise and can be seen in Figure 7.

Figure 7. Melodic description of the words in Sarastro's "No. 15 Aria"

Source: Mozart 1879, 140-141

Also one must look at where the two low F’s are at the end of the aria. The last part of the phrase says “in’s bessre, in’s bessre Land” (“in a better, in a better land”). He

73 sings, always moving in an upward direction, F#-A-C#-E (F#-minor seventh chord) chord ending with the E on E-Major chord (without the fifth).

Compared to the Queen’s C-minor seventh chord of the opening act structure, this is almost on the opposite side of the circle of fifths and in different order. If we plot the notes on a circle of E-Major scale notes ordered by fifths, the notes as follows; G#-B, G#-

E, D#-F#, E-C#, B-D#, and G#-B-D#-F#-A, the following Figure 8 shows the results,

“The seven-fold circle of the sun.”

Figure 8. Melody notes from Sarastro's “No. 15 Aria”, "the seven-fold circle of the sun"

Mozart’s use of melody and harmony, as well as slurs in his describing Sarastro’s lyrics compared to the simple melodic description of the Queen’s lyrics, shows that

Sarastro’s way is more intelligently thought through even though it is in the form of a seemingly simple folk song. Compare these things with the Italian style of composing opera arias in order to show off the singer’s ability with the simplicity of an intelligently composed German folk song and Mozart’s stance is clear. He is in favor of the German folk song.

None of the composing so far is outside the norm for that of the period. This is part of Mozart’s brilliance. That he was able to use the music to describe these things

74 while encoding the symbols shown is what makes him remarkable. This is not unlike his ability to compose riddles that had dual meaning, simple answers as well as the real more complex answer. It seems he had his true secret language in music.

The height of the drama has now been reached in this opera. These arias are opposite to the extreme: opposite in character (the Queen’s revenge aria in the style of the

Italians opera seria compared to Sarastro’s song about brotherly love in the style of the

German folk song), opposites in register (with the high coloratura voice of the queen and the low bass voice of Sarastro), opposite in modality (the minor mode compared to major), and the keys almost completely on opposite sides of the circle of fifths (E major –

D minor).

Appendix F shows the last words of the attackers saying, “Shattered, shattered is our power! We are all fallen into eternal night!” The first phrase has them singing, with most of the orchestra following, on notes in descending thirds on the chord E-diminished seventh giving way to F (Db-Bb-G-E—F).

This is followed by a Major-Major-seventh chord Db-Major Major seventh moving down from the C and giving way to a B-natural in a G-Major chord (C-Ab-F-

Db—B). the B-natural is on the word “Nacht” (“Night”), symbolizing the Queen (Bb) entering eternal night.

The notes C-Ab-F-Db and Db-Bb-G-E cannot be plotted on a circle using diatonic notes, but if Db-Major scale is used but instead of Gb, G is used and instead of Eb, E is used (Papageno “chatters” and Tamino is silent) the following Figure 9 is the result.

75

Figure 9. Sarastro uses his weapon, "the seven-fold circle of the sun" *The line from C to E was added

After this the key goes to F-Major and then directly to Eb-Major using the Bb- chord as a pivot chord. It was IV in F-Major and V in Eb-Major. Sarastro says his last two lines, “The rays of the sun drive away the night. Destroyed is the hypocrites’ surreptitious power.”

The “Third” Act

If one takes the key centers of the pieces of the portion of the last act, 3a, pieces originally numbered 14-20, and includes that “No. 20 Aria” moves to the key of C, plotting them on a circle of the notes of the F-Major scale, Figure 10 is the result. The resemblance with the compass, square, and “all-seeing eye” hovering above is further evidence of the interpretation of the opera as an analogy of the argument between the

Catholic Church and the Freemasons.

76

Figure 10. The key centers of act 3a plotted on a circle of F-Major scale notes * The line from C to A was added its absence could due to the second missing piece

77 VII. NUMBER SYMBOLISM AND DIE ZAUBERFLÖTE

Mozart used number symbolism in different ways. Among those ways are through the number of flats and sharps in the key signature, through the number of the pieces, and through the chord or scale degrees.

The problem with numbers being masculine and feminine is with people’s tendency to confuse those two things with being a man and being a woman. This is understandable since in language he and she is said with the connotations of masculine and feminine gender, but each human being is both masculine and feminine as has been shown to be true by C. G. Jung.

When talking about number symbolism the first four numbers are the numbers of the tetraktys and therefore are neither human man or human woman, but are the principles by which matter comes into being and those principles are called masculine and feminine and all humans share elements of both.

The Number “One”

The philosophy attached to Pythagorean number symbolism begins with the first number one, or monad. The number one is the father of the universe according to the

Greeks. It is neither odd nor even and is the first principle of all things. The Greeks saw one in everything since every number is divisible by one. The Christians called one God.

The point symbolizes one in geometry and is contained and finite which caused the

78 Greeks to see unity in it. They felt the universe was held together by this unity and therefore saw it as good (Hopper, 1938 40).

Papageno has one sharp in the first aria he sings. It never leaves the key of G-

Major (one key). In his second area he has one flat. In the end he is a father.

Sarastro is the true father figure in this opera with one flat in his key signature, the first scale degree (F is I in the key of F-Major), and one also appears in the number of his piece (10, 1+0=1). He is the model universal father of the Greeks. He accepts everyone as they are and there is unity in his way of life.

The Number “Two”

The number two or duad is “antithetical pairs” (Hopper 1938, 11). If one is the father of the universe then two is the mother, the second principle of the universe. Two symbolizes a breaking away from unity and is the first even or feminine number.

According to Porphyry (234 – 305 AD), a Neo-Platonic philosopher, one and two are forever in opposition to each other; immortal and mortal, day and night, sun and moon, equality and inequality as well as others (Hopper 1938, 40).

A line symbolizes two in geometry and goes on infinitely in either direction. The

Greeks saw the concept of infinite as bad since they perceived the universe as held together by unity instead of dissipating into infinite (Hopper, 1938 40-41).

Capella (1925) said that two “participates in both good and evil” much like

“justice” itself. It is considered the first feminine number and the “mother” of the other numbers since it is the divisor of all even numbers. If the number one is God then the

79 number two is “the generation of matter” because matter also participates in both good and evil (Butler 1970, 33-34).

Pythagoras thought of the number two as evil because it broke away from one

(Butler 1970, 9). This translated easily into dualistic Christianity as Satan. Satan was an angel that was cast out of heaven. This fits Cappella’s thinking that two participates in both good and evil.

Papageno had two as the number of his first aria. He frequently showed up as the

II chord (through G-Major chord in the overall key of F-Major). Although it is written

V/V, it showed up in the second position of the scale. Then there is the song where he finally gets Papagena. It is in the key of G-Major and modulates this time to its dominant

D-Major. That is two keys, two people, and two sharps of D-Major. His propensity to participate in both good and evil is shown throughout his flawed character (telling lies and unable to keep quiet as promised). There is a connection other people have made with Papageno being the feminine character of man which the freemasons reject from there society.

Pamina has in her key signature two flats and also is the second scale degree in the key of F-Major. She participates in both good and evil in that she unsuccessfully contemplates murder and suicide. She is a good example of duality because she doesn’t know what to do most of the time. Sarastro says, “she needs a man to guide her heart.”

She is the feminine principal.

The Number “Three”

If numbers one and two are the first principles of the universe, then three, the

80 triad, is the first “real” number. One is God (Monad), two is the generation of matter

(Duad), and three is “the Ideal forms.” The “Ideal” or Platonic forms are generated by three sided triangles as mentioned before (Butler 1970, 34). Number three is seen as a mediator between the concepts of one and two and restores balance and harmony. It is also considered the first of the masculine or odd numbers.

The Christians as well as the Pythagoreans revered three and the former adopted it as a symbol of Christ. The number three was the first of the “real” numbers acting as mediator between one and two, restoring balance. According to the Christians, Christ was the mediator between heaven and earth. His death opened up the gates of heaven. It also is the number of the trinity, Father, son, and Holy Ghost. The number three fit right in with the Christian theology.

That Tamino is number three has already been established by others. The idea that he is the mediator between the two opposite pairs (the Queen and Sarastro) is shown by his participation in both worlds. Through both his participation in rescuing Pamina and as

Eb he participates in the overtones of F and the major scale of Bb. He also, by bridging the gap between the two worlds, F-Major and C-minor, obtains his new world of Eb-Major.

Papageno also is the number three. His second aria in F-Major is number 21

(2+1=3), after the addition of the missing piece. Also, as shown in the analysis, he accompanies Tamino and is also the mediator between the two worlds. He also has three transformations as shown through the three verses of his first aria.

The Number “Four”

The number four represents solid matter. It completes the “archetype” numbers

81 and allows the formation of the tetraktys as stated in the previous section. It is the number of stability, but four is the first non-prime number. It is feminine and is divisible by two making it corruptible.

The Queen has in her key signature two flats and as she is scale degree number four in the key of F-Major, she is both numbers. Although the description of two seems closer to her as the mother of all numbers, breaking away from the one (Sarastro), and antithetical pairs, music theory dictates her role. As scale degree IV she often tries to steal the tonality for herself.

For the purposes of number symbolism it will have to be enough that she is woman and is divisible by two. It may be enough to argue in favor of Pamina’s role as the number two, to say that she is only divisible by herself and God (a prime number), and therefore deserves her place as number two in the opera.

The Number “Five”

The number five is 2 + 3 and, therefore, as a combination of the first feminine and the first masculine numbers is said to be both genders. It is called by Pythagoreans the first of the marriage numbers. When multiplied by odd numbers, it repeats itself in the answer and that, as well as other things, caused Cappella to call it the number “of the inhabitants of the world.” It also repeats itself geometrically. A five-pointed star has within it a pentagon. The corners of the pentagon can be connected in a way that makes another five-pointed star. (Butler 1970, 34) Macrobius said five was a number

“embracing all living things” because, among other things human beings have five senses

(Hopper, 1938 43). Number five is the number representing mankind.

82 Papageno is number five. He is scale degree V in C-minor, Scale degree V/V in

F-Major. He plays the pan flute of five notes ending on scale degree V (sol) as well.

The number five as the number of senses describes Papageno well. He is obsessed with drinking alcohol, eating, and sex (love). He longs to reproduce himself in little

Papagenos and Papagenas. He is the marriage number representing the combination of good and evil as well as masculine and feminine, but he also represents actual marriage complete with children and it is through this which he finds he is complete. This is shown through V/V, 5+5=10, (human being + human being = completeness).

Monostatos also was V in the key of F but he didn’t have any key signature. If the characters resonate with a number and liken that to their souls like the ancient Greeks suggested, then he was concerned with the five senses but had no soul.

The Number “Six”

The number six is 2 x 3 and is called the second of the marriage numbers. It is feminine but six also is the first perfect number. According to the website Encyclopedia

Britannica a perfect number is a positive integer that is equal to the sum of its proper divisors. Six is the sum of one, two, and three as well as the product of those numbers.

Like the number four, it is divisible by two, but it is also divisible by three. It is infinitely divisible, therefore it has no unity, and unity is something needed by the musical artist in the Eighteenth Century. Mozart shows this through the power of the sixth tone in C-minor (the three ladies). It can change at will between A and Ab, upsetting

Tamino’s (Eb-Major chord) very existence, but that power is taken away from the control of the Queen (Bb-Major-Major seventh chord) when they are securely in Eb-Major.

83 The number six seems to be the Queen’s number, with piece number 15 (aria on revenge) and scene 15 (1+5=6). It also is the number of the serpent (C-minor chord) in

Tamino’s key of Eb-Major and the number of the dagger of revenge (D-minor chord) in

Sarastro’s key of F-Major. Taking into account the Masonic allegory, that makes it the number of the Catholic Church or the Jesuit Priests.

The Number “Seven”

The number seven, the heptad, in Pythagoreanism is by itself, rather like the monad. A cycle is completed by the number six and the addition of all the previous numbers to it one, two, three, four, five, six, and seven gives twenty-eight, both seven and twenty-eight are astrological numbers. Plato called seven in his Timaeus “the movable image of eternity” and Macrobius in Philo, On the Festivals, I called it “the virgin number, neither generated nor generating within the decad.” He was referring to generating in terms of multiplication. It is also said to be the number of harmony because the seven planets (believed to be the whole universe during the Middle Ages) were believed also to give off a sound, each unique, like a music scale (Hopper, 1938 44).

That Mozart equated the number seven with love in this opera is clear. The two songs about love, “No. 7 duett” is seventh from the beginning and “No. 16 Aria” is seventh from the ending. The first time Tamino says the word love in his aria of Eb-Major the music has viio/V. If piece number 15 (1+5=6) is thought to be the Jesuit priests, then that makes number 16 (1+6=7) Freemasonry.

84 The Number “Nine”

The number nine is the first masculine square, 32. Three 3’s added together is nine and Martianus Capella believed it to be the “perfect form of the perfect 3” (Hopper 1938,

44). Although nine was considered to be very good, it was also one short of ten and therefore faulty or “less than perfect” (Hopper 1938, 3-11). The number nine is also the ultimate part of harmony since Pythagoras discovered in his experiments the proportion of 8:9, which they used in tuning for the tone (Butler 1970, 34).

Papageno is nine, because he was equated with the ninth above the tonic the same as scale degree two. He is less than perfect, that is obvious, but also finds that he is the

“perfect form of the perfect 3.” Papageno says himself in marriage he can “measure myself with Princes” and “enjoy life as a Wiseman.” He (G) also is the ninth tone in the harmonic series of F.

The Number “Ten”

The number ten and one are basically the same in the number symbolism of

Pythagoras. The Christians later adopted this as God being the beginning and the end of all things. Aristotle said “Ten is the total of all things, embracing the entire world”

(Hopper, 1938 45).

The three boys are ten. They (A) are tenth in the harmonic series of F, as well as fifth. The description of ten as “the total of all things, embracing the entire world” describes their behavior in the opera. They seem to be working for the Queen and then seem to be working for Sarastro, but are not ever malevolent in any way. They’re like pure innocents. They save both Pamina and Papageno from suicide. As mentioned when

85 talking about five, Papageno is also ten.

Let’s examine the number symbolism of the masculine and feminine number.

The number symbolism in the opera is summed up in Table 5 and 6, showing the numbers and their associations and the numbers each character is associated with.

Table 5. The numbers and their associations Number Association Meaning 1 Point, Unity God, Universal Father 2 Line, Duality Participates in good and evil, Universal Mother 3 Equilateral triangle, Triad Man, Harmony, Peace, Strength 4 Tetrahedron, Solid, Fire Woman, Flawed 5 Pentad, Water Procreation, Vanity, Physical World, Human 6 Cube, Earth The Soul, Infinitely Divisible 7 Heptad, Osiris Fortune, man and wife, God’s crown 9 8:9 = the tone All but perfect 10 Decad All encompassing, same as 1 Sources: Butler’s Number Symbolism and Plato’s Timaeus

Table 6. Characters and their number association Key of F-Major Key of C-minor Sarastro 1 The Serpent 1 Pamina 2 Tamino 3 Three Boys 3-10 Papageno 1-2-5 The Queen 4-2 The Three Ladies 4-6 Monostatos 5-0 The Queen 2-7 Papageno 1-2-3-5-9-10 (5+5)

86 VIII. INTERPRETING THE RESULTS

The Overture

The overture, like any great work of art, begins with the premise of the opera.

Appendix B has the three chords of the opening. They are, each on the downbeat, I—vi—

I6 (Eb-Major chord—C-minor chord—Eb-Major/G chord). He has in it two other chords that are just second instances of the C-minor and Eb-Major/G chords just before the downbeats.

The first chord is Eb-Major in root position symbolizing the man living for himself. The second chord is the C-minor chord symbolizing that this way of life leads to the serpent. The third chord is the Eb-Major/G chord symbolizing the triumph over the serpent through living with God or the Grand Architect as the man’s foundation.

This has the masculine three instances of chords on the outside on strong beats. It also has the feminine two instances on the inside on weak beats. The feminine two chords happen just before the beat, like a premonition or intuition. The five chords, as marriage number, give us the premise of the opera.

A Pattern in the Opera

The fact that Mozart used the relative minor to symbolize the serpent can be

87 looked at elsewhere also. In the following table we see that the minor third below almost caused the death of that character. It’s like saying the relative minor is a personal weakness in the character of a key. Table 7 shows their relationships.

Table 7. Characters, weaknesses, and saviors Destroyed by Saved by

Chord Character m3rd lower Character M2nd higher Character

Eb-Major Tamino C Serpent F Sarastro

F-Major Sarastro D Dagger G Pamina

G-Major Papageno E Love A Three Boys

G-minor Pamina E Love A Three Boys

Bb-Major The Queen G Pamina C Monostatos

The major second above the tone saves or attempts to save the character in question.

Besides the fact that the ii chord can save the tonic from the traps set by the IV chord, it also saves the tonic through its relationship of the vi-chord being the dominant of the ii chord.

The descriptions are as follows: Pamina saves Sarastro from the dagger by choosing not to use it. She also is the path to taking “revenge” on her mother. Papageno and Pamina are both saved by the three boys from trying to kill themselves over love and find love through the boys’ actions and advice. Monostatos attempts to save the Queen.

She promised her daughter, Pamina, would belong to him. He was not successful in his attempt. Sarastro saves Tamino (Eb) from the serpent by leading him into the brotherhood where he goes through the trials and receives Pamina (G-Bb-D), his arrow.

88 The Number Three, Masonic vs. Catholic

The number three is held in high regard in a number of religions. How do we know that it is in this opera everywhere as a symbol of Freemasonry? (Buch 2003) That this number does not refer to the Trimūrti of Hinduism, for example, is relatively obvious considering that Mozart was not Hindu, but he was however Catholic, and Christians hold the number also in high regard. If the assumption is made that the opera is an allegory of Freemasonry and Catholicism, the fact that the number three is on both sides in the opera, the Queen’s three ladies and also three doors to the temple, can point to the fact that both Catholicism and Freemasonry hold the number in high regard.

This can be a further explanation why the three boys didn’t take sides at all in the opera. Obviously since many Catholics are also Freemasons they don’t choose sides in the arguments of the Catholic Church. The fact that Sarastro (as Freemason) used “No. 15 aria” (new number 16) with 4 sharps as his method of “revenge” can be seen as four being the difference between the Freemasons and Catholics. Pythagorean number symbolism puts a high regard on the number four with the tetraktys, as assuming the

Freemasons do also.

This also may be why Mozart composed his entire life in keys that had, in their key signatures, three or fewer sharps and flats. The significance of why he did this isn’t known. A master composer like Mozart didn’t just exclude half of the colors (tones) from around the circle of fifths without a good reason.

To attribute this to the Trinity of Catholicism would be a good reason, given his strict Catholic childhood, but as he got older he started using keys with four sharps and flats in the key signature. He composed K. 542 in 1788, K. 594 in 1790, and K. 608 in

89 1791. The first was a piano trio in E-Major. The next two were related, both for mechanical organ in F-minor (Zaslaw and Cowdery 1990). All of them were composed after he was well indoctrinated into Freemasonry. There is no way to say for sure that this is true but it is a likely explanation given his use of number symbolism in this piece and the attachment of number symbolism especially of four to Pythagorean number symbolism and probably also Freemasons.

Papageno as the Great Architect

The letter G appears in the Freemasons’ symbol and Papageno is tone G. When

Tamino first gets saved from the serpent, he thinks it was Papageno who saved him.

From the point of view of theory, it makes sense that V/V can save the tonic from the vi chord. Papageno may not have saved him in the beginning but this is foreshadowing that he is the key to saving him in the future. He also sang a V chord, G-chord, on the word

Gods (Götter) when he was asking for help to escape the serpent. G as well as five is associated with Papageno.

Koenigsberger and Godwin said in their Jungian analyses that all the characters can be seen as one psyche. Multiple people said that most of the characters are two- dimensional with the exception of Papageno. Number symbolism tends to agree with peoples perceptions about the characters. I would go a step further and say that the entire opera is taking place in Papageno’s head.

Papageno is the only real person in the opera and the only comic character in a purported comedy. He has the first and last arias. He accompanies Tamino all throughout the drama. He starts out with his masculine reason, Tamino, and finds his feminine

90 intuition, Pamina, and connects the two when they are looking for each other. They then merge when they go through the “trial.”

Papageno is numbers one, two, three, five, nine, and ten. No other character can even come close to the complexity of his ways, as comical as they are.

If one looks at the table in appendix E, there’s symmetry to the opera through acts

1a and 3a. Act 1a has pieces in keys having one sharp and two and three flats. The third section has pieces in keys having one, two, and three flats and two, three, and four sharps.

Figure 11 gives us the trinity of the Catholic Church, one sharp and two and three flats. Figure 12 gives us the masculine triangle of two-dimension over the feminine triangle of three-dimensions.

Figure 11. The trinity of the Catholic Church through Mozart's use of flats and sharps of act 1a * Sharps and flats in a different order than occur in the opera

When looking at the fact that Papageno sang the two arias with one sharp and one flat, we see that Mozart put him at the top of both figures, symbolizing his mental state before the adventure and his mental state after the adventure.

It also can be part of the explanation of why Mozart wasn’t wholly satisfied with

Freemasonry. It seems to be the exclusive nature that he wasn’t comfortable with.

Freemasonry in rejecting the feminine doesn’t allow for the complete picture of the world. Others have made this argument. This is why the alternative Freemasons started the “Egyptian rite” in 1784. Mozart and Schikaneder are hinting that the Great Architect

91

Figure 12. Two-dimensional masculine triangle above three-dimensional feminine pyramid. * Sharps and flats in a different order than occur in the opera of the Universe wouldn’t have been allowed in Freemasonry because he was all encompassing, having in him both masculine and feminine.

92 IX. MOZART’S DEATH

Mozart’s final year brought with it an increase in productivity with new compositions including the piano concerto in Bb, K. 595, the string quintet in Eb, K. 614, two full-length operas including Die Zauberflöte, most of his Requiem, KV 626, and a multitude of other works (Solomon 1995, 473-4). He had a special place in his heart for his Die Zauberflöte and the final Requiem, which he left unfinished and was completed later by Franz Xaver Süssmayer.

To say Mozart was busy in his final year is an understatement. His wife

Constanze, while recovering from an illness, went to Baden and Mozart couldn’t go though he wanted to (Abert 2007, 1305). He was having trouble keeping up with the household expenses as shown through his outstanding debt. Some have blamed the reason for his outstanding debt on his lifestyle, and yet others say, he was not living very extravagantly, but it was due to a recession in Vienna at that time. Mozart having no stable, high paying position with the courts made him susceptible to the spending habits of the public.

His final illness, which has been under much speculation over the years, was said to be caused from being poisoned by Salieri, because of his professional jealousy; the

Freemasons, because he gave there secrets away in Die Zauberflöte; a jealous husband of someone he was said to be having an affair with; or a jealous boyfriend of Constanze’s.

93 That either Salieri or the Freemasons killed Mozart is highly unlikely. Salieri, although was jealous of Mozart, to say he was capable of murder is another thing entirely and why would he do it? Mozart wasn’t a threat to his career and Mozart was in a desperate situation already, hardly making it worth Salieri committing murder.

As far as the Freemasons are concerned, if they killed Mozart for giving their secrets away, why not kill Schikaneder? Schikaneder, being the librettist of Die

Zauberflöte, would have been a far more likely target.

A friend of Mozart’s who he knew from the Freemasons lodge, Franz Hofdemel, had attacked his wife, Magdalena, on the day after Mozart’s death. Hofdemel cut his wife’s face and left her scared for life before turning the blade on himself killing himself.

Magdalena was a pupil of Mozart’s who was pregnant. The date of conception of the child would have been around the time that Constanze gave birth to their last child, however the courts didn’t think the child was Mozart’s because if they had they wouldn’t have publicly taken such interest in Magdalena after the attack. (Landon 1988, 180)

Mozart was depressed before his death. He himself believed he had been poisoned, but by the person he thought commissioned the Requiem, who chose to remain anonymous. He therefore believed he was composing his own requiem (Abert 2007,

1306-9). His wife tried to cheer him up and tried to convince him not to work on the

Requiem. His health started to improve and with it he had a change of heart about being poisoned, but that didn’t last. With the return of his failing health, the thought of having been poisoned returned (Abert 2007, 1306-9).

The success of Die Zauberflöte gave him great joy in his final days. Even on his deathbed, he had his watch and followed along in his mind the performance of the opera

94 taking place that evening. The night of his death he expressed to his wife the desire to hear Die Zauberflöte one more time. He died at 1:00 in the morning on December 5, 1791

(Abert 2007, 1306-11).

Due to his financial situation he was buried in a pauper’s grave and because of his friends’ and families’ negligence in keeping track of things, due largely to their grief but also to heavy rain on the day of the burial, no one was present at the site of the burial and as a result the final resting place of Mozart was lost (Abert 2007, 1308-11).

Ironically, a few days prior to his death he got two job offers. One of the offers was with the Hungarian aristocracy with a salary that would have taken care of both him and his family and given him enough money to pay off his debts (Abert 2007, 1307-9).

95 X. CLOSING

In Die Zauberflöte Mozart proved to the world that he was worthy of the title

“King” in his musical kingdom, where number symbolism decides which tones are princes and which tones are wise men. In this land where the drama happens not with the music but because of the music, musical considerations are the only considerations and the words become the “obedient daughter” who never misbehaves.

He was like Tamino, the Prince, when he was younger traveling around Europe on the Grand Tour and he was Papageno when he went out into the world for the first time, trying to accomplish things to no avail. When he was back in Salzburg after failing to secure a position with the courts, he was like Papageno trapped just wandering around in endless night wondering if he were ever going too find a mate like himself.

Whatever Freemasonry was at that time in history, Mozart found refuge in it. He made many friends who supported his efforts through Freemasonry and what that meant to him he showed us through Die Zauberflöte, even though he may not been wholly satisfied with the established order. This was probably due to the fact that he wanted everyone, including women, to have a chance at becoming a member. Through Ignaz von

Born he was introduced to Freemasonry, like Sarastro to Tamino, Born showed Mozart, through Freemasonry, how to live without judgment and to help people up when they had fallen.

He found in music and number symbols a way to combine his love of riddles with

96 the theology of Zoroaster, the astrology of the sun and moon, the math of Pythagoras, and all the drama of his “Kingdom of Back” into one composition.

In this opera Mozart brought together his pairs of opposites, his masculine reason with his feminine intuition, the bravado of Italian opera with the simple elegance of the

German folksong, the unearthly trinity of the Catholic Church with the earthly quaternity of Pythagoras. He becomes complete, finally, through finding a mate like himself V/V

(5+5=10) and having children so he could compare himself to a prince or wiseman and live in his own kingdom complete with a family who worships only himself, after God, and musical subjects who worship him as their king.

Through creating it, he got a glimpse of what “the Great Architect of the

Universe” must have felt after composing the sum of the universe, complete with its comic element. He would realize the satisfaction the Demiurge had when listening to his

“Harmony of the Spheres.”

Mozart at least had the satisfaction of knowing before he died that everyone loved his German singspiel and that he finally was offered a job making enough money to get by, something he waited for his entire life. Through his opera he obtained these goals just in time to be joined with “that best and truest friend of mankind,” not unlike Tamino was joined with Pamina at the end of Die Zauberflöte.

I thank my God for graciously granting me the opportunity … of learning that death is the key which unlocks the door to our true happiness.

—Mozart to his father, April 4, 1787

97 XI. APPENDICES

98 APPENDIX A

Table 8. Structure of the opera without counting the overture (1) and with counting the overture (2)

(1) Act I Character Papageno The Queen Aria Title “No. 2” “No. 4” Scale degree I ii iii IV V vi viio F-Major scale F G A Bb C D E Act II Character Sarastro Pamina The Three Boys Monostatos Revenge Love Aria Title “No.10” “No.17” “No.13” “No.14” “No.15” One added due to missing 18 14 15 16 99 piece 11a Adjusted no. as scale degree 1+0=1 1+8=9 1+4=5 1+5=6 1+6=7

(2) Act I Character Papageno The Three Ladies The Queen With the Overture as No. 1 No. 3 No. 5 Scale degree I ii iii IV V vi viio Eb-Major scale Eb F G Ab Bb C D Act II Character Sarastro Pamina Monostatos Revenge With the Overture as No.1 No. 11 No. 19 No. 15 No. 16 Adjusted no. as scale degree 1+1=2 1+9=10 1+5=6 1+6=7

APPENDIX B

Figure 13. The opening chords of the overture

Source: Mozart 1879, 1

100 APPENDIX C

Table 9. The numbered pieces and keys of Die Zauberflöte Number of

Piece Description Key b’s #’s Overture Eb 3 Act I no. 1 Intro. – the Serpent Cm 3 — no. 2 Aria - Papageno G — 1 no. 3 Aria - Tamino Eb 3 — no. 4 Aria - Queen of the Night Bb 2 — no. 5 Quintet Bb 2 — no. 6 Terzett G — 1 no. 7 Duett Eb 3 — no. 8 Finale C — — Act II no. 9 March of Priests F 1 — no. 10 Aria-Sarastro F 1 — no. 11 Duett C — — no. 12 Quintett G — 1 no. 13 Aria- Monostatos C — — no. 14 Aria - Queen Dm 1 — no. 15 Aria - Sarastro E — 4 no. 16 Three Spirits A — 3 no. 17 Aria - Pamina Gm 2 — no. 18 Chor der Priester D — 2 no. 19 Terzett Bb 2 — no. 20 Aria - Papageno F 1 — no. 21 Finale Eb 3 —

101 APPENDIX D

Figure 14. The key centers from the opening and the notes from "No. 14 Aria" around the notes of the C-minor scale compared to a priest's stole Source: Wikipedia creative commons file is a picture of a priest vested in an alb, cincture and purple stole taken by Gareth Hughes on 21 October 2005

102 APPENDIX E

Table 10. the numbered pieces and keys divided by where the natural breaks in the plot occur Number of Piece Description Key b’s #’s Overture Eb 3 — Act 1a no. 1 Intro. – the Serpent Cm 3 — no. 2 Aria - Papageno G — 1 no. 3 Aria - Tamino Eb 3 — no. 4 Aria - Queen of the Night Bb 2 — no. 5 Quintet Bb 2 — no. 6 Terzett G — 1 no. 7 Duett Eb 3 — Act 2a no. 8 Finale C — — no. 9 March of Priests F 1 — no. 10 Aria-Sarastro F 1 — no. 11 Duett C — — no. 12 Missing no. 13 Quintett G — 1 no. 14 Aria- Monostatos C — — Act 3a no. 15 Aria - Queen Dm 1 — no. 16 Aria - Sarastro E — 4 no. 17 Three Spirits A — 3 no. 18 Aria - Pamina Gm 2 — no. 19 Chor der Priester D — 2 no. 20 Terzett Bb 2 — no. 21 Aria - Papageno F 1 — Finale no. 22 Finale Eb 3 —

103 APPENDIX F

Figure 15. The banishing into eternal night in the finale

Source: Mozart 1879, 213

104 APPENDIX G

The following is the permission to reproduce the photo in Figure 14. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.

To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ us/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, PO Box 1866, Mountain View, CA 94042,

USA.

105 REFERENCES

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