Devotion to the Holy Rosary: the music of the Hail Marys
In the life of the famous conductor, Dimitri Mitropoulos, famous throughout the world, we read this uplifting episode that reveals his special devotion to the Holy Rosary, to which he had particularly linked all his great art as a conductor .
On one of the big concert nights, Dimitri Mitropoulos was to conduct the NBC orchestra in the performance of Ludwig Van Beethoven's Seventh Symphony. The sumptuous room of the Camegie Hall was full and crowded. There were musicians and artists, actors and art scholars. Dimitri Mitropoulos had climbed onto the podium and was beating the first blows to start the Symphony, when suddenly he stood with his baton raised in the air, still for a few seconds, while in the hall the whole crowd, in the dark, stood with breathless waiting for the beginning of the Symphony. But suddenly, instead, Dimitri Mitropoulos lowered his wand, put it down and, to everyone's amazement, stepped down from the podium and, without saying anything, hurried away behind the scenes.
The surprise left everyone dumbfounded, not knowing how to explain such a thing, which has never happened in other cases. In the great hall the light returned, and everyone was wondering what had happened. It was well known who Dimitri Mitropoulos was: a distinguished and staid man, a famous artist, one of the greatest conductors of all time, a meek and reserved person, who lived in a simple room on the 63rd floor of a skyscraper of New York, leading an ascetic life as a Christian committed to charity, because he donated all the proceeds of his work as director to the poor. Why now this unexpected twist? Could he have had a sudden illness? ... Nobody knew how to answer.
A few minutes of waiting time, and immediately the great manager reappeared, calm and serene, with a slight apologetic smile on his lips. He said nothing, immediately stepped onto the podium, grabbed his baton and conducted Beethoven's Seventh Symphony with a passion that could almost magically express the arcane sublimity of Beethoven's music. And perhaps never, among the concerts held in the sumptuous salon of Carnegie Hall, was there at the end such a thunderous, formidable ovation.
Immediately after, the journalists and friends were ready to approach the famous maestro to ask him the reason for the strange absence at the beginning of the concert. And the master replied with his unreserved affability: "I had forgotten the Rosary in my room, and I have never conducted a concert without my Rosary in my pocket, because without the Rosary I feel too far from God!".
Wonderful testimony! Here faith and art meet and merge. Faith animates art, art expresses faith. The transcendent value of Faith is transfigured into art, making it a living resonance of celestial music, divine music, the music of the heavens that "sing the glory of God" (Ps 18,2: XNUMX).
Resound in our souls!
This celestial musicality is contained in a particular way in the prayer of the Rosary, in the Hail Marys of the blessed crown, in the holy words of the Hail Mary which announce the descent of God himself on earth, to become man among men and victim for men to be saved. . The music of joy in the joyful mysteries, the music of truth in the mysteries of light, the music of pain in the sorrowful mysteries, the music of glory in the glorious mysteries: the Holy Rosary expresses, in the mysteries and in the Hail Marys, all the musicality of the piano of the love of God who created and redeemed man by saving him from the terrible disharmony of sin which is only "weeping and gnashing of teeth" (Lk 13,28:XNUMX).
It is enough to reflect little, in fact, to discover and feel in the Rosary the divine music of the Hail Marys, the divine music of the mysteries of grace and salvation that God gives to humanity to save and redeem, to justify and lead to Heaven, living the Gospel. , walking in the footsteps of the Incarnate Word and of the Most Holy Mother, that is, of the Redeemer and Co-redemptrix of the human race, which we contemplate in the Gospel pictures of the Holy Rosary, at the sweet and constant rhythm of the Hail Marys.
May this music of the Hail Marys also resound in our souls in every Rosary we recite! May the Holy Rosary accompany us everywhere, especially in the most important things to do and in the most demanding moments of life, a sign of divine harmony that makes our every word, our every action, our choice, our behavior resound with grace.