This spectacular work by Mozart, which culminates in the song Et incarnatus est (And was made flesh), is the most powerful and convincing, the simplest and greatest expression of a man who recognizes Christ. Salvation is a Presence: this is the wellspring of the joy and the wellspring of the affectivity of Mozart’s Catholic heart, of his heart that loved Christ.
Et incarnatus est is singing at its purest, when all man’s straining melts in the original clarity, the absolute purity of the gaze that sees and recognizes. Et incarnatus est is contemplation and entreaty at the same time, a stream of peace and joy welling up from the heart’s wonder at being placed before the arrival of what it has been waiting for, the miracle of the fulfillment of its quest.
There came a Man, a young Man, who entered the world in a certain town, a certain place in the world that can be identified on a map, Nazareth. When one goes to the Holy Land, to that little town, and enters the shadowy hut where there is an inscription on the wall that reads Verbum hic caro factum est (the Mystery of God, here, was made flesh), he is overcome by shivers. This is the Man Jesus of Nazareth, chosen to be the humanity of the Word, the humanity of God, God who is the answer to the heart of man whom He created, the complete, superabundant answer to the cry of the heart He created; the cry that reverberates in the mystery of the Trinity through the presence brought about by the spirit of a Jewish Man, born of a 17-year-old woman.
(Excerpt from the introduction by Luigi Giussani to the booklet enclosed in the CD)
