Life of Mozart, by Louis Nohl—A Project Gutenberg eBook

Produced by: D A Alexander, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)

Mr. Louis Nohl, the author of the present little volume, has merited for himself in Germany a high reputation as a writer of the biographies of musicians, and some of his larger works have appeared in English on the other side of the Atlantic. The present is the first translation into our language of his shorter Life of Mozart. It will, we trust, prove acceptable to those who desire to learn the chief events in the life of the great composer, to see how his life influenced his compositions, and how his great works are, in many instances at least, the expression of his own joys and sorrows, the picture of his own soul in tones.

The translator’s grateful acknowledgments are due to Mr. A. W. Dohn, of Chicago, who was kind enough to compare the entire translation with the original. His thorough knowledge of music and German, no less than his rare familiarity with the English language, have largely contributed to the fidelity of this translation.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in the city of Salzburg, on the 27th of January, 1756. His father, Leopold, was descended from a family of the middle class of the then free imperial city of Augsburg, and had come to Salzburg, the domicile of a prince-bishop and the seat of an excellent university, to study law. But as he had to support himself by teaching music, even while pursuing[8] his legal studies, he was soon compelled to enter entirely into the service of others. He became valet de chambre to a canon of the Roman church, Count Thurm; afterwards court-musician and then capellmeister[1] to the archbishop. He had married in 1747 a young girl, educated in a neighboring convent. Himself and wife were considered the handsomest couple in Salzburg in their day. Of seven children born to them, they lost all but two, Maria Anna, known by the pet-name of Nannerl, and our Wolfgang, most frequently called Wolferl. Anna was about five years older than Wolfgang, and both gave evidence, from the time they were little children, of an extraordinary talent for music.

An old friend of the family tells us how, from the moment young Mozart had begun to give himself to music, he cared neither to see nor hear anything else. Even his childish games and plays did not interest him unless accompanied by music. “Whenever,” says our informant, “we carried our toys from one room to another, the one of us who had nothing to carry was always required to play, or[9] sing a march,” ... and further: “He [Mozart] grew so extremely attached to me because I kept him company and entered into his childish humors, that he frequently asked me ten times in a day, if I loved him; and when I sometimes said no, only in fun, the tears instantly glistened his eyes, his little heart was so kind and tender.”

We learn from the same source that he manifested no pride or awe, yet he never wished to play except before great connoisseurs in music; and to induce him to do so it was sometimes necessary to deceive him as to the musical acquirements of his hearers. He learned every task that his father gave him, and put his soul so entirely into whatever he was doing that he forgot all else for the time being, not excepting even his music. Even as a child, he was full of fire and vivacity, and were it not for the excellent training he received from his father, who was very strict with him, and of a serious turn of mind, he might have become one of the wildest of youths, so sensitive was he to the allurements of pleasure of every kind, the innocence or danger of which he was not yet able to discover.

[10]When only five years of age he wrote some music in his Uebungsbuch or Exercise-book, which is yet to be seen in the Mozarteum[2] in Salzburg; also some little minuets; and, on one occasion, his father and the friend of the family mentioned above, surprised him engaged on the composition of a concerto so difficult that no one in the world could have played it. His ear was so acute, and his memory for music so good from the time he was a child, that once when playing his little violin, he remembered that the Buttergeige, the “butter-violin,” so-called from the extreme smoothness of its tones, was tuned one-eighth of a tone lower than his own. On account of this great acuteness of hearing, he could not, at that age, bear the sound of the trumpet; and when notwithstanding his father once put his endurance of it to the test, he was taken with violent spasms.

His readiness and skill in music soon became so great that he was able to play almost everything at sight. His little sister also had made very extraordinary progress in music at a very early age, and the father in 1762, when[11] the children were respectively six and ten years of age, began to travel with them, to show, as he said, these “wonders of God” to the world.

The first place they went to was Munich, then as now the real capital of Southern Germany, and after that to Vienna. Maria Theresa and her consort were very fond of music. They received the children with genuine German cordiality, and little Wolfgang without any more ado, leaped into the lap of the Empress and kissed her; just as he had told the unfortunate Marie Antoinette, who had helped him from the slippery floor: “You are good and I’ll marry you.” The youngest son of Maria Theresa, the handsome and amiable grand-duke, Maximilian, was of the same age as young Mozart, and always remained his friend, as he was, subsequently, the patron of Beethoven. The picture of Mozart and his little sister dressed in the clothes of the imperial children hangs on the walls of the Mozarteum; his animated eyes and her budding beauty have an incomparable charm.

He now, in his sixth year, learned to play the violin, and his father neglected nothing to[12] give him, in every way, the best musical instruction. For he was himself an excellent composer, and had written a “violin method” which had a great reputation in its day, and was honored with translation. Mozart’s education in music continued even during the journey. Instruction in playing the organ was soon added to instruction in the use of the violin. The next scene of the marvels of the little ones was Southern Germany. This was in the summer of 1763. In Heidelberg, Mozart’s little feet flew about on the pedals with such rapidity that the clergyman in charge made a record of it in writing on the organ itself. Goethe heard him in Frankfort, and thus obtained a standard by which to measure all subsequent men of musical genius whom he chanced to meet. In his declining years, Goethe listened to a child similarly gifted, Felix Mendelssohn. In Paris, also, the court was very gracious to the children; but when little Wolfgang, with the ingenuousness of childhood, tried to put his arms about the neck of the painted Madame de Pompadour as he had about that of Maria Theresa, he was met with a rebuff, and, wounded to the quick, he cried:[13] “Who is that person there that won’t kiss me? The empress kissed me.” He always thought a great deal of Maria Theresa, and his heart, through life, had a nook in it for her, and was ever loyal to the imperial family, as we shall see further on.

The princesses were all the more amiable in consequence, and did not trouble themselves about etiquette. Every one wondered to hear so young a child tell every note the moment he heard it; compose without the aid of a piano, and play accompaniments to songs by ear only. No wonder that he was greeted everywhere with the loudest applause, and that the receipts were so flatteringly large.

The reception extended to them in London in 1764, was still kinder; for the royal couple themselves were German, and Handel had already laid a lasting foundation there for good music; while the French music of the time seemed to our travelers to be exceedingly cold and empty—“a continual and wearisome bawling.” Their stay in England was, on this account, a very long one, and the father made use of the opportunity he found there to give an excellent Italian singer as an instructor to[14] Wolfgang, who soon mastered the Italian style of melody, which was then the prevailing one. It was in London that Mozart wrote his first symphonies.

Their journey back in 1765, led them over Holland, where both children were taken very dangerously ill, and the father’s strength for the difficult task of preserving and educating such a boy as Wolfgang, was put to the severest test. Even during the Lenten season, he was allowed, in Amsterdam, to exhibit “for the glory of God” the wonderful gifts of his son, and he finally returned in the fall of 1766, after an absence of more than two years, to Salzburg, laden not so much with money as with the fame of his little ones.

The journey taken thus early in life was of great advantage to Mozart himself. He learned to understand men—for his father drew his attention to everything; he even made the boy keep a diary—he got rid of the shyness natural to children, and acquired a knowledge of life. He had listened to the music of the different nations, and thus discovered the manner in which each heart understands that language of the human soul called melody.[15] The refined tone of the higher classes at this time was also of great advantage to his art. The magnificent landscape scenery of his native place had awakened his natural sense of the beautiful; its beautiful situation, its numerous churches and palaces, had further developed that same aesthetic sense; and now the varied impressions received from life and art during these travels, so extensive for one so young, were one of the principal causes why Mozart’s music acquired so early that something so directly attractive, so harmoniously beautiful and so universally intelligible, which characterizes it. But this phase of his music was fully developed only by his repeated long sojourns in that land of beauty itself, in which Mozart spent his incipient youth, in Italy.

Mozart’s father, indeed, did not remain long in Salzburg. Salzburg was no place for him. And must not the boy always have felt keenly the impulse to display his artistic power before the world? Had not the London Bach, a son of the great Leipzig cantor, Sebastian Bach, whose influence on Mozart we shall hear of further on, said of him that many a capellmeister had died without knowing what this[16] boy knew even now? The marriage of an archduke brought the family, in 1768, to Vienna once more, the first place they lived in after leaving Salzburg. Here the father saw clearly, for the first time, that Italy and Italy alone was the proper training-school for this young genius. The Emperor Joseph had, indeed, confided to him the task of writing an Italian opera—it was the La Finta Semplice, “Simulated Simplicity”—and the twelve-year-old boy himself directed a solemn mass at the consecration of a church, a performance which made so deep an impression on his mind, that twenty years after he used to tell of the sublime effect of his church on his mind. A German operetta, Bastien and Bastienne, was honored with a private performance. But this first Italian opera was the occasion of Mozart’s experiencing the malicious envy of his fellow-musicians, which, it is said, contributed so much, later, to make his life wretched and to bring it to an early close.

“Thus, indeed, have people to scuffle their way through. If a man has no talent, his[17] condition is unfortunate enough; if he has talent, he is persecuted by envy, and that in proportion to his skill.” Young Mozart’s enemies and enviers had cunning enough to prevent the performance of his work, and the father was now doubly intent on exhibiting his son’s talent where, as the latter himself admitted, he felt that he was best understood, and where he had won the highest fame in his youth.

Italy is the mother country of music and was, besides, at this time, the Eldorado of composers. The Church had nurtured music. With the Church it came into Germany. From Germany it subsequently returned enriched. It reached its first memorable and classical expression in the Roman Palestrina. After his day, a worldly and even theatrical character invaded the music of the Catholic Church, of which Palestrina is the great ideal. The cause of this change was the introduction of the opera, which was due to the revival of the study of the antique, and especially of Greek tragedy.

The pure style of vocal composition was founded on the Protestant choral, and reached[18] its highest classical expression, in modern times, in the German Sebastian Bach. His contemporary and countryman, Handel, on the other hand, remained, by way of preference, in the region of opera; and, after he had achieved great triumphs in it in foreign countries, he rose to the summit of his greatness, in the spiritual drama, the oratorio. The world at this time loved the theatrical; and its chief seat, so far as the opera was concerned, was the country which had given birth to music. As, in its day, Italy had the greatest composers, it had now, to say the least, the greatest and most celebrated singers, and with a single victory here one entered the lists with all educated Europe. “Then up and go there,” the father must have said to himself, when he saw that his son’s talent for composition was not recognized in Germany as much as it deserved to be recognized even then, and the superior excellence of his performances denied there when it was admitted everywhere else.

We need not here enter into the details of this journey. The youthful artist continued to work wonders similar to those which we[19] have already related. And on one occasion, in Naples, the boy was even obliged to remove a ring from his finger, because his wizard-like art was ascribed by the people to his wearing it. We must here confine ourselves to tracing the course of development of this extraordinary genius, and to showing what were the influences that made him such.

At the end of the year 1769, that is, when Mozart was nearly fourteen years of age, we find him and his father journeying through the Tyrol to the land of milder breezes and sweet melodies. Everywhere the same unbounded admiration of his talent. In Vienna, the two—who now traveled unaccompanied by the mother and sister—were obliged to elbow themselves through the crowd to the choir, so great was the concourse of people. In Milan, such was the impression made by our hero, that Wolfgang was asked to compose an opera. In Italy new operas were introduced twice a year; and he was given the first opportunity to display his talent during the season preceding Christmas. The honorarium paid him was, as usual, one hundred ducats and lodging free. He received no more at a later period[20] for his Don Giovanni. But such an amount was a large remuneration, at that time, for the young beginner.

In the execution of his task, however, he showed himself by no means a mere beginner. For when, continuing their journey—to which they could give themselves up with all the more composure as the libretto was to be sent after them—they came to Bologna and there called upon the most learned musician of his age, Padre Martini, even he could do nothing but lose himself in wonder at the power of achievement of our young master, who, as Martini said, solved problems and overcame difficulties which gave evidence both of innate genius and of the most comprehensive knowledge. Wolfgang here became acquainted with the greatest singer of his time, the sopranist, Carlo Broschi, known as Farinelli, and received from him as a last legacy the Italian art of bel canto; for, said he, only he who understands the art of song in its highest sense, can, in turn, properly write for song. And yet this vocalist was already in the sixties.

Florence was still governed by the Hapsburgs, and hence the best of receptions was[21] given to our travelers there. Of the magnificent works of art in the place, the letters to his mother and sister do not say anything. But we can scarcely suppose that the Venus Anathusia and the Madonna della Sedia remained unknown to him who was alone destined to give life to Raphael and the antique, even in tones. Mozart’s own letters from Rome do not leave us in the dark on this point. He writes to his sister: “Yesterday we were in the Capitol and saw many beautiful things, and there are, indeed, many beautiful things there and elsewhere in Rome”—Laocoon and Ariadne, the Apollo Belvedere and the head of Olympian Jove. And then the many churches, and among them a St. Peter’s! But naturally enough, the music remained the most remarkable thing of all to the two musicians; and then there was the Sistine Chapel, in which alone something of the art of the great Romans still lived and ruled. Of Palestrina we hear nothing in this connection, but Wolfgang went so far as to make a copy of Allegri. “You know,” the father writes, “that the Miserere sung here is esteemed so highly that the musicians of the chapel are forbidden, under pain[22] of excommunication, to copy any part of it, or to give a part of it to anybody. But we have it. Wolfgang has written it down from ear. However, we do not wish this secret to come into anyone’s else possession, lest we should incur the censure of the Church directly or indirectly.” The Mozarts, indeed, attached some importance to their faith in the Catholic Church. To them it was intrinsic truth. And thus Wolfgang’s youthful soul was forever consecrated, for the reception of the highest feelings of the human breast, by the peculiarly sacred songs sung during this holy week in Rome—feelings which, even in compositions not religious, he, in the course of his life, clothed in sounds so beautiful and enrapturing. In after years, he was wont to tell of the deep impression made on him by these incidents in his religious experience. “How I felt there! how I felt there!” he exclaimed, over and over again, in speaking of them.

We have heard already of Naples. The father had written from Rome that the further they got into Italy the greater was the wonder of the people. The intoxicating beauty of nature mirrored in the Bay of Naples, could[23] not but make a deep impression on the artist, who was himself destined one day to give expression in so magical a manner and in sounds so entrancing, to the charm and intoxication of the serenest joys of life. “Naples is beautiful,” he writes curtly but characteristically to his sister. Yet it may be that the immense solemnity of Rome was more in harmony with Mozart’s German nature. They were there soon again, and this time they had an opportunity to see what can be seen only in Rome—the Pope. Delighted with young Wolfgang’s playing, the Holy Father—it was the great Ganganelli, Clement XIV—granted him a private audience, and conferred on him the order of the Golden Spurs, that same order which afterwards gave us a chevalier Gluck. Mozart did not, at first, make much of this honor, and his father wrote: “You may imagine how I laugh to hear him called all the time Signor Cavaliere.” Later, however, they knew when a proper occasion presented itself, how to turn such a distinction to advantage.

The end now aimed at by young Mozart and his father was fame and success. A step towards the attainment of these was Wolfgang’s[24] nomination as a member of the celebrated Philharmonic Society of Bologna, which invested him, in Italy, with the title of Cavaliere Filarmonico. And when father and son came to Milan again in 1770, he had, so far as his rank as an artist and his position in life were concerned, attained success. At fourteen, he was Signor Cavaliere—Chevalier Mozart. The journey itself had done much to bring his artistic views to maturity. His technical ability was very plainly now supplemented by the pure sense of the beautiful, the result of the highest intellectual labor. He had surmounted all difficulties, and especially those purely natural ones by which the rough, lack-lustre north, with its inhospitable climate, only too frequently keeps Germans back in art. From this time forward the divine rays of ideal beauty beam brightly from Mozart’s melody, and they never became extinct. In Mozart’s art there was now no room for perfection of form. His art could be added to only by adding to the life that was in it; and we shall soon again meet with traces of that personal contact with life which matures man’s capabilities and develops them.[25] Let us first look at the earliest decided successes of the composer, successes which, for a long time, bound him to the “land where the citron blooms.”

The Italian opera which then ruled supreme everywhere, was far from being such a dramatic performance on the stage as rivets the attention. The taste of the Italians which revelled in beautiful songs, soon made these the chief feature in the entire opera. Interesting or thrilling incidents from history, and still more the great myths of antiquity and of the middle ages, were so adapted for the occasion that a love affair always played the principal part in them, and the whole culminated in the effusions of happy or heart-broken lovers. There was here, certainly, a rich opportunity for an art like music. As it was, almost the entire opera was made up of arias, and the person who wrote the prettiest arias, of course, carried off the palm. These arias had like a garment to be made to order, so to speak, for the several singers, and to fit them exactly, if they were to produce their full effect: the finest note of the prima donna, or a tenor, had to be at the same time the finest part of[26] the air, and vice versa. Thus prepared, the opera was sung, and went the round of one-half of Europe. We have seen this, in this century, in the case of Rossini, Bellini and Donizetti, and we see it in our own day, in the case of Verdi.

It was at this point that Mozart modestly entered on the musical inheritance from the past. A youth of fourteen will certainly not change or attack what more than a century and the whole educated world has approved and admired. But how he took up into his work the several features of the “fabulous history” of the old, unfortunate king of Pontus, Mithridates, and united them into glowing music, we learn from the critic of the day, after the performance of the piece on the 26th of December, 1770, in the following words: “The young Capellmeister studies the beautiful in nature, and then gives us back that beauty adorned with the rarest musical grace.” Envy and intrigue were, indeed, not wanting here, either. But Wolfgang was equal to the task of taking care of himself, and even of adapting himself to the whims of the singers. “If this duet does not give satisfaction, he can[27] re-arrange it,” the first sopranist exclaimed; and people were very much surprised to see the tone of the home opera, its chiaroscuro, as they called the beautiful discordance of the different pieces with one another, so accurately hit by a young beginner. Cries of Evviva il maestro! Evviva il maestrino! were heard on every side; the work had to be repeated twenty times, and it was immediately ordered for five other stages, among them that of Mozart’s own beloved capital—all of which, however, according to the custom of the time, turned only to the advantage of the copyist.

The object of the first trip to Rome, in 1770, was thus attained. Wolfgang had not spared himself, and his father had to keep a watchful eye on him. Uninterrupted labor and earnest occupation had given so serious a turn to his mind—and he was always naturally reflective—that his father thought well to invite some friends to his home while Wolfgang was composing. He asked others to write him jocose letters, in order to divert him. The musical genius and the inner man were ripening side by side. At the age of fifteen he had the maturity of a full-grown youth.

[28]Even now the chords of his nature, which lent to his melodies that most fervid of tones which we think we hear even when only Mozart’s name is mentioned, those tender feelings of the heart which made him above all the minstrel of love, are heard in the soft vibrations of his music. In his hearty attachment to his mother and sister, we see the development of what the family-friend already mentioned has told us of his innate craving for affection when only four years old. His little postscripts to his father’s letters about this journey are delightful reading. He never forgets the dear ones at home. He inquires about each one in turn; and even the “weighty and lofty thoughts of Italy,” where he was frequently “distracted by mere business,” do not keep him from doing so. He tells his mamma he kisses her hands a billion times, and Nannerl that he kisses her “cheek, nose, mouth and neck.” On post-days, he goes on, “everything tastes better,” and only the abundance of his bantering in these notes preserved in the Mozarteum can give any idea of his overflowing tenderness for his sweet sister.

But it was not long before he discovered[29] beauty in others than his sister. His young eye caught sight of the prime donne and pretty ballet-dancers of Italy; but, with the fair ones, he had formed a more intimate personal acquaintance in Salzburg, where his sister had friends of her own sex. “I had a great deal to say to my sister, but what I had to say is known only to God and myself,” he wrote from Italy; and shortly after, still more suggestively: “What you have promised me, my dear (—— you know you are my dear one), don’t fail to do, I pray you. I shall surely be obliged to you.” This was during his second journey to Rome, when his short and restful stay in his beautiful home allowed his heart, so to speak, repose, and afforded him leisure to busy himself with other matters than music. “I implore thee, let me know about the other one, where there is no other one; you understand me, and I need say no more,” he adds, evidently desiring to cover something up, and what could there be for him to cover up but a tender feeling of the heart? Later he adds: “I hope that you have been to see the young lady; you know which one I mean. I beg of you when you see her to pay her a compliment[30] for me.” There certainly is nothing more easy of explanation than that the young artist was attracted by the fair sex, whose admiration for him was so unbounded. Nothing so charms woman as fame and greatness, especially when fame and greatness have an intellectual foundation; and was not the young cavaliere filarmonico famed beyond all men living? His mere appearance, indeed, made no very powerful impression at the first sight. He was small of stature. According to the account given of himself, in one of his letters, he was “brought up on water.” His head seemed to be too large for his body, the result of an abundance of beautiful flaxen hair; and only his natural ease and grace of movement made him—especially in the costume of the past century—irresistibly charming, an effect which was heightened by the thoughtful expression of his beautiful greyish-blue eyes. But when this excitable young man, in his velvet coat, knee-breeches, silk stockings, buckled shoes, galoon-hat and sword, was thought of as the celebrated maestro, whose fame was only beginning; or when he was heard play and seen producing his own compositions, the[31] impression was changed, and the place of mere physical attraction was taken by the unspeakable charm of the mind and heart, by the spell-binding, mysterious force of creative genius. But woman loves the power of genius, and surrenders her entire self to it. A kiss from pretty lips when he had written a new minuet, he considered a beautiful “present,” and kisses do not come singly.

But now little time remained to him for the half-innocent, half-sensuous idyls of the eighteenth century. He was again engaged for the first season of the year, 1773, in Milan, this time for a consideration of one hundred and thirty ducats, and in the meantime, he received another commission, probably in consequence of the reputation of “Mithridates,” to help celebrate the marriage of a son of the Empress Maria Theresa, in Milan, by means of a serenata, i. e., a kind of little opera. This was in the summer of 1771, and in August both father and son were in Milan again. The subject-matter was Ascanius in Alba. But flattery for the noble couple chiefly filled this theatrical sketch, a fact which by no means kept Wolfgang from doing his best. He[32] writes: “Over us is a violinist, under us another, next us a singing master, and in the only remaining room a hautboyist, all of which makes composing very pleasant, and suggests many ideas to one.” These ideas must have been of great consequence to him at this time, because his rival, the composer of the principal opera, was Hasse, the then most celebrated composer in Italy, the “dear Saxon,” as the Italians called him, a man who had presented them with so many hundred operas that he could not count them himself. The libretto did not reach him until the end of August, and the festivities were to take place in October. “And then my fingers pain me so from writing,” he says, in an exculpatory way, after four weeks, to Nannerl. There were now wanting only two arias. Thanks to the elasticity of his nature, he preserved his health; but the fact that he “was always sleepy” shows how very hard he had worked, nay, that he had worked too hard.

He did not fail of success. The noble couple set an example to the public by their approbation, and the father writes: “I am sorry; Wolfgang’s serenata has so badly beaten[33] Hasse’s opera that I cannot describe it.” And it is said that the latter, with a delightful absence of envy, exclaimed: “That boy will send us all to oblivion.” How true was the prophecy, and how many, in all ages will not this same Mozart eclipse by his refulgence!

The play was, contrary to custom, repeated several times, and on this occasion a diamond snuff-box from the archduke was added to the honorarium usually paid.

In December, 1771, we find the Mozarts at home once more, but enjoying the pleasant prospect of new laurels in Italy. It was well that there was such a prospect before them; for the death of Archbishop Sigismund placed a new master over them. His successor, Jerome, whose election was received with feelings anything but joyful, was destined to leave a sad page in Mozart’s life.

The citizens of Salzburg entrusted their celebrated young fellow-townsman with the composition of the music for the occasion of their demonstration of respect to the new archbishop. It was the “Dream of Scipio.” Besides this, there was little in Salzburg to be done. In the capacity of concertmeister to the archbishop,[34] to which position he was appointed after his success in Italy, he had to write the music for the court and for the cathedral. In those days people were ever craving for something new in their favorite art; and while Mozart’s masses, yielding to the theatrical tendency of the time, like those of Haydn, have more of a pleasant play in them than of church gravity, and are therefore of less importance to posterity, the composition of symphonies carried him into a department which, created by Haydn, was destined, through Mozart, to lead to that mighty phenomenon, Beethoven.

The form of the sonata, which is the basis of the symphony, also had originated in consequence of a more and more poetico-musical development from the suite which introduced a series of dances, the allemande being the first. And as the dance itself is a direct imitation of natural human movement and passion, the sonata and symphony, together with the quartette, became more and more, the expression of the personal experience and feelings of the composer, who, the more deeply and grandly he conceived the world, was able to give of it, in his music, a more beautiful and[35] ravishing picture—an art which afterwards reached in Beethoven’s symphonies a height unsurpassed as yet.

What poetry and prose were for the opera, the joy and the sorrow of life felt by the composer himself were for the piano and the orchestra—the impulse and poetical bait to musical composition. We shall soon find Mozart’s life reflected in his art, and it is this that makes the biography of the man so peculiarly attractive and so full of meaning.

In November, 1772, we find our two travelers in Italy again. The opera of Silla had to be written for Milan. And now, what the father desired above all, was to see his son anchored there in a permanent position. He first made some arrangements in Florence. He could not feel at home in Salzburg after the appointment of the new archbishop. The latter was, indeed, friendly to intellectual progress, and opposed to the gloomy rule of the priesthood, but, at the same time, he was himself too much of a tyrant to be able to bless his people by diffusing prosperity among them, or to win their love. His mode of government could not be acceptable to the independent[36] spirit of the father any more than to the liberty-loving genius of the son; and this all the more, as he had no real feeling for, or understanding of art, or of the sovereign rule of genius. And so it happened, that the father, even during his journey, found it hard to banish what he called his “Salzburg thoughts” from his mind. He was disappointed because he accomplished nothing in Florence, and this added to his trouble.

But he now met with compensation in Milan. In his letters, Wolfgang says: “It is impossible for me to write much, because, in the first place, I know nothing to write about, and in the second place, I do not know what I am writing; for all my thoughts are with my opera, and I am in danger of writing a whole aria to you instead of a letter.” The performers were very well satisfied this time too, and what an effect the work must have produced is attested by a mishap which occurred to the principal male voice. He had unwittingly provoked the prima donna to a fit of laughter, which confused him so much that he began to gesticulate himself in a most unmannerly way. The audience, whose patience had[37] been taxed to the utmost by being obliged to wait for the archduke, who lived in the city, caught the contagion, and began to laugh likewise. Spite of this, the opera proved victoriously successful the first time it was performed, and was repeated more than twenty times.

This closed Mozart’s real work for the Italians. He would certainly have been called upon to do much more in that country, but the Archbishop of Salzburg refused him leave of absence, saying that he “did not want to see his people going begging about the country.” And yet Mozart himself said subsequently: “When I think it all over, I have nowhere received so many honors, and nowhere been so highly esteemed as in Italy. A man has good credit indeed when he has written operas in Italy.” And, in reality, it was due to his success in Italy that Mozart was, two years after this, called to Munich to write the music for another Italian opera. This was the charming opera buffa (comic opera), the La finta giardiniera; and here Jerome could not refuse his permission; his relations, personal and official with the neighboring elector’s court, did not allow him to do so.

[38]The elector Maximilian III. was a kindly, good-hearted gentleman, and very fond of music himself. He had long before manifested a great deal of interest in Mozart, and knew as well as anybody what success the young composer had met with in the world. Mozart saw himself loved and honored, and the excellence of the opera in Munich was a great incentive to induce him to do his very best in the performance of the task now given him. In it we find early traces of those living streams of pleasant feelings which flowed from Mozart’s heart. The words of the opera had been frequently set to music; but the people said that no more beautiful music had ever been heard than that of Mozart’s opera, in which all the arias, without exception, were beautiful. “Thank God,” he wrote on the 14th of January, “my opera was put upon the stage yesterday, and came off so well that I find it impossible to describe the bustle to mamma. In the first place, the theater was so very crowded that a great many people had to go back home. Every aria was followed by a frightful hubbub and cries of viva maestro! Her highness the electoress and the electoress[39] dowager, who were just opposite me, saluted me with a bravo! When the opera was out, there was nothing to be heard but the clapping of hands and cries of bravo! interrupted by pauses of silence, only to be taken up again, and again. After this, I went with papa into a room, through which the elector had to go, where I kissed the hands of his highness, of the electoress and of the nobility, all of whom were very gracious to me. Early this morning his grace, the prince-bishop of Chiemsee, sent a special messenger here to congratulate me on the fact that the opera had proved so unprecedently successful.” The prince-bishop, who had been a canon of the cathedral in Salzburg, and loved Mozart very much, had, it is very likely, procured for him the commission from Munich, and hence his enhanced interest in Mozart, and the peculiar satisfaction he felt in his great success.

Even the archbishop himself was an unwilling witness of the triumph of his concertmeister, to whom he showed so little respect. He had not, indeed, seen the opera himself, because it was not performed during his visit, which was a mere visit on business connected[40] with his office; but, as the father writes, he could not help hearing Mozart’s praise, and accepting many solemn congratulations on having secured the services of so great a genius, from all the elector’s household and from the nobility. This confused him so much that he could answer only with a nod of the head and a shrug of the shoulders. We shall soon see that all this did not redound to Mozart’s welfare and advantage.

An operetta, the Il Re Pastore, “The Royal Shepherd,” written in honor of the sojourn of the Archduke Maximilian Francis in Salzburg, in the same year, 1775, must also be classed among the youthful works of our artist. He had now passed his twentieth year. He had learned all there was to be learned, and proved it in many ways by what he had achieved in practice. His feelings urged him to display his powers before the world. He felt himself a man with

His boyhood was over; the youth was growing into the man, and the man craves to try his strength—craves action.

[41]This craving brought our artist, for the first time, into a personal struggle with life; and as he was compelled henceforth to carry on that struggle alone, experience quickly strengthened his moral power; and we find him no longer simply the divinely favored artist, but the strong, noble-minded man as well.

In a letter written in the year 1776, Wolfgang complained to Father Martini, of Bologna, that he was living in a city in which musicians met with little success; that the theater there had no persons of good ability, because persons of good ability wished good pay; and he adds: “Generosity is a fault of which we cannot be accused.” He informs the reverend father that he was engaged writing Church music and chamber music, but that the pieces[43] had to be always very short, because such was the desire of the archbishop, and he closes thus: “Alas, that we are so far away from you, dearest master. Were we nearer to each other, how much I would have to say to you.”

It is easy to see that the young maestro felt impelled to go where he might breathe a freer air, and prove by his deeds the power that was in him. As early as in the summer of 1773, the father and son were again together in Vienna, but not even the shrewdness of the father, with all his experience, could devise any way to the success he desired there, and Wolfgang himself wrote from Munich to his mother that she should not wish for their immediate return, for she knew well enough how much he needed a breathing spell, and he says: “We shall be soon enough with ——.”

They lived at home, father, son and daughter, a happy family in their own narrow circle. They had, we are glad to say, some true and trusted friends with whom they employed the little leisure which they could afford to take, in the parlor games customary at the time, and other simple pleasures. And this leisure was small indeed, for they had to try[44] to make both ends meet by writing musical compositions and giving instruction in music. The father’s salary amounted to only forty marks, and the son’s to only twenty-five marks a month. No wonder he wrote: “generosity is not our fault.” But their sense of refinement was offended yet more by the rude manner and the coarse tone prevalent in the place. The Salzburgian was looked upon as a fool, and the merry Andrews of Vienna mimicked his dialect. The mode of life and the views of the higher and lower “noblesse” were of a nature still less agreeable and refined. Mozart, who much preferred even the manners of the “boorish Bavarians,” as they were then universally called, to that of the Salzburg nobility, relates, in his letters, how one of the latter expressed so much surprise and crossed himself so frequently at the Munich opera, that they were greatly ashamed of him.

It is notorious that Mozart’s real colleagues, the musicians, had a well-merited reputation during the last century, as “drunkards, gamesters and dissipated, good-for-nothing fellows.” This was one of the reasons which inspired him with so great a hatred for Salzburg. “No[45] decent man,” he writes, “could live in such company.” He was ashamed of them, and of the coarse and dissolute music of the court. Michael Haydn himself, Joseph Haydn’s brother, a very clever composer, was not free from at least one of these vices. There was no one in Salzburg but knew Haydn’s little drinking room in the Stiftskeller (monastery wine-cellar). On one occasion, when the organist of one of the city churches, drunk on the organ-seat, was struck with apoplexy, Wolfgang’s father wrote to him asking him to divine who had been appointed his successor. And he proceeds: “Herr Haydn—all laughed. He is, indeed, an expensive organist. He drinks a quart of wine after every part of the mass. He sends Lipp (another organist) to attend the other services—another man,” he adds forcibly enough, “who wants a drink.”

How now could it be said that here, in his own real province, the young artist found a reward worthy of his fiery spirit and of his already tested powers?

We have heard himself complain of the theatre, the parlor, and the orchestra. A wandering troupe performed in the theatre[46] during the winter. The court-concerts were limited to, at most, an hour, during which several pieces had to be performed. Masses, even the most solemn, were not allowed to be longer than three-quarters of an hour. Moreover, the orchestra was a small one, without as much as even a clarionet. That, notwithstanding all this; that thus confined and narrowed, and with means thus limited, Mozart was able to produce works such as we possess in his masses, symphonies, and chamber music—works which far surpass those of his contemporaries, and find a worthy place by the side of the music of the same kind by Joseph Haydn, is a triumph which bears eloquent testimony to his industry and genius. But he could never be satisfied in Salzburg. That same genius urged him out into a purer atmosphere, in which action such as he was capable of, becomes possible, in which he might come in contact with men of culture. His resolve was made. The world was before him, and he said to himself: Go forth!

But in his way stood, bold and dark, the “—— ——” to whom they had, as Mozart writes, returned soon enough, the “Mufti,” as[47] he called the man “with the keen glance from his grey eyes, the left of which was scarcely ever entirely open, and the rigid lines about the mouth”—Archbishop Jerome Colloredo. This man really could not appreciate how much he possessed in Mozart. “Let them only ask the archbishop, he will put them immediately on the right path,” Wolfgang writes, on one occasion, referring to him concerning a concert which had met with unusual success in Mannheim. The principal cause of complaint, however, was the archbishop’s niggardliness. He was thus rigorous with those in his employ, lest they should make any claims upon him. Mozart wrote, at a later period: “I did not venture on contradiction, because I came straight from Salzburg, where the faculty of contradiction has been lost by long abstinence from using it.” Whatever he composed was wrong, found fault with, and unsparingly. On one occasion, the archbishop had the face to tell Mozart that he did not understand anything of his art, and that he should first go to the Conservatory at Naples to learn something about music, and this to Mozart, the Academician of Bologna and Verona, the far-famed composer of operas! We[48] are informed that he never flattered Mozart except when he wanted something; and Leopold told Padre Martini that, otherwise, the archbishop never paid Wolfgang a farthing for his compositions.

Suffering from the mania of the time, Jerome preferred the Italians in matters of music, and had surrounded himself with Italian musicians. The Mozarts were, in consequence, set back in every way and made the victims of “persecution and contempt.” All the elements of variance were here. A breach was inevitable; for on the one side were the father and son, both very frank, clear-headed and witty; Wolfgang, with something in him of the impetuosity of youth, conscious of his power and of the opinion which the world had of him, a consciousness which he took no trouble to conceal; on the other the archbishop, whose peculiarity it was to allow himself to be impressed by persons of fine, handsome figure, but not to respect little, insignificant-looking people like the slender, twenty-year-old Mozart.

We have Mozart’s letter to the archbishop. It saw the light—being found among the official[49] papers of the archbishopric—just one hundred years after it was written. It gives us a great deal of information concerning a circumstance which had a great influence on Mozart’s life, and which was finally the cause of the most decided catastrophes to him. It shows us, at the same time, what was the entire tone of the period, and especially of Salzburg subserviency. Mozart writes:

“To His Illustrious Grace, Most Reverend Prince of the Holy Roman Empire:

Most Gracious Liege-Lord and Herr Herr!

I dare not trouble your illustrious grace with any minute description of our pitiful circumstances. My father has most humbly, upon his honor and conscience, and with all truth, called the attention of your illustrious grace to those circumstances in his most humble petition presented to your grace on the 14th of March of this year. But as your illustrious grace’s most gracious and propitious decision, which was hoped for, did not come to him, my father would have most humbly begged your illustrious grace, as long ago as the month of June, most graciously to allow us to make a journey of a few months, to the end that we might in this way do something to help ourselves in our necessity, were it not that your illustrious grace most graciously ordered that all your grace’s musicians should keep themselves in readiness for the occasion of his imperial majesty’s [Joseph II] passage through your grace’s[50] city. After this, my father most humbly asked this same permission, but your illustrious grace refused it to him, and most graciously expressed a conviction that I, who am only half engaged in your grace’s service, might travel alone. Our circumstances are those of urgent need. My father resolved to send me on my way alone. But here also your illustrious grace interposed some most gracious objections. Most gracious liege-lord and Herr Herr, parents laboriously strive to put their children in a position such that they may earn their own daily bread; and this is a duty which they owe to themselves and to the state.

The more talents children have received from God, the greater are their obligations to make use of those talents for the amelioration of their own and their parents’ circumstances, to assist their parents and to take heed for their own advancement and for the future. The gospels teach us thus to put our talents out at interest. I therefore, in conscience, owe it to God to be grateful to my father who spends untiringly his every hour on my education; to lighten his burthen; and to care for my sister; for it would pain me greatly if, after spending so many hours at the piano, she should not be able to turn what she has so laboriously learned to account.

Your illustrious grace will, therefore, most graciously allow me to ask most humbly for my dismissal from your grace’s service, as I am forced to make use of the month of September this fall which is just beginning, so that I may not be exposed to the inclemency of the severe weather of the cold months which follow so[51] soon upon it. Your illustrious grace will not take this most humble petition of mine ungraciously, as your grace most graciously pronounced against me three years ago, when I asked leave to travel to Vienna, told me that I had nothing to hope for, and that I would do better to seek my fortune in some other place. Most humbly do I thank your illustrious grace for all the high favors I have received from your grace, and with the flattering hope of being able to serve your illustrious grace with greater approval when I shall have reached man’s estate, I commend myself to the favor and grace of

Your most illustrious Grace,
My most gracious liege-lord and Herr Herr.
Most humbly and obediently,

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

[Addressed]

To His Illustrious Grace
The Archbishop of Salzburg, etc., etc.;

The most humble and obedient petition of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.”

It is no easy matter to imagine all that must have occurred before the father resolved to permit his son to take a step which might possibly cost himself both his position and his livelihood, but it may all be very readily divined from the following passages in the Mozart letters. The son writes: “I hope that you meet with less vexation now than when I[52] was in Salzburg, for I must confess that I was its sole cause.” And again: “I was badly treated, I did not deserve it. You naturally sympathized with me, but too much. That was the principal reason why I hastened away from Salzburg.” And the father: “You are, indeed, right, my dear son. I felt the greatest vexation at the contemptible treatment which you received. It was that that preyed on my heart so, that kept me from sleeping, that was ever in my thoughts, and which would have surely ended by consuming me entirely.” And here follows an outburst characteristic of the feelings of the Mozarts: “My dear son, when you are happy, so am I, so is your mother, so is your sister, so are we all. And that you will be happy I hope from God’s grace, and through the confidence I place in your sensible behavior.”

And, indeed, this last was the only cause of solicitude the father had when his son started on his journey. Not that he had any doubt as to the young man’s character or goodness of heart. He had as much faith in both as in the “superiority of his son’s talents.” What alarmed him was Wolfgang’s want of experience.[53] Wolfgang had never traveled alone. And who had better opportunity to know the extent of this inexperience than the faithful mentor who, as the son himself confesses, had always served him like a friend, nay like a servant? The father’s utterances here are full of beauty. They show us many a trait characteristic of the whole life of the yet youthful but immortal prodigy of art.

The father writes: “You know, my son, that you will have to do everything for yourself, and that you are not accustomed to get along entirely without the help of others; that you are not very familiar with the different kinds of coin, and that you have not the least idea how to pack your things, or to do much else which must be done.” He continues: “I would also remind you, that a young man, even if he had dropped down from heaven and stood head and shoulders above all the masters of art, will never get the consideration due him. To win this, he must have reached a certain age, and so long as a person is under twenty, enviers, enemies and persecutors will find matter for blame in his youth, in the little importance attached to him and his small experience.”[54] And later: “My son, in all your affairs, you are hasty and headlong. Your whole character has changed since your childhood and boyhood years. As a child, you were rather serious than childish. Now, as it seems to me, you are too quick to answer every one in a jesting way at the very first provocation; and that is the first step towards familiarity which one must avoid in this world, if he cares to be respected. It is your good heart’s fault that you can see no defect in the person who pays you a clever compliment, who professes esteem for you and lauds you to the heavens, and that you take him into your confidence and give him your love.”

Even if all this paternal chiding was provoked only by the one special cause of which we shall soon have something to say, it is, nevertheless, true that the father here touches upon some of Mozart’s characteristic traits, especially his confiding goodness of heart, his wit and jocoseness in everything, which were led into wrong channels by the quickness of his mind. The parting of father and son was heart-rending indeed. We are sure that the words in which Leopold Mozart describes his[55] feelings, when Wolfgang, in company with his mother, started out on his travels in September, 1777, came from the very bottom of a father’s heart. “After you had gone,” he writes, “I went, very tired, up the steps and threw myself in a chair. I tried hard to restrain myself on the occasion of our leave-taking, that I might not make our separation still more painful, and in my excitement I forgot to give my son a father’s blessing. I ran to the window and begged a blessing upon both of you, but I did not see you go out through the gate, and we could not but think that you had already passed it, because I sat there a long time without thinking of anything.” Nannerl cried so much that she was taken sick, and it was evening before either she or her father had so far recovered from the shock as to be able to distract themselves by attending to some little home duties, and enjoying what remained to them of domestic bliss. “Thus did this sad day pass—a sadder day than I believed life could ever bring me,” says the father, in his account of it, when answering the first letter he received from his son after his departure.

[56]Wolfgang himself was very cheerful. He was out again in the bracing atmosphere of freedom. His confidence in human nature, the result of inexperience, hid from his eyes the thorns of life which were destined henceforth to sting him till he died. Trusting in his talents and his good will, he thought that his pathway would be strewn with roses. His father, in a somewhat gloomy excess of zeal writes him: “Cling to God, I beg you; you must do it, my dear son, for men are all knaves.”... “The older you get and the more you have to do with men, the more will you learn this bitter truth. Think only of the many promises, all the sycophancy and the hundred other things we have met with, and then draw your own conclusions as to how much you can build on human aid.” All Salzburg wondered and revolted at the course pursued by the archbishop, for young Mozart got his dismissal immediately and in a very unkind and ungracious way. The father, indeed, was allowed to retain his position, but the dissatisfaction of the court at the loss was very great, for strangers found nothing to admire but Wolfgang. One of the cathedral[57] canons afterwards admitted this to Mozart himself, and the steward of the household, Count Firmian, who was very fond of Mozart, gives the following account of a conversation overheard by him while waiting on the court:

“We have now one musician less. Your illustrious grace has lost a great performer.”

“He is the greatest piano-player I ever heard in my life. As a violinist he served your illustrious grace exceedingly well, and he was besides a very good composer.”

All this was a rich source of satisfaction to Wolfgang, but it did not lessen his father’s cares. The preparations for his journey were of course very carefully made, even in the minutest details, especially in what related to his compositions, that he might “be able to show what he could do in everything:” in concertos for the piano and violin, sonatas, airs and ensemble pieces of the most various kind. The sonatas for the piano alone—as we would remark here to the lovers of music—known as Nos. 279-284 in L. Kœchel’s “Chron. themat. Verzeichniss,” are, as to their form, perfectly[58] full of beauty, and the matter of them frequently interests us by the distinctness of its almost speaking pictures of life. More significant and important yet is the sonata in C major. Its Andante cantabile, in F major (3/4), is a dramatic scene which, although on a small scale, clearly bespoke the hand of the future composer of Figaro and Don Giovanni. And the variations with which the sonata in A major (6/8) begins were hardly equaled by Beethoven in his Op. 26. The trio in the minuet, on the other hand, was a full scene from life, taken from the Carnival to which the closing Alla Turca alludes. Compared with these youthful works of Mozart—for they belong to the end of the year 1770—what are the sonatas of Ph. E. Bach, and even of Joseph Haydn?

The travelers had also, with the assistance of the father, made every other preparation for their journey. The boot-tree or stretcher, even, which was, at the time, a necessary part of a traveler’s outfit, was not forgotten. And yet their first stopping-place was near enough. The father had once before knocked at the doors of Munich. Now the son went to seek his fortune by calling personally on the good-hearted elector.

[59]We can here, of course, touch only on the principal incidents of Mozart’s journey, on those which influenced his subsequent life, and must refer the reader for more detailed information to his letters. We find in them the clearest and most charming descriptions of his life. They appeal to our deepest feelings; for they are addressed, almost without exception, to the father. The father’s answers had to be very explicit, for there was ample room for advice and timely precaution, much to deter from or to make good again, as occasion required, and not a little place for admonition. In every one of them, we find the reflection of the solid worth of these two faithful souls, a worth which was destined to find a really ideal and transfigured echo in Mozart’s music. This journey had for effect the development of Mozart’s inmost nature. It gave his artistic creations that sovereign and catholic character for which they are so remarkable.

Wolfgang wrote some letters home, when he reached the first station. In one of them we read: “We live like princes. There is nothing wanting to complete our happiness but papa. But, please God, all will be well with us.”...[60] “I hope that papa will be cheerful and as well satisfied as I am. I can put up very well with my lot. I am a second papa. I look after everything. I have undertaken to pay the postillion, too, for I can talk to the fellows better than mamma can. Papa should take care of his health, and remember that the mufti J. C. [Jerome Colloredo] is a mean fellow, but that God is compassionate, merciful and kind.” No sooner, however, had they reached their first stopping-place than things began to wear a different aspect. Mozart received, indeed, a warm reception. There was no lack of admiration for, or of recognition of, his genius. But he met with no success. His receipts were small, and employment hard to find. The innkeeper, Albert, of the sign of the “Black Eagle” (the hotel Detzer of the present), received them. Albert was known as the “learned host,” and took no small interest in art. Mozart first called on the manager of the theatre, count Seeau. He thought that if he had only one more opera, all would be well with him. He next visited the bishop of Chiemsee, to whom he owed it that he had the opportunity to compose the Verstellte Gaertnerin. Everybody[61] knew of his arrival, and advised him to go direct to the elector, who was a patron of the fine arts, and esteemed Mozart himself very highly. But many days did not pass before Wolfgang discovered that the bishop had had a private conversation at table, in Nymphenburg, from which he gathered that he could accomplish very little in Munich. The bishop said: “It is too soon yet. He must go; he must take a trip to Italy and become famous. I refuse him nothing; but it is too soon yet.” The father was right; the want of good will hides itself too frequently behind the mask of “youth and too little experience.” And yet, we must ask, who was so much more celebrated than this young Cavaliere filarmonico? The electoress, too, shrugged her shoulders, but promised to do her best.

Mozart, however, insisted on going to Nymphenburg. The elector wanted to bear mass just before going to hunt. Mozart thus dramatizes the scene in one of his letters:

“With your electoral highness’s permission, I would fain most humbly cast myself at your highness’s feet and offer my services to your highness.”

“Well, please your electoral highness, I only asked leave to take a trip. This was refused me, and hence I was compelled to take this step, although I had long contemplated leaving, for Salzburg is no place for me.”

“I have been in Italy three times. I have written three operas, am a member of the Academy of Bologna, and have been obliged to undergo an examination on which many a master has been obliged to work and to sweat over for four or five hours. I got through it in an hour. This may prove to your highness that I am able to be of service at any court. My only wish is to serve your electoral highness, who is himself a great....”

“Yes, my dear child, but I am sorry to say that there is not a place vacant. If there was only a vacancy.”

[63]We have here given the whole dialogue. It is a typical example of the way in which princes and magnates treated Mozart through the whole of his short life. There never was “a vacancy” for him. Real genius finds no place to lay its head. It would seem as if its god-given nature were fated to find nothing earthly to cling to.

But, to continue. Spite of this positive declaration, Mozart was not deterred from trying it again at court, and this spite of the fact that his father had written to him that the elector could not create a new place without any more ado, and that, besides, there were always secret enemies in such cases, who prevented a thing of that kind out of anxiety to save their own skin. Yet friends, true and false, found means to flatter him. First of all, there was count Seeau, who had a pecuniary interest in the theater, and understood what advantage a fertile mind like that of Mozart might be to him. He knew how to amuse Mozart, whom, on the occasion of the performance of his first opera, he saw to be all fire and flame, with fair hopes: Mozart was to write a German opera of the heroic kind, and this appealed powerfully[64] to his patriotic feelings. He himself next stirred up his own friends. A number of those interested in him, it was proposed, should club together, and enable him, by a regular monthly contribution, to remain in Munich until he had written such a work, and thus obtained a foothold. Seeau had, indeed, expressed himself to the effect that he would like to retain Mozart, if he had only “a little assistance from home.” Mozart wanted to pledge himself to write four German operas a year, partly comic and partly serious, and estimated that his profits from them would be at least eight hundred and fifty marks, or about two hundred dollars; that count Seeau would give at least five hundred, and would be always invited—and how much there was to be gained here! And he adds: “I am very much liked here even now; but how popular I should be if I could only elevate the German opera! and this I certainly would be able to do, for I felt the greatest desire to write when I heard the German vaudeville.”

“Wolfgang’s first castles in the air!” the father must have said to himself when he read these lines. The “learned host” who had taken[65] the matter of contributions in hand with honest zeal and with a true interest in young Mozart, could not find so many as ten persons to give a trifle over a ducat a month to aid in the good cause. Yet it must be remembered that the German national taste for art was fast awakening together with the freedom of German national, intellectual life—the result of many causes, but especially of the deeds and exploits of Old Fritz (Frederick the Great); and, that a German national opera was among the ideals both of princes and artists—at least of those of them who shared in the broader and nobler thought of the period. We shall have something to say on this point further on.

Thus are we able to understand Wolfgang’s warm attachment for the German opera—and, indeed, had not the prima donna Kaiser “drawn many and many a tear from him”—as well as his arduous endeavor to obtain a firm and permanent foothold in Munich. But Wolfgang’s success as a virtuoso made the father believe in him completely, and inspired him with confidence, spite of this first want of success. The son writes: “At the very last, I played my own cassation in B major. Every[66] one wondered. I played as if I were the greatest fiddler in Europe.” To which the father answered: “You don’t know yourself, my son, how well you play the violin when you only do yourself justice and care to play with heart and spirit, just as if you were the first violinist in Europe.” A cassation is a piece of music in the form of Beethoven’s septett, but intended for a solo-instrument, and especially for serenades.

But he was doomed to disappointment. To see how the father watched over the credit of his son who, in his first endeavors to attain success, had fallen into a condition of dependence entirely unworthy of him, and thus become a laughing-stock for the archbishop; and how the son excused his inconsiderate and inordinate zeal by pleading his passion for the opera, we must consult the letters of both. Wolfgang, with his characteristic amiability, says: “I speak from my heart, and just as I feel. If papa convinces me that I am in the wrong, I shall submit, however reluctantly; for I am out of myself the moment I even hear an opera spoken of.”

They left Munich on the 11th of October,[67] 1777—that is, a full fortnight after their arrival. The father reminds them that neither “fair words, compliments nor bravissimos pay the postmaster or the host.” “Do all you can to earn some money, and be as careful as possible about your expenses. The object of your journey is, and must be, either to obtain employment or to earn money.” This last, however, was not their object in the rich and free imperial city of Augsburg, whither they first directed their steps, because it was their father’s birthplace. They received a warm welcome there from the father’s brother, like Wolfgang’s grandfather, a book-binder. Mozart’s playing and composition, as well as himself, here as everywhere else, met with the greatest recognition, both in public and private, but he did not succeed in giving a concert. The “patricians” were not in funds. And when the Protestant patricians invited them to their boorish academy (to the vornehmen Bauernstub Akademie), the total amount of the present made was—two ducats. “I’m very sure,” the father says, “they would scarcely have gotten me into their beggarly academy;” and, we may add: “The prophet is without honor in his own country.”

[68]But he has erected the best possible monument to those Gothamites, so foolishly proud of their old imperial-city denizenship. In Mozart’s letters to his father, we get an exquisitely faithful picture of “free city” life and “free city” men, with the exaggerated self-consciousness and self-satisfaction of inherited possession and honor, so frequently met with in them that even mere youths seemed almost in their dotage. One cannot but grow merry at the expense of that narrow little world. “His grace,” the chamberlain to the exchequer of the town, Herr von Langenmantel the “my lords,” his sons, and his “gracious” young wife, fare all the worse under the lash of the Mozart’s well-known “wicked tongue,” because Mozart might reasonably have hoped to find a becoming welcome in his father’s birthplace. Even the golden spur given Mozart by Pope Ganganelli did more to charm these “free citizens” than it did to remind them of the honors so young an artist had already won, and that he was, in consequence, the peer of any one of them. One officer of the imperial army, especially, who ignored this fact, was very properly snubbed, and taught the lesson[69] that Mozart was not to be made sport of. We read in one of the father’s letters, “Whenever I thought of your journey to Augsburg, I could not help thinking of Wieland’s Abderites; a man should get an opportunity to see in natura what in reading he considers a pure ideal.” But Mozart had here the best of opportunities to pursue those studies which the artist needs, in order to paint from life. We are reminded of his experiences, like those in Augsburg, by the brutal, self-destructive, ridiculous haughtiness of Osmin in the “Elopement from the Seraglio.”

Mozart’s meeting with the celebrated piano manufacturer Stein, to whom he left it to guess who he was, was a very cheerful meeting, and the manner of it such as Mozart delighted in. He again characterizes as “bad” the playing of Stein’s eight-year-old little girl, afterwards Frau Streicher, who played so honorable and womanly a part in Beethoven’s life. His intercourse with his uncle’s family, in which the presence of his niece, (das Baesle), a young girl of eighteen, served somewhat to exercise his affections, and was the occasion, afterwards, of a series of jocose[70] letters between them. He writes: “I can assure you, that, were it not that it holds a clever uncle and aunt and a charming ‘Baesle,’ I should regret exceedingly having come to Augsburg.” “Baesle” and he seemed made for one another, he thought; “for,” as he said, “she, too, has a little badness in her. The two of us banter the people, and we have very amusing times.”

Their separation was of such a nature that the father had the “sad parting of the two persons, melting into tears, Wolfgang and Baesle,” painted on a panel in their room. All else concerning this sojourn in Augsburg must be looked for in the letters themselves, where the reader will find some exquisite genre painting.

“How I like Mannheim? As well as I can like any place where ‘Baesle’ is not,” we soon hear him answer; for Mannheim, the home of the elector, Karl Theodore, who was as fond of reveling as he was of art, was the next nearest destination our travelers had in view in order to attain Wolfgang’s main object. True, he did not attain his object here either, but he had there that first genuine[71] heart-experience which helped to mature his character as much as his mind was already developed beyond his years.

His next meeting was with the electoral Capellmeister, Cannabich, who knew him when he (Mozart) was a child. He was “extraordinarily polite,” but the orchestra stared at him. As he writes: “They think that because I am so little and young, I have not much that is great in me; but they will soon see.” And the mother, soon after: “You cannot imagine how highly Wolfgang is esteemed here, both by musicians and others. They all say that he has no equal. They fairly deify his compositions.” And yet, so far, he had composed nothing here that could be called really great, no opera; and to write one was the chief reason why Mozart protracted his stay in Mannheim so long. Karl Theodore was, above all, the promoter and protector of those who endeavored to create a German national operatic stage, and his orchestra, under the leadership of Cannabich, was so exquisitely good that it and old Fritz’s tactics were considered the most significant and noteworthy phenomena in Europe at the time.[72] Moreover, the elector was very affable with his musicians, who were everywhere looked upon as “decent people”—a complete contrast with those of Salzburg.

The pleasure-seeking tone of the court had, indeed, invaded the middle classes of society, also; but what did Mozart’s pure heart know of that? On the contrary, he was destined to find, even in voluptuous Mannheim, a love as beautiful as it was pure.

His heart was now completely open to that irresistible impulse of the human breast. Even when in Munich composing, his Gaertnerin aus Liebe, he once said to his “dearest sister”: “I implore you, dearest sister, do not forget your promise; that is, to make the visit, you know, ... for I have my reasons. I beg of you to make my compliments there, ... but most emphatically ... and most tenderly ... and ... O ... well, I should not trouble myself about it. I know my sister too well; she is tenderness itself.” His trifling with “Baesle” had left no impression on his heart of hearts. She was both in mind and culture too much of the bourgeoise, too immature to captivate him.[73] His jocose correspondence with her affords sufficient proof of this. But now we see that Cupid himself directed his pencil.

Young Mozart next informs us of the merry times he had at the houses of the musicians of a city, in which, as a writer of the times says, “the ladies,” were beautiful, sweet and charming. We soon find him again, “as usual,” at Cannabich’s, for supper. Of an evening of this kind, spent there, he writes: “I, John Chrysostome Amadeus Wolfgang Sigismund Mozart, plead guilty, that, day before yesterday and yesterday, as I have done frequently, I did not come home until midnight, and that from ten o’clock, in the presence and society of Cannabich, his wife and daughter, of Messrs. Ramm and Lang [two members of the orchestra], I have made rhymes, and not of the most exalted nature, in words and thoughts but not in deeds. I would not have acted in so godless a way were it not that Lisel had excited me to it, and I must confess that I found real pleasure in it.” On one occasion, at the house of the flute-player, Wendling, he was in such excellent humor, and played so well, that when he had[74] finished, he had to kiss the ladies. He tells us that, in the case of the daughter, he found this a very easy and pleasant task. She had been the elector’s sweetheart, and, as Schubart says, in his Aesthetik der Tonkunst, the “greatest beauty in the orchestra.”

But Rosa Cannabich “a very sweet and beautiful girl,” as he writes of her himself, fettered him with the complete irresistibleness of her innocent charms more than could even this blooming flower. And this was the beginning of those sweet love-songs which now flowed in pure tones from his poet-heart; and, hence, this event marks a period in our artist’s life. He writes, shortly after his arrival in Mannheim: “She plays the piano very sweetly, and to make him (the father) a fast friend, I am writing a sonata for mademoiselle, his daughter.” When the first allegro was finished, a young musician asked him how he intended to write the andante. “I shall fashion it after mademoiselle Rosa’s character,” he answered; and he informs us further: “When I played it, it gave extraordinary satisfaction. It is even so. The andante is just like her.”

[75]What was she like? A painter subsequently wrote of her thus: “How many such beautiful, priceless hours did heaven grant me in sweet intercourse with Rosa Cannabich. Her memory is an Eden to my heart;” and Wolfgang now wrote of her that, for her age, she was a girl of much mind, and of demure and serious disposition, one who said little, but that little in an affable, nay, charming manner. In Naples stands Psyche, a rose just opening. Mozart possessed the same refined, antique feeling for the soul-statue of man. Here, before his clear-seeing artist eye, the bud that in it lay was fully blown. This fruitful heart-life was destined soon to sow deeper germs in his own soul, and to cause his own art to bloom fully forth.

Here, accordingly, we discover one of those turning points in the development of Mozart’s inner nature, which had much to do with his intellectual growth, inasmuch as his passion disclosed to him for the first time the meaning of the homely truth, that both life and art are serious things. We proceed to show how this effect was produced.

The court had heard him in the very first[76] week of his stay in Mannheim. “You play incomparably well,” said the elector to him. Shortly after Mozart spoke to the elector as “his good friend,” and the latter began: “I have heard that you wrote an opera in Munich.” “Yes, your highness,” Mozart replied, “I commend myself as your grace’s obedient servant. My highest wish is to write an opera I beg your highness not to forget me quite I know German also, and may God be praised and thanked for it.” “That is not at all impossible,” answered his most serene highness, and so Mozart made his arrangements for a longer sojourn in Mannheim. He took some pupils, and as we saw when speaking of the pretty Rosa Cannabich, he wrote sonatas, or variations for them. For this he needed a copyist But copying was, as he once complained to his father, very dear in Mannheim, and he was, therefore, overjoyed, copying being to himself a real torment, after a while—it was at the beginning of 1778—to find a man who performed that task for him, in consideration of his instructing his daughter in music.

This man was Fridolin von Weber, brother[77] of the father of C. M. von Weber, and at that time, a prompter and a copyist in the Mannheim theater. The daughter’s name was Aloysia, later the celebrated singer, Madame Lange.

The family had seen better days, but the father’s passion for the stage had led him into these straits, where he had for years to support a family of six children on an annual salary of three hundred and fifty marks. But he made such good use of his knowledge of music that his second daughter, who was at this time—she was in her fifteenth year—an excellent singer, cooperated with him at the theater, and thus doubled her father’s salary. Mozart as a musician felt at home in the family—for the eldest daughter, Josepha became afterwards Frau Hofer, for whom the “Queen of the Night” in the Magic Flute was written—and so the sympathy of his good heart was soon awakened. “She needs nothing but action, and then she will make a good prima donna on any stage. Her father is a thoroughly honorable son of our German fatherland. He brings his children up well, and that is the very cause why the girl is persecuted[78] here.” Thus did he sum up the chief points in this affair in the first news he sent home. Subsequently he wrote a propos of a performance at the house of the princess of Orange: “I may pass over her singing with a single word—it was superb!” And at the close of his letter: “I have the inexpressible pleasure to have formed the acquaintance of thoroughly honest and really Christian people. I only regret that I did not know them long ago.”

This tells the whole story. He henceforth devoted nearly all his leisure to the family, rehearsed with the young vocalist all her arias, procured her opportunities to have her music heard, and had the satisfaction to know that Raaff himself, the most celebrated tenor in Mannheim, and even in Germany, declared that she sang not like a pupil, but like an adept in the vocal art.

One incident here deserves to be specially mentioned, for it had a decided, far-reaching and direct influence on Mozart’s action, and on his development as an artist. He had set about writing an aria for the great tenor already mentioned, in order to win him over for his contemplated opera. “But,” he writes,[79] with the utmost frankness, “the beginning of it seemed to me too high for Raaff, and I liked it too well to change it. I therefore resolved to write the aria for Miss Weber. I laid it aside, and resolved on other words for Raaff. But to no purpose. I found it impossible to write. The first aria haunted my mind and would not away, and then I decided to write it out to suit Miss Weber exactly.”

What was the import of those words which he selected simply because an air to the same words, composed by the London Bach, had pleased him so much and kept forever ringing in his ears, and because he wanted to try whether, spite of everything, he was not able to write an aria entirely unlike Bach’s? What were the words?

A king orders a youth who has made an attempt upon his life to be led to execution. But when he sees the young culprit, he immediately exclaims: “What is this strange power that agitates and moves me? His face, his eye, his voice! My heart palpitates; every fibre of my body quivers! Through all my feelings I look for the cause of this strange effect, and cannot find it. What is it, O God,[80] what is it that I feel?” And hereupon follows that very aria, Non so d’onde viene: “I know not whence this tender feeling. Mere pity cannot produce a change so sudden!” Was not this the condition of Mozart’s own heart? He imagined that pity, and pity only, for the condition of the Weber family, and, at most, an interest in the “beautiful, pure voice,” and wonder at the combination of so much ability with such extreme youth, bound his heart to their home; but it was not that; it was the undivined depths which the first feeling of love opens before us; the wonder, the charm, the trembling, glowing exultation, the heart-felt, floating, exquisite bliss which with a longing foreboding discovers us to ourselves for the first time, and which, in the throes of our heart of hearts, seems to give a new birth to every drop of blood in our veins. In such a state, we may imagine, it was that he sang this: Non so d’onde viene—not as a musician, not as an artist, but urged thereto by that powerful, irresistible impulse of the heart which, in the last instance, begets in us all our truest life. And as Pygmalion, in a fit of such fiery ardor, moved the marble[81] so Mozart melted in this first fire of the fullest and most human of feelings, the elemental substances of all music, and gave it what it hitherto had possessed only in isolated cases and accidentally, an impression full of soul, a meaning to its every tone.

It is hard to find before Mozart, except it be in national melodies, anything of this living, animated, thoroughly personal expression of feeling, such as we possess in this Non so d’onde viene. It is like Aloysia’s picture itself. Here we find a language plainer and more universally intelligible than words. It charms and enchants us; looks us in the face; speaks to us with an expression as if we alone were addressed. This is the highest, the very highest effect of art, and this the time when it becomes a second, an ideal, a transfigured life. The language which Mozart thus acquired for his art, he never forgot or dropped. He embellished it, amplified it, deepened it, until he reached that expression of the soul in which, like the melody in the Magic Flute, the soul itself stands face to face with its Creator, and in the calmness of its bliss, feels that it is “the image of God,” and His portion forever.

[82]We here close the account of Mozart’s inner awakening. We may now compare with his first heart-trials his first intellectual exploits, the very beginning of which was this aria, Non so d’onde viene, to write which he was inspired by his love for Aloysia Weber.

Mozart’s way is henceforth through the tortuous paths of life. Disappointment after disappointment meets him. He becomes familiar with suffering and sorrow, but they point him to a higher goal than that of mere immediate success. The severest trials of his affections broaden his heart and make room in it for interests other than his own—an effect which unveils the real worth of the artist.

[84]It would be a great mistake to suppose that Mozart, at this time, was completely entangled in the meshes of love. He did not forget his high vocation, and even in this affair of the heart, his art had no small influence. He writes to his father: “My dear miss Weber has done herself and me credit beyond expression, by this aria. All said that they were never moved by an aria as they were by that one. But then she sang it as it should be sung.” And yet she “had learned the aria by herself,” and sang it “in accordance with her own taste.” How well that taste must have been already cultivated, and what a good teacher the young composer must have been! But does not Platen sing:

Aloysia, in later years, contributed more than any other vocalist to make the world acquainted with Mozart’s music and to teach people to understand it. And this was necessary. For, even Mozart’s melodies, which seem to us now so easily and so universally intelligible, found it, in their own day, and this not unfrequently,[85] no easy matter to hold their own; and it was only very gradually that they were given the preference over the incomparably more languid melodies of the time, especially over the florid style of the Italians.

Even now, he had in this successful effort, the hoped-for opera in Mannheim, mainly in view; which would thus and through his own efforts have a prima donna as well as a first tenor. But even here his hopes were destined to disappointment. We cannot now enter into details, but must refer the reader to Mozart’s letters to his father. They afford us a true picture of the culture, musical and other, of a small German court of that period, which had a very decisive influence on German art.

From these letters we learn, first of all, that the real object of his visit was kept steadily in view. They tell us of his plans, and give us detailed accounts of his industry in his art, with here and there an outburst of the unknown feeling that animated him. Mozart, who was so fond of doing nothing but “speculating and studying”: that is, who loved to live only for art and in art, diligently endeavors to find scholars to instruct and tasks in[86] composition of every description, even for the flute, for which he had so little liking. He has still a firm faith in the intention of the elector to charge him with the composition of at least one German opera. He had heard an opera of that kind—“Guenther von Schwarzburg,” by Holzbauer—here in Mannheim, and what would he not have been able himself to produce with artists like Raaff, his own Weber, and the celebrated Mesdames Wendling, under the leadership of a Cannabich! At all events he here learned what might be expected of a good orchestra, just as he had previously learned in Italy how to write for song.

When, now, Mozart’s prospects for an opera were becoming obscured—we have no certain information as to the causes of this, but may safely assume that the well-known abbe Vogler, Capellmeister, in Mannheim, Mozart’s life-long opponent and even enemy, was not without influence here—and there was little promise of the realization of his hopes, it would have been very natural that he should think of pursuing his journey further, especially as Paris was now not so far away. Some of the musicians of the orchestra, Wendling, Ramm and[87] Lang proposed to him to go there with him in the Lenten season and give a concert with him. They thought that their influence would help him to get orders for all kinds of composition, and even for an opera. And, to keep him, for the time being, in Mannheim, spite of his having himself written to his father that the elector did nothing for him, they endeavored to procure pupils and compositions for him. Added to this was an event which strongly engaged him to stay, the rehearsal of another German opera, “Rosamunde,” by Wieland; and it is of interest to learn what Mozart, with that frankness which characterized him, had to say of other celebrated men of that period. His description of Wieland can scarcely be called flattering. He describes him a man, “with a rather child-like voice, looking steadily through his glasses, with a certain learned coarseness, and occasionally stupid condescension.” Yet he excuses the poet because the people of Mannheim looked upon him as upon an angel dropped down from heaven. Besides, Wieland did not yet know the artist himself, and may, therefore, not have treated him in a becoming manner. For, soon afterwards, we[88] read in one of his letters: “When Herr Wieland had heard me twice, he was charmed. The last time, after paying me all possible kinds of compliments, he said: ‘It is a real good fortune for one to have seen you!’—and he pressed my hand.”

Wieland had, by his appeal in the “Essay on the German opera,” in the Deutsche Merkur in 1775, become the principal representative of those who were endeavoring to create a German national opera, and thus Mozart’s meeting with him was of the utmost importance, and had a great influence in promoting the end contemplated. The performance of “Rosamunde” was, however, prevented by the sudden death of the elector, Maximilian III. of Bavaria, as Karl Theodore had to go to Munich about New Year’s. Still, the idea of a German opera continued a motive power in Mozart’s soul. He even now writes about the intention of the Emperor Joseph II. to establish such an opera in Vienna, and of his looking seriously about for a young Capellmeister with a knowledge of the German language, one possessed of genius, and able to produce something entirely new. The man[89] who was one day to compose the “Elopement from the Seraglio,” and the “Magic Flute,” exclaims: “I think that there is there a task for me.”

At first, nothing came of this, much as Mozart, in his present circumstances, might have desired such a position. But it had the effect of changing his plans entirely, and this change of plans is worthy of more than passing mention, since it was attended by a powerful agitation and perturbation of his whole mind and heart. Besides, it throws a new light on his relations to his “dear Weber.”

The father, who confidently believed that Wolfgang had gone to Paris, and who had given him excellent advice on every point, telling him among other things that he would do best to bring his mother back to Augsburg, suddenly received the information that Wolfgang was not going to Paris. The Wendlings’ way of living did not please him, he said; they had “no religion;” besides, he added, he did not see what he was going to do in Paris; he was not made to give lessons in music. “I am,” he goes on, “a composer and born to be a Capellmeister. I must not bury the talent[90] with which God has so richly gifted me—I think I may speak of myself in this way without pride—and I would be burying it by taking so many scholars.”

What was it that he craved? Why does he lay so much stress on the talent he possessed? He wanted to go to Italy with the Webers and write operas there, in which the daughter was to act as prima donna.

He writes: “The thought of being able to help a poor family without having to do any injustice to myself is a genuine pleasure,” and, in these few words, he lays his whole soul open before us. Possessed by this honest, benevolent feeling, he is only half conscious of the wish to be able to remain with the charming girl and to make her his own at last, by his ability and his profitable productions as a composer of Italian operas. Some weeks previously, he had written to a friend in Salzburg: “That is another mercenary marriage, a marriage for money. I would not marry in that way. I want to make my wife happy, and not to make a fortune by her.” At first they only intended to give concerts. He tells his father: “When I travel with him [Weber] I feel just[91] as I used to when I traveled with you. And that is the reason I am so fond of him; because, with the exception of his external appearance, he is just like you. He has your character and your way of thinking. I did not need to trouble myself about anything. Even the mending of my clothes was seen to. In a word, I was served like a prince. I am so fond of this distressed family, that I desire nothing so much as to be able to make them happy, and perhaps I may be able to do it.”

It was in memory of his triumph in Italy that he himself counseled going there, and advised his father that the sooner he renewed his connections with it the better, so that he might get a commission for an opera that season. He would pledge his life that her (Aloysia’s) singing would be a credit to him. They would next visit his home, and Nannerl would find a companion and friend in Aloysia; for she had in Mannheim a reputation like that of Nannerl in Salzburg, her father like his own, and the whole Weber family a reputation like the Mozart family’s. “You know,” he concludes, “my greatest and most ardent desire to write operas. I am jealous, to the extent of[92] vexation, of every person who writes one, and I could cry my eyes out whenever I hear or see an aria. I have now written to you about everything just as I feel in my heart. I kiss your hands a thousand times, and until death I remain your most obedient son. W. A. Mozart.”

But the mother secretly added a post-script to this letter, saying that Wolfgang would sacrifice everything for the Webers; that it was true Aloysia sang incomparably well, and that the Wendlings had never treated her exactly right, but that the moment he had become acquainted with the Webers, he changed his mind about Paris.

Although the prudent father was “almost beside himself” when he heard of Wolfgang’s plan of roving about the world with strangers, he begins by laying before him as clearly and distinctly as possible, how almost entirely useless his course had been since he started on his journey, and by a thousand reasons endeavoring to make him see plainly the impossibility of carrying out his design. His letter is throughout replete with love for his child, with moderation and discretion, but he[93] nevertheless makes full use of his right as a father, and does not even hesitate to employ the incisive irony of his nature. He begins by telling him that he now recognizes his son only by his goodness of heart and his easy credulity—one must read this beautiful, long letter and bear in mind the time and place of its writing to appreciate it, for it is a monument to the good sense that ruled in Mozart’s family—that all else is changed, and that for him happy moments like those he used to have were passed; that it lay with his son alone to decide now whether he would gradually acquire the greatest renown ever enjoyed by a musician—and he owed this to his talents—or whether, ensnared by the beauty of a woman, he would die in a room full of suffering and hungry children. He says: “The proposition to travel with Mr. Weber and, mark well, with his two daughters made me almost run mad.” Thus giddily to play with one’s own and his parents’ honor! And how, he asks, could a young girl suddenly attain success in Italy where all the greatest vocalists were to be found? Besides, just then, war was impending—on account of the Bavarian succession.[94] Moreover, such plans were plans for small lights, for inferior composers, for daubers in music. And, at last, he cries out to his son forcibly enough: “Get thee to Paris. Have the great about thee. Aut Cæsar, aut nihil! The very thought of seeing Paris should have kept you from indulging in such foolish whims.”

When Wolfgang received this letter he became ill, such was its effect upon him. Not one of his most sacred feelings but was touched by it—his love, his sense of duty, his honor, and his pride in his art. On one point alone his father had said nothing: his love. To have spoken of it would have been unavailing. And yet he reminded him of all his changing inclinations, of his tears for the little Kaiser girl in Munich, his little episode with “Baesle,” and his andante for sweet Rosa Cannabich. And so Wolfgang’s child-like feeling bent to his father’s will, and his inexperience, to his father’s tried and tested prudence. He had, he assured his parents, done all that he had done, out of devotion to the family, and they might believe what they liked about him, provided they did not believe anything bad of[95] him, for he was “a Mozart and a well-minded Mozart.” And at last, the full sun of confiding love breaks out again: “After God, my papa! This was my motto as a child, and I am true to it yet.”

Preparations were immediately made for his departure, and, after a little, Mozart was in Paris. The sonata for the piano in A minor, which bears the date “Paris, 1778,” tells us by its energetic rhythm and the passionate lament of the finale, better than all else, what was going on, at that time, in Mozart’s soul. It is the most direct language of a heart bowed down with sorrow, and discloses to us, just as the aria Non so d’onde viene did, a short time before, a region newly conquered to poetic expression, in tones. And, indeed, we find that Mozart’s character had noticeably matured after these first struggles with his beloved father. The sudden death of his mother in Paris contributed largely to intensify and elevate this, his earnestness of mind. Upon its heels followed the painful disappointment, that his love for the beautiful Aloysia was a mortal one, and he had, at last, though with great difficulty, to overcome himself and return to[96] Salzburg, which he so thoroughly hated. Such are the events and experiences which lead us to the first real masterpiece of our artist, to his Idomeneo. We shall meet again in his later years with the traces of the trials of these days in Mannheim, and especially of the full recognition of the worth of a father’s controlling love, as he then most decidedly experienced it.

To continue our narrative. His father writes: “I have no, no not the least want of confidence in you, my dear Wolfgang. On the contrary, I have every confidence in your filial love. On you I base all my hopes. From the bottom of my heart, I give you a father’s blessing, and remain until death your faithful father and your surest friend.” Such was the parting salutation he received from home, when starting on his journey to a foreign land. And Wolfgang himself writes: “I must say that all who knew me parted with me reluctantly and with regret.” Aloysia had, “from goodness of heart,” knit a little memento for him. They all wept when their “best friend and benefactor departed.” He says: “I must ask your pardon, but the tears[97] rush to my eyes when I think of it.” Besides, there was now “neither rhyme nor reason” with him in anything. He had, however, done his father’s will, and this was some consolation to him. He soon learned that Raaff had come to Paris; and what pleased him more, Raaff promised to take care of his dear Aloysia’s future.

In Paris, he met scarcely anything but discomfort and disappointment. The style of Parisian music did not please him. The Italian arias were distorted and the indigenous whining in singing grated on his musical feelings which craved above all the charm of the beautiful. And yet it was at this time, in Paris, that there was a decided controversy between two schools of music; between the disciples of Gluck and Piccini.

We saw above that, in the Italian opera, melody, the florid style (Coloratur) and vocal virtuosity became predominant. But the French had developed their opera independently. Action and a corresponding musical recitation in keeping with the words, were considered by them its chief features. The German Gluck at this point began his work in[98] France. He was guided here by his own good sense; and by theoretical demonstrations he proved the weakness of the Italian style. He had already turned his attention to the sublime tragedies of the Greeks, and captivated Paris by his Iphigenia in Aulis. But as the great mass always favors trifles and the fashion, this innovation was soon confronted by a formidable opposition, which after all was only a further development of the national French opera. Contrary to the usual French custom, and misled by Rousseau’s influence, the Italian opera was put above the nation’s own, and a foreigner, the Neapolitan Piccini, called to Paris to retaliate on Gluck.

We know now who came off the victor in this struggle. Mozart’s feelings ranged him, at first, on the Italian side—that is, on that side so far as music alone was concerned. But his German nature told him that the ultimate source of music lay in that earnestness of feeling and of intellectual life which is the creator of poetry, and above all of tragic poetry; and here the Italians were altogether too superficial to satisfy him. And, then, he involuntarily favored the earnest endeavors of the French[99] opera, much as he disliked the French music of the time. And, indeed, the whole mode of the really historic life of Paris, contrasted with the political wretchedness of Germany and Italy, must have made a forcible impression on his mind, spite of his many disagreeable experiences there, and of the many inconveniences and troubles he had to put up with. And, more than all else, the high regard in which the stage, at that time, was held, in France, did not escape his observation. It made a decided and lasting impression on his mind. In his letters, he subsequently made particular mention of the fact that the clown was banished even from the comic opera there. It was not, indeed, until he was about to leave Paris, that he became conscious of this greater, richer, more vigorous life,—of a life such as was evidenced ten years later by the great Revolution. But the fact remains that he did become conscious of it, and, as a consequence, his artistic taste and aims acquired greater fixedness and value. This was Mozart’s gain from his stay in Paris at this time. It was a gain of the mind which richly compensated for his want of pecuniary success.

[100]The detailed account of this sojourn in Paris is to be found in Mozart’s own letters. It is a very vivid one, very clear, and the language used is frequently very strong. The letters themselves constitute a piece of the history of the art, and culture of the Paris of the time. The death of his mother, the result of a way of living to which she was not used and of great depression of spirits, had a very sad effect on his mind. But when he saw that he had no need to worry, at least about his father, he felt greatly encouraged, and the prospect of writing an opera for Paris infused new life into the sluggish blood of our young artist. A cheering evidence of this is to be found in the so-called French symphony which he wrote just at this time; and we can see what purely external cause it was that gave it its peculiarly lively tone. It was the character of the French themselves, with their peculiar love of life and of the external. All his hearers were carried away by a lively passage of this kind in the very beginning, but in the finale he took the liberty with his ingenuous musical audience to crack a joke like that subsequently played by Haydn in London, by the beating of the kettle-drum[101] suddenly to attract the attention of the listeners. Contrary to the custom usual in Paris, he had two violins to begin to play piano, immediately followed by a forte. When they were playing piano a sound of sh-sh-sh—called for a dead silence; but “the moment his audience heard the forte, they broke out into hand-clapping and applause.” Thus adroitly and immediately did he employ in Paris the manner of working up a climax which he had noticed in Mannheim.

But envy and intrigue still dogged him. He fairly dazzled the Italian maestro, Cambini, the very first time he met him. Mozart played one of Cambini’s quartets from memory, and executed it in such a manner, that the latter exclaimed: “What a head that man has!” Cambini, after this, took care that no more of Mozart’s compositions should be performed in public, and hence he had to resort once more to the giving of lessons in music, to make ends meet. This was exceedingly difficult in Paris, and especially for an artist who, as he himself wrote at the time, was, so to say, “sunk in music—one whose thoughts it always occupied, and who liked to speculate, study and reflect the live-long day.”

[102]A friend whom he had made during his previous stay in Paris, the encyclopædist, Grimm, was not of much use to him this time either. Wolfgang was not the man to see his way in such a city, or in such society. And Grimm wrote to the father that his son was too true-hearted, too inactive, too easily captivated, too little versed in the arts which lead to success. This, indeed, was Mozart’s character. He knew little of the ways of the world, and he remained ignorant of them through life. As nothing came of his prospects to write an opera, his father could not but wish that he might leave Paris entirely, which, after his mother’s death, he considered a dangerous place for him.

Wolfgang had turned his eyes towards Munich, where Karl Theodor was now elector. But the war still kept everything in a state of stagnation there. In the meantime, a vacancy occurred in Salzburg itself. A Capellmeister was needed in that city. Many a hint had been given the father previously, on another occasion, when a vacancy was created by death. Now he was appealed to again, at first in a round-about way and then directly.[103] And what was the bait he held out to his son? Aloysia! The archbishop wanted a prima donna, also, and Wolfgang had already urged his father to take an interest in her welfare. He did not, at first, agree to the arrangement, but when it was certainly decided that he could have the position and was sure of more becoming treatment than he had formerly received there, and, when he heard that Miss Weber was very ardently desired by the prince and by all, his hatred for Salzburg and its hard and unjust archbishop abated. But without the positive assurance that he would be granted leave of absence to travel, an assurance which he received, he would not have been completely satisfied; for, he writes: “A man of only ordinary talent, always remains ordinary, whether he travel or not; a man of superior talent, and it would be wicked in me to deny that I possess such talent, deteriorates by remaining always in the same place.”

But, in the meantime, Aloysia found a place in Munich. Mozart learned this fact before his departure, and all his aversion for Salzburg was again suddenly awakened. Paris again stood out before him, a place in which[104] he would certainly have “earned honor, fame and money, and where he would have been able to free his father from debt.” He now thought of getting a place once more in Munich himself, for he had recently learned again how much the girl loved him. Rumors of his death had been put in circulation, and the poor child had gone to church every day to pray for him. Writing of this incident, he says: “You will laugh, I cannot; it touches me, and I can’t help it.” But this was a serious matter with the father. His own place, as well as his daily bread, was certainly at stake now, if Wolfgang retreated!

The journey was proceeded with this time slowly. And, indeed, what cause was there for haste? He made a long stay in Strassburg and Mannheim, and entered into some negotiations there about the composition of a melodrama. “On receipt of this you shall take your departure,” was the positive order sent him; and yet there was “a real scramble” for him at Mannheim. His father consoles him by assuring him that he is not at all opposed to his love for Aloysia, and this all the less, since now she was able to make his[105] fortune, not he hers! While on his journey, Mozart had invited “Baesle” also to Munich, adding: “You will, perhaps, get a great part to play.”

But, strange!—Aloysia does not seem, when he enters, to recognize the very man for whom she once had wept. Mozart, therefore, seated himself hastily at the piano, and sang aloud:

This was told by Aloysia’s younger sister, Constance, who was afterwards Mozart’s wife, to her second husband, and she gave as the reason of it, the fact that Aloysia’s taste was offended because, following the custom of the time, he wore black buttons, in mourning for his mother, on his red coat. It may be, however, that the officers and gentlemen of the court pleased the prima donna better than the little man whose heart-tones had once entranced her. This time also, he left the faithless one a gift, a composition of his own, not, however, one which sprung from his heart, but one which showed his power as an artist. The aria which he now wrote for her, Popopoli di Tessaglia, discovers to us completely the full[106] meaning of his Non so d’onde viene, in his own life.

Aloysia was not happy. We shall have more to say of this hereafter. Mozart did not, at this time, weep away his grief in tones. His pride vanquished his love. But his letters depict the state of his mind all the more truly, now that the hopes he had entertained of obtaining a position in Munich turned to smoke. Still, his present sojourn in Munich was destined to lead soon to a very important event in his life as an artist. He regrets that he cannot write, because his heart is attuned to weeping. A friend told the father that Wolfgang cried for a whole hour, spite of all efforts to dry his tears. And, writing of Mozart’s beautiful inner self, he says: “I never saw a child with more tenderness and love for his father than your son. His heart is so pure, so child-like to me, how much more pure and tender must it be for his father! Only, one must hear him; and who is there that would not do him justice as the best of characters, the most upright and most ardent of men!” We think we hear the sounds of the well-spring from which the tones of the[107] Idomeneo and the aria of the Ilia were soon to flow.

The meeting of father and son could not fail to be a very touching sight. To form an idea of their feelings on that occasion, one must read the letter written by the father, after he received the news of the mother’s illness. Wolfgang came home immediately, but he came without her, the dearly beloved wife and mother. Every one received him with open arms; but he had already written: “Upon my oath and upon my honor, I say I cannot endure Salzburg or its people; their language and their whole mode of life is unbearable to me;” and the chief cause of his feeling thus lay in his art. He said later: “When I play in Salzburg, or when one of my compositions is produced there, I feel as if only chairs and tables were my listeners.” After this, it is easy to understand why Salzburg was not to his taste. He says: “When one has trifled away his young years in such a beggarly place, in inaction, it is sad enough, and besides, a great loss.”

“Baesle’s” merriness helped him to while away the first week of his second stay in his[108] dull native city, in the beginning of 1779. But her simple ways could not now make her what she was to him, when he was less matured in mind and heart. His work was his most agreeable pastime, and, spite of everything, productions of the most varied nature written during his sojourn in Salzburg, afford very abundant proof of this. The symphonies he now wrote were, indeed, greatly excelled by others which he subsequently composed, and the masses eclipsed by his great requiem. But the music to a tragedy, “King Thamos,” has a sound so full and so appeals to the soul, that we feel the presence in it of the greater life-trials he had experienced. And hence it is that Mozart was subsequently able to adapt its choruses to other words, and to introduce them to the world as “hymns.” Their tone reminds us of the solemn, serious choruses of the “Magic Flute,” the drift of which was followed also in the matter of the drama. The composition of these works was due to Schikaneder, of whom we shall have something more to say when speaking of the “Magic Flute.” He was, at this time, director of the theater at Salzburg, and Mozart received an order to write a comic opera for him.[109] This was the “Zaide” and the plot embraced a tale of abduction. Its composition was fast drawing to a close when, at last—it was in the fall of 1780—he saw signs of redemption from his captivity. He received an invitation to compose an opera for Munich. It was the Idomeneo, and its success sealed Mozart’s fate for all subsequent time. With the exception of a short visit paid there, he never saw Salzburg again.

The subject of this work is the old story of Jephtha’s vow. The scene, however, is transferred to Crete, whither its king Idomeneus, returns after the destruction of Troy. In a frightful storm which occurred during his journey, he vows to Neptune the first human being he shall meet. The victim is his own son, Idamante. Idomeneus wishes to send him away into a foreign country. But Neptune causes a still greater storm to rage and the whole country to be devastated by a monster. The people meet and hear of the vow that Idomeneus has made. When Idamante himself who, in the meantime, had slain the monster, is informed of his fate, he is ready to appease the anger of the god. Whereupon,[110] Ilia, who loves him, throws herself between him and his father, and asks that she may suffer death in his place. But just as she casts herself on her knees, “a great subterraneous noise is heard, Neptune’s statue trembles on its base. The high priest is transported out of himself, all stand motionless with fear, and a deep majestic voice proclaims the will of the god:” that Idomeneus shall abdicate the throne, and that Idamante and Ilia happily united shall ascend it.

It is easy to see that we have here great and grave situations in the life of human creatures. Mozart knew how to do them justice. He grasped their very kernel and allowed that which was only of secondary importance to remain secondary. The whole, although taken from a French libretto, had been, according to the custom of the Italian opera of the time, broken up into a great many fragments for the purposes of music, and among them we find, especially, a large number of arias; and hence it did not satisfy true dramatic taste. But even these disjointed pieces,—it mattered not whether they gave expression to sorrow, terror, tenderness or joy, united to or mixed with one[111] another—were always full of what they were intended to express, and were, not unfrequently, overflowing with musical beauty. It was only when he conceded, too much to the incompetence or narrowness of singers, that any sacrifice was made to the traditional form and sing-song of the Italians. But there were in the plot, and they were its chief part, some powerful scenes, susceptible of really dramatic presentation; and here Mozart demonstrated that he was a great master of the stage, and that he had adopted Gluck’s innovations not to allow the singers and their florid style, but the music to govern, and the music as the highest expression of the poetry, that is of the dramatic scene which is performing. Mozart’s own letters give us many details of great interest in this connection.

He again met his Mannheim artists, singers as well as the orchestra—all but Aloysia, who had been called a short time previously, to the national operatic theatre in Vienna—in Munich, and he was therefore well prepared to go to work. And he was anxious to do so, for it was a long time since he had an opportunity[112] to show his full powers on the stage. He felt happy, nay, delighted, since his arrival. He lived in the Burggasse. A bronze tablet bearing his portrait has since been placed on the house in which he lived. The elector greeted him most graciously, and when Mozart gave expression to the peculiar ardor he felt, he tapped him on the shoulder and said: “I have no doubt whatever; everything will be well.” Every one was delighted and astonished at the rehearsal of the first act. Much had been expected of him, but the performance surpassed all expectation. Frau Cannabich, who had been obliged to remain at home with her sick daughter, Rose, embraced him, so overjoyed was she at his success; and the musicians went home almost crazed with delight. The hautboyist Ramm, with whom Beethoven played his quintet op. 16, in 1804, told him on his word as a true son of the fatherland, that no music had ever made such an impression on him—referring to the double choruses during Idomeneus’s shipwreck—and what joy would it bring to his father when he heard of it!

The latter cautioned him from home to take[113] care of himself. He knew his son. And, indeed, Wolfgang had a slight attack of illness at this time. He writes ingenuously enough: “A man gets easily over-heated when honor or fame is at stake.” But he was soon well again, and able to write: “A person is indeed glad when he is at last done with so great and so toilsome a piece of work; and I am almost done with it; for, all that is wanting now is two arias, the final chorus, the overture, the ballet—and adieu partie.” The father had reminded him not to forget to make his music popular. It was the “popular” in music that tickled the long-eared. Wolfgang replied that there was music in his opera for all kinds of people, the long-eared excepted. And indeed the work contained ballet-interludes, and besides the most popular of all kinds of music, the dance. Mozart’s genius permitted him, as we have seen, to make many a concession to the peculiarities of the singers, spite of the gravity of the subject. But where this same gravity was paramount, as in the quartet of the third act, he had trouble enough. The oftener he put it on the stage, the greater was the effect it produced on himself, and it[114] was liked by all, even when only played on the piano. Raaff alone found it too long, and not easy enough to sing.

Mozart replied to his objections: “If I only knew a single note that could be changed! But I have not been as well satisfied with anything in this opera as with the quartet;” and Raaff was himself afterwards, as he said, “agreeably disappointed;” and just as delighted were the four musicians: Wendling, Ramm, Ritter and Lang, who had an obligato accompaniment to the aria of Ilia, in the first act, and who were thus given an opportunity to appreciate Mozart’s skill; for it was the profound rapture that comes from joy and love which was here to be expressed in music. And as Mozart had once given expression to that rapture in his Non so d’onde viene, he again gave it a voice in the premature evening of his life in the aria:

The aria of Ilia reminds us of both. But the quartet is the crowning glory of Gluck’s endeavor to allow each singer to express himself, at every moment, as far as possible, in accordance[115] with his own individuality. Even in Mozart’s works, we find little like it; and at that time such musical wealth was entirely new and unheard of.

The elector said laughingly, after the thunder-storm in the second act: “One would not think that that small head could carry so much.” And then the choruses, when the people, during the storm, utter their cry of horror! The members of the orchestra said that this chorus could not but freeze the blood in one’s veins. And yet the third act was incomparably richer. Mozart himself says: “There is scarcely a scene which is not exceedingly interesting,” and that “his head and hands were so full of it that it would be no wonder if he were to become the third act himself.” He thinks, however, that it would prove as good as the first two. He says: “but I believe infinitely better, and that it may be said: Finis coronat opus (the end crowns the work).” For the address of the high priest on the sufferings of the people, caused by the sea monster, the solemn march, and the oracle itself, Gluck’s Alceste may have served as a model. The magnitude of these tragic elements[116] at least were well understood; and no one can, even to-day, remain unmoved by these tones. But it became also a school of the genuine dramatic style in music; and the orchestration was the best that Mozart had produced. From it, all who followed him learned the best they knew.

Of the presentation of the opera itself on the stage, in January, 1781, we have no detailed information. But the impression made by it must have been in keeping with that created by the rehearsals. That the Idomeneo lives now only in the concert hall, is due to the Italian words, which interrupt the acting at almost every step. Mozart put an end to the absolute rule of the Italian opera by his Idomeneo. It henceforth had only a national character. Mozart compelled the composers of opera, from this time forward, to take another course, and to comply with Gluck’s demands, which have lifted the opera of our age to the height of the genuine drama.

But the first and fully decisive steps in this direction, were the Figaro and Don Giovanni. We now turn to them. The Idomeneo, as it was Mozart’s first masterpiece, monumental[117] in its style, constituted, together with the operas which followed it, the transition to an entirely new epoch in his life, to the period of his complete independence, both as an artist and as a man.

We are told that Mozart, even in his later years, prized the Idomeneo very greatly, and it is certain that connoisseurs have always entertained a very high opinion of its music. It combines the freshness of youth, great force and vitality, with a great variety in invention, and has all the characteristics of art. It is easy to conceive that the consciousness of[119] being the possessor of so much power, especially while he was engaged on the work itself, made Mozart’s bosom swell, and that in such moments the memory of the narrowness and “chicanery” of Salzburg must have been exceedingly mortifying to him. “Out! out into the wide world and into the air of freedom!”—he must have heard now ringing in his ears as he had four years before. And had not Vienna, at that time the capital of Germany, intellectually advanced, and had not the Emperor Joseph, established a national opera there?

As early as in December 1780, he had written to inquire how it stood about his leave of absence. He told his father that he was in Salzburg only to please him, and that, most assuredly, if it depended on him, he would have scorned the place; for, he adds, “upon my honor, the prince and the proud nobility become more intolerable to me every day.” It would now, he said, be easy for him to get on in Munich without the protection of the great, and it brought the tears to his eyes when he thought of the state of things in Salzburg. Yet he could stay longer than his leave of absence[120] allowed him; for the archbishop remained some time in Vienna on business, and thus Mozart found leisure, after the opera was completed, to rest in Munich and to participate in the pleasures of the carnival, while otherwise his greatest diversion would have been to be with his beloved Rose and the Cannabichs.

In the midst of this youthful jollity, which seems very natural after the great strain upon the minds of all during many months, he received the archbishop’s order to repair to Vienna. This was in the middle of March, 1781. Jerome was witness of the ostentation of the princes in that city; and what reason was there why his “illustrious grace” should not cut a figure also? His eight handsome roan horses were there already. The members of his household followed him, and who was there who, in the music at a feast, had a Mozart to show? Thus did our artist unexpectedly realize his wish to come to Vienna; and circumstances so had it, that he remained there.

His reception was a good one. He had indeed, as was the custom of the time, to sit at table with cooks and valets de chambre, but[121] these he kept at a proper distance by “great gravity” and silence. Yet even now we hear that the archbishop was only giving himself airs with his attendants; for when an opportunity presented itself for Mozart to show his powers, in other noble houses, the archbishop refused him permission to do so; and still, it was only in such houses, that he could expect to meet the Emperor Joseph—a circumstance on which everything now depended. Rather did this domineering ecclesiastic do all in his power to make Mozart feel his dependence more keenly. The father did all he could to appease him, but Wolfgang felt that the archbishop used him only to tickle his own ambition; that, in all other respects, that worthy served only to hide his light. Besides he had to stand about the room like a servant. Yet Mozart tells us how, at a performance at prince Galizin’s, he had left the other musicians entirely, and how he had gone directly up to the host in the music room, and remained with him. Nothing was paid him for his compositions for the archbishop’s soirées. Mozart, indeed, helped to lend éclat to a concert for the widows of deceased musicians in[122] the Haydn Society, because “all the nobility of Vienna had tormented the archbishop to permit him to do so.” But his grace would not allow him to give a concert for his own benefit, spite of the fact that he had been received so well. The hardest blow of all to our artist was the news that he would have to go back to Salzburg with the rest. He at first paid no attention to intimations of this nature, for he wanted to give a concert before he left. He had, besides, a prospect of a position in the imperial city itself. But his father at home would agree to nothing.

Mozart now writes “in natural German, because all the world should know it,” that the archbishop owed it entirely to his father that he did not lose him yesterday, for all time. He had been annoyed altogether too much at the concert yesterday. After a little, dissension broke out in earnest. “I am out of myself. My patience has been tried so long that it is at an end.” The archbishop had, even before this, called him “a low fellow,” and told him to go his way. Mozart bore it for his father’s sake. Then he was ordered suddenly to leave the house, and he went to old[123] Madame Weber’s, and had to live at his own expense. He, therefore, did not want to go until this outlay at least was made up for.

“Well, fellow, when do you go?” snarlingly asked this prince spiritual, and he then proceeded, in a single breath, to tell him that he was a dissipated fellow, that no one used him so badly, and that he would stop his pay. We scarcely believe our ears when we hear a prince-bishop call our artist a scamp, a young blackguard, an idiot! Wolfgang’s blood became too hot at last, and he asked whether his illustrious grace was not satisfied with him.

“What? Threats? You idiot! There’s the door! I will have nothing more to do with such a miserable villain.”

Such was the dialogue between a prince and an artist of the past century! It tells us something of its culture and civilization. Mozart’s account of this scene concludes: “I will hear no more of Salzburg. I hate the archbishop even to madness.”

But this was not the worst. “I did not know,” says Mozart, “that I was a valet de[124] chambre; that overcame me entirely; and my father should be glad that he has not a man dishonored for his son.” But now sycophantic flunkies began to busy themselves with the affair. They knew that the archbishop did not like to lose an artist whom such efforts had been made, before his eyes, to retain in Vienna. The master of the household, Count Arco, therefore, did everything that in him lay to quiet the matter. He refused, “from lack of courage and a love of adulation,” to accept Mozart’s petition for dismissal. But when the latter insisted on it, with a brutality not unworthy of his master, Arco threw the noble artist out the door—with a kick!

After his personal audience with the archbishop, Mozart’s blood boiled; he trembled from head to foot and reeled on the street like a drunken man. Now he assures us that, when he meets the count, he will pay him back the compliment he received from him. In the ante-chamber he did not, like Arco himself, wish “to lose his respect for the prince’s apartments,” but then he was determined that “the hungry donkey should get an answer from him[125] that he would feel,” even if it were twenty years before a suitable occasion presented itself to give it. And when his father recoiled at the boldness of such an attempt, our young artist gave expression to a sentiment which lifted him high above all that environed him, and stamps him one of the noblest representatives of human nature. We have chosen that sentiment as the motto of this his biography: “The heart is man’s title to nobility!”

More painful than all these insults to the manly honor of our young artist were the heart-aches caused him by the very person who should have understood him best, by his own father.

The latter had been obliged to write to him: “Do not allow yourself to be misled by flattery. Be on your guard.” Now reproach was added to mistrust, and Wolfgang was accused of endangering his father’s subsistence, in his old age. He compared Wolfgang to Aloysia, who had scarcely secured a good position in life than she joined her fortunes to those of a comedian—the celebrated Joseph Lange—and neglected her own people. He even went so far as to demand that his son[126] should withdraw his petition, adding that he was in honor bound to do so. There was not in all of this a single trait by which Mozart could recognize his father. He could, indeed, he said, recognize “a father, but not the best, the most loving of fathers, the father solicitous for his own honor and the honor of his children,—in a word, not my father.” And he concludes: “Ask me to do anything you want, anything but that. The very thought of it makes me tremble with rage.” What he had achieved made Mozart, as an artist, manful and sure of himself; and these sufferings had a similar effect on him as a man; but, compared with the latter troubles, all that he had previously undergone was light indeed. We know how deeply and fully Wolfgang loved his father; but to understand his state of mind at this trying time, one must read the father’s own letters. He reproaches his son, even with a want of love, with being a pleasure-seeker in the great city, and with keeping company with the frivolous! The slanders of strangers and the father’s own suspicions conspired to make things worse; and in the circulation of these slanders, a pupil of[127] the abbe Vogler, J. P. Winter, subsequently known by his Unterbrochenes Opferfest, played a leading part. The way in which Mozart repelled these slanders, lays his whole heart open before us. It was what might have been expected of one whose art was so thoroughly pure and peaceful. He says, with the utmost modesty and simplicity: “My chief fault is that, apparently, I do not act as I should act;” and in answer to all other slanders, he replies, with the most charming consciousness of self: “I need only consult my reason and my heart to do what is right and just.”

Thus was Mozart’s relations with Salzburg, which had never brought him much happiness or honor, dissolved for all time. He lost, it is true, by this dissolution, the loving confidence of his father; but painful as this loss was to him, it was not without compensation. He obtained personal freedom and conquered for himself a place in which his already highly developed individuality as an artist was at liberty to act, room for the workings of his creative genius. This and his love and marriage, which put him in possession of something which he[128] could permanently call his own, are further decisive events in our artist’s life. We shall see their effects on his art, and, in the creation of such magnificent works as the “Elopement from the Seraglio,” “Figaro” and “Don Giovanni.” His recent personal experience had given him that insight and that inward freedom without which his towering, life-experienced style and his supreme power of depicting character are impossible.

The time and place were favorable to the production of such works. And it was not simply the oppressive feeling of the humiliating and narrowing circumstances of his position hitherto, but the joyful consciousness that, as his genius soon perceived, he was at last in the place in the world best suited to his taste, in Vienna, that this time caused him to conceive and hold fast to his desire. Und wenn die Welt voll Teufel waer!—“And though the world were full of devils!”—we may discover something of the desperate resolution which these words imply, in his struggle at this time with his dearest of fathers; a resolution generated, doubtless, by the circumstances in which he now saw himself suddenly and accidentally[129] placed, and which were so favorable to his art, and to a becoming mode of living. He felt that he had come here to grow to his full stature; and the instinct of artistic creation, like the instinct of love, is involuntary and irresistible. The father did not understand this. He had to be won over by prospects of material success, and this success Wolfgang was able confidently to promise himself and his father. Nor was he wanting here. And if we are obliged to confess that Mozart, even in the rich city of Vienna, almost starved, and that he died before his time, the cause was, in the first place, that his genius was too great to be fully appreciated by his contemporaries and his environment, and then that he was so wrapped up in his sublime task, that the world gradually receded from him, and it became an easy matter for the envious and his enemies to rob him of the visible fruits of his success, and to limit him to the joys and sunshine of his art. His art, indeed, throve even in Vienna, far beyond what he had hoped. It was more than his contemporaries could appreciate or understand. And, indeed, where would we be to-day without Mozart? As well as Goethe,[130] he touched the purest, the ultimate feeling of beauty in art, and opened to our view the innermost and deepest depths of the human soul. It was more than all else, Vienna and Austria that helped him to do this.

During the period, beginning with 1780, Austria had recovered from the effects of the wounds it received in the Seven Years’ War. The people were well-to-do, and the rich nobles of the eastern provinces, the Esterhazys, Schwarzenbergs, Thuns and Kinskys left immense amounts of money in the capital. The state of society was not yet disturbed. The nobility and middle class lived in harmony with one another. Above all and dearly loved by all, sat throned, the Emperor Joseph II., an ideal Austrian, whose like had not been seen since the time of Maximilian I. The emperor Joseph was, so to speak, the counterpart, both in disposition and education, of old Fritz (Frederick the Great), who was the ablest representative at that time of practical German energy and intelligence. This it was that gave the Austrian, and above all the Viennese, disposition that peculiar character from which sprang a style of art which had no predecessor[131] and no counterpart that could be called its equal save in Raphael and the antique—German chamber music. Haydn’s, Mozart’s and Beethoven’s quartets alone sufficed to make this Viennese period, from 1775 to 1825, a stretch of fifty years, forever memorable. But besides, there was the instrumental music of this brilliant musical triad whom Gluck had preceded.

Life at this time in Vienna was overflowing with a warm sensuousness, unpolluted by the coarseness of vice. Men gave themselves up unconstrained to their emotions. This itself is the most natural and most fertile soil for productions of the mind, intended, primarily, to operate on the senses, and through the senses to speak to our heart of hearts and to our mind of minds. It is the most fitting soil for art. And hence, we find here the first and most indispensable of all conditions precedent to the full bloom of music. Life in the Austrian capital, sunk apparently in sensuousness, had, like a reflection of the ever brightening and warming sun, in its depths, that German, joyous good-nature, that deutsche Gemueth, that leveling peace, and that beautiful disposition[132] which allow every living creature to do what pleases him best and go his own way. Added to this was the high degree of education which distinguished Vienna at the time, and which was influenced, in part, by direct contact with the period of the highest Italian culture, the renaissance. It had noble houses, wealthy and refined families of the middle class and of the learned, and above all, its emperor—if not in music, in all else the most nobly cultured! We have only to think of the other capitals at the time, Paris, London, and even Berlin, to be convinced that a Gluck, a Haydn, a Mozart, or a Beethoven, could never have thrived in any of them. They thrived in Vienna; and the last two artists asserted that it was in Vienna only that they could have thrived, that is developed that art, the germ’s of which they felt themselves to possess as a talent confided to them.

We may inquire, more particularly now, how it stood with music and the theatre in those days. Many of the great houses had music of their own; the wealthiest princes had not unfrequently their private orchestra; other families string-quartets or the piano; and the latter[133] was, as Ph. E. Bach says, intended for music that went direct to the heart, and not simply for children to practice on. No such golden age of music had been seen since the days of the North German School for organists, which had produced that eighth wonder of the world, Sebastian Bach; and Beethoven recalled it, with a feeling of melancholy, when, with the great wars of the Revolution a desolate period began, in which men’s souls and with them music, the soul’s own art, were struck dumb. Philip Emanuel Bach, the younger son of John Sebastian Bach, it was, who had led music out of the stage which had religion for its center, and opened to it by his sonatas fuer Kenner und Liebhaber, the domain of purely human thought and feeling. “He is the parent, we the children,” said Mozart, speaking of himself, and J. Haydn. Haydn also made a similar admission.

It was these two men indeed, who, so to speak, gave expression to the whole of human life in this unrestrained language of music, and who, together with Beethoven, opened the hearts of their age and of humanity, by their sonatas, symphonies, and quartets. This explains[134] why Mozart was able to write that the ladies detained him at the piano a whole hour after the concert, adding: “I think I should be sitting there still, if I had not stolen away!”

Again, he writes to his sister: “My only entertainment is the theater. I wish you could see a tragedy played here. I know no theater in which all kinds of plays are very well produced, unless it be here.” Shroeder no doubt contributed largely to produce this effect. Then Shakespeare’s plays had begun to attract attention in Germany, and German dramatic literature to blossom forth in Lessing and Goethe. No wonder that “Figaro” and “Don Giovanni,” now began to engage his attention. We have already spoken of a national German theater. It is not to be supposed that the Emperor Joseph II. sympathized with the Germans in music. His early impressions caused him to favor the Italian school, and, cultivated as was his talent for music, it was not great enough to enable him to overcome them. But he was compelled to assist the nation in its endeavors in this sphere, since Frederick the Great had anticipated him in almost[135] every other. Thus Vienna, together with Mannheim and Weimar, constituted the glorious triad, the creators of German music and of a German stage; and the full significance of German endeavors, in this direction, may be inferred from the path of light beginning with Mozart’s “Magic Flute,” followed by Beethoven’s Symphonies, and ending with the “Ring of the Niebelungen” in Bayreuth in 1876. Verily a cycle of art, of which Germany may well be proud!

Mozart came just in time for the German operatic stage. Gluck had stopped composing; his victory was a decided one; he had almost reached his zenith; he was approaching his seventieth year. True, his pupil, Salieri, was the “idol of the emperor;” but he was an Italian, and the remaining Viennese composers of the time were of little or no importance. Haydn, properly speaking, did not busy himself in this sphere of the drama, and besides, he lived the greatest part of the time in Eisenstadt with prince Esterhazy. Northern Germany had no longer anything to show of those things which mark an epoch in history; and, what is more its preponderantly “learned” or formal music[136] would not have pleased the taste of the Viennese. What then could be more natural than that they should open their arms to the young maestro who, in a new field, had just given evidence of his transcendent power? And, indeed, shortly after Mozart’s arrival in Vienna, the Emperor himself had given expression to a wish that he might write a German opera of this kind; and we are informed that after Count Rosenberg, the manager of the theatre, had heard the Idomeneo at a private rehearsal, he ordered the writing of a libretto for Mozart. This was “Belmonte and Constance,” or the “Elopement from the Seraglio.” Mozart tells how he was so cheered by this, that he hastened to his writing table with the greatest eagerness and sat at it with the greatest pleasure. He finished, at this first sitting, one of the arias of the Belmonte, and that the most beautiful of them all—the O wie aengstlich, o wie feurig!

The whole matter was postponed for a time, but to no disadvantage; for, in the meanwhile, Mozart experienced things which gave him that wonderful depth of coloring and that golden, mature sweetness which, besides himself[137] and Raphael, scarcely another possesses—love moved him to the innermost depths of his soul. This love had as much influence on his life as on his music. It led to that most decided union of human hearts, marriage; and hence we have here to consider this important bit of the life of our artist, in his case as in all others, made up of anguish and bliss.

We have seen already that when Mozart was compelled to leave the archbishop’s palace, he hastened to the house of the Webers. Of his removal thither he wrote: “There I have my pretty room, am with obliging people ready to assist me in everything, when necessary.” After the death of her husband, Madame Weber supported herself by renting rooms, so that her daughters might remain with her. She lived in the Auge Gottes, which is still standing in the Petersplatz. The father’s suspicions were immediately awakened; and Mozart writes in answer to his expression of them: “In the case of Aloysia [Lange] I was a fool, but what may not a man become when he is in love!” For the present, Mozart was concerned only with finding comfortable lodging quarters and people who might take a personal interest in his[138] father and in the devouring anger and sorrow which possessed him, on account of the course pursued towards him by the archbishop; and this interest he found here. And, indeed, now that he had to compose incessantly in order to eke out a livelihood, he needed a “clear head and a quiet mind.” His father, however, insisted on his leaving the Webers, and in the fall, he finally consented to quit them. But he greatly deceived himself when he said that he left them only on account of “the gossip of the people,” and wanted to know why he should be so recklessly taken to task, because he had moved into the house of the Webers, as if that meant that he was going to marry the daughter. The tender care which the third daughter Constance took of him and the disposition she manifested to do him every service in her power, generated in him the desire to care for and serve her, in like manner.

We cannot here enter into the minute details of the origin and tenacity of this beautiful affair of the heart; and we, therefore, confine ourselves to that which is most essential.

Constance Weber was born in 1764. She was now in her eighteenth year, and eight[139] years younger than Mozart. She had been one of his pupils in Munich. He gave her lessons on the piano then, and now he was teaching her vocal music as well. Thus Mozart had, on both occasions, an inducement other than his feelings, to bring him to the house of the Webers. Music at first threw him and Constance involuntarily together; but the language of the soul was destined sooner or later to create a more intimate bond between them. In the evening they had their little chats; they were joined by friends of Constance’s own sex; and Mozart, in a letter written long after he was married, tells how they played “hide and seek” with them. Then again, a great many circumstances conspired to decide him to make choice of a partner for life. There were his years, and his temperament which inclined him to a quiet mode of life. From his earliest youth, he had never been taught economy, and as a consequence now had many unnecessary expenses. He felt lonely and desolate, when, tired by the exhausting labors of the day, he was not with the Webers. When he left their house in September, he was like a man who has left his[140] own comfortable carriage for a stage-coach. And when, with that instinct which belongs only to our deepest feelings, he became gradually conscious that she was “the right one,” he frankly laid before his father the necessity of his marrying and his settled purpose to marry.

He writes in December, 1781: “But who is the object of my love? Do not be horrified, I pray you. Surely, not one of the Weber girls? Yes, one of the Weber girls, but not Josepha, not Sophia but Constance, the middle one.” And then he gives us a description which must have been somewhat exaggerated and colored by his feeling at the time. In no family, he tells us, had he found such inequality. The eldest daughter was lazy and coarse, and a little too knowing. Her tall sister was false and a coquette; and yet he had written in the spring that he had some liking for her. The youngest, Sophia, of whom we shall have something to say further on, was still too young to be much. She was nothing more than a good but giddy creature. He adds concerning her: “May God preserve her from temptation!” Next comes a description of his dear Constance. He says of her: “The middle[141] daughter, my dear good Constance, is a martyr among them, and, on that very account, perhaps, the best-hearted, cleverest, in a word, the best in every way, among them. She takes care of everything in the house, and yet can please nobody.” He could if he desired, write whole pages of the ugly scenes in that house. It was these very scenes which had made the two so dear to one another. They tested their mutual affection.

And now he describes Constance herself. She was not ugly, but then she was far from being beautiful. All her beauty consisted in two small black eyes, and a fine figure. She had no wit, but common sense enough to enable her to fulfill her duties as a wife and mother. That she was not inclined to be lavish in her expenditures, was by no means true; but she was accustomed to being plain; for the mother used the little she had on the other two. She could make all her own things, understood housekeeping, and had the best heart in the world. “I love her,” he says, “and she loves me with all her heart. Tell me now, could I desire a better wife?” The best commentary to these words is furnished[142] by the pieces which were already finished for “Belmonte and Constance,” but above all by the O wie aengstlich, o wie feurig,[6] which dates from the summer of 1781, and the aria Ach ich liebte, war so gluecklich,[7] the text of which is extant in Constance’s own handwriting.

But the painful lot of separation was destined at least to threaten him. First the father, next the daughters’ guardian, then the mother, and lastly his loved one’s own stubborn willfulness—the willfulness of youth—menaced him with the destruction of his happiness. His life’s happiness was indeed at stake here. This is very evident from Mozart’s letters written during this time of trouble; and no one can know Mozart thoroughly who does not follow him through this his heart trial.

Turn we now to the artistic results of this new existence in Vienna. Of course much piano and chamber music had been produced. The craving for something new continued great in all Viennese circles. And who[143] was better prepared to satisfy that craving than Mozart whose fame and even support now depended on the reception he met with in the imperial city? Everything turned on the opera given him to compose, and fortunately its composition was resumed in the following spring, that of 1782. And spite of all the vexation he had to endure from his own father and the mother of his betrothed, he was ready with it, in time. To accomplish his task, he had frequently to write until one o’clock at night and to be up again at six in the morning. And although he could not devote to it all his time, all his strength, all his mind, all the powers of his fancy nor such minute labor as he had to the Idomeneo, he was able to tell his father that he felt exceedingly well pleased with his opera. He generally followed only his own feelings, but on this occasion he had as much regard as possible for the taste of the Viennese people; and their taste in such matters inclined to subdued hilarity and to the comic. These therefore, are the prevailing characteristics of the work. Of Belmonte’s O wie aengstlich he writes himself: You can see the[144] trembling, the shaking. You can see how the swelling bosom heaves. It is expressed by a crescendo. You can hear the whispering and sobbing in the first violins with sordines and a flute in unison. The O wie der aengstlich was everybody’s favorite aria as well as his own. And yet the rondo Wenn der Freude Thraenen fliessen,[8] was still more enrapturing. It contains also that celebrated passage:

in which German music for the first time fully learned the language of manly love and devotion, just as it first had found the musical sublimity of religious feeling in the chorale. Through Belmonte, the character of the “German youth,” was, so to speak, fixed in music for all time. Think only of Beethoven’s Florestan, and Wagner’s Walther von Stolzing.

But the character of the stupid, coarse and wicked master of the Harem, Osmin, thus comically and powerfully drawn, but with all the nobility of style as to its form, was new also. He is no other than the “starched[145] stripling,” the son of a puffed-up Augsburg bourgeois. We have here a picture of the brutal haughtiness of the Salzburg harem, with its model steward of the kitchen. But the vengeance of the artist is noble, and produces an ennobling effect on whole generations. We must read his letters to see how fully he was conscious of the comic even in Osmin’s aria: Drum beim Barte des Propheten, and that all folly and excess are their own punishment, and become an object of derision. We find here in this sketch the entire material from which, two generations later, the “Dragon” of the Niebelungenring was built. The heavy rhythm in the very first song, the rudeness of the entire movement, the almost roaring “trallalara”—are the expression of the untamed savagery of brute nature, the grandeur of coarseness in miniature.

We now turn to the performance. This took place on the 12th of July, 1782. It seemed as if the applause of the crowded house would never cease. The audience was surprised, charmed, and carried away by the beauty and euphony of the music—music full to overflowing with life, and which did not[146] sacrifice nobility of form to truth of portraiture, nor depend for its seductive power on glittering dialogue. Performance followed performance in quick succession, and this spite of the fact that intrigue in theatrical circles labored strenuously to prevent its repetition. The Italians, with Salieri at their head, looked with displeasure at the rise of the German operatic stage. It disturbed them, and threatened to do away with their exclusive rule. They went so far even as to entice the performers away so that the presentation of the opera became very difficult; whereupon Mozart writes: “I was in such a rage that I did not know myself.” But they could not prevent the audience’s crying bravo! and Mozart himself says: “It does one good to get such applause.” The “Elopement” is the first link in the unbroken chain of effects and triumphs which ends in the dramatic production of our days, confined to no one nation—a production destined, in a generation, to rule Europe more powerfully than did the Italian opera in those days, and which even now succeeded in impeding the success of this first German opera and banishing it from the stage.

[147]This actually happened, and the emperor Joseph was weak enough to allow the Italian school to obtain the upperhand to such an extent that Mozart himself could not help joining in the chorus of those priests of Bacchus; but then he gave that chorus a beauty and fullness which it had not possessed before. This result was attained in the Figaro, of which we shall speak next.

The first thing that occupied his mind after the completion of his great task was, of course—and it was very natural that it should be so—his union with Constance. And, indeed, after the success he had met with, what reason was there why he should not venture to get married and to found a home of his own? Speaking of the work, Joseph II. had said: “Too pretty for our ears, and an infinity of notes, my dear Mozart!” To which the latter with noble frankness replied: “Just as many notes as are necessary, your majesty!” But Gluck, who was by far the highest authority in Vienna on theatrical matters, had the opera performed for himself specially, although it had been given only a few days before, and he complimented the composer very[148] highly and invited him to dinner. This augured better for Mozart’s future than all else. He had, however, other patrons. Prince Kaunitz, known as the “Kutscher von Europa,” the Coachman of Europe, expressed great dissatisfaction with the emperor because he did not value men of talent more, and allowed them to leave the country. Among other things he told the archduke Maximilian, on one occasion when the conversation turned on Mozart, that men like him appeared in the world only once in a century, and that for that reason some effort should be made to keep them.

Mozart now brought every influence he could to bear on his father. The vexation already caused him by the girl’s mother brought it to such a pass, that he was forced to take her to his friend and patroness Frau von Waldstaedten. He writes about this time: “My heart is troubled, my brain is crazed! How can a man think or work under such circumstances?” But the father looked upon the marriage as a misfortune to him, and instead of his consent to it, he gave “only well-meant advice.” Mozart, therefore, made short work of[149] it, and, with the assistance of his patroness, he acted the Elopement from the Auge Gottes, as he afterwards jocosely called his marriage. The baroness herself wrote to the father, smoothed over the difficulties in the way as best she could, even procured the money necessary to have the marriage contract drawn and dispensation from having the bans called in the church. The two who loved each other so well, were married on the 4th of August 1782. We must turn to Mozart himself for an account of it.

He tells us that, shortly after, the father’s consent was received. There was no one present at the marriage ceremony but the mother, the youngest sister, the guardian and two witnesses. And he adds: “The moment we were made one, my wife as well as myself began to weep, which touched every one, even the priest; and they all cried when they witnessed how our hearts were moved.” The marriage feast consisted of a supper at Frau von Waldstaedten’s, of which Mozart writes: “It was more like a prince’s than a baron’s.” A few days later, he writes: “For a considerable length of time, while we were yet single,[150] we went together both to mass and communion, and I find that I never confessed and communicated as devoutly as by her side; and the same was the case with her. In a word, we are made for one another, and God who ordains all things, and who therefore has brought about all that has passed with us will not forsake us.” And He did not forsake them. Their marriage was blessed, truly blessed; for it had its foundation in love; and even leaving his music out of consideration, we shall hear this sweetest echo of life, the joyful notes of pure, tender love, echo as clearly through the world as the name of Mozart, himself a minstrel of love.

For an account of the cheering and touching tenacity of the love of our artist, we must refer the reader to our large work on Mozart, in which we have endeavored to give a picture or rather a history of a part of his life of which the world has entertained an entirely false idea. There is no reason why a single trait in Mozart’s character should be concealed. Its every feature is human, and even his weaknesses are amiable and readily excusable. If that highest of all moral precepts:[151] Let him who is without sin cast the first stone, be applicable anywhere, it is here. We shall have something more to say on this subject below. We now turn to Mozart’s subsequent achievements.

The emperor, indeed, valued Mozart’s talent decidé very highly, and one day summoned him to meet Clement, in single combat, that his majesty might enjoy his immense superiority over the more formal talent of that renowned Roman. But the emperor did not recognize the full value of the Elopement from the Seraglio, which he once characterized by saying of it: non era gran cosa—“it did not amount to a great deal.” This grieved Mozart sorely. He even thought of leaving Vienna in consequence of it, and of going first to France and then to England. In the meantime, the Italian musicians in Vienna, probably because of the steady and great success of the Elopement from the Seraglio, had induced the emperor to order a new and excellent opera buffa, which gave great satisfaction. Mozart wrote of it: “The basso buffo is remarkably good; his name is Benucci.” Lorenzo da Ponte, known to-day as the poet of[152] the two greatest opere buffe of the world—our Figaro and Don Giovanni had been in Vienna for some time, and was there now. He had promised Mozart, who of course had an eye on this Italian opera, a new subject as soon as he had finished one for Salieri. Two years passed away, but Da Ponte’s word was kept at length. In the meantime, Mozart had, on the occasion of his visit to Salzburg, in the fall of 1783, begun a comic opera, “Die Gans von Cairo”—“The Goose of Cairo.” It was, however, never completed. The libretto was too bad and the goose-story too “stupid.”

To this epoch, ending with the Figaro, belongs a large abundance of purely instrumental music. The quartet for the piano with wind-instruments was ready on the 24th of March, 1784; the fantasy in C major, which was never surpassed even by Beethoven, and the Veilchen, in the spring of 1785; the piano quartet in G minor, which Mozart called the best he had written in his whole life, in July of the same year; and the six quartets, dedicated to Joseph Haydn, the creator of that species of music, in the fall of that year (1785), a year which must be considered among the[153] most fertile of his life. And yet, even at this time, Mozart was engaged on the comic opera above named, and had begun another, the Il Sposo deluso, “The derided Bridegroom,” which he dropped, to work on the Figaro. Scarcely had this last subject begun to occupy his mind, than it took possession of it entirely. Not even to the Idomeneo and the Elopement from the Seraglio did he devote himself so entirely as to the Figaro. Into this last he put all his individuality. It was the first subject which occupied all his mind and soul, and, at the same time, afforded him an opportunity to show the real brilliancy of his wit and of his musical capacity. In this work, we have a perfect whole, a gem which shines with dazzling brightness. A few weaknesses due to its derivation from the Italian opera are cancelled by its excellences. It is a picture of life which seems indeed to belong to one particular period, but which, after all, shows us human nature itself with all its weaknesses, the butt of ridicule or the object of pity.

Count Almaviva, who, with the assistance of Figaro, the barber of Seville, had won his beautiful countess, is enamoured of her more[154] charming waiting-maid, Susanna; and the latter is in love with Figaro. An effort must be made to cure the count of his folly. His jealousy is first excited against the page. To accomplish this, the help of a great many other persons becomes necessary; and thus we get a whole series of exquisite scenes ending in the total bewilderment of the count. The second part—the opera buffa has generally only two parts, having been originally nothing more than an “intermezzo,” between the three acts of the grave opera, opera seria—finds Susanna at the count’s, arranging a secret rendezvous with him for the evening, in the garden. The ladies had so arranged it that the countess herself, disguised as Susanna, should be in the garden at the time of the rendezvous, and that Susanna should play the countess and surprise the two by her sudden appearance on the scene. The page arrived too. The count gives him a box on the ear for his dainty attentions to the disguised countess. The page carries his grievance to the jealous Figaro, who, warned of the infidelity of his Susanna, had approached too near, notwithstanding the darkness. He makes a passionate declaration[155] of love to the supposed countess, although she had given him to understand who she was, in the presence of the count. This of course, brought matters to a crisis. The count orders lights to be brought. Covered with shame at the discovery he makes, and lovingly forgiven by the countess, he is, as we may reasonably assume, cured of his wicked weakness for all time.

Such was the course of Mozart’s opera. It was attractive and cheerful, and for the time, not too daring. Mozart invested the female characters of the piece with the utmost goodness of heart and purity of soul. Even from the haughty giddiness of the count, he took the sting in such a way that we leave the presentation of this piece of human weakness entirely satisfied.

It was otherwise with the original work, the Le Mariage de Figaro ou la folle Journée, of the same Beaumarchais from whom Goethe borrowed his Clavigo. In it we find the vices and above all the high-handed violence of the nobility scourged with such a regardlessness of consequences, that the piece must be looked upon as a species of prelude to that historic[156] night in August, 1789, on which every privilege of the nobility was wiped out with a stroke of the pen. It shows us at the same time the cordial gentleness and dignity of the man, Mozart, who had himself personally experienced the brutal pride of the privileged classes, and this in the most revolting manner. He, however, solved the whole problem in the kindest of humor, with a sympathy which may be seen shining through tears; explaining it by the limitations and weaknesses of human nature. This work was Mozart’s own even from the ordering of the libretto; and he it was that made choice of it.

The following are the particulars relating to its composition. Lorenzo da Ponte, of whom we made mention above, and who was at first so completely on the side of Salieri and the Italians, now turned to Mozart, in order to save his place, as libretto-poet, which he was in danger of losing. Paisiello, at this time a man of world-wide reputation, had come to Vienna, and achieved the greatest success with an opera—“King Theodore.” In order to supplant the poet of the opera, Casti, Da Ponte composed a libretto for Salieri, with which,[157] however, Salieri made so complete a failure, that he swore he would rather have his fingers cut off, than set another verse written by Da Ponte to music. Salieri now turned to Casti and met with great success in his “Grotto of Trophonius.” Da Ponte who saw his position as poet for the theater in peril, in consequence of this, had recourse to Mozart. Thus it was the intrigue and jealousy of the Italians which eventually helped Mozart to the place which he was born to fill; and thus Salieri’s blow recoiled upon himself, for Mozart proposed Beaumarchais’ piece which had been given in Paris, in the spring of 1784, and had produced an immense sensation there. But the king had forbidden the piece in Vienna because of its “immoral style.” Besides, he had some doubts as to Mozart’s capacity. Mozart, he said, was a good composer of instrumental music, but had written an opera which did not amount to much. On this account, Mozart went quietly to work. He first composed a part of his opera, and Da Ponte then took occasion to have the emperor hear the part thus composed. His imperial majesty immediately ordered the completion of the work, and subsequently its performance.

[158]Such is the story as it is to be gathered from the memoirs of the writer of the libretto and of one of the singers, O’Kelley, an Englishman. Both prove that the Italians now moved heaven and earth to shut Mozart out from the stage, and that, as a matter of fact, the emperor was obliged personally to interfere in his behalf, in the case of the Figaro. Moreover, just at this time he gave Mozart a token of his favor by commissioning him to write an opera called the Shauspieldirector, or “The Manager of the Theater,” for a garden-festival at Schœnbrunn. The subject of this opera is the competitive trial of two prima donnas before the manager—a comic piece which his enemies subsequently endeavored to interpret as a picture of scenes in his own life.

The Italians, indeed, had reason enough for fear. Salieri subsequently gave expression to their feelings when he said, it was well that Mozart was dead, since, if he had lived, it would soon have come to such a pass that not one of them would get as much as a mouthful of bread for his compositions. These compositions are, indeed, valueless to-day, while Mozart’s work is immortal, and while arias[159] like Will der Herr Graf ein Taenzlein wagen, Neue Freuden neue Schmerzen and Ihr die ihr Triebe, will live as long as music lives.

We shall now hear what an effect the actual performance of the opera which took place on the first of May, 1786, had on him. The following account, which has in it something of a Mozart-like amiability, is by the singer Kelley:

“Of all the performers of the opera at that time, there is only one still living—myself. [He sang the parts of Basilio and the stuttering judge.] It must be granted that no opera was ever better performed. I have seen it at different times and in all countries, and well performed; and yet the very first performance of it compared with all others is like light to darkness. All the original players had the advantage of being instructed by the composer himself, who endeavored to transfer his own way of looking at it, and his own enthusiasm to their minds. I shall never forget his little, vivacious face glowing with the fire of genius. It is just as impossible to describe it as to paint the sunbeam.

“One evening, when I visited him, he said to me: ‘I have just finished a little duet for my[160] opera, and you must hear it.’ He seated himself at the piano and sang it. I was carried away, and the musical world will understand my transport—when I say that it was the duet of the countess, Ulmaviva with Susanna: So lang hab’ ich geschmachtet. Nothing more exquisite had ever before been written by human being. It has often been a source of pleasure to me to think that I was the first who heard it. I can still see Mozart in his red fur hat trimmed with gold, standing on the stage with the orchestra, at the first rehearsal, beating time for the music. Benucci sang Figaro’s Dort vergiss leises Fleh’n, suesses Wimmern, with the greatest enthusiasm and all the power of his voice. I stood beside Mozart, who repeatedly cried ‘bravo! bravo! Benucci!’ in subdued tones. When Benucci came to the beautiful passage: Bei dem Donner der Karthaner, he allowed his stentorian voice to resound with all his might. The players on the stage and in the orchestra were electrified. Intoxicated with pleasure, they cried again and again, and each time louder than the preceding one, ‘bravo! bravo! maestro! Long live the great Mozart!’ Those in the orchestra[161] beat the music stands incessantly with the bows of their violins, thus expressing their enthusiasm. It seemed as if this storm of applause would never cease. The little man returned thanks for the homage paid him by bowing repeatedly. The finale at the end of the first act was received with similar delight. Had Mozart written nothing but this piece of music, it alone would, in my humble opinion, have stamped him the greatest master of his art. Never was there a greater triumph than that of Mozart and his Figaro.”

This is the only detailed account which we possess. The father had heard enough of the astonishingly powerful intrigues caused by his son’s great talent and the respect in which he was held. Now he was able to write to his daughter, that five and even seven parts of the opera had been repeated, and that one duet had to be sung three times. The Italians induced the emperor to forbid these repetitions. But when he spoke to the singers of “this favor he had done them,” the person playing the part of Susanna frankly replied: “Do not believe that, your Majesty. They all wish to hear dacapo cried. I at least can assert that[162] of myself.” Whereupon the emperor laughed.

But we may ask, was Mozart’s fortune now made? He was, indeed, at this time, in such pinching circumstances that he had to apply to his publisher, Hofmeister, for such petty advances as a few ducats.

The house was always full to overflowing, and the public never tired of applauding Mozart and calling him out. But care was now taken that the performances should not follow one another too frequently or too rapidly, the effect of which would soon have been an improvement in the taste of the public. Moreover, the success of a new opera, Una Cosa rara—it serves in the Don Giovanni as table-music—by Martin, the Spaniard, was enough to throw the Figaro into the shade both with the emperor and with the people, and then to displace it entirely. The success of that opera was incredible, and such as might have been expected from a public whose noblest representative, the emperor Joseph himself, told Dittersdorf the composer of Doctor and Apotheker, that he liked Martin’s light, pleasant melodies better than Mozart’s style, who drowned the voice of the singers with the noise[163] of the accompaniment. “Happy man,” said Mozart to the young composer Gyrowetz, who went to Italy in the fall of 1785, “if I could only travel with you, how glad I would be! I must give a lesson now in order to earn a pittance.” He thought again of going to England, but no inducement to go there offered.

And yet the Figaro was attended by very immediate success even to its composer. It gave occasion to the writing of the Don Giovanni; and this leads us to the conclusion of a chapter in Mozart’s life descriptive of a portion of that life as important as it was replete with action.

The love of the Bohemians for music and their skill in the art are well known. After Mozart had made his first appearance in Vienna, the people of Prague appropriated him just as they have Richard Wagner in our own day, and the Figaro which followed the Elopement from the Seraglio was received with an amount of applause which can be compared only with that subsequently accorded to the Magic Flute. It was given almost without interruption during the whole of the winter 1786-87. The enthusiasm of the[164] audiences was unparalleled. They never tired of hearing it. Arrangements for the piano, for wind-instruments, quartets, dances, etc., were made from it. Figaro was re-echoed in the streets, in gardens, and even the harper had to play its Dort Vergiss if he wished to be heard.

It was the orchestra and a society of “great” connoisseurs and amateurs that invited him to Prague. Nothing could have been more agreeable to Mozart than to be able to show his enemies in Vienna that he was not yet without friends in the world. His wife accompanied him. It was in January, 1787. Count Thun, one of the first chevaliers and musical connoisseurs of Prague, was his host. He gave every day a musical entertainment at his own home. He found great delight in the intercourse of loving friends of his art, friends who recognized his genius. The very first evening, a ball was given by a well-known society in Prague—the “elite of the beauties of Prague.” Writing of it himself, Mozart says: “I was delighted to see all these people moving about so truly happy, to the music of the Figaro transformed into counter dances and waltzes. Nothing[165] is talked of here but the Figaro. The people visit no opera but the Figaro. It is nothing but Figaro!”

He was to direct the work in person, to the infinite delight of all. He himself paid a high compliment to the execution of the orchestra. They always played with great spirit. Two concerts followed. An eye-witness writes: “The theatre was never seen so full of human beings. Never was delight more universal. We did not, indeed, know what most to admire, the extraordinary composition or the extraordinary playing. The two together produced an impression that was sweet enchantment. But when Mozart, towards the close, played a number of fantasias alone, this condition was resolved into one of overflowing expressions of approval.” Mozart appeared, his countenance radiant with genuine satisfaction. He began with an enthusiasm that kept increasing from the first, and had accomplished greater things than had ever before been heard, when a loud voice cried out: “From Figaro!” whereupon Mozart played the favorite aria, Dort vergiss, improvised a dozen of the most interesting and artistic variations and[166] closed this remarkable production amid thunders of applause.

This was certainly one of the brightest days in Mozart’s life. He had reached the climax of success. In the applause of the multitude, he saw a reflection of his own intellectual features which called that applause forth. Strange thoughts now possessed his soul. Feelings never felt before stirred within him. When a person has reached a height like that now obtained by Mozart, he is in a position to embrace in his horizon all that lies below and around him. It was the first time that his life-sparkling mind did this, but we shall see that it did so now. The incessant intrigues of his opponents and enemies—intrigues so violent and great, that, when he died, it was rumored he had been poisoned—devoured his life like a vulture, and ended it before his time. The consciousness of this first came to him with all its melancholy amid the infinite jubilation we have just described, in the midst of all this joy and recognition of his genius. He now, for the first time, had a perception of life’s close, of life’s tragic play, as reflected in Don Giovanni; and this was the result of his[167] journey to Prague. For when, in the overflowing joy of his heart, Mozart said that he would like to write an opera expressly for such a public, the director of the theatre, Bondini, took him at his word, and closed the contract with him for the following autumn, at one hundred ducats.

Da Ponte relates that, on this occasion, he proposed the subject-matter himself. He had perceived that Mozart’s genius required a sublime and many-sided poem. And, indeed, this, like Faust, was a subject-matter on which writers of all nations had long labored. Don Giovanni represents the indestructible instinct of life, as Faust does the instinct of knowledge, showing how that instinct is ever annihilating and reproducing itself. The hero is given up to the fullest enjoyment of life regardless of consequences. Cheerfully and freely he surrenders himself to it. No shackles bind him. Opposition only adds to his strength. But this very wantonness is, at last, the cause of his ruin. This was the conclusion of the whole, extended, original Spanish play chosen by the poet of the libretto.

[168]Don Giovanni rushes into the apartment of Donna Anna, who is waiting for the arrival of her beloved Don Octavio. Her cry for help calls out her father. A duel puts an end to his aged life. On the street, Don Giovanni and his servant Leporello, are met by the forsaken Elvira. She complains, gives expression to her grief and loads him with reproaches. He hastens on his way in the search after pleasure. Zerline, the bride of the young Marsetto is next snatched away from him by Elvira’s jealousy. But he has invited the whole company to the castle. He is again met, (everything even now foreshadows the catastrophe) by Donna Anna with Octavio. They seek his assistance on account of the murdered father. But Donna Anna, whose suspicions had been already awakened by Elvira, recognizes him as the murderer. They next appear masquerading in black at the banquet, and just as Don Giovanni is on the point of carrying away the rustic beauty, they come up to him; a struggle ensues, and master and servant are saved only by the most masculine boldness. This is the first act of this opera, which is also considered an opera buffa.

[169]The second act finds Don Giovanni engaged in a quarrel with Leporello. Leporello does not want to serve so dangerous a master any longer. But money atones for the anxiety he endures. Elvira appears on the balcony. Don Giovanni changes clothes with Leporello and swears love to her anew. She comes down and at an artificial noise, made by Don Giovanni, flees with Leporello into the darkness. This is followed by a serenade to her waiting-maid, Leporello’s beloved. Marsetto and his peasants, armed with guns, now appear. But Don Giovanni, dressed as Leporello, succeeds in getting his friends away, and in coaxing the weapons from Marsetto himself. He then cudgels him soundly, whereupon Zerline consoles him with her promises. Elvira now looks in the dark for the supposed lover. The anxious Leporello endeavors to escape. Don Octavio and Donna Anna suddenly appear with torches and see that this time they have the servant instead of his master. The former escapes and according to agreement meets Don Giovanni in the churchyard. Their godless conversation is suddenly interrupted by a voice which says:[170] “Presumptuous man, let those rest who have gone to sleep!” It is the statue of the Comthur. Don Giovanni haughtily forces Leporello to invite him to dinner. In the midst of the revels of the table—for which Martin’s Cosa rara furnished a part of the music, as, in Prague, did the Dort vergiss—in the midst of the most luxurious joys of life, which not even the warning voice of the loving Elvira could dispel, the stony guest approaches him, and announces his sentence to him:

Yawning abysses open, and spirits of hell drag the dastard into the dismal grave, alive.

We know what the cheerful phase of the life of the past century was. It has found a more fiery expression in Don Giovanni than even in the Figaro. The Renaissance had introduced anew the free enjoyment of life of the ancient world. Think only what the[171] Borgias were! From Italy and Spain it had made its way to France, when people there, for the first time, became conscious that they were “dancing on a volcano.” The feeling that there hangs a necessary and tragic sentence over the mere sensuousness of life, which is, after all, but a powerful picture of the transitoriness of all things earthly—a transitoriness which will always remain a dark enigma to the living themselves, and which therefore fills the proudest life with a certain melancholy—this feeling, which constitutes the poetic nucleus of the whole story of Don Giovanni, no one of all who have treated the subject, in an artistic manner, has fathomed or shown the power of, even in a remote degree, as did Mozart. The music, on the appearance of the stony guest, springs from the same fountain as Faust’s most beautiful and profound monologues. It is the consciousness, the heart-felt knowledge of the permanent duration of human life; and we have seen how life itself led Mozart, the artist and the man, to this heart-felt knowledge and to the feeling of something really eternal in the changes that surround us.

[172]The following further details as to the origin of Don Giovanni are not devoid of interest.

Da Ponte’s boasting in his memoirs is indeed exquisite, and shows that, after all, he had no idea what the value of the material of Don Giovanni was. He had the three distinguished opera composers of Vienna at the time to write for, and he quieted the doubts of the emperor as to the success of such a task, by telling him that he would write during the night for Mozart and keep thinking of Dante’s Hell, in the morning for Martin, and read Petrarca, in the evening for Salieri, when Tasso should be his companion. With a bottle of tokai and some Spanish tobacco before him, and the sixteen-year-old daughter of his hostess, as his muse beside him, he says he began his work, and in two months the whole was finished.

And how about Mozart? When at the beginning of April, the libretto of this poetical judgment on human life had come into his hands, his soul was directed with redoubled energy to its serious meaning. He received at that time, the news of the grave illness of[173] his father, which led him to give expression to some remarkable sayings about death as the “true goal of our life—man’s true, best friend.” We shall yet see what suggested this. Besides, he had shortly before lost his “best and dearest” friend, Count Hatzfeld, and now, on the 28th of May 1787, he lost his beloved father also. The quintet in G minor dates from this time. The depths of his soul open up before us here. This quintet is a prelude to Don Giovanni. At this time, too, it was that the court organist, Ludwig Beethoven of Bonn, now in his sixteenth year, paid him a visit. Mozart paid no attention to Beethoven beyond predicting his world-wide fame, so entirely was he pre-occupied with his new work. The following September, his friend Dr. Barisoni, who had attended him two years before, when he was very dangerously sick, died; and Mozart wrote under some of his verses in his album: “It is well with him!—but it will never be well with me, with us and with all who knew him so well, until we are happy enough to see him in a better world, never to part again!” His thoughts went beyond the grave and endeavored[174] to fathom the eternal relations of things. This was the mood in which he wrote Don Giovanni. Even into the brightest light of life, creep at last the dark shadows of annihilation!

In the beginning of September 1787, composer and poet were in Prague. Constance also had traveled with them. She had to see that no disturbance from without interfered with the workings of our artist’s laborious mind. Personal intercourse with the singers increased his intellectual activity. The first singer who took the part of Don Giovanni was lauded to the deaf Beethoven, almost forty years later, as a “fiery Italian.” The female singers were not by any means remarkable. Yet it was said that our artist had been guilty, during this sojourn in Prague, of all kinds of gay adventures; and this while he was writing himself to a friend in Vienna: “Is there not an infinite difference between the pleasure of a fickle, whimsical love and the bliss of a really rational one?” In after years, his acquaintances remembered the happy hours they had spent with him in Prague. He played at nine-pins with them in a wine-garden, which[175] is now adorned with his bust, while at the same time he wrote out his score at the table in the place. And in the evening before the performance he was exceedingly cheerful and full of jokes. Finally, Constance told him it was eleven o’clock, that the overture was not yet written. At his home, with his glass of punch, such as he liked, he proceeded to perform the task which was so irksome to him. He had the work long since finished in his head. He had even already played it as well as two other drafts of it for his friends. On this account, Constance, in order to keep his thoughts flowing, was obliged to tell stories to him. These were fairy tales, like Aladdin’s Wonderful Lamp, and Cinderella. Mozart frequently laughed over them until the tears came. Fatigue, however, overpowered him at last, and his wife allowed him to sleep a few hours. Yet the copyists received their work in the early morning. He had, moreover, according to his own confession to the director of the orchestra, never allowed himself to be prevented from producing something excellent for Prague, and at the same time assured him, that he had not acquired his art easily. No[176] one, he said, had been more industrious to acquire it than he, and it would be hard to find a celebrated master whom he had not diligently studied.

It is said that he set the celebrated Reich mir die Hand to music five times for Don Giovanni. He made the singers rehearse to him separately. He danced the minuet for them himself; for, strange to say, he once told Kelly that his achievements in dancing were more remarkable than his achievements in music. Hence, the players were full of good will and enthusiasm, the consequence of which was, that the performance this time, also, was a very good one. It took place on the 29th of October, 1787. The house was full to overflowing, and Mozart was received with a flourish of trumpets, repeated three times, and applause which it seemed would never cease. Such was the reception accorded the opera itself, that the director of the theatre wrote to the composer of the libretto, who, in the meantime had returned to Vienna: “Long live Da Ponte! Long live Mozart! Praise them, all ye directors and all ye singers! So long as they live theatres cannot fail to do a thriving[177] business.” As usual, Mozart himself speaks modestly of “the loudest kind of applause,” and remarks to his friend in Vienna, mentioned above: “I could wish that my friends were here a single evening to share my pleasure. But probably the opera will not be performed in Vienna. I wish so. People are doing all in their power to prevail upon me to remain here a few months and write another opera; but, flattering as the invitation is, I cannot accept it.”

And now, as to the work itself. Schiller wrote to Goethe on the 29th of December, 1797, that he had always entertained the confidence that out of the opera as out of the choruses of the old feasts of Dionysos, tragedy would develop a nobler form. By the power of music, it attuned the heart to a finer susceptibility, and, in this way, it might happen that, at last, even the ideal might stealthily make its way to the stage. Goethe answered curtly: “You might have seen your hopes recently realized to a great extent in Don Giovanni. But in this respect, that piece stands entirely alone, and Mozart’s death has rendered all hope of anything like it, idle.” We owe it to Figaro[178] and Don Giovanni, more than to anything else, that we are able to-day, to assert the contrary, and that we witness the real dramatic art which was attained to by Italy in the revival of antiquity in a truly flourishing condition about us. What Gluck required should be the characteristic points of dramatic composition is here complied with to the fullest extent; to an extent which, in many particulars, has not been yet surpassed. This perfection Mozart owed to his more accurate acquaintance with the exigencies of the drama and his supreme command of all the capabilities of music. The separate and distinct pieces of music, indeed, with their pitiful, recurring cadences, remind us continually that it is with a musician we have to do, and one whose style was a development from the Italian school. But then such is the poetical intuition of this musician that the poetical material helps him always to some new invention in his own art. And while this art seems to demand that it should be necessarily confined to its own sphere and possess definite forms, genius is able to so arrange it that the dramatic action may lose nothing that properly belongs to it, and yet that the[179] music may not become simply “the obedient daughter of poetry.”

Richard Wagner, the great master, who, in this sphere, is Mozart’s only real successor, says: “Mozart in his operas demonstrated the inexhaustible resources of music most fully to meet every demand of the poet on its power of expression; and considering his completely original course, this glorious musician did a great deal more to discover this power of music, both in respect to truth of expression, and in the endless varieties of its causes, than Gluck and all his successors.” And in this dramatic respect, the Figaro, and Don Giovanni, unquestionably occupy the first place. Who is there that does not recognize in Keine Ruh’ bei Tag und Nacht, Wenn du fein artig bist, Treibt der Champagner, a new language in tones? We here again witness the noblest acquisitions of the Idomeneo and the Elopement from the Seraglio, in the highest possible perfection concentrated in all their energy. It is a miracle of strength and grace, of spirit and euphony, of buoyant force, of nobleness, and at the same time, of truest, deepest feeling.

[180]Thus the Figaro and Don Giovanni, together with Germany’s classic poetry, occupy a place at the beginning of a great dramatic epoch which commenced one hundred years ago. They are a part of the life of modern humanity in general. In them Mozart first fully developed his inexhaustible genius. And thus it is that these works, like the antique and the art of the Renaissance, belong to the whole cultured world.

Mozart’s concluding labors are a condensation of all the impressions of his life, and of all the perceptions of his mind, in their very depths. The Magic Flute, especially by its purely human and ethico-religious tendency, became the starting point of the efforts of an art which was peculiarly German, but of which the universal art-creations of the present day were born. This leads us to the fifth and last chapter of our biography.

The composer of Figaro, Mozart himself, writes in 1785: “If there were only a single German patriot in a position of influence, with him things would wear a different aspect. But, then, perhaps, our national theatre, now only in bud, would come to full bloom; and, of course, it would be an everlasting shame for Germany, if we should seriously begin[182] to think German, act German, speak German, and even to sing German!” Chance would have it, that, towards the close of his days he was able to give his pen and not merely his tongue, as he did here, free rein on this point. And the very fact that his circumstances became poorer, and that the parties, which prevailed at the time, succeeded in relegating him to an inferior social position, was here of decisive influence.

Haydn now writes to Prague, where Mozart had declined the composition of another opera: “You ask me for another opera. With all my heart, if you wish to have something for yourself alone.” But he would have had too much to risk in writing for the theatre there, inasmuch as scarcely any one could be compared with the great Mozart. The noble master continues: “For if I could impress on the souls of all lovers of music, but above all on the great, the inimitable works of Mozart; could I endow them with a proper comprehension of music, and impart to them the feeling with which I understand and feel them, the nations would emulate one another for the possession of that jewel.” Prague, he[183] said, should keep such a man, but at the same time, it should remunerate him properly, for when not properly remunerated the history of genius is sad indeed. And he concludes: “It grieves me sorely that Mozart, who has no equal, has not yet been engaged at some royal or imperial court.... Pardon me for not keeping to my subject, but I am so fond of the man.”

Schwind, the painter, who, during his youth in Vienna, knew very many of Mozart’s friends, writes: “People spoke of him as one speaks of the person he loves. Why was it that ‘the great’ did nothing for him?”

The success of the Don Giovanni in Prague had a good effect in Vienna, and when it was learned that Mozart was going to leave that city for England, Joseph II. named him—it was on the 7th of December, 1787—his court composer with a salary of 800 guldens in all; of which Mozart once wrote on his tax-returns: “too much for what I do, too little for what I might do.” In his position, he had no duties but to write the dancing music for the imperial masquerades! And yet, the position which Gluck held from the emperor with a[184] salary of two thousand guldens had just become vacant by that composer’s death! Mozart must have had wicked enemies and enviers and only half friends, at this court. His patron, Maximilian Francis, elector of Cologne, was now in Bonn, where he had found young Beethoven, and the emperor himself liked the lighter music better than Mozart’s. Thus Salieri again gained the advantage; and before the opera Azur, which had been ordered by the emperor, was given, Don Giovanni was not to be thought of.

Yet, the emperor finally ordered its performance also. It took place on the 7th of May, 1788; but the opera did not give satisfaction. Da Ponte writes: “Everybody, Mozart alone excepted, was of opinion that the piece would have to be re-written. We made additions to it, changed pieces in it, and yet, a second time, Don Giovanni did not give satisfaction.” According to Da Ponte, however, this did not keep the emperor from saying, that the “work was magnificent, more beautiful than Figaro, but no morsel for the Viennese.” Mozart, to whom this saying of the emperor had been carried, replied: “Only give them time to[185] taste it;” and, indeed, every performance of the opera added to its success. Haydn said, in a company at the house of Count Rosenberg, which was no rendezvous for Mozart’s friends, that he could not settle their dispute about the faults of the work, but he knew that Mozart was the greatest composer which the world then had.

And yet, at this very time, Mozart was suffering from want, actual want! The first of those mournful letters to his friend Puchberg, the merchant, is dated the 17th of June of this year. These letters afford us a picture of his condition during the last years of his life. They even foreshadow the sad, premature end of our artist. He received from Don Giovanni, in Vienna, altogether two hundred and twenty-five guldens. His compositions were in contents and execution too difficult for the dilettanti, and his feeling and views on art did not allow him to write otherwise; so that the publishers were not able to pay him much. Besides, those parts of his compositions which were really popular, were everywhere republished. Concerts could not be given all the time, and his receipts from all sources were too irregular.[186] His household expenses, spite of his simple way of living, were great. He had several children, in quick succession, and Constance was taken, repeatedly, very seriously ill—in one instance, for eight whole months. He closes one of his letters, asking for, and imploring a little “momentary assistance,” according to his friend’s pleasure, as follows: “My wife was sick again yesterday. To-day, thank God, she is better: yet I am very unhappy, always wavering between worry and hope.”

This affliction of body and mind was a constant trial of his better nature. His letters next to his music afford us the most beautiful proof of the purity of his soul and the depth of his feelings. Yet the last years of Mozart’s life disclose to us a mournful picture of the existence of a German artist; and it is only Mozart’s own spirit that can lift us high above the sadness and acrimony which we are disposed to feel here.

His mind did not grow gloomy. Like the phœnix, he always rose out of the ashes of the want that consumed him—more brilliantly arrayed and fitted for a grander flight. And it is truer of scarcely any artist than of him,[187] that his last note was like the dying strains of the swan, an echo from another and higher world, a sound at once joyful and melancholy such as had never been heard before.

The symphony in E major which was finished in these summer days of 1788, has in fact, been called the Song of the Swan. Of it Hoffman, in his celebrated Phantasiestuecken, beautifully says: “The language of love and melancholy are heard in the sweet voices of spirits. The night breaks into a bright purple light, and, with an unspeakable longing, we follow the forms which invite us with friendly glances into their ranks as they fly through the clouds to the eternal music of the spheres.” Immediately following this came the exceedingly powerful and life-like symphony in G minor, and the Jupiter symphony. Did mortal ever before hear the quiet jubilation of all beings as it is heard in the andante of this last? The man who can write such works has higher joys than the world can give or take away. His eye full of the truest happiness, is directed towards an eternal ideal which refreshes, preserves and blesses him. The grave little adagio in H minor for the[188] piano was also written in this same year, 1788.

At this time, Handel, with his vigorous and manly nature entered Mozart’s domain. He was preparing for a friend and patron, the former ambassador to Berlin, Baron von Swieten, Acis and Galatea and the Messias. Mozart’s opinion of Handel was, that he understood better than any one else the power of music, and that when he chose, he could use chorus and orchestra with overwhelming effect; even his airs in the Italian style always betokened the composer of the Messias. But he was destined soon to become acquainted with a greater genius, a man all imposing to him—Sebastian Bach. Handel’s freer form and his dramatic characterization were not new to him; and we may judge from the Idomeneo that Mozart possessed a power not unlike that which was peculiar to Handel. Yet Bach opened to him, both as an artist and a man, a new world, but one which he had long half suspected and half known—that ocean of polyphony governed with such sovereign power. And yet the matter lay deeper.

Some one in Leipzig itself—he probably had[189] reference to Bach—had, in a conversation, called it a burning shame, that it was with so many great musicians as it had been with the old painters: they were compelled to employ their immense powers on the fruitless and mind-destroying subjects of the church. Mozart was highly displeased at the remark, and said in a very sad manner, that that was some more art-twaddle. And he continued in some such strain as this: “With you, enlightened Protestants, as you call yourselves, when all your religion is the religion of the head, there may be some truth in this. But with us, it is otherwise. You do not at all feel the meaning of the words, Agnus Dei qui tollis peccata mundi, dona nobis pacem. [Lamb of God who takest away the sins of the world; grant us peace.] But when one has, from his earliest childhood, been introduced into the sanctuary of our religion, and attended its service with fervor, and called those happy who knelt at the touching strains of the Agnus Dei and received the communion, while the music gushing in tender joy from the hearts of the faithful, said, Benedictus qui venit, [Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord,] it[190] is very different; and, when now, these words, heard a thousand times, are placed before one to be set to music, it all returns and stirs the soul within him.” On this occasion, he recalled that first composition for the consecration of a church in his childhood, in Vienna, and the religious impressions he carried away from Italy of which we spoke above.

He was now in Leipzig and became acquainted with Sebastian Bach in his church compositions. Necessity had again started him on an artistic journey. His friend and pupil, prince Charles Lichnowsky, who was soon destined to play an important part in Beethoven’s life also, had asked Mozart to travel with him to Berlin where he might probably be of some use to him with the music-loving Frederick William II. Our information concerning this journey and one that followed it, is to be found in those letters to his wife, of which she herself subsequently wrote that these unstudied epistles were the best indication of his way of thinking, of his peculiar nature and of his culture. She says: “The rare love for me which these letters breathe is supremely characteristic of him. Those written[191] in his later years are just as tender as those which he must have written during the first years of our married life, are they not?” In those letters, indeed, we have the man, Mozart as he really was, and what he had gone through in life, before us.

In Prague, the director of the theatre had almost so arranged it that he was to get two hundred ducats for a new opera, and fifty ducats for traveling expenses. This gave him new life. One of his old Munich friends, the hautboyist Ramm, who had come from Berlin, had also told him, in Prague, that the king had asked him “very often and very anxiously” if it was sure that Mozart was coming, and when he saw that he had not come, said: “I am afraid that he is not going to come.” “Judging from this,” says Mozart, “my affairs will not go ill.” In Dresden, he formed the acquaintance of Schiller’s friend, Koerner, the father of the poet, whose sister-in-law, Doris Stock, made a drawing of his picture. But all the affection he met with only turned his thoughts more lovingly to his wife and child at home. He writes, on the 13th of April, 1789: “My dearest wife, if I only had a letter[192] from you.... If I could only tell you all I have to say to your dear picture!... And when I put it away I let it slide from me gradually, while I say: Well! well! well! and, at the last, good night, pet, pleasant dreams!” The same complete ingenuousness of a really child-like soul, of which his friends in Prague were wont to speak. One of them, Professor Niemetschek, to whom we are indebted for the first biography of Mozart, says of him: “Brimming over with the pleasantest humor, he would surrender himself to the drollest fancies, so that people forgot entirely that they had the wonderful artist, Mozart, before them.” Closing the letter to his wife, above referred to, he says: “Now, I think I have written something which the world at least will think very stupid; but it is not stupid to us who love one another so tenderly.” We shall yet see what a treasure for his art was this heart of his, which always loved, as it did, the day he was married. Only genius can manifest so much innocence and, at the same time, such depth of feeling.

In Dresden he played at court and was presented with “a very pretty” snuff-box. Here,[193] too, was one Haessler, a pupil of Sebastian Bach, whose forte was the piano and the organ. This served to stimulate Mozart’s ability to a higher pitch. He had already become acquainted, through Van Swieten, with a number of Bach’s and Handel’s fugues. He also had frequently improvised such fugues himself, or noted them down at the request of his wife. The man who understands polyphony as Mozart shows he did in the ensembles of Figaro and Don Giovanni—which testify to the magnitude of his technic powers chiefly by the fact that it is only the connoisseur that notices these marvels—must really insist on perfect art in this point, also. Mozart writes: “Now, the people here think that because I come from Vienna I know nothing whatever of this kind of music or this manner of playing. I, therefore, seated myself at the organ and played. Prince Lichnowsky, who knew Haessler well, persuaded him, after a great deal of trouble, to play, too.” It then appeared that Haessler had simply learned harmony and some modulations by rote from old Sebastian Bach, and was not able to execute a harmony properly; that, as Mozart expresses[194] himself, he was, by no means, an Albrechtsberger—a man well known as one of Beethoven’s thorough-bass teachers. But, when Haessler sat down at the piano, he fared worse yet.

Mozart now went to Leipzig, itself, and the successor of the great Sebastian, the cantor Doles, master of the choir in the church of Saint Thomas, was very friendly to him. He first displayed his powers at the organ here. Says an eye-witness: “Doles was charmed with the artist’s playing, and imagined Sebastian Bach returned to life.” “With the greatest facility,” Mozart had put all the arts of harmony in operation, and improvised the chorale, “Jesus my trust,” in a masterly manner. This way of working up a chorale was the peculiar art of the North German school of artists. As a token of gratitude, Doles caused Bach’s motetto for eight voices, Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied, to be sung for him. Our artist was overjoyed, and exclaimed: “That is something full of suggestion!” When Beethoven heard this same motetto with all its elemental power and magnitude, he exclaimed, referring to its composer: “His name should[195] not be Bach (brook), but Meer (the sea).” A similar expression of opinion is ascribed to Wagner, who performed the same motetto, in 1848, in Dresden.

When Mozart heard that the church of Saint Thomas had several other such motettoes, he asked for them all, and laid the several parts on his knees—there being no score—and on the chairs about him, and gave his whole soul to their study until he had thoroughly mastered them. At his request Doles gave him a copy of them.

Can we imagine what now passed in Mozart’s soul? The artist recognized the artist. Of predecessors, with like creative powers, he could have named only Palestrina. But what moved him still more, and stirred him to the very depths of his heart, was the sublimity of the religious feeling which lives in this spirit, and which laid hold of and lifted Mozart, the Catholic, up all the more because Bach was a Protestant. “Then he grew suddenly quiet, turned bitter, drank a great deal of strong wine, and spoke not another rational word,” writes Rochlitz, who became acquainted with him at this time, and who subsequently distinguished[196] himself as a writer on Mozart. The opera here afforded him no opportunity to display his power, and writing for his own church had little attraction, since, through the reforms of Joseph II., the expenses allowed for music, even for a divine service, the very exigencies of which had created the art, were curtailed to the very utmost. But we shall soon see from his own compositions that he was deeply affected by the sublime peace of this great choir-master. And here, in Leipzig, we notice that he did not allow melancholy, at least externally, to lord it over him. He dined the last evening he spent there at Doles’ house. His host and hostess were very sad, and begged for a memento from his hand. He wrote, in at the most from five to six minutes, on two small leaves of paper, a canon or round for each, one in long notes and very melancholy, the other exceedingly droll. “When it was noticed,” says Rochlitz, “that they could be sung together, he wrote under the one: ‘Farewell, we shall meet again,’ and under the other, ‘Wail away like women old.’ It is impossible to describe what a ridiculous and yet profound, not to say angry and cutting effect this made upon[197] us all, and if I do not mistake, upon himself, for, in a somewhat wild voice, he suddenly exclaimed, ‘Good-bye, children,’ and vanished.”

A closer acquaintance with “old Bach,” was the only lasting gain of this long-extended journey. Frederick William I. had, after the frank opinion Mozart had given of his private band, of which J. F. Reichardt was the leader, tendered him that position, at a yearly salary of three thousand thalers. But Mozart asked himself: “Shall I forsake my emperor?” This was the expression of the home-feeling he had for Austria—a feeling the fruitful and fostering soil of which would certainly have been lost in the sands of a margrave. One hundred Frederick sd’or, in a golden snuff-box, and a commission for three quartets—the king, who himself played the cello, was very fond of this kind of music—were, however, a moderate remuneration.

His friends at home urged him at least to lay the case before the emperor; for the king of Prussia had left his offer open a whole year. Mozart had an audience with his imperial majesty. The emperor said: “How, do you[198] want to leave me?” To which Mozart replied: “I beg your majesty’s pardon; I shall remain.” And this was the only result of the audience. To a friend, who alluded to a possible increase of salary, he gave the characteristic reply: “Who on earth would think of that at such a time?” Mozart was an Austrian and idealized his emperor, especially at this time, when Joseph’s best intentions were misunderstood in his own country, and Turkey and Belgium caused him equal anxiety. Was he, who now felt himself forsaken by his own, to see himself separated from one of the very best of his subjects? That was more than Mozart’s feelings could stand. However, the emperor now ordered that Figaro should be put on the stage again. Mozart had added to it the great aria of the countess in F major, and the renewed success of the work determined the emperor to charge him with the writing of a new opera, the words of which were suggested by the thoughtless bet of two officers. It was the Cosi fan tutte (So They All Do, or The Lover’s School.)

Two officers and a bachelor make a wager as to the fidelity of their intended wives, and actually succeed, with the assistance of the waiting-maid,[199] and by desperately intimidating them, in rendering them faithless, each to the other, whereupon they take refuge in the sorry consolation: Cosi fan tutte—so they all do.

It is hard to imagine a subject more frivolous. But, leaving out of consideration the tone of the time—a time when it was palpably evident that the deluge was impending, and when people thoughtlessly enjoyed all that was to be enjoyed—Mozart did not treat it seriously. He rather illustrated by it the masquerade character of the opera buffa, made of it a species of magic-lantern performance, the excuse for, and the basis, so to speak, of his dream-like music. And, indeed, that music is wonderfully balmy, like a half-veiled sunny-cloudy morning, on which every object is still concealed, or only duskily seen shining through the air—such music as only a Mozart could write. But the words were so trifling and frivolous that it was soon all over with this opera, and all efforts to resuscitate it have proved vain. It was not until life, which had become a deceptive play to the profoundly thoughtful mind of our artist, arose before him like a picture of fairy-land, that he was able[200] to infuse into that picture the full breath of the higher truth, which is not to be found in such a coarse, hollow-eyed and worm-eaten reality as the wager of those two officers. This brings us to the Magic Flute, and to the final perfection and full concentration of Mozart’s purposes and powers.

Cosi fan tutte was given on the 26th of January, 1790, and was very successful. The work was written entirely in the light style of Italian music, so popular at the time. But the man who had prompted it never saw it. The emperor Joseph was sick at the time it was given, and fell a victim to the grief and worry of the last years of his reign, in February, 1790, without having done anything further for Mozart. In no year of his life did Mozart write fewer musical compositions. He ascribes this fact himself to his extreme pecuniary distress. To his shame, and still more to ours, who have come after him, he was obliged to write, just at this time, to his “dearest friend,” Puchberg: “You are right in not deigning to answer me. My importunity is too great.... I can only beg you to consider my circumstances in all their bearings, to pity[201] and forgive my warm friendship and my trust in you.” Even his industry did not avail him. His compositions found no purchasers. They were above the comprehension of the people of his time, and thus he was soon left entirely without the means of support. The keeper of a neighboring inn surprised him one morning early, waltzing about his room with Constance. They were without fuel, and took this strange way of protecting themselves against the cold. O the mortal pilgrimage of genius!

A petition to the new emperor, Leopold I., and a memorial to an archduke, were drawn up, the draft of each of which is still extant. The court had its own orchestra in the court chapel of Saint Augustine; and, mindful of the church of Saint Thomas, in Leipzig, Mozart says, in his petition to the emperor: “A desire for fame, love of action, and a conviction of my abilities, embolden me to petition for a second place as Capellmeister, especially, as the very able Capellmeister, Salieri, never devoted himself to the church style of music, while I have made that style a favorite study from my youth.” He also requested to be allowed to instruct the royal family “because of the little[202] fame the world had accorded him for his skill at the piano.” He had great hopes because the emperor retained his petition. But Gluck’s former patron was not friendly to Mozart, and, besides, it was scarcely to be expected that any one who had stood in close relations with Joseph I. would find favor in his eyes.

On the 17th of May, 1790, the composer of Figaro and Don Giovanni was obliged to write: “I have now two scholars. I would like to bring the number up to eight. Try to spread it abroad that I am giving lessons.” In the meantime, he finished at least three quartets for Frederick William I., and, through Swieten, received Handel’s Alexander’s Feast, and the Ode for Saint Cecilia’s day, to re-arrange. When Mozart saw that, on the occasion of the presence of the King of Naples, in September, 1790, he was passed over entirely, and that Salieri, as well as his pupil, Weigl, were preferred to him, he became convinced that he would have to seek his fortune in foreign parts. The emperor was to be crowned in Frankfurt, in October. Mozart decided on going there. He took his eldest sister-in-law’s husband, the violin player, Hofer, with him;[203] for he had no doubt of his success on this occasion. It was not vouchsafed to him, however, to attach himself to the court as its composer of chamber music, and his silver-ware had to go to the pawn-shop, that he might procure as much as a vehicle to travel in. This journey for the purposes of his art—it was destined to be his last—is described in his letters to his “best and dearest wife of my heart.” They breathe the deepest melancholy. In reading them, we cannot fail to see that the shadows of death were even now playing about his head.

As if he had not been the most industrious of workers, he writes to his wife at this time: “I am now firmly resolved to do my very best here, and then I shall be heartily glad to be with you again. What a glorious life we shall live after this! I shall work—O how I shall work! that I may never again get into such a fatal state in consequence of unexpected contingencies.” He was, indeed, literally “immersed” in music. His application had so distracted him, and his mind was so unhinged in consequence, that he did not dare even to cut his own meat in eating, lest he might injure[204] himself. His strange contortions of countenance and his strange gestures showed that his thoughts were far from being in the world about him. He had fallen into the hands of usurers, and that “un-christian class of people,” as he called them, succeeded in involving him completely in their meshes.

But, unfortunately, he was soon forced to the conviction, that, even in Frankfort, there was not much for him to do. In a letter of the 30th of September, 1790, to his wife, he says: “I am exceedingly glad to go back to you again. If people could only look into my heart I would be almost forced to blush. I am so cold, so icy cold to everything. If you were with me, perhaps I would find more pleasure in the kind treatment I receive from people; but, as it is, my heart is empty.” On his journey home, he visited Mayence where Tischbein, Goethe’s friend, painted his picture. He was going to Mannheim. “O the golden days of a heart’s first love!” What thoughts must have possessed him at this time! For, did not all Vienna know how happily he lived with his Constance, while the unhappy relations of Aloysia with her husband were matter[205] of discussion in the public press? But why was it that the man who, at that time, gave promise of such a career of happiness, was now obliged to travel about the world in search of his daily bread? The thought of this filled his soul with bitterness, at the very time that he was invited to Munich, on account of the King of Naples, to a concert at court. He writes: “A pretty honor for the court of Vienna that the King has to hear me in a strange country!” And, indeed, the court’s neglect of him was the chief cause of the sad plight he was in.

His journey had cheered and strengthened him, but it had not improved his pecuniary condition. He could, in consequence, redeem only a portion of the silver-ware he had pledged, and the rest of it was lost entirely through his too great confidence in a Masonic friend. At this time, one of the directors of a London concert company, J. P. Salomon, had come to Vienna to take Haydn—his old patron prince Esterhazy having died—to London. Mozart was to follow after. His parting with the “old papa” was touching in the extreme. We saw above how deep his feeling of affection was for Mozart.[206] The latter, with tears in his eyes, and at a time when he might well have thought rather of his own death, said to Haydn who was so much older: “This is probably our last good-bye, in this life.” He divined only too well. Haydn shed bitter tears of sorrow when he heard of Mozart’s premature death a year later, in London. He now wrote: “Posterity will have to wait a hundred years for another like him;” and again, many years afterwards: “Pardon me, but I must always weep when I hear my dear Mozart’s name.”

Mozart’s soul was deeply affected. But his mind soared into regions beyond this life, where compensation for its inequalities would be found. The debt that weighed upon him now was light in comparison with the wealth he had labored so industriously and devotedly to give the world, and which he was still bestowing on it. And hence it has genuine melancholy, not pain nor plaintive sighs that filled his soul. The golden light of consolation tinged all his work. A friend had once written in his album. “Love! love! love! is the soul of genius.” He now interpreted these words in the sense of eternal love and merciful[207] goodness. A spirit of wonderful sweetness and reconciliation henceforth animates all his music. We need only remind the reader of the two “fantasias” for four hands in F minor. They were written in the winter of 1790-91 “at the urgent solicitation of a friend, a great lover of music,” for an orchestration, in which one Count Dehm produced, for the benefit of his countrymen, a number of distinguished historical characters in wax; and which was intended for the “mausoleum” of the celebrated Field-marshal Laudon. In it we reach the sunny heights of Mozart’s genius, and see how he dived down into, and was absorbed by, his own hard and chequered life, and how he was again lifted up to that eternal spring from which his own as well as Bach’s sublime religious art proceeded; the union of sanctified personal feeling to the sensible presentation of the Eternal itself, to which the human soul looks up in silent, earnest faith and resignation. It was time that another opportunity were offered to Mozart to give complete expression to this final and highest feeling of the human breast; and it was afforded him. Mere accident led to what he[208] aimed at. We are thus brought face to face with his Magic Flute and Requiem; works ushered in by those fantasias, like bright morning stars, just as the quintet in G minor had preceded his Don Giovanni.

In order fully to appreciate the place these two works fill in Mozart’s own life, we must turn our gaze backwards, for a time.

We know what Mozart’s heart-felt religious feeling was. He disclosed it in the frankest way whenever a proper occasion offered. He was just as honestly attached to his Church. When he was starting on his great Parisian journey, in the interest of his art, his father wrote him: “May the grace of God attend you everywhere, may it never forsake you, and it never will forsake you, if you are industrious to fulfill the duties of a really good Catholic.” But at this time, the necessity of examining the great questions of life, death and immortality, and of disclosing to each other, in earnest conversation, the questions of the soul, was very generally felt, by people even outside the Church. And this all the more, because neither the Protestant nor the Catholic service seemed able to satisfy the spiritual cravings[209] of the educated. The Protestant Church was divided into the opposing parties of orthodoxy and rationalism. The Catholic Church had grown torpid, stereotyped in dogma, and its worship had sunk almost to the level of mere theatrical mummery. Oneness of spirit soon led to leagues or unions and orders of which the order of Free Masons attained the greatest importance. Of the men who constantly bore in mind the intellectual life and elevation of the German people, Lessing, Wieland, Herder and Goethe belonged to this order. And since it was its aim to realize the highest virtues of Christianity, the purification of the mind and heart by the sacrifice of self, and the assistance of all men, it was impossible that a man like Mozart should not have felt drawn to it.

He joined the order in Vienna, and so true did the doctrine of the sanctifying nature of death as the real “object and aim of life,” and as the symbol of the self-sacrifice we should be ever ready to make of ourselves, seem to him that he did not rest until he had induced his father to join it also. They, indeed, destroyed the correspondence with one another, on this subject. But the Magic Flute bears witness to[210] the earnestness with which Mozart held to these sublime truths of Christianity, even outside the Church. Its history is as follows:

Schikaneder who, as far back as 1780, had known how to make use of young Mozart in Salzburg, had been some years in Vienna, and had a small wooden theatre in the Stahremberg Freihaus.[9] His inexhaustible good humor made him very good company, and Mozart had long enjoyed himself in the circle of his theatrical friends. Schikaneder had frequently, when acting as theatrical director, alternately reveled in superfluity, and almost starved. Now, in consequence of the competition of the theatre in the Leopoldstadt, he was brought to the very brink of ruin. This was in the spring of 1791. He applied to Mozart for a “piece that would attract.” He said that he had a proper subject, a Magic Opera, and that Mozart was the man to write the music for it. It was an unparalleled piece of impudence, and one which discloses Schikaneder’s whole character, to ask the emperor’s composer, the author of Figaro and Don Giovanni to write a Magic [211]Opera for a board booth in the suburbs. But Schikaneder knew the world and knew Mozart. And then he was linked to him by the ties of brotherhood in the order of Free Masons. To that brotherhood, Mozart himself owed the steady assistance he received from Puchberg. And hence his objections were soon overcome by the description the sly director gave of his extreme poverty. “If we are unfortunate in the matter, it will not be my fault,” Mozart replied; “for I never yet composed a ‘magic opera,’” and with these words, he went immediately to work.

To the clown, Schikaneder, the bird-catcher, Papageno—who understood so well how to describe the good natured, rather timid, fanciful, easy-going nature of the average Viennese—was of more consequence than the other nobler characters of the opera. But to the composer, the chosen play was a reflection of life such as he had seen it in his own soul for years, and above all, as it was in the heart of the loving pair who, separated by adverse fate, were destined to meet again in more intimate union; and in the Dies Bildniss ist bezaubernd schoen, we hear once more the first heart-felt love[212] notes of his youth, more beautiful and more full of soul than ever. But we would call attention also to the ideal charm and transformation of all the other powers that appear in this magic play. Mozart really felt the existence of higher powers, and that they preside over our lives. The rehearsals of the first act began as early as July; for Schikaneder had the tact to win Mozart over to himself completely. He had even given up the summer house in the garden to him, and endeavored to provide him with the most cheerful society. The accounts that have come down to us representing Mozart as a frivolous pleasure-seeker originated about this time. But we need only read the letters which he wrote during this same time to his wife, who was not far away,—she was in Baden on account of sickness,—to see that his soul was not in these outer pleasures. Yet after all, what remained to him whom the great world disdained but the little world about him? He was now literally at the bottom round of the ladder, socially. The fact that he had, besides, to strain every nerve to eke out a mere existence for his wife and child, had an effect upon his entire system,[213] which could be removed only by good-fellowship and wine. The increased action and concentration of all the powers of his mind and body, naturally called for in artistic and above all in musical invention, necessarily leads to the craving for enhanced enjoyment, if only for a few moments. And that Schikaneder knew how to procure such moments of enjoyment for Mozart, that he might own him entirely, and make the composer serve his purposes, we may infer from the story, that after Mozart’s death, which followed so soon on this, Schikaneder went about crying out: “His ghost pursues me wherever I go. He is always before my eyes!”

But more important than the question, how much of a pleasure-seeker Mozart was, is the fact that his somewhat irregular mode of life, at this time had a bad influence on him mentally. Two causes cooperated to produce this effect.

In May, 1791, he had solicited the position of assistant musician in the church of St. Stephen, for the reason that “he could consider himself more competent than others for the position, because of his more thorough knowledge[214] of the church style of music.” He had long wished to find something to do in this sphere again, especially since the new emperor had removed the narrow limits put to it by the emperor, Joseph. Now he was asked to write a requiem, the most solemn music in the worship of his church; and the request came to him under the strangest, nay under mysterious circumstances. A long, lean man, dressed in gray, with a very serious expression of countenance, handed him the commission for the requiem in a very flattering letter. Mozart communicated the matter to his wife, saying, at the same time, that he longed to write some music of that kind once more, and to produce a work which friends and foes alike might study after his death. He took the commission and asked, as the entire price of the work, fifty ducats, without however, fixing the time when the work should be delivered. The messenger came once more, paid the money and promised an additional sum, the composer to write precisely as he felt, and only when he felt like writing, but to make no effort to discover the person who gave the commission, since any effort of the kind would be in vain.

[215]We now know that it was one count Walsegg who gave the commission for the work, intending to have it performed as his own at the death of his wife. But the mysteriousness surrounding the commission took complete hold of Mozart’s mind. He looked upon it as a commandment from on high. His soul was already filled with thoughts that lead beyond the limits of this life. Added to this was the other circumstance referred to above.

The first act of the Magic Flute was finished as far as the finale when Schikaneder was informed, to his sorrow, that the same thing was being played with the greatest success by the competing theatre. But he did not despair; it was resolved to change the point of the play, to transform the wicked wizard who had stolen the princess whom Tamino was to recover, into the sage and philanthropist Sarastro, and, instead of the disconsolate mother, to put the evil-minded “queen of the night” with her Moors and the three ladies in black. These changes occasioned a noticeable disparity and much that was contradictory in the opera as a whole; but, on the other hand, Mozart could now put his whole soul into it, and to this incident[216] we are indebted for the most earnest and beautiful effusions of his mind and heart. The whole work now centered about the idea of free-masonry. By the earnest trial of their moral power, mortals must win their higher immortal portion, and with it their happiness. The bonds that unite the two lovers are purified and sanctified, transmuted into the more powerful and lasting life-bonds of marriage, which freed from all passion by the labors of love and resignation, discloses the real object and meaning of love. And, indeed, who had ever more purely tasted the sweets of this ever-virginal, marital love than Mozart, who even now, so many years after he was married, closed a letter to his wife with these words: “Good-bye, my dear, my only one. Two thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine and a half kisses are flying from me through the air. Put out your hands and catch them; they are waiting for you. A thousand sweet kisses. Thy Mozart forever.”

And now as to the character of Sarastro. Of all the human shapes that Mozart had met in life, his father’s, after that of his beloved Constance, had the firmest hold upon him, and[217] this spite of his misunderstandings of, and even want of confidence in, his son, in his declining years. And had not his personal experience with men, next to his artistic experiences, come to him, in real life and even in public life, in the guise, so to speak, of the rulers of his existence? Was not the emperor Joseph and the order of Free Masons the highest ideal of purely humanitarian aims that his imagination could conceive? All this had nothing whatever to do with his religious feelings. His Church and his own personal faith were things apart. He thought, indeed, that their abuses, as for instance the immoderate increase of the religious orders, might be attacked, but that which constituted their very core, and their truth, were sublimely beyond the reach of doubt. But while these last, in that which is imperishable in them, now found their holiest expression in the Requiem, it could not but be, that those parts of the new opera descriptive of those higher purely human aims, should participate in the solemn sacred tones that poured from Mozart’s soul. And hence we need not hesitate to say that the Requiem and the Magic Flute[218] tell us all that Mozart’s heart knew and felt of heaven and of earth, that it transfigured the earthly in the light of heaven, and sought from heaven to bring down peace to earth. We know this both from the chorus: O goldene Ruh’ steig hernieder, Kehr in den Menschen Herzen wieder, as well as from Tamino’s painful, longing exclamation: O ew’ge Nacht, wann wirst du schwinden? Wann wird das Licht mein Auge finden? It is the expression of a homesickness divine, a craving for God, the highest good for the human soul.

Obstacle after obstacle was placed in the way of the completion of both works. The Bohemians had ordered a great opera, Titus the Mild, for Leopold’s coronation. There were only a few weeks remaining during which it could be written. Mozart started immediately on his journey. It was the middle of August. Constance again accompanied him. As they were entering the carriage, the mysterious messenger in gray stood before them. Mozart quieted him with the assurance that the Requiem was the first task that would engage him after his return. Yet this seemed to him a new warning not to postpone the last work[219] of his life; for such he considered the Requiem to be. He felt unwell even now. He overworked himself in Prague—Titus was written and put in rehearsal within a fortnight—and thus accelerated the breaking down of his already over-taxed, vital energies. Added to this was the want of success of the opera. He had this time forgotten the rule “hasten slowly,” and the quintet in great dramatic style in the first finale, could not conceal from his Prague audience, who were certainly indulgent, the absence of the artist’s peculiar skill. Titus remained an opera seria, a bundle of arias, and the applause Mozart was wont to meet with, failed him, even in Prague. He was very much depressed in consequence. He again, indeed, recovered his native cheerfulness, but in leaving Prague the tears flowed abundantly. He had a presentiment that he would never see those friends again.

In the middle of September, he was in Vienna once more. The Magic Flute was to be put on the stage, and might serve to make up what he had lost of reputation in Prague. Besides, it was part of his great life task. King Leopold had abolished the order of Free[220] Masons, and it, therefore, now seemed to Mozart, simply a duty he owed to his order to put its humane aims in their true light, by every means in his power. And what a refulgence streams from the choruses of the second act, from the overture which, as well as the introductory march of the same act, so suggestive of Idomeneo, was only just written! “Through night to light!”—such is the sense in which Mozart wrote and understood the entire work, the accidental garb of which did not mislead him in the least. Into one of the pieces descriptive of this earnestness of moral trial of the heart, Mozart went as far as to weave a Protestant chorale. It is the song of the Geharnischten Maenner—the “men in mail;” and its “figuration” shows that Mozart had added Bach’s artistic characteristics to his own. But he had also appropriated his spirit of deep piety and genuine virtue! Nothing exhibits more clearly how solemn and high his vocation as an artist was to him, nor proves more forcibly that, for him, there was no secluded spot where alone the ideal and the divine were to be taught. The ideal and the divine should, like the sun, shed their rays[221] everywhere, and the stage was the place where our artist felt that he could address, from his inmost heart, his nation and his contemporaries.

And what a work we have before us here! There never was a greater contrast between an ideal work of art and the place and occasion to which it owed its origin, than between the Magic Flute, one of the starting-points of the most ideal efforts of the German nation, and the audiences of a board booth in a suburb of Vienna!

We must, indeed, leave the trivialities and absurdities of the libretto out of consideration. And even here, Mozart’s music succeeded in turning deformity into ideal beauty; and this spite of the fact that the “bird-catcher,” Schikaneder, is said to have suggested many of the melodies to him which have since come into such universal favor. There is still a note of his extant in which we read: “Dear Wolfgang! In the meantime, I return your pa-pa-pa to you. I find it about right. It will do. We shall meet this evening. Yours—Schikaneder.” A church hymn was afterwards put to the air: Bei Maennern welche Liebe fuehlen.[222] How ideal must not those lines have been when the higher moral sentiments could be awakened by so simple an air!

That best known of all solemn songs: In diesen heil’gen Hallen, has this very tone of the dignity of a heart that has mastered itself, and wisely and lovingly thinks only of humanity. Only the fact that it is as well known and as familiar to us as light and air, allows us to forget that it is as lustrous as the one and as ethereal as the other. The character of Sarastro personifies what Mozart conceived to be the deeper meaning of life. Pamina is the most beautiful expression of pure love and tenderness. Tamino is the ideal character of a youth who restrains his own feelings under life’s stern rule—and thus insures for himself and those confided to him by fate, the happiness of life. We need only ask the attention of the reader to the exclamation in the conversation with the priest, der Lieb und Tugend Eigenthum!—“love’s and virtue’s prize!” With the fullest expression of heart-felt conviction, these few tones describe the whole moral stability of Mozart’s nature.

[223]It is not hard to see in what relation these characters stand to the heroes and female characters of Richard Wagner, and it is not without reason that Francz List has called the Ring of the Niebelungen the Magic Flute of our day. Wagner here filled out the clear outline of the human ideals which Mozart drew in the Magic Flute from his knowledge of the German nature. All the sublime ideal powers which move and lead us, from the conscious emotions of our own hearts to the elemental, primeval forces which determine our will are here found, in the faintest outlines, it is true, but still as the first features of the surest characterization; and as Osmin points to Fafner, the “three boys” who lead Tamino point to the three daughters of the Rhine who warn Siegfried of his death. It was the first time that that which lives in every human breast as the consciousness of the most intimate knowledge of the real constitution of the world, and fills us with the feeling of the eternal, was portrayed with such Rafaelite, ideal art in opera. This it is that gives to the whole work its peculiar tone. Like the golden light of creation’s first morning, it plays about the opera of the Magic Flute.

[224]The reception accorded to the work, the popularity of which is unequalled in any nation, was in keeping with its merits. The first representation of it took place on the 30th of September, under Mozart’s own direction. After the overture, the audience was perfectly motionless: for who could have expected such solemn, thrilling notes in a Magic opera? Schenk, who afterwards composed the Dorfbarbier, the teacher of Beethoven, who still occupied a place in the orchestra, crept up to the director’s chair, and kissed Mozart’s hand, who, continuing to beat time with the other, gave him a friendly look of recognition and gently stroked his cheek. Our artist felt that, even here, in this board booth, he was in his own dear Vienna, in his own beloved Austria. But, even after the close of the first act, the applause was not great, and it is said that Mozart went pale and perplexed to Schikaneder, who quieted and consoled him. During the second act, however, this motley multitude discovered the message that this music conveyed to the soul. It was, indeed, with difficulty that Mozart could now be moved to appear on the stage. It wounded[225] him to the quick to think that the best he could do was so little appreciated. But he was soon able to write to his “best and dearest wife” at Baden, that, spite of the fact that it was mail day, the “opera was played before a very full house and met with the usual applause.” His feeling for the work is expressed at the close of the letter, in the words of the incomparable terzetto, when Sarastro dismisses the two lovers to make proof of their love: “The hour is striking farewell! we shall meet again.” With the unconcern of his own magnanimity he himself ushered in his mortal enemy, Salieri, and the latter found the work “worthy of being produced before the greatest monarch at the greatest festivities.” And how frequently this very thing has happened since! But the people continue Mozart’s real sovereign, the people in the most ingenuous innocence of their every impulse and emotion and of the most ideal view of life’s ultimate nature. And Mozart belongs to the people. To them, he is not dead.

But the hour of our parting ourselves with this phenomenal artist and phenomenal man will soon strike.

[226]He now worked uninterruptedly on his Requiem, and the theatre was left to a younger Capellmeister. He frequently wrote until two o’clock in the morning. He even refused to give lessons in music to a lady for a very dear Vienna friend. He had, he said, a piece of work in hand which was very urgent and which he had very much at heart; and, until it was finished, he could do nothing else. Even while engaged on the last pieces of the Magic Flute, such as the march and the chorus, “O Isis and Osiris,” he sometimes sank exhausted in his chair, and had short fits of fainting; for his whole heart and soul were wrapped up in his work. But he cared less than ever now about physical exhaustion, since he was directly concerned with the erection of a worthy monument to his sentiment and feeling of the Eternal in the holy sanctuary itself. He had an earnest feeling of the terror of guilt, even if the feeling seemed to him no more than a weakness. But he felt also, and infinitely more deeply, the power of forgiving love which was the life of his own soul. That mighty mediæval, Christian poem, the Dies irae, inspired and stimulated his[227] fancy. He wished to show the world its own painfully tragic meaning and its blessed reconciliation. Certain it is that no composer ever went to work with a more honest intention to give a true artistic form to religious expression in the mass for the dead. True, it is only certain parts that are in complete keeping with this deep, religious feeling; while his secular compositions are throughout appropriate to the subject treated. The explanation of this difference is the fact, that Mozart was too long and too exclusively engaged in writing operatic music, and that the operatic character had, as we have already seen, crept into the music which was now in favor in the service of the Catholic Church. But these parts, especially the thrilling accords descriptive of man’s consciousness of guilt, the Gedenke gnaedig meines Endes, and the close of the Confutatis, the touching prayer for loving mercy in the Lacrimosa—these parts were in entire harmony with the religious feeling of their author and with his unsurpassed artistic power. And this it was that made the work so very dear to himself. It was his favorite, his dying song. Art had subsequently to[228] take another and very different direction in this department of music, but the language of the heart overflowing with the feelings of its God and of the purest confidence in his undying love, will always be heard in this Requiem. That language is its very soul.

We are rapidly approaching the end. The funeral bell is already tolling. Melancholy is the last picture in the life of an artist who never had an equal.

Constance observed the growing infirmity and melancholy of her beloved husband with increasing alarm. She did all in her power to take him away from his work and to brighten him up by cheerful society. But Mozart, who was wont to be so social, was turned in upon himself, depressed, and could give only wandering answers to the questions put to him. She rode out into the open air with him. Nature had always had the effect of relieving and cheering him, so that he worked best traveling, when he insisted on having his “portefeuille,” as he called his leather case filled with music paper, in the side-fob of the carriage, at hand. They rode out in this manner, one beautiful November day, into[229] the Prater. The aspect of dying nature and the falling of the leaves suggested to him thoughts of the end of all things. He now began to speak of death, and said, with tears in his eyes: “I know very well I am writing the Requiem for myself. I am too conscious of myself. Some one must have poisoned me; I cannot rid myself of that thought.” His utter debility without any noticeable external cause readily suggested that suspicion. He could not imagine that his strength had been exhausted by sheer intellectual labor. And then, had not care and sorrow gnawed at his vitals for years?

Constance was exceedingly alarmed, and succeeded in getting the score of the Requiem from him. She consulted a physician, who recommended complete rest. This had so favorable an effect, in a short time, that Mozart was able to write the cantate Das Lob der Freundschaft—“the praise of friendship”—for a newly established lodge, and, shortly afterwards, to direct its production himself. The success of the work,—which itself bears internal evidence to a feeling of greater calmness and cheerfulness in its author—had a refreshing[230] and comforting effect upon him. He now declared his suspicions that he had been poisoned, the effect of his ill-health, and demanded the Requiem back. But a few days later, he again fell a victim to his melancholy feelings, and his strength left him. “I feel that I shall soon have done with music,” he said one morning to the faithful person who had once surprised him waltzing about his room with Constance, gave him back his wine and made an appointment to meet him next morning on some matters of business. When the latter reached the threshold of Mozart’s house, on the following day, he was met by the servant maid with the news that her master had been taken seriously sick during the night. Mozart himself looked at him fixedly from his bed, and said: “Nothing to-day, Joseph. To-day we have to do with doctors and apothecaries.”

He did not leave his bed any more after this. It was not long before worse symptoms appeared. His consciousness did not leave him for a moment. Neither did his loving sweetness and kindness. But the thought of his wife and children filled his heart with melancholy.[231] New and better prospects were now before him. The Hungarian nobility and some rich Amsterdam gentlemen, lovers of music, asked him to write compositions for them, in consideration of a large annual honorarium. And then there was the success of the Magic Flute, in which he was deeply interested. “Now the first act is over! Now they have come to the place Dir, grosse Koenigin der Nacht”—he was wont to say in the evening with the watch at hand. The day before his death, he exclaimed: “Constance, if I could only hear my dear Magic Flute once more!” And he hummed away the air of the “bird-catcher,” in a voice that was scarcely audible.

But he had the Requiem still more at heart, and he had so far sketched its principal features, that his pupil, Suessmayer who had also written the recitative for Titus was subsequently able to complete it. During the afternoon that preceded the last night of his life, he had the score of the Requiem brought to him in bed. The Tamino of Schikaneder’s troop took the soprano, Sarastro the bass, his brother-in-law, Hofer the tenor, and Mozart, as usual, the alto. They sang until they[232] reached the Lacrimosa when Mozart burst into tears and put the score aside. The thought of his approaching end and of God’s all-merciful, eternal love, filled his heart with an unspeakable feeling which made it overflow with a melancholy joy. This is plainly evident from the infinitely mild, conciliating tones in which Mozart has described that day of tears on which eternal grace and goodness are to make compensation for the eternal guilt of men.

His sister-in-law, Sophie, came in the evening. He said to her: “Ah, my dear, good Sophie, how glad I am you are here! You must stay to-night, and see me die. I have the death-taste on my tongue. I have the odor of death in my nostrils. And who will then help my dear Constance?” Constance hereupon asked her sister to go for a clergyman, but it was no easy matter to induce one to come. The patient was a Free Mason, and the order of Free Masons was opposed to many of the institutions of the Church.

When she returned she found Suessmayer at his bedside. Mozart was explaining to him how to finish the Requiem, remarking as he[233] did so: “Did I not say that I was writing it for myself?” In the evening, the crisis came. Cold applications to his burning head so shattered him that he did not regain consciousness any more. Thirty-five years after his death, his sister-in-law Sophie wrote: “The last thing he did was to endeavor to imitate the kettle-drums in the Requiem. I can hear him still.” About midnight he raised himself up. His eyes had a fixed gaze. He then turned his head towards the wall and seemed to drop asleep. He died at one o’clock in the morning, on the 5th day of December, 1791.

The last account we have of him says: “It is impossible for me to describe with what an expression of infinite wretchedness his devoted wife cast herself on her knees and called on the Almighty for aid.” She threw herself on his bed, that she might die of the same sickness, as if the cause of his death was some accidental disease. The three medical opinions assigned each a different cause for Mozart’s premature death—inflammation of the brain, purple fever and dropsy!

The people walked about his house in the Rauhenstein’gasse in crowds and wept. The[234] poem of the order of Free Masons on the occasion refers, in touching terms, to the way in which he carried assistance to many a poor widow’s hut. The owner of the art-cabinet for whom the two fantasias in F minor were written, came and took an impression of his “pale, dead face” in plaster of Paris. The two sublime funeral odes were now made to serve as his own mausoleum.

Van Swieten took charge of his burial. But as he left only sixty guldens, a common grave had to be selected for his body; and thus it happens that we do not know to-day where Mozart’s last resting place is. When Constance, sick and sorrowful, went to the churchyard, some time after the grave-digger had been replaced by another, who could not point out where all that was mortal of our artist lay. Not a friend followed his bier to the cemetery. All turned back at the gate, on account of the bad weather. Mozart’s skull, however, was saved, and is preserved in Vienna. The churchyard keeper’s son secretly abstracted it from the grave.

As the parting words of our great artist, who, spite of all the sorrows he had to bear, preserved,[235] throughout a cheerful, joyous nature, we may cite the following lines from a note of his, written near the close of his life—lines eloquently indicative of his sweet composure during his last days. They run thus: “Dear sir,” he replies to the admonitions of a friend—the original autograph, in Italian, is preserved in London—“willingly would I follow your advice, but how can I do it? My brain is distracted. It is with difficulty that I can collect my thoughts, and I cannot dismiss the picture of that unknown man from my mind. He is ever before me, praying for, urging me for, demanding that Requiem. I continue working because work does not exhaust me as much as the absence of employment. I know by my feelings that my hour has come. It is striking even now. I am in the region of death. I have reached my end, without having reaped the pleasure my talent should have brought me. And yet life was so beautiful! My career opened under such happy auspices; but one cannot change his destiny. No one can fix the number of his days. We must be resigned and do what Providence decrees.”

[236]Thus gravely and solemnly sing the soulfull and ideally transfigured lovers in the Magic Flute—Mozart’s own confession. It is the expression of the new and deep spring of life given to humanity in his music; and Mozart remained to his latest breath a consecrated priest of the purifying and sanctifying influence of his own melodies. His creations will live as long as humanity clings to the life of its own soul, and seeks higher nutriment for that life.

Of “Memories” the London Academy says: “It is a prose poem. * * * It is seldom that a powerful intellect produces any work, however small, that does not bear some marks of its special bent, and the traces of research and philosophy in this little story are apparent, while its beauty and pathos show us a fresh phase of a many-sided mind, to which we already owe large debts of gratitude.”

Of “Graziella” the Chicago Tribune says: “It glows with love of the beautiful in all nature. * * * It is pure literature, a perfect story, couched in perfect words. The sentences have the rhythm and flow, the sweetness and tender fancy of the original. It is uniform with ‘Memories,’ and it should stand side by side with that on the shelves of every lover of pure, strong thoughts, put in pure, strong words. ‘Graziella’ is a book to be loved.”

Of “Marie” the Cincinnati Gazette says: “This is a Russian love tale, written by a Russian poet. It is one of the purest, sweetest little narratives that we have read for a long time. It is a little classic, and a Russian classic, too. That is one of its charms, that it is so distinctively Russian. We catch the very breezes of the Steppes, and meet, face to face, the high-souled, simple minded Russian.”

Of “Madeleine” the New York Evening Telegram says: “More than thirty years ago it received the honor of a prize from the French Academy and has since almost become a French classic. It abounds both in pathos and wit. Above all, it is a pure story, dealing with love of the most exalted kind. It is, indeed, a wonder that a tale so fresh, so sweet, so pure as this has not sooner been introduced to the English-speaking public.”

“Written apparently for young readers, it yet possesses a charm of manner which will recommend it to all.”—The Examiner, London.

“It is only when we take up such a book as this, that we realize how rich in interest is the mythology of Greece.”—Inquirer, Philadelphia.

“Admirable in style, and level with a child’s comprehension. These versions might well find a place in every family.”—The Nation, New York.

“The author invests these stories with a charm of narrative entirely peculiar. The book is a rich one in every way.”—Standard, Chicago.

“In Mr. Cox will be found yet another name to be enrolled among those English writers who have vindicated for this country an honorable rank in the investigation of Greek history.”—Edinburgh Review.

“It is doubtful if these tales, antedating history in their origin, and yet fresh with all the charms of youth to all who read them for the first time, were ever before presented in so chaste and popular form.”—Golden Rule, Boston.

“The grace with which these old tales of the mythology are re-told makes them as enchanting to the young as familiar fairy tales, or the ‘Arabian Nights.’ * * * We do not know of a Christmas book which promises more lasting pleasures.”—Publishers’ Weekly.

“Its exterior fits it to adorn the drawing-room table, while its contents are adapted to the entertainment of the most cultivated intelligence. * * * The book is a scholarly production, and a welcome addition to a department of literature that is thus far quite too scantily furnished.”—Tribune, Chicago.

“A very ably written sketch of French history, from the earliest times to the foundation of the existing Republic.”—Cincinnati Gazette.

“The narrative is not dry on a single page, and the little history may be commended as the best of its kind that has yet appeared.”—Bulletin, Philadelphia.

“A book both instructive and entertaining. It is not a dry compendium of dates and facts, but a charmingly written history.”—Christian Union, New York.

“After a careful examination of its contents, we are able to conscientiously give it our heartiest commendation. We know no elementary history of France that can at all be compared with it.”—Living Church.

“A spirited and entertaining sketch of the French people and nation—one that will seize and hold the attention of all bright boys and girls who have a chance to read it.”—Sunday Afternoon, Springfield, (Mass.)

“We find its descriptions universally good, that it is admirably simple and direct in style, without waste of words or timidity of opinion. The book represents a great deal of patient labor and conscientious study.”—Courant, Hartford, Ct.

“Miss Kirkland has composed her ‘Short History of France’ in the way in which a history for young people ought to be written; that is, she has aimed to present a consecutive and agreeable story, from which the reader can not only learn the names of kings and the succession of events, but can also receive a vivid and permanent impression as to the characters, modes of life, and the spirit of different periods.”—The Nation, N. Y.

This Life of Arnold is full of new facts, now first given to the public. Manuscripts from the family of Arnold, in England and in Canada, and the Shippen manuscripts, have enabled the author to make new contributions to Revolutionary history of great interest. The unpublished manuscripts of General Schuyler, to which the author has had access, has thrown new light upon the expedition to Canada and the campaign against Burgoyne. The author does not, to any extent, excuse Arnold’s treason, but aims to do full justice to him as a soldier and patriot. For Arnold, the traitor, he has no plea but “guilty;” for Arnold, the soldier and patriot, he asks a hearing and justice.

“The biographer discriminates fairly between Arnold’s patriotism and baseness; and while exhibiting the former and the splendid services by which it was illustrated, with generous earnestness, does not in any degree extenuate the turpitude of the other.”—Harper’s Monthly.

“The public is the gainer (by this book), as additional light is thrown on the prominent actors and events of history. * * * Bancroft erroneously asserts that Arnold was not present at the first battle of Saratoga. Upon this point the author has justice and right on his side, and to Arnold, rather than to Gates, the success of this decisive campaign seems greatly attributable.”—New England Historical and Genealogical Register.

“After a careful perusal of the work, it seems to us that Mr. Arnold has accomplished his task wonderfully well. * * * It is rarely that one meets in the pages of biographical literature a nobler woman than was the devoted wife of Benedict Arnold; she mourned his fallen greatness, but even in his ignominity was faithful to the vows by which she had sworn to love and care for him until death.”—Traveller, Boston.

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CHAPTER I.
CHILDHOOD AND EARLY TRAVELS.
Mozart’s Parentage—Early Development of his Genius—Character as a Child—Travels at the Age of Six—Received by Maria Theresa and Marie Antoinette—Mozart and Goethe—Meeting with Madame de Pompadour—The London Bach’s Opinion of Young Mozart—Asked to Write an Opera by Joseph II—Assailed by Envy—Padre Martini—Notes Down the Celebrated Miserere from Ear—The Pope Confers on him the Order of the Golden Spurs—A Member of the Philharmonic Society of Bologna—First Love—Personal Appearance—Troubles with the Archbishop,	7-41
CHAPTER II.
THE GREAT PARISIAN ARTISTIC JOURNEY.
Disgusted with Salzburg—In Vienna Again—Salzburg Society—Character of Musicians in the Last Century—Jerome Colloredo, Archbishop of Salzburg—Mozart’s Letter to Him—The Father’s Solicitude for His Son—Paternal Advice—New Compositions—Incidents of his Journey—Meets with Opposition—Secret Enemies—His Ambition to Elevate the Character of the German Opera—Disappointments—His Description of German “Free City” Life—Meeting with Stein—In his Uncle’s Family—“Baesle”—Meeting with the Cannabichs—Attachment for Rosa Cannabich—Influence of this Attachment on his Music—The Weber Family—The Non so d’Onde Viene—Circumstances of its Composition,	42-82
CHAPTER III.[6]
IDOMENEO.
New Disappointments—Opposition of the Abbe Vogler—Mozart and the Poet Wieland—Wieland’s Impressions of Mozart—German Opera and Joseph II—The Weber Family—Aloysia Weber—Mozart’s Plans—His Father Opposes them and his Attachment for Aloysia—Mozart’s Music and Heart-trials—In Paris—Disappointments there—Contrast Between Parisian and German Life—New Intrigues Against Him—Invited Back to Salzburg—“Faithless” Aloysia—Meeting of Father and Son—Reception in Salzburg—“King Thamos”—Character of Mozart’s Music Composed at this time—Invitation to Compose the Idomeneo—Its Success—Effect on the Italian Opera,	83-117
CHAPTER IV.
ELOPEMENT FROM THE SERAGLIO—FIGARO—DON GIOVANNI.
Opinions on the Idomeneo—Tired of Salzburg—Goes to Vienna—The Archbishop Again—Mozart Treated by Him with Indignity—Paternal Reproaches—Assailed by Slander—He Leaves Salzburg—Experiences in Vienna—Austrian Society—The German Stage—The Emperor Expresses a Wish that Mozart might Write a New Opera—Mozart’s Love for Constance Weber—Description of Constance—The New Opera—Mozart’s Marriage—The Emperor’s Opinion of Mozart’s Music—Mozart’s Interest In the Figaro—Its Composition—Its Success—Mozart’s Poverty—In Bohemia—His Popularity in Prague—Meaning of the Don Giovanni—Richard Wagner on Mozart,	118-180
CHAPTER V.
THE MAGIC FLUTE—TITUS—THE REQUIEM.
Haydn’s Opinion of Mozart—Made Court Composer by Joseph II—Don Giovanni in Vienna—Mozart’s Extreme Poverty—His Cheerfulness under Adverse Circumstances—“The Song of the Swan”—Other Compositions—Mozart’s Opinion of Handel—Acquaintance with Sebastian Bach—Mozart’s Opinion of Church Music—Mozart’s Characteristics—Audience with the Emperor—Petition to His Imperial Majesty—His Religious Feelings—Joins the Free Masons—History of the Magic Flute—The Mysterious Stranger—The Requiem—Success of the Magic Flute—Mozart as Reflected in his Music—His Industry—Last Illness—Strange Fancies—His Last Days—His Death,	181-236

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Life of Mozart

TRANSLATOR’S NOTE.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

CHAPTER II.

CHAPTER III.

CHAPTER IV.

CHAPTER V.

FOOTNOTES: