In any event, a sojourn on the Mediterranean seemed
appropriate. Updike leaning on his rake, we talked about
my visits to Italy, Greece, the Lebanon and Egypt. I was
oblivious to his fame just as he seemed oblivious to my
youth and obscurity, seemingly taking my suggestions
seriously to heart.
During our conversation a rainfall of classical music
played loudly from near the house. I remember thinking
as we parted, I would never forget the music, it was so
compelling, so ennobling: eventually I did forget.
Recently, in the fall of 2012, forty years on, I found a
diminutive, thin booklet at a church shop, entitled, ���Karl
Barth: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.��� Thinking, ���How
interesting, what is the Swiss theologian���s take on the
composer?��� I picked it up, noticing at the bottom of the
title page, ���Foreword by John Updike.��� Then, I recalled,
it was Mozart, most probably The Magic Flute, that was
playing in Updike���s yard.
In the little book���s Foreword, Updike writes that for his
friend Barth, ������in the ranks of beauty stood the music
of Mozart, music which he placed famously and almost
notoriously above the music of Bach and all others as a
sounding out of God���s glory.���
Updike goes on to write that Barth believed that in Mozart,
the positive overwhelms pessimism: ������the Yea rings
HYLAND
