I don’t know what anyone else’s definition of miracle is, but in my opinion Mendelssohn’s octet for strings is a miracle. What a fabulous piece of music! Mendelssohn was only 16 when he composed it. This octet in four movements is so beautiful, so buoyantly happy, and so marvelous in its musical invention, that it is nothing short of a miracle for it to have come from a 16 year-old boy.  Mendelssohn’s later music may have been somewhat more polished, but in my opinion, he never surpassed the sheer artistry of his octet for strings. Charles Rosen, for whom I have the deepest respect, says that no one, not even Mozart, created such a perfect masterpiece at such a young age.  Mendelssohn, at 17, created another masterpiece with his incidental music to Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream. The overture to that work is wonderful. How could a mere teenager create something like that?

Mozart composed little minuets and sonatinas when he was six. He composed his first symphony at eight. By the time he was twenty he had composed over thirty symphonies. He composed his first opera at twelve. His Motet, Exaltate Jubilate was composed within two weeks of his 17th birthday. What a miracle! The first movement certainly lives up to the title. It is an unfettered exaltation of jubilant emotion. The slow movement is a prayer to Mother Mary, begging her for peace. The pleading, begging quality of the words was not lost on the young Mozart. The melody, which is in A minor and Major at the same time, is painfully beautiful. It is one of those deeply emotional melodies. I remember Salieri, in the movie ‘Amadeus,’ saying that the adagio for Mozart’s Grand Partita for wind instruments was a melody of unfulfillable longing. I would say the same thing about the slow movement to Mozart’s Exaltate Jubilate. Such a deeply moving beautiful melody coming from someone so young is truly a miracle.

Also at 17 Mozart composed his symphony 25 in G minor. The first movement of that work is striking. Listening to it, it’s hard to accept the fact that it’s the music of a teenager. At 19 he composed his 5th violin concerto, truly a masterpiece. Mozart was 14 when he composed his 4th violin concerto. What a huge difference those five years made! His first four violin concertos are pretty music, but simple and unmemorable. His5th violin concerto is a masterpiece. At 21 he composed Idomeneo, easily the greatest serious opera of the eighteenth century, Handel’s Julius Caesar notwithstanding.

Henry Purcell is another miracle. He had the job of tuning and maintaining the organ at Westminster Abbey when he was only 17. He was a prodigy who composed beautiful music when he was barely 20.

Beethoven could play through Book One of Bach’s Well Tempered Clavier when he was 8 and had books One and Two memorized by the time he was 13. That is 48 preludes and 48 fugues (not easy music either) that the 13 year-old Beethoven had committed to memory. I would call that a miracle.