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Title: Mozart

Author: Ebenezer Prout

Release date: November 7, 2022 [eBook #69304]
                Most recently updated: June 17, 2024

Language: English

Original publication: United Kingdom: George Bell & Sons

Credits: Al Haines


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MOZART ***
[Frontispiece: MOZART AS A YOUNG MAN.  (_From a print by Schwërer._)]




  Bell's Miniature Series of Musicians




  MOZART


  BY

  EBENEZER PROUT, B.A., Mus.D.

  PROFESSOR OF MUSIC, DUBLIN UNIVERSITY



  LONDON
  GEORGE BELL & SONS
  1905




  First Published, November, 1903.
  Reprinted, 1905.




TABLE OF CONTENTS


SOME BOOKS ABOUT MOZART

THE CHILD (1756-1768)

THE YOUTH (1769-1778)

THE MAN (1779-1791)

HIS ART--AN APPRECIATION

LIST OF WORKS BY MOZART




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


MOZART AS A YOUNG MAN ... _Frontispiece_
  (_From a print by Schwërer._)

MOZART AT THE AGE OF SEVEN
  (_From a scarce French print._)

MOZART WITH HIS FATHER AND SISTER
  (_From a rare print._)

THE MOZART FAMILY
  (_From the painting by Van de la Croce,_
      1780, _in the Mozart Museum._)

MOZART IN 1791
  (_From an original at Salzburg._)

PART OF THE SCORE OF THE "DE PROFUNDIS"

MOZART, BY JÄGER




SOME BOOKS ABOUT MOZART


Among the more important biographical and critical works on Mozart
are the following:

NISSEN, G. N. VON.  "Biographie W. A. Mozart's."  Leipzig.  1828.

HOLMES, EDWARD.  "Life of Mozart, including
  His Correspondence."  London.  1845.
  Second Edition, edited by the writer of this book.  1878.

JAHN, OTTO.  "W. A. Mozart."  First Edition,
  4 vols.  Leipzig. 1856-59.  Second Edition,
  2 vols.  1867. English translation, 3 vols.
  London.  1882.

KÖCHEL, DR. LUDWIG RITTER VON.  "Chronologisch-thematisches
  Verzeichniss sämmtlicher Tonwerke Wolfgang Amade
  Mozart's."  Leipzig.  1862.

POHL, C. F.  "Mozart und Haydn in London."  Vienna.  1867.

NOHL, LUDWIG. "Mozart nach den Schilderungen seiner
  Zeitgenossen."  Leipzig.  1880.


The article on Mozart by C. F. Pohl in the second volume of Grove's
"Dictionary of Music and Musicians" is also well deserving of study,
being, in fact, an epitome of Jahn's great work.




LIFE OF MOZART

THE CHILD (1756-1768)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born at Salzburg on January 27, 1756.
His full name, as given in the church register, was "Joannes
Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus"; his father used the German
equivalent "Gottlieb" of this last name, and the composer himself
subsequently adopted the Latinized form "Amadeus."

His family had long been settled in Augsburg, where Wolfgang's
father, Leopold Mozart, was born on November 14, 1719.  With the
object of studying jurisprudence, Leopold entered the university of
Salzburg, supporting himself by teaching music and playing the
violin.  He was a musician of considerable attainments, and in 1743
the Archbishop of Salzburg took him into his service, later
appointing him Court composer and leader of the orchestra.  He was a
voluminous composer, but his works show little inventive power.  His
fame as a musician rests chiefly on his "School for the Violin,"
printed in 1756--the year of Wolfgang's birth.  This work, from which
Otto Jahn in his great monograph on Mozart gives several extracts,
was for many years the only work published in Germany on the subject,
and was held in great esteem not only for the thoroughness of its
instructions, but for the excellence of its style.

In 1747 Leopold Mozart married Anna Maria Pertlin (or Bertlin), by
whom he had seven children, only two of whom survived infancy.  The
elder of these two was a daughter, Maria Anna, born July 30, 1751;
the younger was the subject of the present volume.

[Illustration: MOZART AT THE AGE OF SEVEN.  (_From a scarce French
print._)]

Like her illustrious brother, Maria Anna (generally spoken of in the
family by the pet name of "Nannerl") very early showed great aptitude
for music.  At the age of seven her father began to give her lessons
on the clavier, on which she made remarkable progress.  It was during
these lessons that Wolfgang's wonderful musical genius first showed
itself.  Though the child was then only between three and four years
of age, he took the greatest interest in what his sister was doing,
and would amuse himself with picking out thirds on the clavier.  When
he was four his father, more in joke than otherwise, began to teach
him little pieces, which he learned with astonishing ease.  For a
short piece he required only half an hour, for longer pieces an hour,
after which he could play them with perfect correctness.  What is
even more astonishing is that before he was five years of age he
began to compose and play little pieces which his father wrote down.
Some of these juvenile efforts have been preserved, and show that
while the young musician had not at that time acquired any
individuality of style, he had an instinctive feeling for clearness
of form, while his harmony shows a correctness which is absolutely
amazing in so young a child.

J. A. Schachtner, Court trumpeter at Salzburg, an intimate friend of
the family, has preserved some reminiscences of the child's early
years in a letter which he wrote to the composer's sister soon after
Mozart's death.  In this letter Schachtner relates how, on returning
from church one day with Leopold Mozart, they found little Wolfgang,
then four years old, hard at work writing:


"Papa.  What are you writing?

"Wolfgang.  A piano concerto; the first part is nearly finished.

"Papa.  Let me see it.

"Wolfgang.  It is not ready yet.

"Papa.  Let me see it; it must be something pretty.

"His father took it, and showed me a daub of notes, mostly written
over blots that had been wiped out.  (N.B.--Little Wolfgang in his
ignorance had dipped his pen every time to the bottom of the
inkstand, and so made a blot each time he put it on the paper; this
he wiped out with his flat hand, and went on writing.)  We laughed at
first over this apparent nonsense; but the papa then began to notice
the principal thing, the composition.  He remained motionless for a
long while, looking at the page; at last two tears--tears of
admiration and joy--fell from his eyes.  'Look, Herr Schachtner,'
said he, 'how correctly and regularly it is all arranged, only it
cannot be used because it is so extraordinarily difficult that nobody
can play it.'  Little Wolfgang broke in: 'That is why it is a
concerto; it must be practised till one gets it right.  Look, this is
how it must go!'  He played it, but could only just make enough out
of it to show us what he meant.'

* * * * *

"Soon after they returned from Vienna, and Wolfgang brought with him
a little fiddle that had been presented to him.  The late Herr
Wentzl, an excellent violinist, who also did a little in composition,
brought six trios with him which he had written during your father's
absence, and asked his opinion on them.  We played the trios, your
father taking the bass part on the viola, Wentzl the first violin,
and I was to play the second.  Wolfgang begged that he might play the
second, but his father refused the foolish request, as he had not had
the slightest instruction on the violin, and the father thought he
was not in the least able to do it.  Wolfgang said: 'To play a second
violin one need not have learned!'  When his father insisted on his
going away and not disturbing us any further, he began to cry
bitterly, and rushed out of the room with his fiddle.  I begged them
to let him play with me.  At last papa said: 'Well, play with Herr
Schachtner; but so quietly that nobody hears you, else you must go.'
So Wolfgang played with me.  I soon noticed with astonishment that I
was quite superfluous.  I quietly put down my violin and looked at
your father, down whose cheeks tears of admiration and happiness were
rolling, and so we played all six trios.  When we had finished
Wolfgang grew so bold with our applause that he declared he could
play the first violin part too.  We tried it for a joke, and nearly
died of laughing when he played this part also, though with quite
incorrect and irregular fingering, yet so that he never stuck fast."


In January, 1762, Leopold Mozart took his children to Munich, where
they played before the Elector.  Their visit lasted three weeks, and
was so successful that in September of the same year they started for
Vienna.  They travelled leisurely, staying five days at Passau at the
request of the Bishop, and giving a concert at Linz under the
patronage of the Governor-General of the Province, Count Schlick.
The astonishment and delight at the performances of the two children
were unbounded.  On arriving at Vienna, they received a command to
visit the Emperor at Schönbrunn.  Both he and the Empress were good
musicians, and many incidents are related by Mozart's biographers
showing not only the interest taken in the youthful prodigy, but also
the tests of ability to which the Emperor submitted him.  It was, of
course, only natural that the example set by royalty should be
followed by members of the Court, and the Mozarts were invited by all
the nobility of Vienna.  Their visit must have been a source of
considerable profit, as many valuable presents were made them.  Their
success was interrupted for a time, from Wolfgang being attacked by
scarlet fever; happily, the attack was not very severe, though
sufficient to confine him to the house for a month.  The family
returned to Salzburg early in January, 1763.

Encouraged by the success of his first venture, Leopold Mozart
resolved on a much longer tour, and on June 9, 1763, he, with his
wife and the two children, left home for Paris.  At Wasserburg their
carriage broke down, and a day's delay was caused while it was being
repaired.  Leopold Mozart writes to his friend Hagenauer:


"The latest thing is that, to amuse ourselves, we went to the organ,
and I explained the pedals to Wolferl, whereupon he at once, _stante
pede_, began to try them.  Pushing back the stool and standing, he
preluded, stepping about on the pedals just as if he had practised
for many months.  All were amazed; it is a new gift of God, which
many only attain after much trouble."


After passing through Munich, Augsburg, Mainz, Frankfort, Cologne,
and Brussels, giving many concerts by the way, they reached Paris on
November 18, where they were the guests of the Bavarian Ambassador,
Count von Eyck, whose wife was the daughter of an official at
Salzburg.  By means of introductions which he had brought with him,
Leopold Mozart soon obtained permission for his children to play at
Court, where the King's daughters showed themselves extremely
friendly to them.  The father in one of his letters tells how they
went on New Year's Day to the supper-room of the royal family, and
how Wolfgang stood near the Queen, who fed him with sweetmeats and
talked to him in German, interpreting his answers to the King, who
did not understand the language.  Every where the child's
performances excited the greatest wonder and admiration.  Not only
would he play anything set before him at first sight, but he would
transpose or accompany from a full score; his improvisations are also
spoken of as remarkable, not only for their melodic interest but for
their harmony.

[Illustration: MOZART WITH HIS FATHER AND SISTER.  (_From a rare
print._)]

It was while he was in Paris that his father had his first
compositions printed for him.  These were four sonatas for piano and
violin, published in two sets, the first of which was dedicated to
the Princess Victoria, the second daughter of the King, and the
second to the Comtesse de Tesse, lady-in-waiting to the Dauphiness.
It is not too much to say that these four sonatas are the most
remarkable examples in existence of precocious musical genius.  It is
not so much that they show great originality in their subject-matter,
though in the slow movements, especially in that of the fourth
sonata, foreshadowings of the riper Mozart may be seen; it is the
wonderful command of form, the feeling for rhythm and for balance in
the different parts of a movement which excite astonishment.  The
harmony, too, is for the most part absolutely correct, though in one
place--in the minuet of the fourth sonata--consecutive fifths are to
be seen.  Leopold Mozart had corrected them in the proofs, but the
correction had not been made before printing, and the father consoled
himself with the reflection that they would serve as a proof that the
boy had really composed the sonatas himself, which people might
otherwise have been not unnaturally inclined to doubt.

In April, 1764, the Mozarts left Paris and came to London.  George
III. and Queen Charlotte were both extremely fond of music, and the
success the children had met with in Paris was even surpassed at the
English Court.  Wolfgang played at first sight pieces by Wagenseil,
Bach, Abel, and Handel, which the King placed before him; he
accompanied the Queen in a song and a flutist in a solo; finally, he
took a bass part of one of Handel's songs, and extemporized a
beautiful melody above it.  His father wrote of him at this time: "It
surpasses all conception.  What he knew when we left Salzburg is a
mere shadow to what he knows now.  My girl, though only twelve, is
one of the cleverest players in Europe; and the mighty Wolfgang, to
put it briefly, knows all, in this his eighth year, that one could
ask from a man of forty.  In short, anyone who does not see and hear
it cannot believe it.  You all in Salzburg know nothing about it, for
the matter is quite different now."

On June 5 Leopold Mozart gave a concert to introduce his children to
a London public.  The result was a great success, and he, in his own
words, "was frightened at taking one hundred guineas in three hours."
Subsequently Wolfgang played the piano and organ at a concert given
at Ranelagh Gardens for a charitable object.  In August Leopold
Mozart was attacked by a dangerous inflammation of the throat, which
confined him to the house for seven weeks, during which time no music
was heard.  Wolfgang utilized the occasion by writing his first
symphony for orchestra, and his sister afterwards told how, when she
was sitting at his side, he said to her: "Remind me to give the horns
something good."  Like the first sonatas already spoken of, the first
symphony, though not remarkable for its themes, shows the wonderful
knowledge of instrumental forms that the child had almost intuitively
acquired.

After the father's recovery the family were again invited to Court on
October 29 for the festivities on the fourth anniversary of the
King's coronation.  In recognition of the royal favour, Leopold
Mozart had six sonatas by Wolfgang for piano and violin engraved at
his own expense.  They were dedicated to the Queen, who rewarded the
composer with a present of fifty guineas.  These sonatas, though
concise in form and bearing marks of immaturity, already show a
perceptible advance on those printed a year earlier in Paris.

It was in London, at the Italian Opera, that the young composer first
had the opportunity of hearing great singers.  Chief among these were
the male soprani, Manzuoli and Tenducci, the former of whom gave him
lessons in singing.  How he profited by them we learn from his friend
Grimm, who, hearing him in Paris on his return there in the following
year, writes that he sang with as much feeling as taste.  With so
impressionable a nature as his, it can scarcely be doubted that these
early lessons contributed not a little to the formation of that pure
style of vocal writing so characteristic of his music for the theatre
and the church.

Finding that, when the novelty had worn off, the performances of his
children no longer attracted the same attention as before, the
Mozarts left London on July 24, 1765, on a visit to the Hague, as the
Princess von Weilburg, sister of the Prince of Orange, was very
anxious to see the boy.  They were most graciously received, but had
not been long at the Hague when Marianne was taken so dangerously ill
that her life was despaired of, and extreme unction was administered.
Scarcely was she recovered when Wolfgang was seized with a violent
fever, which confined him to his bed for several weeks.  Even during
this illness his ruling passion showed itself.  He would have a board
laid upon his bed on which he could write, and even when he was
weakest it was difficult to restrain him from writing and playing.

In January, 1766, two concerts were given in Amsterdam, the
programmes of which consisted entirely of Wolfgang's instrumental
compositions.  Two months later they returned to the Hague to be
present at the festivities of the coming of age of the Prince of
Orange.  Here Wolfgang, at the desire of the Princess of Weilburg,
wrote six more sonatas for piano and violin, besides several smaller
pieces for her.

We must pass briefly over the remainder of this long tour.  Passing
through Mechlin, they returned to Paris, thence by Dijon and Lyons to
Switzerland, where they stayed some time.  It was not till the end of
November, 1766, that, after an absence of nearly three years and a
half, the family found themselves once more at home at Salzburg.

It has been advisable to give in considerable detail the particulars
of Mozart's earliest years because the precocious development of his
genius is absolutely without a parallel in the case of any other
composer.  The limits of the present volume will render it needful to
be somewhat more concise in dealing with the rest of the biography.
It is characteristic of the young Wolfgang that his simple nature
does not appear to have been in the least spoiled by successes which
were enough to have turned the head of an adult.  Jahn tells us that
he would ride round the room on his father's stick, or jump up from
the piano in the middle of his extemporizing to go and play with a
favourite cat.  Doubtless the judicious training he received from his
good and wise father furnishes the explanation of this estimable
trait in his character.

For nearly a year the family remained at home, Wolfgang working hard
both at playing and composing.  The chief works belonging to this
period, on none of which it is necessary to dwell, are the first four
concertos for the piano, a small sacred cantata, _Grabmusik_, and the
Latin comedy, _Apollo et Hyacinthus_, written for performance by the
students of the Salzburg University.  In September, 1767, the whole
family left home on a second visit to Vienna, with the intention of
being present at the marriage of the Archduchess Maria Josepha with
King Ferdinand of Naples, which was shortly to take place.
Unfortunately, within a month after their arrival the Archduchess was
carried off by small-pox, and Leopold Mozart with all his family fled
to Olmütz.  His children, nevertheless, did not escape; both were
attacked by the complaint, with such severity in the case of Wolfgang
that he lay blind for nine days.  With the greatest kindness the Dean
of Olmütz, Count Podstatsky, who was also a Canon of Salzburg, and
therefore knew Mozart, received the whole family into his house,
procuring for them the best medical attendance and nursing.

Returning to Vienna in January, 1768, they soon experienced
difficulties of all kinds.  The Empress Maria Theresa, it is true, as
soon as she heard of the dangerous illness of the children whom she
had so admired five years before, sent for them; but this visit
brought them little profit, for the Emperor was parsimonious, and the
nobility followed his example.  Even more adverse were the conditions
as regards the general public.  The Viennese at that time, as Leopold
Mozart says in one of his letters, had no desire to see anything
serious and sensible, and little or no idea of it; all they cared for
was buffoonery, farces, or pantomime.  The infant prodigy had been a
"draw" in 1762; but they cared little or nothing for the development
of the artist a few years later.  Added to this was the active
opposition of envious musicians.  Those who had admired the young
child now dreaded the boy of twelve as a dangerous rival.  The father
says:


"I found that all the clavier players and composers in Vienna opposed
our progress, with the single exception of Wagenseil, and he, as he
is ill, can do little or nothing for us.  The great rule with these
people was carefully to avoid all opportunity of seeing us or of
examining into Wolfgang's knowledge.  And why?  So that they, in so
many cases when they were asked if they have heard this boy and what
they think of him, might always be able to say that they had not
heard him, and that it was impossible it could be true; that it was
humbug and harlequinade; that matters had been arranged, and that the
things given him to play were what he knew already; that it was
ridiculous to think he could compose.  You see, that is why they
avoid us.  For anyone who has seen and heard him can no longer say
this without the risk of dishonour.  I have trapped one of these
people.  We had arranged with someone to let us know quietly when he
would be present.  He was to come and bring an extraordinarily
difficult concerto.  We managed the matter, and he had the
opportunity of hearing his concerto played off by Wolfgang as if he
knew it by heart.  The astonishment of this composer and performer,
the expressions which he used in his admiration, gave us all to
understand what I have just been pointing out to you.  At last he
said: 'I can, as an honourable man, say nothing else than that this
boy is the greatest man now living in the world; it was impossible to
believe.'"


Isolated cases of this kind could do but little to stem the torrent
of calumny and depreciation to which the young composer was exposed.
But now the Emperor came forward and proposed that Wolfgang should
write an opera.  The proposal was eagerly accepted; the father saw
that a success would not only establish the lad's reputation in
Vienna, but would pave the way for further successes in Italy.  The
text of an opera buffa, _La Finta Semplice_, was obtained from
Coltellini, the poet connected with the theatre, and Wolfgang set to
work at once.  The score, which contained twenty-five numbers and 558
pages, was soon completed.  Jahn, who gives a detailed analysis of
the whole opera, concludes his criticism by saying that the work was
fully equal to those at that time to be heard on the stage, while in
single numbers it surpassed them in nobility and originality of
invention and treatment, while it pointed clearly to a greater
future.  And this, be it remembered, was the composition of a boy of
twelve!

In spite of the support of the Emperor, the unscrupulous intrigues of
Mozart's enemies, of which his father's letters convey a vivid idea,
so influenced the manager of the theatre, Affligio--a scoundrel who,
it is satisfactory to learn, ended his days at the galleys--that the
opera was never produced.  By way of consolation, however, the father
had the pleasure of hearing a German operetta by Wolfgang performed.
This was _Bastien und Bastienne_, a piece in one act, which was
written for Dr. Messmer, a rich amateur who had built a small theatre
in his garden.  Wolfgang was also commissioned to compose the music
for the dedication of the chapel of an orphan asylum, and to conduct
the performance of the same.  For this occasion he composed his first
Mass (in G major), and an offertorium, _Veni sancte Spiritus_, of
which the latter is the more striking.

On the return of the Mozart family to Salzburg, about the end of
1768, the Archbishop, gratified at the success obtained by a native
of the city, had the opera performed by musicians who were in his
service.  He further appointed Wolfgang concertmeister--that is,
leader of the orchestra--and his name appears in this capacity in the
Court calendars of 1770.




THE YOUTH (1769-1778)

The greater part of the year 1769 was spent quietly at Salzburg,
where Wolfgang, under his father's direction, diligently pursued his
studies.  In December of that year the father and son set off for
Italy, Leopold rightly feeling that such a tour would not only be
advantageous to Wolfgang's reputation as a musician, but would
enlarge his views and give him wider experience of the world.

The lad was now no longer an infant prodigy, but, it might almost be
said, already a mature artist, whose powers were ripening daily,
thanks hardly less to his father's judicious training than to his own
natural genius.  It is noteworthy that he never seems to have been in
the least spoiled by his successes; he remained the same natural,
affectionate boy that he had always been.  The letters that he wrote
during his tour to his sister at home are full of charm.  While often
overflowing with fun, they also show how acute a critic he was of the
music which he heard, and how keen an observer of all that passed
around him.  In this respect they may be compared with the letters
written from Italy more than sixty years later by Mendelssohn.

Travelling by way of Innsbruck, Roveredo, and Verona, and meeting
everywhere with a most enthusiastic reception, Mozart, with his
father, reached Mantua on January 10, 1770.  The Philharmonic Society
of the city gave a concert on the 16th of the same month, which was
in reality a public exhibition of Wolfgang's powers.  The programme
has fortunately been preserved, and we learn from it that in addition
to two of his symphonies, of which he probably directed the
performance, he played at first sight a concerto for the harpsichord
that was placed before him.  He also played at sight a sonata,
introducing variations of his own, and afterwards transposed the
whole piece into another key.  More remarkable still was his
improvisation.  He extemporized a sonata and a regularly constructed
fugue on themes given him at the moment.  He also sang and composed
extempore a song on words not previously seen, accompanying himself
on the harpsichord.

The travellers' next stay was at Milan, where they found a warm
friend in Count Firmian, the Governor-General of Lombardy, who
interested himself with such success on behalf of Wolfgang that the
latter received a commission to compose an opera for the next season,
after giving proof of his powers for serious opera by setting three
songs from the poems of Metastasio.

Passing through Parma, Bologna (where they made the acquaintance of
the celebrated theorist Padre Martini) and Florence, the Mozarts
arrived in Rome during Holy Week.  It was on this occasion that
Wolfgang performed the feat, so often recorded, of writing down from
memory Allegri's _Miserere_ after having heard it sung, in the
Sistine Chapel.  After a visit for a month to Naples, they returned
to Rome, where the Pope invested Wolfgang with the order of the
Golden Spur.

Revisiting Bologna on his return journey, the lad received the honour
of being elected a member of the Philharmonic Society of that city.
As a test-piece he composed an antiphon in four parts, _Quœrite
primum regnum Dei_, in the strict contrapuntal style of the old
Church music.  His father, writing home an account of the affair,
says:


"The princeps academiæ and the two censors, who are all old
kapellmeisters, put before him in the presence of all the members an
antiphon from the Antiphonarium, which he was to set in four parts in
an adjoining room, to which he was conducted by the beadle and locked
in.  When he had finished it, it was examined by the censors and all
the kapellmeisters and composers, who then voted upon it with black
and white balls.  As all the balls were white, he was called in, and
all clapped on his entry, and applauded him after the princeps
academiæ had announced his reception in the name of the society.  He
returned thanks, and all was over.  I was meantime shut up in the
library on the other side of the hall.  All were astonished that he
had done it so quickly, as many take three hours over an antiphon of
three lines.  You should know, though, that it is no easy task, for
there are many things forbidden in this kind of composition, as he
had been previously told.  He finished it in exactly half an hour."


While staying at Bologna, Mozart received from Milan the libretto of
the opera which he was to write.  According to his custom, he wrote
the recitatives first, deferring the composition of the airs till he
had made acquaintance with the singers, in order that he might suit
them the better with their parts.  On October 18, Wolfgang and his
father returned to Milan, and the boy at once set to work diligently
to finish the opera, which was to be produced at Christmas.  The
subject of the work was _Mitridate, Re di Ponto_, the libretto being
written by a poet of Turin named Cigna-Santi.  All the airs were
written after consultation with those who were to sing them.

As at Vienna, so at Milan: jealous musicians intrigued to hinder the
success of the work, but their efforts were in vain.  The principal
singers and the members of the orchestra were delighted with the
music, and on December 26 it was produced, with so brilliant a result
as to silence the detractors.  The opera was repeated twenty times to
always crowded houses, and with ever-increasing success.  At the end
of March, 1771, Wolfgang was again in Salzburg.

Two important musical works were the result of the success of
_Mitridate_.  The impresario at Milan engaged Wolfgang to write an
opera for the season of 1773, while the Empress Maria Theresa
commissioned him to compose a theatrical serenata for the marriage of
the Archduke Ferdinand, which was to take place at Milan in October,
1771.  The work was _Ascanio in Alba_, which was produced on October
17 with very complete success.  The celebrated Hasse, a friend of the
Mozarts, and an honourable man, who had always sided with Wolfgang
against his detractors, had written an opera, _Ruggiero_, for the
same festivities.  Leopold Mozart writes home: "I am sorry that
Wolfgang's serenata has so eclipsed Hasse's opera that it is
indescribable."  Hasse himself was generous enough to acknowledge his
defeat, and to say: "This youth will make us all to be forgotten," a
prophecy that has been amply fulfilled.

During the greater part of the year 1772 Wolfgang was at home,
composing music of almost every kind.  An event which took place at
this time had an important influence on his future.  This was the
death of the Archbishop of Salzburg, and the election in his place of
Hieronymus, Count of Colloredo, a haughty and surly man, who cared
nothing whatever for music.  For his installation Mozart composed the
one-act allegorical opera, _Il Sogno di Scipione_--not one of his
stronger works.  In November of the same year we find him once more
in Milan, busy with the new opera that he had been engaged to write.
This was _Lucio Silla_, the words of which were written by a local
poet.  It was produced on December 26, and repeated more than twenty
times to crowded houses.  The opera contains some beautiful numbers;
but Mozart had not yet emancipated himself from tradition, and it is
not till some years later that his dramatic genius shows itself in
its full strength.  After the production of _Lucio Silla_, Leopold
Mozart, with his son, remained some time in Italy, in the hope of the
latter obtaining an appointment in the Court of the Grand Duke
Leopold at Florence.  This hope was not realized, and in March they
returned to Salzburg.

[Illustration: THE MOZART FAMILY.  (_From the painting by Van de la
Croce, 1780, in the Mozart Museum._)]

With the exception of a two months' visit to Vienna, Mozart remained
at home for the rest of the year and for nearly the whole of the
following one, composing almost incessantly and in nearly every
style.  To this period belong two of his best Masses--those in F and
D--the fine _Litaniœ Lauretanœ_ in D, four symphonies, six
quartetts, concertos for various instruments, serenades,
divertimenti, and smaller pieces of all kinds.  In the course of the
year 1774 Mozart received a commission to write a comic opera for
Munich for the Carnival of 1775, and in December of that year he went
there with his father.  The opera which he had to write was _La Finta
Giardiniera_, the libretto of which had already been set to music by
Piccinni in 1770 and Anfossi in 1774.  The first performance took
place on January 13, 1775, with a success which the composer
described the next day in a letter to his mother:


"My opera was produced yesterday, and had, thank God! such success
that I cannot possibly describe to mamma the noise and commotion....
At the close of every air there was a terrible noise with clapping
and shouting 'Viva maestro!' ... I and my father afterwards went into
a room through which the whole Court pass, and where I kissed the
hands of the Elector, the Electress, and others of the nobility, who
were all very gracious.  His Highness the Bishop of Chiemsee sent to
me early this morning with congratulations on my success."


Very interesting is the following extract from Schubert's "Teutsche
Chronik":


"I have also heard an opera buffa by the wonderful genius Mozart; it
is called _La Finta Ciardiniera_.  Flames of genius flashed forth
here and there; but it is not yet the quiet fire on the altar which
rises to heaven in clouds of incense--a perfume sweet to the gods.
If Mozart is not a plant forced in a hot-house, he must become one of
the greatest musical composers that has ever lived."


In the music of _La Finta Giardiniera_ a great advance on any of
Mozart's previous operas is to be seen.  Not only is there a richness
of melodic invention worthy to compare with that of his later and
greater works, but there is more organic unity in the music as a
whole.  Though some of the airs now appear unduly spun out, it must
be remembered that long solos were the fashion of the day.  The
orchestra is treated with more independence than hitherto, and the
score abounds with beautiful effects of colouring, though in most
numbers but few wind instruments are employed.  The great duet toward
the close of the third act and the elaborate finales which conclude
the first and second acts are admirable, and might be inserted into
_Figaro_ without producing too strong a feeling of incongruity.

Among those who witnessed the triumph of Mozart's opera was the
Archbishop of Salzburg, who was at the time on a visit to the Elector
of Bavaria.  Though he did not himself hear the work, he was
congratulated upon it by the members of the Court, and, as Mozart
records, "was so embarrassed as to be unable to make any reply except
by shaking his head and shrugging his shoulders."

Returning to Salzburg in March, 1775, Mozart remained there for
nearly three years--probably the least happy of his life.  The entire
want of appreciation showed him by the tyrannical Archbishop rendered
his position most irksome.  Though the final rupture did not come
till later, he was subjected to constant indignities, while the
remuneration he received was ridiculously disproportionate to the
services that he rendered, both as composer and performer.  Yet his
activity in production never ceased.  The catalogue of the
compositions he produced during these years is nearly as astonishing
for the large number of masterpieces it contains as for the variety
of style that it shows.  Nearly a hundred works, including four
symphonies, fifteen serenades and divertimenti, ten concertos for
various instruments, six sonatas for clavier, six Masses, the grand
Litany in E flat, a number of smaller works for the Church, the opera
_Il Rè Pastore_, many songs, some with orchestra, others with piano,
bear witness no less to his industry than to the fecundity of his
genius.  Many of these works were written for performance at the
Archbishop's palace, at which concerts were frequently given; but the
Archbishop, though fully knowing what a treasure he had in Mozart,
not only never paid him for any of his compositions, but insulted him
by contemptuous remarks about them, thinking this the best means of
keeping the young master from asking for an advance in his salary,
which, it should be said, amounted at this time to about £15 sterling
per annum!  On one occasion, as we learn from a letter written by
Leopold to Padre Martini, the Archbishop went so far as to tell
Wolfgang that he knew nothing about his art, and that he ought to go
to Naples to study.  It became more and more evident that there was
no prospect of the young man's obtaining an honourable and
remunerative post at Salzburg.  It was therefore decided that
Wolfgang should make another tour, in the hope of obtaining a better
appointment.  But when he applied for leave of absence that he might
earn some money as an addition to his small salary, the Archbishop
refused with the ungracious remark that "he could not suffer a man
going on begging expeditions."  Wolfgang thereupon tendered his
resignation, which the Archbishop angrily accepted.

As it was impossible for Leopold to accompany his son on this
journey--the Archbishop having refused him leave of
absence--Wolfgang's mother went with him.  They left Salzburg on
September 23, 1777, for Munich, where they stayed till October 11,
Wolfgang hoping either to find a post there or to obtain a commission
to write an opera.  From Munich they went to Augsburg, where Mozart
gave a concert which brought him much glory but very little profit.

On October 30 Mozart and his mother arrived at Mannheim.  The long
stay of between four and five months which they made in this place
had in more than one respect an important influence on Mozart's
future.  The orchestra at Mannheim was considered the finest in
Europe, and the young composer writes of it to his father in
enthusiastic terms.  He was especially struck by the clarinets, which
he here for the first time met with in the orchestra.  He writes:
"Ah, if we only had clarinets!  You cannot believe what a splendid
effect a symphony makes with flutes, oboes, and clarinets."  The
Mannheim orchestra included among its members many of the finest
performers on their respective instruments then living, and
contemporary testimony was to the effect that they were unsurpassed
in execution and finish.  The first kapellmeister was Christian
Cannabich, an excellent violinist, and a very good friend to Mozart;
the second was the Abbé Vogler, a clever but eccentric man, of whom
Mozart writes: "He is a fool, who fancies that there can exist
nothing better or more perfect than himself.  He is hated by the
whole orchestra.  His book will better teach arithmetic than
composition."  In another letter he gives a criticism of Vogler's
music which is so characteristic as to deserve quotation:


"Yesterday was again a gala day.  I attended the service, at which
was produced a bran new Mass by Vogler, which had been rehearsed only
the day before yesterday in the afternoon.  I stayed, however, no
longer than the end of the 'Kyrie.'  Such music I never before heard
in my life, for not only is the harmony often wrong, but he goes into
keys as if he would pull them in by the hair of the head, not
artistically, but plump, and without preparation.  Of the treatment
of the ideas I will not try to speak; I will only say that it is
quite impossible that any Mass by Vogler can satisfy a composer
worthy of the name.  For though one should discover an idea that is
not bad, that idea does not long remain in a negative condition, but
soon becomes--beautiful?  Heaven save the mark! it becomes
bad--extremely bad, and this in two or three different ways.  The
thought has scarcely had time to appear before something else comes
and destroys it, or it does not close so naturally as to remain good,
or it is not brought in in the right place, or it is spoiled by the
injudicious employment of the accompanying instruments.  Such is
Vogler's composition."


It is hardly surprising that there should be little sympathy or
cordiality between Vogler and Mozart, but there is no ground for the
suspicion entertained by Leopold Mozart that the Abbé was plotting
against his son.

Mozart was very desirous of obtaining an appointment at Mannheim
under the Elector, and this was one of the causes of his long stay
there.  But, as usual, nothing came of it.  The Elector was very
complimentary to the composer, but after a delay of nearly two months
finally said that he could do nothing.  It was therefore the father's
wish that they should continue the journey towards Paris.  Mozart,
however, was in no hurry to leave Mannheim; the society of the
members of the orchestra, some of whom--among them Wendling, the
flutist, and Ramm, the oboist--were close personal friends, was very
congenial.  But there was another and more powerful reason: he had
for the first time fallen seriously in love.  The object of his
affection was a young singer, Aloysia Weber, the second daughter of
Fridolin von Weber, at that time copyist and prompter in the Mannheim
theatre.  She was very beautiful, had a fine voice, and sang with
great taste and expression.  For her Mozart wrote one of the finest
of his concert arias, _Non so donde viene_; he also gave her lessons.
His affection would seem to have been returned, but his father was
not unnaturally opposed to the youth's fettering himself by such a
union.  Wolfgang's idea was to make a professional tour in company
with the Webers, and to try to procure engagements in Italy for the
young lady as a prima donna, and for himself as a composer, Leopold,
however, was experienced enough to see clearly that such a scheme was
impracticable, and that a young girl who had never appeared on the
stage would have no chance of success in an Italian theatre, however
well she might sing.  He therefore, in order to free his son from the
entanglement, wrote a long letter to him, putting the case very
plainly and sensibly, and urging him at once to go to Paris to try to
make a position there.  Like a dutiful son, as he always showed
himself, Wolfgang obeyed, and left Mannheim with a heavy heart on
March 14, 1778, arriving nine days later at Paris.

The time of his visit was not favourable to his hopes.  Musicians in
the French capital were busy with the great struggle for supremacy in
opera between Gluck and Piccinni, which was then at its height.
Besides this, the frivolous Parisian public, who had been so
attracted by the infant prodigy, cared little for the mature artist.
Mozart obtained an introduction to Le Gros, the director of the
Concert Spirituel, who gave him a commission to write some movements
of a _Miserere_, of which, however, only two choruses were performed.
Besides this, Mozart composed for the same concerts a _Sinfonie
Concertante_ for four wind instruments, with orchestra.  But once
more the intrigues of enemies pursued him.  Two days before the
concert was to be given the parts of the new work had not been
copied, and when Mozart went to Le Gros to inquire the reason, the
latter merely said that he had forgotten it.  Mozart suspected, and
probably correctly, that Cambini, an Italian composer whom he had
unintentionally offended, was at the bottom of it.

For the Duc de Guines, to whom he obtained an introduction through
his old friend Grimm, Mozart wrote a double concerto for the unusual
combination of flute and harp, to be played by the Duke and his
daughter.  The two instruments were those which Mozart detested; yet
the concerto, though not a great work, is most effectively written
for both instruments, and is very pleasing music.  Besides this, he
gave lessons in composition to the Duke's daughter, who, though a
clever performer, seems to have had but little idea of writing.
Mozart, in one of his letters to his father, gives a very amusing
account of a lesson in which he had tried to make the young lady
compose a minuet.  He wrote later that she was both stupid and lazy,
and he finally gave up the lessons in disgust.

Mozart's great desire, as always, was to write an opera, and, through
Noverre, the ballet-master of the Grand Opera, whose acquaintance he
had made in Vienna six years before, there seemed to be a fair
prospect of the realization of his wish.  Noverre set a librettist to
work, and the text of the first act of an opera was soon ready.
Meanwhile Noverre wanted some ballet music, and Mozart wrote for him
the overture and incidental dances for _Les Petits Riens_.  Nothing
more, however, came of the opera.  The composer, nevertheless, had
one musical success during his stay in Paris.  This was the
production at the Concert Spirituel of his symphony in D, known as
the "Parisian."  In a letter to his father Mozart tells how warmly it
was received, and how the audience were struck with certain passages
and began applauding in the middle of the movements.  There is no
doubt that the symphony was the finest that he had composed up to
that time; being written to suit the Parisian taste, it is lighter
and more brilliant in style than most of its predecessors, without
becoming thereby tawdry or frivolous.  This was the first symphony
that Mozart had scored for full orchestra, and the rich and varied
colouring of the wind instruments shows how he had profited by
listening to the fine performances at Mannheim.

Whether the success of his symphony would have led to Mozart's
ultimately obtaining a good appointment at Paris cannot be said, for
almost immediately after the production of the work a sad event
brought about an entire change in his plans.  This was the death of
his mother, which occurred on July 3, 1778, after a fortnight's
illness.  His father was anxious, for more than one reason, that he
should return home.  Not only was there the natural desire for his
son's company and support in his bereavement, there was also the
apprehension that the young man, now that his mother's restraining
influence was removed, might fall into the hands of bad companions.

At this juncture an opening unexpectedly presented itself in
Salzburg.  The Archbishop had by this time become conscious of the
mistake he had made in allowing the young genius to leave him, and
was anxious to have him back if possible.  The death of the old
kapellmeister Lolli, which occurred at this time, gave the Archbishop
the opportunity he desired, and, after long negotiations, Lolli's
post was offered to Leopold Mozart, and that of second kapellmeister
to his son, whose salary was to be 500 florins a year.  It was also
conceded that he should have leave of absence whenever he wanted to
write an opera.

Greatly as Mozart disliked Salzburg--and with good reason, after the
Archbishop's treatment of him--he at once yielded to his father's
wishes, and accepted the post.  There can be no doubt that he did so
all the more readily in consequence of one piece of news contained in
his father's letter.  This was that his beloved Aloysia Weber was
engaged to sing at Salzburg, and would be living with the Mozarts.
He therefore left Paris on September 26, travelling by way of
Strasburg, Mannheim, and Munich, at each of which places he remained
for some time.  At Munich he visited the Webers, who had removed
thither from Mannheim.  Here a great disappointment awaited him.  His
beloved Aloysia had proved faithless, and received him coldly.
Mozart thereupon sat down to the piano and sang, "Ich lass das Madel
gern, das mich nicht will," (I willingly leave the maid who does not
want me).  Aloysia subsequently made an unhappy marriage with an
actor named Lange, and became a distinguished prima donna.  In her
later years she confessed that she had failed to realize the genius
of Mozart, and saw in him nothing but a little man.




THE MAN (1779-179l)

In the middle of January, 1779, Mozart was once more in Salzburg, and
for nearly two years he remained in that city, busied with his duties
at the Archbishop's palace, and composing works of all kinds.  The
record of these years is chiefly one of almost ceaseless writing.
Many of Mozart's best and ripest works date from this period.  Among
these are the Mass in C, published as No. 1, though really the
composer's fourteenth.  This is one of the finest of the series, as
well as one of the most popular.  The "Agnus Dei," a solo, the chief
theme of which foreshadows the "Dove sono" of _Figaro_, was formerly
a favourite air with soprani who valued expression above mere
display.  Another important work dating from this period is the
incidental music to Gebler's drama _Thamos, König in Ægypten_.  This
music consists partly of entr'actes and incidental music, but it also
contains three magnificent and amply developed choruses, which may
justly be described as among the most noble choral pieces that Mozart
ever wrote.  The play was a failure, but the composer, regretting
that the music could not be used, had the choruses adapted to Latin
hymns; in this form they have become well-known and popular as the
three great motets, _Splendente te, Deus_, _Ne pulvis et cinis_, and
_Deus, tibi laus et honor_.  To this period also belong the two-act
German opera _Zaide_, two vespers, two symphonies, two great
serenades--one being the magnificent one for thirteen wind
instruments--the _Symphonie Concertante_ in E flat, for violin and
viola, the concerto in the same key for two pianos, and some of his
best sonatas for piano solo, besides smaller pieces, vocal and
instrumental, too numerous to mention.

In the latter part of the year 1780, Mozart received from the Elector
of Bavaria a commission to write an opera for Munich, for the
Carnival of 1781.  The Archbishop had promised him leave of absence,
and on November 6, 1780, he left Salzburg for the Bavarian capital.
The libretto was written by the Abbé Varesco, Court chaplain at
Salzburg, the subject selected being _Idomeneo_, and it was founded
on a French opera on the same subject that had been composed by
Campra, and produced in 1712.

Mozart, on his arrival in Munich, was received with open arms by his
many friends in that city, and he worked at the opera with an
enthusiasm that may be easily imagined.  Though his principal
vocalists were not all that he could have desired, he had a splendid
orchestra at his disposal, and from the first all the performers were
delighted with the music.  His letters to his father while writing
the opera are full of interesting details.  After the first
rehearsal, Ramm, the first oboe, an old friend of the composer,
assured him that he had never yet heard any music that made so great
an effect upon him.  Mozart's father, who was most anxious for the
complete success of the work, wrote urging his son "to think not only
of the musical, but also of the unmusical public.  You know, there
are a hundred without knowledge to every one connoisseur, so do not
forget the so-called 'popular' that tickles even the long ears."
Wolfgang replied: "Don't trouble yourself about the so-called
'popular,' for in my opera is music for all kinds of people--only not
for the long ears."

_Idomeneo_ was produced on January 29, 1781, with a success that must
have satisfied not only the composer, but also his father and sister,
who came over from Salzburg to hear it.  In this opera we find Mozart
in his full maturity.  Whether in the flow of his melody, the
richness of the harmony, the power of dramatic characterization, or
the beauty and variety of the orchestration, this work shows a
decided advance on any of its predecessors, and marks a turning-point
in the history of dramatic music.

Thanks to the fact that the Archbishop of Salzburg was at this time
in Vienna, Mozart was able to prolong his visit to Munich; but in
March he was summoned to join his employer, and on March 12 he
arrived in Vienna.  Here he was treated by the Archbishop with the
utmost indignity; not only was he made to take his meals with the
servants, but he was refused permission to take any engagements
whereby he might add to his meagre income.  Insult followed insult,
till at length the crisis came, and Mozart resigned the appointment
which his self-respect forbade him longer to hold, and determined to
seek his fortune in Vienna.

Though now thrown entirely on his own resources, Mozart was very
sanguine about the future.  At first he earned only a precarious
livelihood by playing at fashionable parties and teaching the piano;
but he looked forward with great hopes to obtaining an appointment
with the Emperor Joseph II.  But the monarch, though always affable
and even cordial to the composer, preferred Italian music to the more
solid style of Mozart, whom he esteemed as a pianist rather than as a
composer.  "He cares for no one but Salieri," said Mozart of him; and
there can be no doubt that the influence of the Italian on the
Emperor was very great.  Salieri, a musician of talent, though not of
genius, saw in Mozart a formidable rival, and, while outwardly
polite, secretly intrigued against him.

Joseph II. took great interest in the establishment of a school of
German opera, and engaged an excellent company of vocalists, among
whom was Mozart's old flame, Aloysia Weber, for the theatre.  Mozart,
who always delighted in writing for the stage, had brought with him
to Vienna his German opera _Zaide_.  He scarcely hoped that it would
be produced, as he thought the libretto unsuited to the Viennese
public; but Stephanie, the inspector of the opera, was so pleased
with the music that he promised to give Mozart a good text to set.
The Emperor was quite willing to see what the composer could do in
German opera; and in July Mozart, to his great delight, received the
libretto of _Belmont und Constanze_, now known under its second
title, _Die Entführung aus dem Serail_.  Owing to various causes,
among others the cabals of Mozart's enemies, the production of the
opera was much delayed; it was only by the express command of the
Emperor that it was at length performed for the first time on July
13, 1782.  It was of this opera that the Emperor said to the
composer: "Too fine for our ears, and an immense number of notes, my
dear Mozart!" which called forth the reply: "Exactly as many notes,
your Majesty, as are needful."

The success of the work was immediate and complete.  Here Mozart was
virtually on new ground.  Excepting the operetta _Bastien und
Bastienne_ and the _Zaide_ above-mentioned, all Mozart's preceding
operas had been written to Italian words; and though in _Idomeneo_ a
fusion of Italian and German styles is to be seen, it is not till
_Die Entführung_ that we find an important work genuinely German in
character.  Of Italian influence there is but little trace except in
some parts of the music allotted to Constanze.  This role was
undertaken by Madame Cavalieri, a great bravura singer, but little
more; and many of the florid passages in her songs remind one of the
popular ornate style of the day.  It is difficult to speak too highly
of the wealth of melodic invention, the truth of expression, or the
skill shown in differentiating the various characters of the drama to
be found in this work, while the picturesqueness of the orchestration
is perhaps even superior to that of _Idomeneo_, and certainly far
surpasses that of any of the early operas.

At this time Mozart's old friends, the Webers, had removed to Vienna,
and the composer had resumed his intercourse with them.  A mutual
attachment had grown up between him and Constanze, a younger sister
of Aloysia, who had jilted him.  He wrote to his father asking his
consent to his marriage; but Leopold, knowing that his son had no
regular appointment, and that his income was precarious, strongly
opposed the step, and for some time the course of true love by no
means ran smooth.

Through the influence of a patroness of Mozart, the Baroness von
Waldstadten, the obstacles were ultimately surmounted, and the
marriage was celebrated at the Baroness's house on August 4, 1782.
Though the union was, from one point of view, very happy, owing to
the true affection that existed between husband and wife, it cannot
be doubted that it was, to a great extent, the cause of much of
Mozart's later troubles.  Constanze, though endowed with many
excellent qualities, was a bad housekeeper, while Mozart, besides
being generous to a fault, had not the least capacity for business,
nor even any idea of economy.  No wonder, then, that when to the care
and expense of a young family was added a long and severe illness of
the wife, they were often in sore pecuniary difficulties.  Jahn says
that if Mozart had been as good a man of business as his father, he
would have done very well in Vienna, for he earned a very good
income.  As a matter of fact, from this time to the end of his
career, his life was one long struggle, and not always a successful
one, to keep his head above water.

Mozart's chief source of income at this time seems to have been
derived from his playing, for he was in great demand, not only at
concerts, but in the houses of the nobility.  According to the
unanimous verdict of his contemporaries, he was the greatest pianist
and (in the best sense of the term) virtuoso of his day.  After his
death, Joseph Haydn is reported to have said, with tears in his eyes:
"I can never forget Mozart's playing; it came from the heart."  The
Emperor also highly appreciated the composer's genius, and it is
probably only owing to the intrigues of the Italian musicians by whom
he was surrounded that he did not confer some adequately paid
appointment upon Mozart.

In July, 1783, shortly after the birth of his first child, Mozart
took his wife to Salzburg to introduce her to his father and sister.
He had, before his marriage, made a vow that, if ever Constanze
became his wife, he would compose a new Mass for performance at
Salzburg.  The work was not quite completed, but he supplied the
missing numbers from one of his earlier Masses.  As the Archbishop of
Salzburg refused permission for the Mass to be performed in the
cathedral, it was given in St. Peter's Church, Constanze singing the
principal soprano part.  The Mass, which is in C minor, is laid out
on a much larger scale than those which Mozart wrote for Salzburg,
the "Gloria" being in seven movements, while two of the choruses are
in five and one in eight parts.  The work is a curious mixture; many
of the choruses are quite elevated in style, and not unworthy of the
"Requiem" itself.  The solos are much lighter, and of a florid
character.  Mozart never finished the Mass, but he used the music two
years later for his cantata, _Davide Penitente_.

During his visit to Salzburg Mozart began work on two new buffo
operas, _L'Oca del Cairo_, the libretto by Varesco, who had written
the text of _Idomeneo_, and _Lo Sposo Deluso_, by an unknown poet.
Neither work, however, was completed.

After his return to Vienna in October, 1783, Mozart's time was fully
occupied with concerts and composition.  The year 1784 saw the birth
of many of his finest works, which at this time were exclusively
instrumental.  Among them are several of his best piano concertos,
which he wrote for his own performance at concerts in which he took
part.  The list also includes the great sonata in C minor for the
piano, a work not without influence on Beethoven, and the beautiful
sonata in B flat for piano and violin, composed for Mdlle.
Strinasacchi, a young violinist for whose benefit concert, Mozart had
promised to write a new work.  Being pressed for time, Mozart had
deferred writing the sonata till the day before the concert, when the
young lady, with much trouble, obtained from him the violin part
only.  She practised it the next morning, and in the evening played
it with the composer without any rehearsal.  The Emperor was present
at the concert, and, looking through his opera-glass, noticed that
Mozart had a blank sheet of music-paper before him.  After the sonata
was finished, the Emperor sent a message that he wished to see the
manuscript.  The composer brought the blank sheet.  "What, Mozart!"
said Joseph, "at your tricks again?"  "Please your Majesty," was the
reply, "there was not a note lost."  Only musicians will be able
fully to appreciate the wonderful feat of memory which such a
performance involved.

In 1785 Leopold Mozart returned his son's visit, and it was at this
time that he made the acquaintance of Joseph Haydn, with whom
Wolfgang was on intimate terms.  Leopold met Haydn for the first time
at a party at his son's house, where three of Mozart's recently
composed quartetts were played.  It was on that occasion that Haydn
said to the proud father: "I declare to you before God, and as a man
of honour, that your son is the greatest composer that I know; he has
taste, and beyond that the most consummate knowledge of the art of
composition."

In February, 1786, was produced the music to _Der
Schauspieldirector_, a German comedy in one act, for some festivities
given by the Emperor at Schönbrunn.  Mozart's share of the work
consisted merely of an overture and four vocal numbers.  Though the
music is extremely melodious, it adds nothing to the composer's fame.
Far more interesting and important were the two piano concertos in A
major and C minor, both written in March of the same year.  But all
other compositions of this time sink into insignificance by the side
of the opera _Le Nozze di Figaro_, which was produced in Vienna on
May 1, 1786.  The libretto was adapted by Lorenzo da Ponte, a
theatrical poet who was a favourite with the Emperor, from
Beaumarchais' comedy, "Le Mariage de Figaro."  The subject was
suggested by the composer himself.  As on so many previous occasions,
there were violent intrigues against the piece; but, thanks probably
in a great measure to the support of the Emperor, these were
unsuccessful, and the Irish singer, Michael Kelly, who took the part
of Basilio at the first performance, says in his "Reminiscences":
"Never was anything more complete than the triumph of Mozart and his
_Nozze di Figaro_, to which numerous overflowing audiences bore
witness."  Almost more enthusiasm was shown at Prague, where the
opera was given a few months later.  At the invitation of some of his
friends, Mozart went to Prague to witness the success of his work.
His reception there was overwhelming.  Two concerts which he gave in
the city realized a profit of 1,000 florins.  At the first of these
was produced the fine symphony in D known as the "Prague Symphony."
At the same concert he extemporized, in his own masterly manner, for
half an hour, after which, in reply to a call for "something from
_Figaro_," he improvised variations on "Non più andrai."  This visit
had an important result.  Mozart remarked to Bondini, the manager of
the theatre, that, as the people of Prague appreciated him so much,
he should like to write an opera for them, whereupon the manager took
him at his word, and commissioned an opera from him for the following
season.

[Illustration: MOZART IN 1791.  (_From an original at Salzburg._)]

As the libretto of _Figaro_ had suited him so well, it was only
natural that Mozart should again apply to Da Ponte for a book for the
new work.  The subject chosen was the old legend of _Don Giovanni_,
and in September, 1787, Mozart and his wife went to Prague in order
that he might, as was his custom, be near the artists who were to
sing in the work.  Meanwhile his pen had been by no means idle.  From
the autograph catalogue of his works, which he began to keep in 1784
and continued till his last illness, we find that between _Figaro_
and _Don Giovanni_ he wrote thirty works, including some of the more
important of his compositions in the domain of chamber music.  Among
these maybe specially named the string quintetts in C major and G
minor, the two great pianoforte duet sonatas in F and C, the charming
trio in E flat for piano, clarinet, and viola, and the sonata in A
for piano and violin.

Arrived in Prague, Mozart first lodged at an inn, but later removed
to the house of his friend Duschek, in the suburbs of the city.  Here
a great part of the opera was written, each number being sent to the
singers as soon as it was completed.  Visitors to Prague are still
shown the summer-house with a stone table in the garden of Duschek's
house, at which Mozart used to work at his opera while his friends
were playing at bowls.  It is said that he would leave his work from
time to time to take his part in the game, and then resume it without
having lost the thread of his ideas.  The story has often been told
how, on the night before the production of the opera, the overture
was still unwritten.  Mozart had parted late in the evening from his
friends, and his wife mixed him a glass of punch and sat up with him
while he wrote, telling him fairy tales to keep him awake.  At last
sleep overpowered him, and she persuaded him to lie down for an hour
or two.  At five she woke him, and when at seven the copyist came for
the score the overture was ready.  There was barely time to get the
parts copied before the evening, and the excellent orchestra played
it at sight without rehearsal.  Mozart, who was conducting, said to
the players near him: "A good many notes fell under the desks, but it
went very well."

The first performance of _Don Giovanni_ took place on October 29,
1787, and excited the utmost enthusiasm.  Unfortunately, the
composer's father was not able to witness his son's triumph, as he
had died in the preceding May, after a long illness.  Mozart returned
to Vienna shortly after the production of his opera, but his success
brought about but little improvement in his pecuniary circumstances.
True, the Emperor appointed him "kammermusikus" in December, but the
salary attached to the post--800 florins--was ridiculously small.
His only duty was to write dance music for the masked balls of the
Imperial Court; this caused him to make the bitter remark that his
salary was too much for what he did, and too little for what he could
do.

On May 7, 1788, _Don Giovanni_ was given at Vienna.  For this
performance the composer had written three additional numbers, two of
which were Don Ottavio's air, "Dalla sua pace," and Elvira's "Mi
tradi quell' alma ingrata."  The work, nevertheless, proved a
failure; the style was too novel for the taste of the audience.  The
Emperor, after hearing it, said: "The opera is divine--perhaps even
more beautiful than _Figaro_--but it is no food for the teeth of my
Viennese."  When this was repeated to Mozart, he said: "Let us give
them time to chew it, then!" and, by his advice, the opera was
repeated at short intervals until the public became accustomed to its
beauties.  The applause increased at each fresh performance.

The most important works composed in the year 1788 were the three
great symphonies in E flat, G minor, and C major (generally known as
the "Jupiter"), the last of forty-nine which Mozart wrote.  In these
he rises to a height which in his previous instrumental works he had
seldom attained.  The symphony in G minor, unquestionably the finest
work ever written for a small orchestra, has never been surpassed in
its combination of passion and pathos; while the finale of the
"Jupiter" symphony, with its elaborate fugal counterpoint, still
remains without a rival in its combination of the most consummate
learning with the utmost profusion of melodic invention.

It was toward the close of this year that the Baron van Swieten, an
enthusiastic lover of Handel's music, commissioned Mozart to arrange
_Acis and Galatea_ for performance at some concerts with which the
Baron was connected, and of which he superintended the preparation.
In Mozart's autograph catalogue, already spoken of, we find that the
arrangement was made in November, 1788.  In the course of the
following year he made a similar arrangement of the _Messiah_, and,
in 1790, of _Alexander's Feast_ and the _Ode for St. Cecilia's Day_.
Space will not allow a detailed criticism of these arrangements; it
must suffice to say that, while often extremely beautiful, they are
not always in accordance with Handel's spirit or intentions, the
probable explanation being that Mozart, as we learn from Otto Jahn,
knew but little of Handel's music till introduced to it by Baron van
Swieten.

In 1789 Mozart accepted an invitation from his pupil and patron,
Prince Karl Lichnowsky, to accompany him on a visit to Berlin.  The
composer, whose pecuniary position was still very precarious, no
doubt hoped that he might find some post in the North of Germany
which would be worthy of his acceptance and relieve him from his
pressing embarrassments.  Leaving Vienna on April 8, he arrived four
days later at Dresden, where he played before the Court, receiving
for his performance the sum of 100 ducats.  Thence he proceeded to
Leipzig, where he made the acquaintance of Rochlitz, who, in his "Für
Freunde der Tonkunst," has preserved some interesting reminiscences
of his visit.  It was here also that, through Doles, the cantor of
the Thomas-Schule, he learned to know the great motetts of Sebastian
Bach, for which he expressed the highest admiration.

On his arrival at Berlin, Mozart was at once conducted by Prince
Lichnowsky to Potsdam, to be presented to the King, Frederick William
II., who was a great lover of music and a good performer on the
violoncello.  The King received him very warmly, and took special
pleasure in hearing him improvise.  Mozart, however, derived but
little pecuniary advantage from his visit.  The King, it is true,
offered him the post of kapellmeister at his Court with a salary of
3,000 thalers, but the composer, with whom worldly considerations had
little weight, declined the offer, saying: "Can I leave my good
Emperor?"  The only profit made by the tour was a present from the
King of 100 friedrichs d'or, which was accompanied by a wish that
Mozart should write some quartetts for him.  Three string quartetts
(in D, B flat, and F), in all of which the part for the violoncello
is of more than usual prominence, were written for and dedicated to
the King.

After his return to Vienna Mozart's embarrassments became more
pressing than ever.  The ill-health of his wife involved him in
constant expense, and his income was at all times precarious.  By the
advice of his friends he informed the Emperor of the offer that had
been made him by the King of Prussia.  The Emperor asked if he were
really going to leave him, and Mozart replied: "Your Majesty, I throw
myself upon your kindness; I remain."  No improvement, however,
resulted in his position, though it was at the suggestion of the
Emperor that he was commissioned to write a new opera for Vienna.
This was the two-act opera buffa _Cosi fan tutte_, the libretto of
which was again from the pen of Da Ponte, and which was produced on
January 26, 1790.  The first performances appear to have been
successful; but the death of the Emperor in the following month
caused the theatre to be closed for some time; in all it was given
ten times, and then fell out of the repertoire.  The plot of the
opera is weak and improbable, and the indifferent quality of the
libretto is without doubt the chief reason why the music is as a
whole inferior to that of _Don Giovanni_ and _Figaro_.  _Cosi fan
tutte_, nevertheless, contains some of its composer's best work,
especially in the concerted movements, such as the trio "Soave sia il
vento," the quintett and sextett in the first act, and the two
finales.  The orchestral colouring also is almost richer and more
varied than in any of Mozart's preceding operas.

The accession of Leopold II. to the throne of Austria brought no
improvement in the composer's circumstances, for the new Emperor's
tastes differed widely from those of Joseph, and it soon became
evident that those who had enjoyed the favour of the latter had but
little to hope from his successor.  Mozart applied for the post of
second kapellmeister, and also asked to be allowed to teach the young
Princes; but both requests were refused.  Thinking that the
coronation of the Emperor at Frankfort might afford him a favourable
opportunity for an artistic tour, Mozart, who was obliged to pawn his
plate in order to procure the necessary funds, started for that city
on September 26, and gave a concert of his own compositions in the
Stadt-Theatre on October 14.  But neither here nor at Mannheim and
Munich, which he visited on his return journey, did he make much
profit, and he returned to Vienna with little or no improvement in
his circumstances.  Here he had the pain of parting with one of his
dearest friends, Joseph Haydn, who was just leaving for London with
Salomon, who had engaged him for a series of concerts.*  Salomon also
entered into negotiations with Mozart for a similar series in the
following year, but before that time the composer was no more.  He
and Haydn never met again.


* It was for these concerts that Haydn composed his best-known and
finest symphonies--those called in this country the "Salomon Set."


In May, 1791, an old acquaintance of Mozart's, Emanuel Schickaneder,
the manager of a small theatre at Vienna, being in embarrassed
circumstances, proposed to Mozart to write an opera on a magic
subject, of which he, Schickaneder, would prepare the libretto.
Mozart, always ready to help a friend, agreed, though with some
little hesitation, saying that he had never written a magic opera.
The work was _Die Zauberflöte_, and Mozart began its composition at
once.  Various causes interfered with its rapid progress.  It was
while working at it that the first signs of the breaking up of his
vital powers showed themselves.  He suffered from fainting fits, and
in June he was obliged to suspend work on the opera and go to Baden,
a suburb of Vienna, to recruit his health.

It was while engaged on the composition of _Die Zauberflöte_ that
Mozart received from a mysterious stranger the commission to write a
_Requiem_ Mass.  He was asked to name his own terms, but was enjoined
to make no effort to discover who it was that had ordered the work.
Mozart, who had written no church music since his Mass in C minor
eight years before, eagerly accepted the commission, and began work
at once.  It is now ascertained beyond a doubt that the individual
who visited Mozart was the steward of a certain Count Walsegg, an
amateur musician who desired to be thought a great composer, and who
actually copied the score of the _Requiem_ and had it performed as
his own work.

Mozart's work on the _Zauberflöte_ and the Requiem were alike
interrupted in August by a commission which it was needful to execute
at once.  This was the composition of an opera for Prague, to be
performed there on the occasion of the coronation of the Emperor
Leopold II. as King of Bohemia.  The libretto selected was
Metastasio's _La Clemenza di Tito_, which had been already set to
music by several eminent composers.  As the coronation was to take
place in the following month, Mozart had but little time for
composition; according to Jahn, the opera was completed in eighteen
days.  Its first performance took place on September 6, and was not a
success.  Mozart, who was in bad health when he arrived in Prague,
and who had become still worse through his arduous exertions in
getting the work ready in time for the performance, was greatly
depressed at its failure.

Returning to Vienna in September, with health and spirits alike
failing him, Mozart resumed work on _Die Zauberflöte_, which was
produced on the 30th of the same month, the composition of the
overture and the march which opens the second act having been only
completed two days previously.  Though the success of the first
performance was less than had been anticipated, the public soon began
to appreciate its beauties; it was given twenty-four times in the
following month and reached its hundredth performance in a little
more than a year.

[Illustration: PART OF THE SCORE OF THE "DE PROFUNDIS." (_British
Museum._)]

As soon as the opera was off his mind, Mozart returned to his still
incomplete _Requiem_, a work which now engrossed all his attention
and energy.  In his enfeebled and depressed state he formed the idea
that he was writing the _Requiem_ for himself, and had a firm
conviction that he had been poisoned.  By the advice of his doctor
his wife took away the score from him, and a temporary improvement
resulted, which enabled him to write a small cantata for a masonic
festival--the last work which he entered in the thematic catalogue
already mentioned.  At his request his wife returned him the score of
the _Requiem_, but as soon as he resumed work upon it all the
unfavourable symptoms returned with increased violence, and partial
paralysis set in.  In the latter part of November he took to his bed,
from which he was never to rise again.  By a sad irony of fate, it
was during his last illness that fortune smiled upon him for the
first time: some of the Hungarian nobility joined to assure him of an
annual income of 1,000 florins, while music publishers at Amsterdam
gave him commissions for compositions which would have insured him
against want for the future.  But all came too late for the dying
composer, and his last hours were embittered by the thought of
leaving his wife and children unprovided for at the very time when he
would have been able to support them in comfort.  To the last his
mind was full of his unfinished _Requiem_, and on the afternoon
before his death, he had the score laid on his bed, and the music
sung by his friends, he himself taking the alto part.  When they
reached the opening bars of the "Lacrymosa," Mozart burst into a
violent fit of weeping, and the score was laid aside.  In the evening
the physician told Mozart's pupil, Süssmayr, in confidence that there
was nothing more to be done; but he ordered cold bandages to be
applied to the head, which brought on such convulsions that Mozart
lost consciousness; he never recovered it, but died at one o'clock on
the morning of December 5, 1791.  He was buried the next day in the
churchyard of St. Marx in so violent a storm that the mourners all
turned back before reaching the graveyard, where the great composer
was laid, not in a grave of his own, but in that allotted to paupers.
When the widow was sufficiently recovered from the first shock to be
able to go to the burial-ground to look for the grave, a new sexton
was there who knew nothing about the matter, and the exact spot under
which Mozart's remains rest has never been identified with certainty.




THE ART OF MOZART

In surveying Mozart's art work as a whole, one of the first things to
strike the student is the comprehensiveness of his genius.  There is
hardly another of the great composers who has produced so many
masterpieces in so many different styles.  It may be at once conceded
that in certain directions he has been surpassed by one or other of
those who have succeeded him.  Very few musicians will be found who
will place him, either as a symphonist or as a writer for the piano,
by the side of Beethoven; but, on the other hand, the latter is far
inferior to Mozart in his treatment of the voice.  Again, Mozart's
songs, taken as a whole, will not compare with those of Schubert, but
as an operatic composer Schubert has written nothing to approach,
still less to equal, _Figaro_ or _Don Giovanni_.  There is hardly one
department of musical composition on which the genius of Mozart has
not left its mark.  From this point of view, it will be scarcely too
much to call him the most wonderful "all-round" musician that the
world has ever yet seen.

Without underestimating his remarkable natural gifts, it can hardly
be doubted that Mozart's surroundings conduced not a little to the
versatility of his genius.  Both in Salzburg and in Vienna Italian
music was in the ascendant; and in this the vocal element was of far
more importance than the instrumental.  With his extraordinary power
of assimilating all that was best in whatever he heard, and the
almost supernatural facility in composition which seems to have come
to him instinctively, it is not surprising that his earliest works
show strong traces of Italian influence.  This was no doubt to some
extent modified by the journeys which, as a child, he made with his
father to Paris and London, in which cities he learned to know much
of both French and German music; but nearly to the end of his life
his style, especially in his vocal music, was rather Italian than
distinctively German.

One of the most striking features of Mozart's music is the perfect
command of form seen in even his earliest works.  He was never a
great innovator in the sense in which that word may be applied to
Haydn, Beethoven, or Schumann; he worked on lines that had been
already laid down by others, contenting himself with improving as far
as possible on his models.  If his earlier operas be compared with
the works of his Italian contemporaries, it will be found that the
form of the songs and concerted pieces differs in no material respect
from that to be seen in the operas of Cimarosa, Paisiello, or Sarti;
that which distinguishes Mozart's work is its wonderful flow of
melody, its perfect feeling for euphony, and the true dramatic
instinct displayed wherever the libretto affords an opportunity.  But
his later operas, beginning with _Idomeneo_, stand upon an altogether
higher footing.  Mozart had at this time come under the influence of
Gluck, whose works he had learned to know in Paris.

If we compare the score of _Idomeneo_ with that of Gluck's _Alceste_,
we cannot but see the similarity of style.  True, Mozart's flow of
melody is more abundant--we might even say more spontaneous; it is in
the more dramatic treatment of the orchestra, and especially in the
large amount of accompanied recitative (as distinguished from
_recitativo secco_) that we note the resemblance.  Yet while the
influence of the older master is clearly to be traced, there is an
essential difference in the method of the two composers.  Gluck
sometimes sacrifices his musical forms for dramatic effect; Mozart
treats the accepted forms in such a way as to make them capable of
expressing the emotions of the drama.

An important point, in which Mozart surpassed not only Gluck, but all
other composers of his day, was his treatment of the orchestra.  In
his earlier works his employment of the instruments was somewhat
conventional; but he soon freed himself from the trammels of
tradition, and tried experiments in tone combination that were as new
as they were striking.  These novelties are to be seen less in his
operas and symphonies than in his serenades and divertimenti.* It was
not till his visit to Paris in 1779 that his command of orchestration
reached its highest development.  In his works from this time
forward, whether purely instrumental, or vocal with orchestral
accompaniment, are seen a richness and a feeling for beauty of
colouring in advance of anything previously heard.  It was the
elaborate accompaniments of his operas, as compared with those of
other composers of his day, that caused Gretry to reproach him with
having placed the pedestal on the stage and the statue in the
orchestra.  At the present time we are so accustomed to the rich
instrumentation of the modern school that Mozart's scores seem
comparatively thin.


* As examples, may be named the serenade for two orchestras, one
consisting of two violins, viola, and double-bass, and the other of
string quartett and kettle-drums, and the very curious little pieces
for two flutes, five trumpets, and four drums.


If we compare Mozart's instrumental works with those of Haydn, it
will be seen that the difference between them is one of spirit rather
than of form.  Haydn's music flows on in a clear stream, of no great
depth in general, but always pleasing, always intelligible, and most
logical and coherent in its thematic developments.  In Mozart's music
the lyrical element predominates.  His slow movements are in general
more emotional than those of Haydn, both melody and harmony are
richer, and the workmanship more finished.  This statement must be
taken only as a generalization, for in the later years of Haydn's
life the influence of Mozart on his style is clearly to be seen, and
some of the slow movements in the Salomon symphonies or the later
quartetts are not unworthy to be placed by the side of Mozart's best.
On the other hand, we find in Haydn's minuets and finales an element
of humour, sometimes even of broad fun, which is rarely seen in
Mozart's instrumental music, though abundant enough in the lighter
scenes of his operas.

With a few important exceptions, Mozart's pianoforte works do not
rank among his greatest achievements.  Many of his sonatas,
variations, etc., were written for his pupils, and possess little
more than historical interest.  Mozart lived at the transitional
period in which the harpsichord was giving place to the piano, and in
his earlier sonatas, etc., the style of harpsichord music is often to
be seen.  Yet some of his later works for the piano, such as the two
fantasias in C minor, the sonatas in B flat and C minor, the rondo in
A minor, and the adagio in B minor, though now, owing to the changes
in popular taste, seldom heard, are far from deserving the neglect
into which they have fallen.  The same may be said of the best
sonatas for piano and violin, and of many of the concertos.  It is
hardly a generation since the latter were often to be heard in
public; the modern love of sensationalism and of display for its own
sake seems to have banished them--it is to be hoped not
permanently--from the concert room.

In estimating Mozart's Church music, it is needful to bear in mind
that much of it, more especially the Masses composed at Salzburg, was
written under special and in some respects arbitrary restrictions.

In a letter written in 1776 to Padre Martini, Mozart tells him that a
Mass, including the regular five sections, besides an offertory or
motett and a sonata at the epistle, was not allowed to last longer
than three-quarters of an hour; for this reason most of his Masses
are very concise in their form as compared with the later masses of
Haydn or with Beethoven's Mass in C.  Besides this, the Archbishop of
Salzburg loved a showy and brilliant style of music, and Mozart was
bound, to some extent, to make concessions to his taste.  Yet it is
going too far to say, as some German critics have done, that these
masses are their composer's weakest works.  Some of them, especially
those in F and D major, both of which were written at Salzburg in
1774, are in every way worthy of Mozart, while there are but few of
the others which do not contain movements of the greatest beauty.
The same may be said of his litanies, vespers, and smaller sacred
works.  But his power as a composer of Church music is best shown in
portions of the great Mass in C minor, which he began at Vienna in
1783, but never completed, and most of all in the _Requiem_, in which
his genius rises to a greater height than in any of his other sacred
compositions.  There is little reason to doubt that, had he been
allowed free scope, his works in this field of art would have been
little, if at all, inferior to those on which his fame most securely
rests.

As a contrapuntist Mozart undoubtedly ranks second only to J.
Sebastian Bach, of whom, indeed, his astounding facility in solving
the most complex musical problems at times reminds us.  Nowhere is
the _ars celare artem_ more perfectly exemplified than in the best
specimens of Mozart's fugal and canonic writing.  The example most
frequently referred to as an illustration is the finale of the
"Jupiter" symphony, but such pieces as the "Rex tremendæ" of the
_Requiem_, with its quadruple canon, the final fugue in the _Davidde
penitente_, or the "Laudate pueri" of the second Vespers, are
scarcely less remarkable.  The large number of canons for
unaccompanied voices which he wrote show his preference, no less than
his aptitude, for the stricter forms; yet, however elaborate, in his
hands they never become dry, but are always full of melodic beauty.
With Mozart technique is always the means, never the end.

The influence of Mozart on the music of the first half of the last
century can hardly be fully estimated.  It is clearly to be seen in
the earlier works of Beethoven.  By this it is not meant that the
younger master borrowed, or even imitated, the actual themes of his
predecessor; his individuality was from the first too strongly
marked.  But many of the works of what is known as Beethoven's "first
manner" are clearly modelled upon corresponding works by Mozart.
Thus, his trio for strings in E flat, Op. 3, was evidently suggested
by Mozart's trio in the same key, while the septett and the quintett
for piano and wind instruments clearly show traces of Mozart's
manner.  The same may be said of the adagio of the first piano
sonata, and of the whole of the sonata in D for piano and violin--to
name but a few examples of many.  Not the least disparagement of
Beethoven is intended in saying this: every great composer has begun
his career by imitating more or less closely the works of his
predecessors, and it was inevitable that Mozart should have
influenced one who had so many points of affinity with him.  In
Beethoven's later works the similarity of style is no longer to be
noticed.

[Illustration: MOZART.  (_From a portrait by Jäger._)]

Passing over with a mere word of mention such composers of the second
rank as Andreas Romberg and Hummel, we find two composers of marked
individuality--Schubert and Mendelssohn--in whose earlier works the
influence of Mozart is more or less traceable.  As a song-writer,
Schubert was original from the first; even in his instrumental works
it is only occasionally that one is reminded of other composers.  The
suggestions of Mozart are chiefly to be found in Schubert's earlier
symphonies.  The variations which form the slow movement of the
symphony in B flat might be inserted in one of Mozart's serenades
without seeming out of place.  In the works of Mendelssohn's youth
the Mozart influence is more distinct,* though, like Schubert, he
soon emancipated himself.


* The first subject of the finale of Mendelssohn's first piano
quartett is a very close, though probably unconscious, imitation of
the opening bars of the finale of Mozart's sonata in C minor.


Among composers of the present day one would seek in vain for any
traces of Mozart's influence.  Times have changed, and the classical
style has been supplanted by the romantic.  Whether this is
altogether to the advantage of modern music is a question which
cannot be discussed here; but an energetic protest may at least be
entered against the superficial criticism sometimes to be heard that
Mozart's works are weak and old-fashioned.  That music has made much
progress since Mozart's days nobody will deny; the operatic reforms
of Wagner are far-reaching, while Schumann, Chopin, and Brahms--not
to mention more recent composers--have enlarged the harmonic
resources of the art.  But on all those whose musical palates have
not been vitiated by the highly-spiced viands of the ultra-modern
school, Mozart's pure, natural, soulful music can never cease to
exert its charm.  "A thing of beauty is a joy for ever," and, in
spite of the proverbial danger of prophesying, it is hardly rash to
predict that Mozart's best symphonies will outlive those of Berlioz
or Tschaïkowsky, and that his _Don Giovanni_ and _Figaro_ will
continue to be the delight and admiration of true musicians, even
though changes in the popular taste should banish them from the
stage.  Mozart's place among the immortals is as secure as that of
Bach or Beethoven.




LIST OF WORKS.

Of all the great composers, Mozart was one of the most prolific.  The
chronological thematic catalogue of his works, by Kochel, published
at Leipzig in 1862, contains 626 numbers, varying in length from
short pieces of only a few bars to operas, the manuscripts of which
fill hundreds of pages.  Even a clearer idea of the enormous quantity
of music written by Mozart in his short life of thirty-six years will
be gained when it is said that the complete collection of his works,
published by Breitkopf and Hartel, of Leipzig, fills nearly 13,000
folio pages.  The following list, compiled from Kochel's catalogue,
will show not only the extent, but the variety of the ground covered
by the composer.  A few of the works mentioned by Kochel have been
lost, and are therefore not included in Breitkopf's edition.


1. VOCAL MUSIC.

1. Nineteen Masses, and the _Requiem_.  Of the Masses three are
incomplete, and the genuineness of one is doubtful.

2. Four Litanies and three Vespers.

3. Forty short pieces of sacred music (offertories, motetts, etc.).

4. Two oratorios (_La Betulia Liberata_ and _Davide Penitente_) and
four cantatas.

5. Twenty-three operas and other dramatic works.  This list includes
the incidental music to the play _König Thamos_, and the two
unfinished operas, _L'Oca del Cairo_ and _Lo Sposo Deluso_.

6. Sixty-six concert arias, trios, etc., with orchestral
accompaniment.  Many of these were written by Mozart for his personal
friends; others were intended to be introduced, according to the
custom of the time, into operas by other composers.

7. Forty songs, with accompaniment for the piano.

8. Twenty-two canons for voices without accompaniment.  Of these one
is for two voices, eight are for three, ten for four, two for six,
and one for three four-part choirs.


2. INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC.

9. Forty-nine symphonies for orchestra.

10. Thirty-three serenades and divertimenti for various combinations
of instruments.

11. Twenty-seven miscellaneous instrumental works of various
kinds--symphony movements, minuets, marches, etc.

12. Thirty-nine collections of dances, containing 194 separate
numbers.

13. Six concertos for violin, one for two violins, and one for violin
and viola; also four single movements for a solo violin with
orchestra.

14. Twelve concertos, or single movements, for various wind
instruments with orchestra.

15. Nine string quintetts, of which one is with horn and another with
clarinet.

16. Twenty-seven quartetts for strings, two for strings with flute,
and one for strings with oboe.

17. One trio and three duets for strings.

18. Twenty-seven pianoforte concertos, including one for two and
another for three pianos; also two rondos for piano and orchestra.

19. A quintett for piano and wind instruments; two quartetts and
seven trios for piano and strings, and one trio for piano, clarinet,
and viola.

20. Forty-three sonatas, and two sets of variations for piano and
violin.

21. A fugue and a sonata for two pianos; five sonatas and a set of
variations for piano duet.

22. Seventeen sonatas for piano solo.

23. Four fantasias, fifteen sets of variations, and twenty various
pieces for piano solo.

24. Seventeen sonatas for organ, with other instruments, written for
Salzburg.


In addition to the above works, Kochel's catalogue gives a list of
ninety-eight works which Mozart began, but, for some unknown reason,
never completed.





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