Break the Night with Colour

There was a time when I was a great enthusiast for marking special birthday or death anniversaries of interesting musicians. My first professional radio broadcast was a production for Xandir Malta's Cable Radio marking the 50th anniversary from the death of George Gershwin. Later I followed that with special radio features marking birthdays and/or death anniversaries for Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, John Lennon and Jim Morrison.

I bring this up today because it happens to be the 250th anniversary of W.A. Mozart's birth day. The 200th anniverary of his death was on 5th December 1991. I marked that day by resigning my full-time position at Xandir Malta after working for TeleMalta Corporation since 1984. I selected a number of different recordings of Mozart's famous Requiem and played them back-to-back as a soundtrack for my final day as a public broadcasting employee.

Today was not a memorable day for me. Nor was it eventful in any way. I've spent most of the day cleaning out my email inbox(es) and recovering from the hustle-bustle of the first couple of weeks in any new semester.

Mozart's 250th birthday is being celebrated in various ways by music lovers all over the world. I could watch my DVD of Peter Shaffer's Amadeus tonight. Interestingly enough, that was the first DVD I bought eight years ago, when I first started purchasing movies on little shiny discs. Yet it seems more fitting to watch the Simpsons episode A Fish Called Selma from the 7th season; one of my most recent DVD acquisitions. That episode features Troy McClure (played by Phil Hartman) performing the part of the human in a musical adaptation of Planet of the Apes where the chorus to Falco's Rock Me Amadeus (his 1985 pop hit inspired by Amadeus) becomes "Dr. Zaius, Dr. Zaius." Both Hartman and Falco died at the age of 40. Mozart died at the age of 35.