W.A. Mozart’s Music and Karl Barth’s Das Nichtige

Abstract

This article discusses Karl Barth’s use of W.A. Mozart’s music in the doctrine of creation (in Barth’s Church Dogmatics) in relation to Mozart’s music. I propose an approach for understanding how and why Mozart’s music was able to contribute to the theological delimitation of das Nichtige, a key concept in Barth’s theodicy, in a way that Barth’s discursive argumentation could not. Scholars have discussed whether the music for Barth functions as a parable about the Kingdom of God or as a secular artistic statement that feeds into Barth’s theological argument. Whereas Barth may have used Mozart playfully in some places, he uses Mozart strictly as a secular artist in the discussion of das Nichtige. Therefore, it becomes important to establish the extent to which Barth’s use of Mozart is musically well-founded. I use recent musicological discussions of Mozart’s piano concertos as a background for my own description and close reading of the first movement of Mozart’s piano concerto K. 451 (1784), concluding that Barth’s brief and unsubstantiated description of Mozart’s music in the Church Dogmatics can be substantiated to a large extent, precisely as what Barth claimed it to be: an artistic and secular statement, not a theological one.

1. Karl Barth’s Theological Interpretation of Mozart’s Music

The main aim of this article is twofold, first to discuss Karl Barth’s (1886–1968) understanding of the theological significance of the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) for the doctrine of creation, and, closely connected to this, to probe this understanding by close readings of Mozart’s music. Barth’s understanding of Mozart’s significance for the problem of theodicy, and thus for creation, was expressed in the Kirchliche Dogmatik, in the third part of volume 3 (on creation), in an excursus in § 50 on “Gott und das Nichtige” (God and Nothingness).1 Barth’s general enthusiasm for Mozart is well-known, leading also to popular publications in 1956, the bicentennial of Mozart’s birth. In his Doctrine of Creation in the Church Dogmatics, however, he chose to use Mozart’s music as sensory proof to secure his (theologically based) separation of das Nichtige, the dark threatening forces opposing God’s good creation, from the created good world. The idea that the music of a particular composer could have a significant position in Christian dogmatics apparently required a particular argumentation also for Barth:

Why is it possible to hold that Mozart has a place in theology, especially in the doctrine of creation and in eschatology, although he was not a father of the Church, does not seem to have been a particularly active Christian, and was a Roman Catholic, apparently leading what might appear to us a rather frivolous existence when not occupied in his work? It is possible to give him this position because he knew something about creation in its total goodness that neither the real fathers of the Church nor our Reformers, neither the orthodox nor Liberals, neither the exponents of natural theology nor those heavily armed with the “Word of God,” and certainly not the Existentialists, nor indeed any other great musicians before and after him, either know or can express and maintain as he did.2

(Barth 1960, p. 299)

Unsurprisingly, Barth’s discussion of the theological importance of Mozart’s music has been discussed by several theologians, including Küng ([1991] 2006), Begbie (2000, 2007), Gouwens (2000), Stoltzfus (2006), Krebs (2009), Moseley (2011), Decou (2013) and Kim (2014), but only rarely by musicologists such as Konrad (2005b). All these commentators, however, do not discuss the actual musical basis for Barth’s understanding, that is, they rarely or never ask the question, what it is more precisely in Mozart’s music that Barth heard, and which gave him cause for his theological interpretation? Barth’s own discussion of Mozart primarily draws out some very general points about light and shadow, harmony and conflict in the music, where in the end the light and the harmony prevail. Even so, Barth apparently heard the music as communicating an understanding of creation in its entirety as good, including both life’s darker and lighter sides, acknowledging both life and death:

He [Mozart] had heard, and causes those who have ears to hear, even to-day, what we shall not see until the end of time—the whole context of providence. As though in the light of this end, he heard the harmony of creation to which the shadow also belongs but in which the shadow is not darkness, deficiency is not defeat, sadness cannot become despair, trouble cannot degenerate into tragedy and infinite melancholy is not ultimately forced to claim undisputed sway. Thus, the cheerfulness in this harmony is not without its limits. But the light shines all the more brightly because it breaks forth from the shadow. The sweetness is also bitter and cannot therefore cloy. Life does not fear death but knows it well.3

(Barth 1960, p. 299)

It is indeed characteristic for Mozart’s music that it changes rapidly between major and minor keys, sometimes in bold modulations, and that such fluctuation of musical mood, generally heard as emotional changes, to a large extent take place within rigorous formal designs, sometimes giving rise to strong tensions but always within strict formal limits.4 Barth, of course, was not a musicologist, although clearly well acquainted with music and a capable amateur musician and singer (Stoltzfus 2006, pp. 115–16; Begbie 2007, p. 153; Moseley 2011, pp. 244–52). Asking whether Barth is right about Mozart, and whether so much can “be loaded to one composer,” Begbie asserts that “these are reasonable questions. However, if we spend too long on them we easily miss what is far more important: the vision that lies at the center of his adulation of Mozart, the vision that Mozart turned into sound for him […], the created world sounding its symphony to the Creator, as God wills it to” (Begbie 2007, pp. 155–56; cf. Begbie 2000, p. 95). The musicologist Ulrich Konrad also viewed Barth’s theologizing interpretation of Mozart positively, while underlining that it is only possible to understand the specific (discursive) contents of music metaphorically (Konrad 2005b, p. 186; see also Krebs 2009, pp. 554–55).

Barth’s vision of the created world praising the Creator in music is an important theological vision to hold on to. It is also important to let that vision be open for other potential musical contributions than Mozart’s, something not excluded by Barth’s text, although Barth himself clearly had no similar experiences with any other composer. Barth’s Mozart interpretation seems to admit a certain amount of subjectivity, implied by the repeated use of the phrase “for those who have ears to hear.” The phrase, however, also serves to underline the authoritative character of Barth’s claim, through its biblical associations (cf. Matt 11: 15, 13: 9; Mark 7: 16; Luke 14: 35 among others, cf. also, for example, Jer 5: 21).

Barth’s argumentation in the excursus, however, does not only depend on an overall vision, but on the reliability of his musical interpretation, since he draws on it as a sensory, audible statement about the world. Therefore, it is important to understand what it is, more specifically in Mozart’s music that Barth heard, and whether what he heard can be confirmed by studying Mozart’s music. Barth’s listening to Mozart made him draw wide-ranging conclusions about this music’s theological perspective, claiming Mozart’s music as a proof for his assertion that “it is a slander on creation to charge it with a share in chaos” (see n. 9 below), a central assertion in the Barthian theodicy, more precisely in Barth’s understanding of das Nichtige, a key concept in this part of the Church Dogmatics. Below, I shall return to the fundamental idea in Barth’s theodicy and the exact place of Mozart’s music in this theological construction, drawing on a recent discussion of Barth’s theodicy as an entirely different one from theodicies in the long theological tradition (Wüthrich 2021, who, however, does not even mention Barth’s use of Mozart in his discussion).

In order for Barth’s vision of the goodness of creation as being proven by Mozart’s music to be convincing, it is necessary to try to understand to what extent Mozart’s music, or at least important parts of it may convincingly be interpreted to be in accordance with the fundamental Christian idea of God’s good providence. This, of course, is a central notion in Christian culture, which, however, has often been misrepresented in various ways, also by Christian theologians. Partly for that reason, especially during and after the eighteenth century, it lost its cultural impact (historically, see (West et al. 2026); for a theological as well as historical critique, see Barth (1960, pp. 16–58); for his critical comments on Protestant theologies of providence, see pp. 31–34).

Barth’s excursus about the theological implications of Mozart’s music was positioned after the introduction of the main problem for a Christian theodicy. This, in Barth’s understanding, is the problem of das Nichtige. Barth included the Mozart excursus in the discussion of a potential misunderstanding, that of identifying the shadow-side of life with das Nichtige (§ 50, 2 “The Misconception of Nothingness,” (Barth 1960, pp. 297–303); “Die Verkennung des Nichtigen,” (Barth [1950] 1980, pp. 336–43)). In Barth’s theological construction, it is crucial to avoid this potential misunderstanding. As pointed out also by Wüthrich, Barth distinguishes sharply between the shadow side of life, including poverty, loss, mortality on one side, and das Nichtige on the other, which “does not belong to the shadow side of good creation in any way. Rather, das Nichtige represents the diametrical opposite of both creator and creature. In fact, das Nichtige is nothing less that the ‘primal antithesis’ ‘to the totality of God’s creation’” (Wüthrich 2021, p. 597).

Barth’s notion of das Nichtige is not easy to explain in general terms, nor how to define a clear line of separation between the aforementioned shadow side of human existence and das Nichtige in a non-specialist (non-theological) language.5 This is so also because das Nichtige for Barth can only be understood or recognized in light of Jesus Christ. For Barth, “das Nichtige has no independent history outside the history of Jesus Christ. It only ever comes into view when its defeat in Jesus Christ comes into view as well” (Wüthrich 2021, p. 608). Barth’s notion of das Nichtige can be seen as an abstract theological construction enabling him to deal with the problem of the theodicy by way of separating destructive evil and suffering from what may be called the limitations and restraints within the created world, that which Barth termed the shadow side of life. The notion of the shadow side of life acknowledges that all such problems in life should not be seen as being against God’s will:

It is true that in creation there is not only a Yes but also a No; not only a height but also an abyss; not only clarity but also obscurity; not only progress and continuation but also impediment and limitation; not only growth but also decay; not only opulence but also indigence; not only beauty but also ashes; not only beginning but also end; not only value but also worthlessness. It is true that in creaturely existence, and especially in the existence of man, there are hours, days and years both bright and dark, success and failure, laughter and tears, youth and age, gain and loss, birth and sooner or later its inevitable corollary, death.6

(Barth [1950] 1980, pp. 297–98)

However, this shadow side is “not involved in opposition and resistance to God’s creative will”:

On the contrary, this will is fulfilled and confirmed in it. The creature is natural and not unnatural. It is good, even very good, in so far as it does not oppose but corresponds to the intention of God as revealed by Him in the humiliation and exaltation of Jesus Christ and the reconciliation of the world with Himself effected in Him. For in Him God has made Himself the Subject of both aspects of creaturely existence. And having made it His own in Jesus Christ, He has affirmed it in its totality, reconciling its inner antithesis in His own person. The creature does not have the character of nothingness as and because it is a creature and partakes in this antithesis. On the contrary, this is its perfection and the proof of its creation in and for Jesus Christ.7

(Barth [1950] 1980, p. 297)

But as Wüthrich also points out, even das Nichtige has its ground in God, it even “incriminates the idea of God” (Wüthrich 2021, p. 608):

According to Barth, the peculiar reality of das Nichtige is grounded in this rejection, this non-willing, this wrathful, judgmental activity of God on his left hand. Das Nichtige comes into existence ‘only by the fact that it is that which God does not will. But it does live by this fact. For not only what God wills, but what He does not will, is potent, and must have a real correspondence’.

(Wüthrich 2021, p. 597, quoting Barth 1960, p. 353)

Altogether, the construction has its roots in Barth’s Christological focus, which makes Christ’s victory over das Nichtige on the cross the point of departure for the identification of das Nichtige (Wüthrich 2021, pp. 610–11). Wüthrich even makes the claim (as also indicated in the title of his article), that Barth’s theodicy is unlike all traditional theodicies (Wüthrich 2021, pp. 594, 606–8), also because it does not try to explain the existence of das Nichtige, a question that, according to Wüthrich, does not interest Barth (Wüthrich 2021, p. 611). In any case, Barth’s theodicy is not—like theodicies in general—an attempt at explaining evil in the world in relation to God’s good creation and omnipotence, it is rather a theological discourse that acknowledges the existence of the problem and accounts for it in a logical theological construction. For Wüthrich, “it is the urgent task of theology to keep the theodicy question so open that it always leads us back into prayer, where we may and must ask: ‘Why, God, how much longer?’” (Wüthrich 2021, pp. 615–16).8

Barth’s Christology involves depths that are impossible to cover in this article. The opposition between creation and das Nichtige has a certain correspondence with the radically new way Barth treats the opposition between the concepts of election and rejection. For Barth, this was based on Christ’s election, and with regard to His taking upon himself the rejection of the rejected in order to elect them, “it is strictly and narrowly only in the humanity of the one Jesus Christ that we can see who and what an elect person is. It is He who is the man distinguished by this special relationship to God. It is His life which is the genuine fulfilment of genuine election” (Barth 1957, p. 352). Generally, he who is rejected is he who rejects God and God’s grace in Christ (Barth 1957, p. 451). But he is not just rejected:

[God] wills that he too should hear the Gospel, and with it the promise of his election. He wills, then, that this Gospel should be proclaimed to him. He wills that he should appropriate and live by the hope which is given him in the Gospel. He wills that the rejected should believe, and that as a believer he should become a rejected man elected. The rejected as such has no independent existence in the presence of God. He is not determined by God merely to be rejected. He is determined to hear and say that he is a rejected man elected.

(Barth 1957, p. 507)

It has already been pointed out that, in order to understand why the Mozart excursus occurs at precisely the point where it does, and to understand its function in Barth’s theology, it is necessary to keep Barth’s distinction between the shadow side of life and das Nichtige in mind. In Barth’s construction, Mozart’s music is a sensory proof of the theological claim that das Nichtige is not part of creation. Mozart’s music, as Barth hears it, shows the shadow side of life incorporated into the music’s audible depiction of the world, shadow and light as the yes and no of the Creator, but not in a revolt against the Creator, but in overall acceptance of the basic conditions of life. Thus, for Barth, Mozart’s music corresponds to the description of creation, which Barth gives in his verbal discourse, possibly even inspired by the aural experiences of listening to Mozart (which Barth did every day). In this way, Mozart becomes a sensory proof of a specific but decisive point in Barth’s theological construction, indeed, not as a theological abstraction, as much else in Barth’s theodicy. Mozart’s music in Barth’s view stands as an interpretation of the actual physical (and mental) world in which both Barth and his readers, as well as Mozart, belong. A sensory argument was needed, a contribution from someone living in this world, and not only on its sunny side, but someone who also experienced misery, and was also able to express sorrow, fear, even desperation. According to Barth, Mozart composed his music in such a way that it can be heard even today as conveying a fundamental understanding of life’s overall meaning and beauty, even when facing the shadows and inevitable darker experiences.

It was crucial for Barth to have more than just abstract words to make this part of his construction meaningful and convincing, since it deals with how we may experience the overall meaning of life, even though this is a meaning that can only be corroborated at the end, in the eschaton. In this sense, Mozart’s experience is not just anyone’s everyday experience of life. It is prophetic, as pointed out by Barth in the above quoted statement, that Mozart “had heard, and causes those who have ears to hear, even to-day, what we shall not see until the end of time—the whole context of providence” (see above in n. 3). Therefore, Mozart can be used to underpin Barth’s distinction between creation and chaos, between God’s good creation and das Nichtige. Mozart, of course, belongs to creation, and his music fully remains in creation, reflects on it, and for Barth, praises the good life in all its aspects, the darker as well as the lighter. It has no part in das Nichtige:

I make this interposition here, before turning to chaos, because in the music of Mozart—and I wonder whether the same can be said of any other works before or after—we have clear and convincing proof that it is a slander on creation to charge it with a share in chaos because it includes a Yes and a No, as though orientated to God on the one side and nothingness on the other. Mozart causes us to hear that even on the latter side, and therefore in its totality, creation praises its Master and is therefore perfect. Here on the threshhold (sic!) of our problem—and it is no small achievement –Mozart has created order for those who have ears to hear, and he has done it better than any scientific deduction could. This is the point which I wish to make.9

(Barth 1960, p. 300)

Barth’s use of Mozart to underpin a theological point through sensory means, the justification of a separation introduced for a theological reason, which does not immediately appear as based on any sensory experience, shows that esthetic experience has a place, albeit a limited one, in Barth’s theology. However, some theologians have understood Barth’s use of Mozart in such a way that Barth uses Mozart’s music as a parable that can speak (indirectly) about Christ and redemption, drawing also on Barth’s interpretations of Mozart in the popular essays from 1956 (see the discussion of Moseley (2011) below). Two recent authors (Decou 2013; Kim 2014) both (in each their own way) have opposed this idea (Decou 2013, pp. 100–1, 30). In the following, I outline their arguments in order to understand Barth’s theological esthetics and the use of Mozart in an eschatological context.

For both Decou and Kim, it is important that Barth in the Church Dogmatics uses Mozart as a secular artist composing “non-theological music” (Decou 2013, p. 130; cf. Kim 2014, p. 233, emphasizing Barth’s Mozart as simply serving “Frau Musica”). Indeed, in his excursus Barth initially stated that Mozart was no church father. While Jinhyok Kim finds that Barth commonly has been seen as a modern iconoclast because of his scepticism toward religious art (Kim 2014, p. 189), he oppositely emphasizes “Barth’s doctrine of beauty within the context of God’s glory, which arguably announced a new esthetic turn in twentieth-century theology” (Kim 2014, p. 191).10 The question arises: how can we “reconcile these seemingly contradictory images of Barth as a new iconoclast and as a theologian of divine beauty”? (Kim 2014, p. 190). Kim points out that art does have a place in Barth’s theology:

The futuristic nature of our present reality is constituted by God’s eschatological promise, which demands a certain enthusiasm to pray to God for the reality of sonship here and now. This prayerful waiting for the promise requires our gratitude, creating a joyful and free-willed readiness for God’s gift of final participation in God.

(Kim 2014, p. 224)

Therefore, the life of a Christian must have the character of play. “Joyful obedience and playful life are present to us as promise” (Kim 2014, p. 224), providing an eschatological mark on Christian existence. Humor and art “prevent us from taking the present with ultimate seriousness, ‘not because it is not serious enough itself, but because God’s future, which breaks into the present, is more serious’” (Kim 2014, p. 225, quoting Barth from his Münster Ethics, lectures held in Münster in 1928–1929 and repeated again 1930–1931, later published in 1960). In his Münster Ethics, Kim points out, Barth also claimed that the character of art (as well as of humor) as a “joyful and playful activity in an eschatological sense” demands that it “should not ignore the sorrow and suffering of this-worldliness” (Kim 2014, p. 226). Kim concludes that for Barth, “art can be redemptive because of its eyes to see the sorrow of the world and its ears to hear the cry of creation” (Kim 2014, p. 226). However, in Barth’s view, art cannot proclaim, and for that reason, Barth remained critical of religious art. Art is a human activity (as is theology as well), but “in his engagement with Grünewald and with Mozart, more conclusively, Barth demonstrated that art can serve for God’s beauty by drawing men and women to the objectivity (Sachlichkeit) of God’s revelation” (Kim 2014, p. 233).

In a way rather similar to Kim, but as part of a larger project to develop a theology that is relevant to “the general cultural life of mankind” (Decou 2013, p. 138),11 Jessica Decou asserts that:

Barth chose eschatology as the location in which to discuss the theological import of art and humor, not as a locus for true words, but as theologically worthwhile in themselves. Their native secular function alone points them toward the fulfillment of their task.

(Decou 2013, p. 83)

Decou also emphasizes how Barth claimed humor as a necessary human attitude in view of God’s promise of redemption, and art as a playful human response (cf. also Stoltzfus 2006, pp. 154–57). She points out, that art in Barth’s theological understanding of it plays freely with reality, recognizing the limits that are placed on life. In this way it points to the eschatological future beyond the present. Both art and humor are “born of suffering,” precisely because they recognize the limits of the present (Decou 2013, pp. 94–95).

She discusses Barth’s three essays about Mozart and the speech he gave on the occasion of the bicentennial of Mozart in 1956, later published in a small volume (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart) as “wholly uncritical writings” which still, however, are “genuine illustrations of Barth’s theology of culture” (Decou 2013, p. 98). She also points to the playful attitude in these texts, for example, how Barth’s “exaggerated rhetoric is tongue-in-cheek,” not least when recommending to Catholic bishops that Mozart might be beatified (Decou 2013, pp. 101–2; cf. Stoltzfus 2006, pp. 148–51 to whom Decou also refers). She concludes that:

These essays are exemplary of a theologian engaging culture, theology, and audience playfully. A Barthian theology of culture is one that plays with culture, taking neither itself nor culture too seriously. If “our daily bread must also include playing” (even in the case of the theologian), then just as Mozart plays, Barth is also playing—with theological language, with Mozart, and with his audience. For Barth, Mozart is “not a teacher” but a man “who plays simply,” and similarly, in these tributes to Mozart, Barth does not aim to teach but to “play simply.”

(Decou 2013, p. 102)

In the Church Dogmatics, however, Barth is teaching. Decou primarily analyses the excursus in the section on das Nichtige, but she also mentions Barth’s uses of characters from Mozart operas “as foils against whom to present his image of the real God and the genuine Christian” in § 70 and § 71 (in Vol. 4.3 of the Church Dogmatics) (Decou 2013, p. 129). She concludes reasonably that:

Barth’s theological use of Mozart’s non-theological music (though remaining uncritical of Mozart’s music) offers examples of how cultural forms that contain no explicit theological content might contribute nonetheless to theological reflection—whether through the instrumental music that enlightens Barth’s theological mind, or through the operas, whose characters Barth playfully employs as foils against the Word of scripture.

(Decou 2013, p. 130)

As mentioned, Decou is critical of those who read Barth to take Mozart’s music to be a parable in the sense of Barth’s discussion in § 69 (in Vol. 4.3 of the Church Dogmatics). Here he discusses what he calls “true words” or “parables of the kingdom” from outside the Church (Barth 2008, p. 119; see Decou 2013, pp. 94–102; cf. however Decou 2013, pp. 135–37). In § 69.2 Barth states that:

They are true words, genuine witnesses and attestations of the one true Word, real parables of the kindom [sic!] of heaven, if and to the extent that, unlike segments of other circles with other centres, as true segments of the periphery of this circle they point to the whole of the periphery and therefore to the centre, or rather to the extent that the centre and therefore the whole of the periphery, i.e., Jesus Christ Himself, declares Himself in them. Hence they do not express partial truths, for the one truth of Jesus Christ is indivisible. Yet they express the one and total truth from a particular angle, and to that extent only implicitly and not explicitly in its unity and totality.

(Barth 2008, pp. 124–25)

Barth explicitly refrained from giving concrete examples of such “true words” in order “to set aside anything that might distract from the matter itself” (Barth 2008, p. 137). He pointed out, however, that this was

not because dogmatics, let alone the dogmatician, is forbidden in a particular context to point to this or that person or event or enterprise or book which is obviously outside the sphere of the Bible and the Church, and to draw attention to what is genuinely true in it. And self-evidently there can be no reason why the Christian preacher, teacher or writer, or indeed the Christian generally, should not do so.

(Barth 2008, p. 137)

David Moseley has understood Barth’s Mozart reading in light of this § 69 in a context of exploring resonance between Barth’s and Bonhoeffer’s theological understandings of music. He asserts that:

Behind Barth’s dogmatic abstractions lies the paradigm of his beloved Mozart, which can clearly be demonstrated by examining the same deployment of parabolic language in contemporaneous works by Barth on the 1956 Mozart bicentennial.

Barth employed exactly the same parabolic terminology to describe his understanding of the theological importance of Mozart’s music in a series of lectures and essays commemorating the bicentenary of Mozart’s birth, that were composed contemporaneously with the exploration of Christological parables in Church Dogmatics IV/3.

(Moseley 2011, pp. 262–63)

Moseley and Decou (and similarly Stoltzfus), thus, interpret Barth’s Mozart essays of 1956 in opposite ways. The point I want to make here, however, does not concern the Mozart essays, and I accept that they may be interpreted in different ways, not least because of their playfulness (as highlighted by Decou as well as Stoltzfus). What I am concerned about is the theological argumentation that draws on Mozart’s music in Barth’s discussion of das Nichtige. Here Barth is not trying to discuss whether Mozart’s music might point to Christ or to the reconciliation in Christ. He is straight-forwardly concerned with Mozart’s music as a sensory statement about the world that in musical terms corroborates what Barth (in theological terms) has to say about God’s creation. As a theological statement, or as a parable of the kingdom, the music would not be authoritative. In a general statement, this is pointed out by Barth in § 69.2 concerning the “true words” or “free communications” from outside revelation, “they cannot be regarded and proclaimed as a source and norm of knowledge which is valid at all times, in all places, and for all” (Barth 2008, p. 135). I do not claim that Barth’s more playful Mozart understanding in the essays differs from his understanding in the excursus in the doctrine of creation. The point is a methodological one.

Barth may very well have thought about Mozart’s music as a “parable of the kingdom” as Moseley argues for the Mozart essays, although their playful genre makes it difficult to make firm interpretations of them (as argued by Decou). But the way Mozart’s music is used in Barth’s discussion of das Nichtige does not build on parables, but on Mozart’s music as a purely sensory statement about the world. The idea of Mozart’s music as a parable of the kingdom obscures an understanding of Barth’s theological argumentation in the text about das Nichtige, an argumentation within the doctrine of creation.

This, however (and as pointed out above), makes it necessary to go further to substantiate whether Barth’s use of Mozart in this specific theological argumentation is musically sound. That is, to what extent can Mozart’s music be identified with the characteristics that Barth conveyed upon it? In the following section I turn to this question, admitting that it cannot be dealt with in greater generality within the scope of this article. Here then, I shall limit myself to the discussion of one main example. The discussion, however, will have a character that should make it clear that similar observations and characterizations could be made for many of Mozart’s larger instrumental compositions. Along the way, I shall refer to other authors and to some of my own published discussions of Mozart’s music.

2. Mozart’s Piano Concertos and Their Place in Mozart’s Oeuvre

Mozart’s musical output is of such quantity and general quality that it is impossible within the scope of a single journal article to discuss to what extent these compositions fit the very general and unsubstantiated claims made by Karl Barth. I have previously discussed two of Mozart’s mature operas (Petersen 2008, 2025) and some of his church music (Petersen 2015; 2023; 2024, p. 45) in relation to Mozart’s enlightened Catholicism and to fundamental features of Christianity. It is obviously more difficult to discuss instrumental compositions with the purpose of finding discursive interpretations, since there are rarely any verbal indications from the composer or contemporary critics to be found about the meaning of a work. Certainly, Mozart did not express anything about the contents of his instrumental music beyond the music itself. In this section, I discuss Mozart’s piano concertos as salient representatives of his instrumental music in order to examine whether basic characteristics of their progression correspond to Barth’s general musical description.

In Petersen 2002, I attempted to discuss a discursive meaning in the sonata form that developed during the early period of Joseph Haydn (1732–1809) and Mozart, not least in the first movements of their symphonies, string quartets and sonatas, but also often in other movements of these works. The sonata form, however, was only defined and described as such many years after the compositions that exhibit its features (Rosen 1997, pp. 30–42, 99–100). The many descriptions that attempt to cover the numerous formal differences that can be analyzed in compositions of the later eighteenth century are just that: rationalizations and attempts to bring analytical clarity to a broad range of musical compositions that share certain features but also vary in so many details that it has proven difficult to arrive at a generally accepted detailed description of the sonata form. The sonata form can be used as an analytical tool and has proven to be very fruitful as such. The very broad scheme of the tripartite sonata form consisting of an exposition presenting the main musical themes, a development section where (at least often) parts of the themes were subjected to variations, modulations, sometimes including stark contrasts, and finally a recapitulation, where the themes and the original tonality was reestablished and confirmed, became the broad standard description of a sonata form during the first half of the nineteenth century (see also Irving [2003] 2017, pp. 32–33). I have compared this scheme to the prototypical model of the contemporary Bildungsroman (Petersen 2002, pp. 270–71):

In that model, a journey starts out from what may metaphorically be taken as a “home” with well-defined structures, motifs etc. Through some process—which may entail problematization of these motifs and of the well-ordered structures from the beginning of the work—the music finally arrives “back home,” maybe with a changed perspective, but in any case returned to the same fundamental structures and the same orderliness. Such forms seem to encourage interpretations that are related to the ideas of Creation and Providence, in such a way that they may even be understood as offering musical narratives as a kind of comment or even answer to questions concerning the course of time […].

(Petersen 2002, p. 271)

During Mozart’s last decade, the years in Vienna from his decision to establish himself as an independent composer and musician in 1781 to his premature death in 1791, Mozart composed (and performed) 17 piano concertos (Konrad 2005a, pp. 92–97). His piano concertos established themselves as major examples of this relatively new genre, which was generally looked down upon by critics at this time. As pointed out by Simon P. Keefe,

While concertos were expected to feature ‘brilliant’ writing for the solo instrument—passage work, figuration and other types of virtuosic display—they were usually perceived as possessing an overabundance of ‘brilliance’, and thus regarded with deep suspicion by aestheticians, theorists and music critics alike. Invariably, writers and musicians in the second half of the century explain that excessive display in concertos detracts from their aesthetic import and their articulation of musical content.

(Keefe 2003, p. 79)

However, Heinrich Christoph Koch (1749–1816) cited Mozart’s concertos as “exemplary models” in his Musikalisches Lexikon of 1802. He “described a ‘well worked-out concerto’ as a passionate dialogue between the concerto player and the accompanying orchestra.” (Keefe 2003, p. 80; see also Irving [2003] 2017, pp. 1–16; Keefe 2007, pp. 43–49). In connection with his three first Vienna piano concertos, Mozart famously told his father in a letter that the concertos are a “happy medium between what is too easy and too difficult” (quoted from Keefe 2003, p. 78; see also Irving [2003] 2017, p. 93; Keefe 2007, p. 47). Mozart asserted that both connoisseurs and the “less learned” would be able to enjoy them. Mozart’s piano concertos (and solo concertos altogether) stand as important achievements in the history of the genre as well as in Mozart’s own oeuvre:

Mozart’s first and last Viennese concertos—the beginning and end of one of the most remarkable sequences of works in the history of instrumental music—are on a similar esthetic plane, it would seem, demonstrating comparable objectives and similar predilections for a type and quantity of solo virtuosity that does not detract from the articulation of substantive musical content.

(Keefe 2003, p. 91; cf. Irving [2003] 2017, p. xiii)

As already stated, in the context of my discussion of Barth’s Mozart interpretation, I use the piano concertos, in the end focusing on one in particular, the piano concerto in D major K. 451, not because I believe that it provides a different picture than any of the other of Mozart’s mature concertos, on the contrary, but simply in order to be able to be explicit and specific in pointing to particular features in the composition. The point is to see how this composition in its actual shape and with all its details could have worked in Barth’s argumentation, which (instead) draws on generalizations of Barth’s Mozart understanding.

The first movements of the piano concertos are not straight forward examples of the sonata form, but they do exhibit basic traits thereof, particularly in their tripartite structure, exposition, development section and recapitulation. Especially in the nineteenth century, the first movements of the piano concertos were generally analyzed through this scheme. Discussing various analytical approaches to the first movements of the classical piano concertos and Mozart’s in particular, John Irving notes that

The first-movement form of a classical concerto is notoriously difficult to explain without some degree of compromise. In an important sense, it is indebted to classical sonata procedures (though its explanation as a special type of sonata is a historically grounded construction); on the other hand, there are clear resemblances to the ritornello structures of the baroque concerto. […] While there are features of the concerto that may adequately be understood as ‘exposition’, ‘development’, and ‘recapitulation’, none of them equates literally to sonata practice, and it is crucial to recognise some important limitations of these terms in the concerto context.

(Irving [2003] 2017, p. 40)

Irving emphasizes how Mozart provides ever new ways of implementing the overall course of the overall tripartite structure of his piano concerto first movements. In the A major concerto K. 488, for instance, the development section “makes no reference to exposition material; instead, Mozart structures his development on a new idea” (Irving [2003] 2017, p. 114). He also points to Mozart’s “ability to transcend” contemporary theoretical models for melody and highlights the multitude of so-called topics in the piano concertos:

Examples of well-known topics occurring in Mozart’s piano concertos include the graceful ‘singing Allegro’ (the opening of K. 414); Sturm und Drang (the first movement of K. 466); march or quasi-military (the first movement of K. 451, scored for trumpets and timpani; or the openings of K. 459, 467); ‘hunt’ topics (the 6/8 finales of K. 450 and K. 456); ‘brilliant’ style, focusing on virtuosic runs of semiquavers (the finale of K. 503); ‘singing-cantabile’ style (slow movement of K. 467); ‘passionate style’ (the slow movements of K. 453 and K. 488); ‘opera buffa’ (the concluding variation from the finale of K. 453, starting with horns; […]; and ‘learned counterpoint’, by means of which associations of ‘serious’ music for the liturgy might be evoked. […] Within a short space of time the opening of the C major concerto, K. 467, migrates through march, cantabile style, and counterpoint. […] On a more general level, these works are full of solo-tutti interplay (K. 453; K. 459), so that their appeal is very broadly based from the point of view of texture as well as topic.

(Irving [2003] 2017, pp. 119–20)

Irving also refers to Kofi Agawu’s “variation model” emphasizing “Mozart’s gift for adapting his musical materials to novel situations, in ever new ways,” not least pointing to “connections between contrasting situations in which Mozart has ‘turned things around’” (Irving [2003] 2017, p. 121).

All this can be understood to characterize these concertos, and, altogether, Mozart’s larger instrumental compositions (but even many of the shorter ones) in general as musical narration that passes through landscapes of very different kinds, bringing with them different emotional associations without relativizing any of them. Even so, as far as the tripartite sonata form-structure prevails, the music in the end comes “home,” as it were. This does not necessarily mean that a concerto (or a symphony or a string quartet) always ends in a happy mood. Some of Mozart’s most famous compositions end in the minor key, while also moving through various musical landscapes of different moods; they end as they begin in a stern or melancholy or tragic atmosphere, such as the C minor piano concerto K. 491, the D minor string quartet K. 421, or the G minor symphony K. 550.

Simon P. Keefe, in his Mozart’s Viennese Instrumental Music: A Study of Stylistic Re-invention (Keefe 2007), is interested in the development in Mozart’s oeuvre during the early Vienna years. By contrast, my purpose is to look for characteristics of Mozart’s instrumental music in a much broader chronological perspective. However, this broad interest by no means excludes acknowledging insights into stylistic and esthetic developments within Mozart’s work over the years. As it turns out, Keefe’s analyses not only focus on innovation or re-invention, but also bring with them a deeper insight into what binds innovative aspects to earlier compositional procedures:

The innovation/tradition binary is not a straightforward one in Mozart’s repertory, with every innovative work remaining convention-laden to some extent; this state of affairs is recognized by late eighteenth-century reviewers of instrumental music who value above all—in the context of creative genius and originality—‘the skillful presentation of the unexpected within the confines of the familiar’.

(Keefe 2007, p. 6)

In his discussion of the ten or eleven piano concertos composed during an “intensive two-year period” (1784–1786; Keefe 2007, pp. 11–12), Keefe uses the notion of “intimate grandeur” as a lens through which to find re-invention as well as continuity between the Vienna piano concertos. An important development, which Mozart himself pointed out in a letter to his father, concerns the use of larger orchestral forces, including more wind and brass, providing the concerts with more grandeur. But Mozart also balanced this with the intimacy of the dialogue between the soloist and the orchestra; thus, Keefe speaks of “intimate grandeur” in these dialogues that encompass the larger orchestra (Keefe 2007, pp. 47–49):

The status of dialogue as purveyor of intimate grandeur, however, is often compromised in development sections by confrontational characteristics—the quick-fire modulations and affirmative orchestra gesture in K. 482, bars 214–22, the modal shift in K. 450, bars 149–56 and the harsh juxtaposition of piano semiquavers and snarling orchestra in bars 330–45 of K. 491 (discussed below).

(Keefe 2007, pp. 50–51)

Even though Keefe arrives at this through a focus on re-invention in the concertos with the larger orchestral forces after the piano concerto K. 449 (1784), he acknowledges that this concerto (only slightly earlier than the following ones) in certain places also “brings grandeur, brilliance and intimate grandeur into sharper relief than before and in contexts that open up new stylistic horizons” (Keefe 2007, p. 54). He contends that the orchestra in K. 449 “on crucial occasions” behaves like the larger orchestras in the slightly later concertos (Keefe 2007, p. 55). Similarly, Keefe sees the “confrontational and intricate dialogic passages” in the development section of the first movement of the piano concerto in C minor (K. 491, composed 1786) as balanced by the re-establishing of intimate grandeur in the recapitulation: “equilibrium among grandeur, brilliance and intimacy is uppermost in Mozart’s mind in K. 491/i, its extremes intensified considerably in relation to preceding works” (Keefe 2007, p. 56).

Moving to Mozart’s last two piano concertos, Keefe maintains that they

represent a meticulously planned continuation to the process of stylistic re-invention initiated by the climactic K. 491 and by K. 503, albeit without fundamentally challenging the balance of grand, brilliant and intimate qualities that characterize Mozart’s grand concertos from K. 450 onwards.

(Keefe 2007, p. 68)

In the last piano concerto in B flat major (K. 595) from 1791 (but possibly already begun in 1788), Keefe points to unexpected thematic and harmonic disjunctions (Keefe 2007, p. 76), mentioning how “in the space of a mere 6 bars, the music travels from F to the distant key of B minor, an uneven transition for which the first half of the movement had offered little preparation. But an even more audaciously disjunctive passage follows” (Keefe 2007, p. 74). At the same time, he maintains that Mozart here “develops new stylistic techniques […], rather than changing his esthetic outlook on the genre” (Keefe 2007, p. 76). He also compares the K. 595 concerto to the (possibly to some extent contemporary) last three symphonies, especially the G minor symphony K. 550, stating that Mozart employed the same compositional devices

at the same juncture of each of his three movements in order to effect strikingly similar harmonic disjunction, providing the kind of ‘bizarre tonal sequences’ and ‘striking modulations’ often remarked upon by Mozart’s contemporaries.

(Keefe 2007, p. 77)

3. Mozart’s Piano Concerto in D Major, K. 451 (1784), First Movement

What I present in the following is a close reading of the first movement of Mozart’s piano concerto (no. 16), K. 451, a description emphasizing certain particular characteristics of the composition, informed by the analyses by John Irving and Simon P. Keefe, discussed in the previous section. Above all, the close reading will demonstrate Mozart’s strong engagement in each of the moods and each small detail of the music’s progress. The close examination of one particular, but typical Mozart composition shows musical characteristics in play that form a musical image of a segment of life corresponding to what Barth heard in Mozart. Throughout, I refer to the score of the concerto (in the Neue Mozart Ausgabe, Mozart 1988).

The D major concerto K. 451 was highlighted in an anonymous review of the first publication of the score in 1792 in the journal Musikalische Korrespondenz der teutschen Filarmonischen Gesellschaft (Speyer) on 16 May 1792, half a year after Mozart’s death. It states that the concerto is “a great treasure,” and goes on to praise the composition:

[Mozart’s] original writing style, here also unmistakable, the surprising turns of phrase, the skilful diffusion of shadow and light and many other excellent characteristics, which make Mozart a model for our time, make us feel very deeply his loss.

(Eisen 1991, p. 124; see also Irving [2003] 2017, p. 211)

Clearly, a number of the characteristics emphasized in the previous section were noted also by the reviewer in 1792, and it is worth noting the point about shadow and light which brings Barth’s Mozart interpretation to mind. That is true also of the points made by Irving and Keefe, respectively, about Mozart’s originality that transcends contemporary theoretical notions and the balance that Mozart carefully establishes between confrontational episodes and the “intimate grandeur” of the dialogues between the piano and the orchestra. Keefe emphasizes the extreme contrasts that sometimes occur within very short episodes, especially in development sections of the first movements. As Keefe also pointed out, some of these general characteristics cut across genres, this was exemplified in his comparison of Mozart’s last piano concerto with the late G minor symphony (and with late string quartets).

All this corresponds to what I found in my discussion of the two D minor string quartets (Petersen 2002, pp. 280–86). I summarized my findings in two observations that supplement each other, while, at the same time, pointing in somewhat different directions:

On the one hand, the music in its basic (sonata) form conforms with the structural outline of the kind described above as linear in its progression (modeled after the Bildungsroman). On the other hand, there emerges a seemingly contrasting way of formal construction, based on episodes that are built along ways that do not seem to evolve logically or in terms of the idea of gradual formation and maturation. The result is a musical form that constitutes an image of a segment of time (history, life, etc.) […], but which also incorporates the lack of any necessity on Mozart’s side to control or overview this history. […] The spiritual backdrop to this procedure is, in my understanding, that Mozart—unlike Beethoven—does not see a need to guarantee the consistency or meaningfulness of life.

The first movement of K. 451 opens with a march or quasi-military topic as noted by John Irving (quoted above), a second topic is lyrically melodic (beginning at bar 26). A mild and elegant, slightly hunt-like topic featuring the horns and oboes responds to this (bars 35–36), followed by a joking or possibly mildly ironic figure played by the flute and strings (bars 37–38); these last four bars are then repeated. The mood then changes abruptly into a section with chromaticism, syncopations and a brief subsection of counterpoint between the strings. It builds up to a climax, beginning as a fugato in forte, marked by descending halftones (cf. further below), thereafter modulating to the dominant (A major) with a motivic cadence (bars 61–62) on the dominant (of A major), melodically consisting of a half-note on G#, a trill on a dotted crotchet A ending on a crotchet B (woodwind and strings) on the A major dominant chord (E₇). For the remaining three quarters of bar 62 there is silence, everything has come to a stop. Then the strings alone play a simple figure in D major (the tonic of the concerto), quietly in piano (bars 63–64). This is answered (still in piano) by the woodwinds (and the horns), now using a diminished seventh to iterate the just mentioned cadence on the dominant of A major (i.e., the secondary dominant of the tonic), again with the described melodic figure featuring a trill (bars 64–66), and again followed by three quarters of pause. The strings take up the simple figure in D major again, moving on with woodwinds and horn, developing it into the march-like opening mood with the full orchestra and with a cadence in D major (bar 75). This marks the end of the orchestral opening ritornello or exposition, and the piano here enters with the opening theme and virtuoso piano figurations.

The piano exposition (including dialogues with the orchestra) is also marked by sudden modulations, such as a passage that elegantly incorporates a twice repeated descending line of half notes from A down to C#, weaved into the piano figurations (bars 92–95). This is an extension of the so-called lament figure, the descending chromatic fourth, a well-known baroque musical figure that Mozart inserted into many of his works, not least sacred compositions, but also, for instance, in numerous places in his opera Don Giovanni from 1787 (see Kunze 1984, p. 377; Heartz 1990, p. 210).12 This passage ends on a unison orchestral A in dotted rhythm (bar 96), followed by a sudden move to F# minor (bar 97), which by the piano immediately is changed to F# major (bar 98), but understood, as it becomes clear in the next bar, as dominant of B minor. In the following, modulating piano figurations are for a short while accompanied by or interrupted by figures in the orchestra similar to the figure with the trill (from bar 61–62), but now descending instead of ascending (bars 106–110).

Along the way, the lyrical theme (from bar 26) and the hunt-like topic with its joking or ironic counterpart comes into play in a dialogue between the piano and the orchestra. Its A major tonality is suddenly turned into A minor at bar 136, and after a few bars of broken chords, the piano cadences in A minor, moving on to a chromatic figural passage accompanied by the previously mentioned chromatic contrapuntal passage of the strings from the opening orchestral ritornello. As in its first occurrence, it also builds up toward a climax here, while the piano continues with virtuosic passages, a climax with a cadence in E major (bar 182–183) on the dominant B major, shaped just like the end of the first orchestral ritornello. Again, there follows a pause over the last three quarters of this bar (bar 183). And again, the strings play the simple and quiet figure as before toward the end of the orchestral opening ritornello. Now it is in A major, answered by the corresponding figure with a trill in the woodwinds, cadencing as would be expected on B major, the secondary dominant (to A major).

There is no pause here, however, since the piano enters with a similar figure but now modulating to E minor (bars 187–89). At this point the figure is taken over by the woodwinds again. The piano and the woodwinds take turns with the figure (incorporating also a bit of piano figurations), whereafter virtuosic piano passages with (mainly) modulating string accompaniment move the section on until it cadences in D major (bar 219). This whole section (bars 187–218) constitutes what may be heard as the development section and the recapitulation begins on bar 219 just like the first orchestral ritornello, except that now the piano takes part in it with embellishing scales and other figurations.

At the point where the now often mentioned figure with the trill has led to a cadence on the secondary dominant (E₇) in bar 285 with the pause for the three remaining quarters of the bar (as previously), the piano plays the simple figure in D major (previously played by the strings) followed by woodwinds cadencing on the secondary dominant (just as in bars 64–66). This is now followed by the piano, modulating back to D major but also extending the figure with a spicy twist on the return to the tonic which is only fully confirmed in bar 291 with chromatic piano passages in triplets supported by D major chords leading into further glittering figurations that finally (in bar 307) lead back to an orchestral passage from the opening part of the exposition, that now moves forward to the piano cadenza (inserted after bar 317); a cadenza by Mozart has been preserved (Irving [2003] 2017, p. 211) and is included in the score of the Neue Mozart Ausgabe.13 After the cadenza, the orchestra enters quietly and soon ends the movement with a final return to the quasi-military or march-like topic (bars 322–325).

The first movement of K. 451 thus includes many of the characteristics already discussed by Irving and Keefe, not least the intimate grandeur of many dialogues between the piano and the orchestra, notably the ones featuring the aforementioned figure with the trill. Further, the sudden modulations, not only in the development section, which is relatively short in this concerto, but also in both the exposition (orchestra ritornello and piano exposition) and the recapitulation. Also, the change between very different topics and moods, changes between minor and major tonalities, and between simple melodic figures and contrapuntal and chromatic passages, even including the mentioned lament figure along the way. There seems to be no way of predicting what will happen, especially in the exposition and the development sections, but in its overall design the movement largely follows a pattern well known and followed by Mozart in all his concertos.

One more feature needs to be discussed. In previous, recent publications, I have introduced the terms “arrested moment” and “arrested time” in connection with discussions of vocal compositions by Mozart and Beethoven. These are moments when the musical flow or course is interrupted, coming to a halt or in some other way taken out of the context by way of slowing down the pace or suddenly changing instrumentation in a marked way, for instance by creating a hushed atmosphere (Petersen 2023, pp. 87–88, 93–95, 98–100; 2024, pp. 44–45; 2025, sct. 4). I have also pointed out that “arrested moments” may just as well occur in instrumental music, but that in such contexts they are much more difficult to interpret, whereas in vocal music, whether opera or sacred music or songs, the combination of text and music will often give hints as to why the “arrested moment” appears just there as a way to highlight a particular word or clause.

In K. 451 I have already pointed to an iterated “arrested moment” without using the term. In connection with the repeated figure with the trill (bars 63–64), I highlighted the three quarter pauses in bars 62 and 66 and again, in the completely similar situations in bars 183 and 285, but in these instances only once, since the piano in both these cases enters, creating a dialogue with the orchestra rather than an arrested moment (see above). How might one understand these pauses? They stand out since everything else in this movement constantly moves on. There are important and sudden changes, but they never bring the musical flow to a stop, except in the mentioned instances that become the more remarkable since they occur in exactly similar situations. Without any discursive pointers, it only seems possible to say that they alert the listener to particular attentiveness to what is happening right there. These moments then, not the pauses as such, but what happens between and after the two pauses in bars 62 and 66 and what happens after the pauses in bars 183 and 285 must be thought of as particularly important musically. They are quiet moments, first featuring a seemingly innocent figure in the tonality from before the last modulation. But this seeming innocence and orientation toward home is then immediately brought back to where we had come, both in terms of melodic gesture and harmony. Thus, altogether, these passages seem to highlight how far from “home,” as it were, the music has come. This is corroborated in the two cases where there is no second pause, but the piano extends the figure and the foreign tonality even more. It is as if the music in these places underlines how far it has moved from its outset. Is it too far-fetched to hear it as a kind of self-conscious mode of the music, realizing where it has gone, and halting in order to ponder how to or whether to go on from here? In all three instances, the music soon after turns around and moves back into the tonic and the musical topic from the opening (or beginning) of the movement.

I propose, then, that the music can be described as moving through various registers and moods, some heroic and confident, others soft and full of love and pleasure, sometimes encountering difficulties and dark moods, fear, sadness or sorrow, sometimes confrontations with adversaries. I believe this to be a general description that in different, always individual ways, for each individual work will be relevant in most of the larger instrumental compositions by Mozart. Fundamentally, the music does not try to make overall sense of it all, but passes through as if in a landscape, not casually or with an attitude of indifference, but with intensity, attentiveness and engagement. Altogether, not with an attempt to control what happens, except the aim to get “home” again in the end. It is not a religious message; I do not think that Mozart’s instrumental music carries any religious message, nor a specific message as such. If anything, it projects intensity and thus engagement in music. I want to give a discursive interpretation, and it seems that what may be deduced from the music is an engagement in life in all its aspects. The drive to get home again is one that was shared culturally by the contemporary cultured world, certainly in music and literature. It was a given in Mozart’s world, not a particular attitude in his music, rather a framework which he accepted and within which he explored and engaged in the musical world as intensely as (probably) no one else. That is why the contrasts and explorations in his music go beyond that of (at least most of) his contemporary composer colleagues.

This (secular) attitude, however, seems to correspond, in a religious context, and it must be remembered that Mozart, as far as we can know, lived as an enlightened, although probably not very active Catholic,14 to a religious attitude, ultimately leaving what is most important up to God, not out of lack of interest or engagement, but simply out of the realization that this is beyond human capacity.

4. Concluding Remarks: Barth’s Das Nichtige and Mozart’s Music

In this article, I have attempted to understand in what way and for what reason Karl Barth chose to include Mozart’s music in his theological discussion of das Nichtige in the context of his doctrine of creation. I have further attempted to go into one (rather typical) example of Mozart’s larger instrumental musical compositions in order to see to what extent it fits the brief descriptions that Karl Barth made, not of one particular work, but of Mozart’s music in general. What I have found supports Karl Barth’s descriptions very well concerning his observations of light and shadow but also concerning the idea that Mozart’s music rather engages in but does not attempt to arrive at emotional conclusions. At the same time, it always unfolds in ordered formal composition while highlighting complexities and turning points along the way. This complex balance of emotions might question whether Barth was right in asserting that in Mozart’s oeuvre “the light shines all the more brightly because it breaks forth from the shadow” (see above n. 3), which for Barth meant that Mozart saw the created world as ultimately good. From the sheer amount of Mozart’s works that are in major tonality and seem to end joyfully, it would seem easy to acknowledge Barth’s understanding. However, there are dark Mozart works that do not end joyfully, as the already mentioned G minor symphony (K. 550). The question is whether this changes the picture.

However, even these works (including for instance the C minor piano concerto K. 491 and the D minor string quartet K. 421) support a reading based on the observations here (and in Petersen 2002) to the effect that each musical composition is not meant to be an image of life as a whole, but rather of a particular segment. Precisely for that reason, compositions of different overall moods do not contradict each other, but supplement each other. The G minor symphony does not contradict the jubilant C major Jupiter symphony composed the same summer of 1788, and the C minor piano concerto does not contradict the D major concerto, discussed here. They all have similar juxtapositions of different moods and topics, each of them passing through a “landscape” of stunning variety, giving rise to a plethora of emotions for the listener. In some, the shadow side of the world may be the most prevalent, but even the darkest of Mozart’s works also include moments of sheer delight and peaceful joyfulness; and in all cases one moves from one to the other in a split second. Although Mozart’s vocal compositions differ in some measure from this picture by being tied to the verbal contents of their texts, it should be emphasized that within the restraints defined by the texts, the musical features identified in his instrumental music appear in similar ways also in his vocal music. This has not been dealt with in any detail in this article (see, however, Petersen 2023, 2025).

I submit then that Barth’s imprecise and very general descriptions of Mozart’s music capture something not only characteristic, but even essential in Mozart’s instrumental oeuvre. As suggested in Section 1 above, Barth’s possibly parabolic interpretations of Mozart should be separated from his academic use in the Doctrine of Creation, where he argues strictly theologically, and for that reason uses Mozart not as a theological authority, but as a sensory, secular demonstration of the theological point that Barth wanted to make: creation has no part in das Nichtige. But while this seems to be a reasonable understanding of the instrumental music, the operas may—at least some of them—to a much greater extent be considered as parables, as I have argued for Idomeneo (1781), as well as for Don Giovanni (Petersen 2025, 2008). In his church music, Mozart turns out to be a musical exegete of the sacred texts he sets (Petersen 2015, 2023). All that notwithstanding, the musical features found in his instrumental music appear to be characteristic for all his major works.