The Romantic Mode

On a recent list of the top ten composers, my moody Chopindidn’t make the cut—the critic said he’d never truly lovedthe Romantic mode. It’s too personal, a biometric lock. Too magicianswallowing the handcuff key. The mystery of a list like this is lessof content than of order—I could tell you dark-horse Verdi here,hipster Schubert there, a sheepish what up to damaged-goods Wagner—and I’m not even the expert. Top three’s always a tortured replayof Beethoven, Bach, or Mozart; Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, the lastlucky numbers to rattle the tombola. It’s less about their top-nessthan our times. Let’s break this down: the easiest choice for topis Mozart. A list like this plays chicken with Mozart. Your momwould’ve picked Mozart to go first in the same comforting wayshe’s picked the blue-capped jar of Hellmann’s all your life.Personally, I like Beethoven; sure, there’s pomp and schmaltzbut the Pastorale once crept past curtains and pulled me outsideto dance like a faun as warm strings seeped, a little swarm,from the concert hall next door. And Bach. North of here is a ghosttown the locals call Valley of the Mansions, a dozen cul de sacsbuilt on spec before ’08, empty but for a Lexus or Benzislanded in an odd driveway. Bach reigns here, mummy king,spirit level clutched in one hand, his quill steady in the other.Solid cantatas for those left underwater. A fraction of Chopinstayed behind in Paris after his death; most, if a bodyminus its heart still counts as most. The heart went hometo a crypt in Warsaw, smuggled by his sister in a glass jarfilled with cognac, nestled across borders in her voluminous skirts.Last year, scientists huddled over the heart well into the nightto settle the question of Chopin’s cause of death,once thought to be a rare condition—it wasn’t.