A few months ago, the Worship Associate for the Sunday service touched my heart with a few words. She gestured toward the piano where our wonderful pianist, Veronika Agranov Dafoe, had just played the offertory in her usual stunning way, and said, with a little shake of her head, “A human being wrote that music. And another one played it.” I can’t even remember now who the composer was–maybe Chopin, whom I suspect is Veronika’s favorite, or maybe Mozart himself–but I thought of that moment again last night when I heard Mozart’s Requiem at the San Francisco Symphony. What a wonder that a member of our species created that, and 200 others recreated it for us to hear.

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