University Musical Encyclopedia/Great Composers: A Series of Biographical Studies/Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

I

The extraordinary precocity of Mozart's genius has passed into a commonplace of biographers; but there is nothing, even among the anecdotes told of his early feats, that impresses this so vividly upon the mind as does the sight of the little manuscript music-book preserved in the Mozart Museum at Salzburg. Austria. Its first few pages are filled with minuets and trios by various composers. At the end of one of these Mozart's father has written: "The preceding minuets were learned by my little Wolfgang in his fourth year"; and further on: "This little minuet and trio Wolfgang learned in half an hour, on the day before his fifth birthday"; while a few pages later we come to a short piece of music, complete and workmanlike in form, against which is written: "By Wolfgang Mozart, 11th May, 1762," i.e., when he was just six years old.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, as he preferred to style himself,^[1] was born January 27, 1756, at Salzburg. His father, a musician of considerable repute in his day, held for a time the post of master of court music, which he resigned in order more completely to devote himself to his family, and especially to the training of the young Wolfgang. One hardly knows whether to be more astonished at the rapidity with which the boy's musical sense developed or at the ease with which he overcame every difficulty connected with the art. Before he was four years old he used to try to imitate upon the harpsichord everything he heard his sister play; and when his father began to teach him some minuets, he found to his surprise that half an hour's instruction was all the little prodigy needed for each. Before he was six he composed music—sonatas and a concerto—for the harpsichord, and in his seventh year one or two small sonatas of his were published. He seems scarcely to have needed any teaching in the use of the violin, but to have been able to play it by a kind of intuition. It was as though a knowledge of music had come to him, as the enthusiastic Italians afterward declared his operas must have come "from the stars, ready-made." Like most musicians, as a boy he had a taste for mathematics.

We have it on the authority of an intimate friend of the elder Mozart that the ordinary games of children had but little attraction for Wolfgang unless accompanied by music. "If his playthings were to be moved from one room to another, the one who went empty-handed must sing or play a march on the violin all the time." Though very happy in these early years, he often appeared (as his father afterward wrote to him) rather earnest than childlike, at any rate when music was concerned. When he sat at the harpsichord or was otherwise buried with music, no one ventured to jest with him. Indeed, some fear was felt for his health, so serious and thoughtful did he sometimes appear beyond his years. Many and astonishing are the stories told of the wonders performed by this baby virtuoso, all serving to emphasize precocity which becomes the more remarkable when we remember how amply Mozart's later years fulfilled the promise of the first, instead of adding another to the many instances of a brilliant youth followed by a lapse into mediocrity.

But, with all this, Mozart was no hotbed plant. Though, when it was a question of his beloved music, he could be so serious, he was a thoroughly boyish boy, with a nature bright and lovable. He was blessed with a keen sense of fun, as appears throughout his letters, and a happy contentment which rendered him very attractive, while nothing in his character, all his life long, is more delightful than his unaffected simplicity and his modesty.

When the boy was six years old, his father, full of wonder and gratitude for his son's gifts, determined to take him to Vienna, where music was in high favor with the court. He used to relate how at one point in the journey, when a custom-house examination of the luggage promised a tedious delay, the little Wolfgang at once made up to the customs officer and began to play to him on his violin, thereby so charming the official heart that the examination was but slightly insisted on. In Vienna the Emperor and Empress, both accomplished musicians, received the Mozarts very kindly, and could not do too much to show their admiration for the wonderful boy. With such patronage as this, he was naturally fêted everywhere. He was allowed to join the young princesses in their games, and soon became quite at home with them. Marie Antoinette, the ill-fated future Queen of France, was his special favorite. She had, in the first days of their acquaintance, helped him up from a fall on the polished floors; whereupon he had gravely said to her: "You are good; some day I will marry you."

The following year (1763) the Mozarts went to Paris. At a concert they gave on the way, at Frankfurt-on-the-Main, Goethe was among the audience that listened to Wolfgang's playing. As the poet afterward told a friend, he was about fourteen years old himself at the time, and "could still distinctly remember the little man with his wig and sword."

At the court of Versailles another kind reception awaited the Mozarts, and the royal favor was of no small service in directing public attention to their concerts. Evidence regarding the impression produced by the boy's playing is found in the following extract from a notice of one of his concerts, printed in the "Avantcoureur," a leading Paris newspaper, of March 5, 1764. "This boy, who is only seven this month, is a true prodigy. He has all the talent and science of a mature musician. Not only does he give surprising performances of the works of the celebrated masters in Europe, but he is also a composer. Guided by the inspiration of his genius he will improvise, for hours together, music which combines the most exquisite ideas with an exhaustive knowledge of harmony. Every musical connoisseur is lost in amazement at the child, who performs feats such as would do credit to an artist possessed of the experience of a long career." It was while Mozart was in Paris that his first compositions, four sonatas for the harpsichord—were published.

Warm as had been Mozart's welcome to the French capital, it was surpassed by the enthusiasm of which he was the object a month or two later in London. Four days after his arrival in England he was invited with his father to Buckingham Palace, and had the honor of playing for three hours to the King and Queen. "We could not have supposed," wrote the father in native fashion, from their friendly manner that they were the King and Queen of England. We have met with extraordinary kindness at every court, but what we have experienced here surpasses all the rest." Brilliant success attended the first London concert, and the boy's performances aroused an altogether unusual amount of interest. It was at this time that he made his first essay in the composition of symphonies for the orchestra—and this before he was nine years old! These symphonies, though naturally immature, give evidence of a remarkable sense of musical form and discrimination in the use of the various instruments.

A tour through Holland, France, and Switzerland brought the Mozarts home again to Salzburg. In spite of all the triumphs, Wolfgang happily had lost none of his naturalness of disposition. His delight at getting home was unbounded; and when he was not occupied with his music the little genius would romp with his sister and tease the family cat in the most childish manner.

He still had to win his spurs in Italy, the seal of Italian approval being at that time almost indispensable to a musician. Accordingly in the winter of 1769 father and son set off once more on their travels, bound this time for the south. Through the good offices of some admiring patrons Mozart's reputation had preceded him, and concerts given at Milan, Verona, and Florence more than confirmed it. In Milan especially his performances created unwonted excitement, and at the age of fourteen he received a commission to write an opera to be produced in this city. In Rome, Naples—in short, wherever he went—he was received with the same enthusiasm.

One of his first visits to Rome was to the Sistine Chapel, in Passion Week, to hear the famous "Miserere" of Allegri, the music of which was so jealously guarded that the members of the choir were threatened with excommunication should they dare to copy or convey out of the chapel any portion of it. After a first hearing of the "Miserere," Mozart went home and wrote down the whole from memory; and after being present at a repetition of it on Good Friday was able to correct the few mistakes he had made. This marvelous tour de force attracted much attention, and luckily inspired more admiration than resentment at the Vatican. A month or two later he was granted an audience by the Pope, who decorated him with the cross of an order to which the composer Gluck had a short time before been admitted. "He has a splendid golden cross to wear," wrote his proud father, "and you can imagine how amused I am every time I hear him called 'Signor Cavaliere'!" For a while his new dignity tickled Wolfgang's fancy, and on the title-pages of his compositions he would write, half in fun, "Del Sign. Cavaliere W. A. Mozart"; but after a year we hear no more of it.

The following characteristic letter written from Rome by the "Sign. Cavaliere" to his sister, shows that success and honor had not changed him:

"I am well, thank Heaven, and fortunate in everything except this wretched pen, and send a thousand kisses to you and to our mother. I wish you were in Rome; you would like it. Papa says I am ridiculous, but that is nothing new! Here we have but one bed, and you can understand that when Papa is in it there is not much room left for me. I shall be glad when we get into new quarters. I have just finished drawing St. Peter with his keys and St. Paul with his sword. I have had the honor of kissing St. Peter's toe, but because I am too small to reach it, they had to lift me up.

Your same old,

Wolfgang."

At the end of the year the travelers returned to Milan, and Mozart set to work on an opera, "Mitridate." In a letter to his mother he writes: "I cannot work for long at a time, for my fingers ache with writing so much recitative. I beg Mamma to pray for me that it may go well with the opera." The work was finished in two months, and on its completion Leopold Mozart wrote to his wife: "As far as I can say without a father's partiality, it seems to me that Wolfgang has written the opera well, and with much spirit. The singers are good, It is now only a question of the orchestra and, finally, of the caprice of the audience. Consequently much depends on good luck, as in a lottery." The result was a striking success. At the first representation, which Mozart conducted, the audience were excited to great enthusiasm, which they expressed in shouts of "Evviva il Maestro! Evviva il Maestrino!" One of the arias was encored, a great and unusual compliment in those days.

The Italian tour was followed, after an interval of four years, by a third visit to Paris, on which occasion Leopold Mozart remained in Salzburg, while Wolfgang was accompanied by his mother. During the intervening years he had worked hard, the result being the composition of several symphonies, concertos, and masses, together with a variety of chamber music. His arrival in Paris was deferred by several circumstances. In the first place there were his successes en route at Munich and Mannheim, which he represented to his father as ostensible reasons for the delay; but there was a still more powerful agent at work in the shape of an ill-advised attachment which he had formed for the beautiful daughter of one of his father's penniless friends in the latter city. Leopold Mozart's letters to his son, when he realized the true state of affairs, were full of the greatest kindness as well as the soundest common sense; and it was not in vain that he pointed out to Wolfgang that to allow himself to be drawn away from the Parisian project would be seriously to endanger his chances of a brilliant public career. "Off with you to Paris," he writes, "and that soon; get the great folks on your side. 'Aut Cæsar aut nihil.' The mere thought of Paris should have preserved you from all fleeting fancies. From Paris the name and fame of a man of great talent goes through the whole world."

Mozart's reception in the French capital was at first a disappointment to him; but the altered attitude of the impressionable Parisians is easily explained if we reflect that, whereas in his previous visits it was as a charming boy and a marvelous prodigy that he came, he was now a young man of two-and-twenty, practically unknown to Paris except by foreign reputation. Moreover, all Paris was at this time absorbed in the artistic duel in which the rival musicians Gluck and Piccinni were engaged.

Mozart's genius, however, soon found its level. After feeling his way with some lighter compositions, he induced Legros, the director of the best concerts in Paris, to produce his new symphony, that in D major. So unsatisfactory was the performance of it at rehearsal that Mozart had not the courage to appear among the audience on the night of the first public performance, but crept into the orchestra to be ready, if necessary, to take the instrument out of the hands of the first violin and lead the work himself. Happily, all went well, and the symphony was much applauded. "I went in my joy at once to the Palais Royal, ate an excellent ice, said my rosary—which I had promised to do—and went home," he wrote to his father. This symphony was soon afterward followed by another, with equally gratifying results. His happiness in Paris was brought to a mournful end by the death of his mother; and very soon afterward, when he was on his way back to Salzburg, he was confronted by another sorrow, this time that of bitter disappointment. At Mannheim he found his first love, from whom his heart had never wavered, entirely changed, and now as cold to him as she had been ardent before. She was at the height of a brilliant career as a singer, and success had spoiled her.

It was a sad home-coming, but Mozart had always his art to comfort him; and after a year of quiet work at Salzburg he received, to his great delight, a commission to write an opera for production at Munich. The opera in question, "Idomeneo," was the starting-point of his career as a great German master; for, having come under the influence of Gluck's music, he here laid the foundation of an operatic school destined to play an important part in the revolutionizing of the lyric stage.

During the time he lived in Munich, finishing "Idomeneo" and superintending its rehearsal, he had some hard struggles with poverty. Like most artists, he possessed a strange inability to keep his money when he had made it, though—again like many artists, to their credit be it said—it was through his reckless generosity that he so constantly found himself straitened. Still, he was not depressed. "I have only one small room," he writes from Munich, "and when my piano, table, bed, and chest of drawers have been squeezed in, there is very little space left for me!"

The success of "Idomeneo" in 1781 was followed, a year later, by the production at Vienna of an opera, "Die Entführung aus dem Serail," which has not received the attention it deserves considering that high authorities—including Gluck and Weber—have considered it to contain much of Mozart's best and most characteristic work. At its first representation, in spite of the fact that its methods indicated a distinct departure from the familiar Italian models, it made a great impression, and several numbers were encored. On the Emperor's saying to Mozart on the following day, half in jest, "Too fine for our ears, my dear Mozart, and a great deal too many notes," the composer replied, "Exactly as many notes as are necessary, your Majesty."

The same year was marked by Mozart's marriage. By a curious freak of fortune he married the sister of the disdainful beauty who had inspired his first passion. Her homelier attractions had at first stood no chance beside the brilliant charms of her elder sister, but eventually her sweetness of character won its way into Mozart's heart. Their short married life was very happy, in spite of the shifts to which the composer's chronic impecuniosity frequently reduced them. His concerts were too often artistic instead of financial successes, and then the shoe pinched. It was under the strain of anxieties of this description, mainly felt on his wife's behalf, and from the ceaseless energy of mind which seemed to be wearing out his body, that his health began to give way. The amount of work he crowded into the last eight years of his life would make it seem as though he had a presentiment that his time was to be short.

It was in Vienna, shortly after his marriage, that he first met Haydn, and entered upon that brief but devoted friendship which was to Haydn one of his chief pleasures. After looking through several of Mozart's compositions, Haydn took the composer's father apart, and said to him: "I tell you, on the word of an honest man, that I consider your son to be the greatest composer I have ever known. He has rare taste, and a most thorough knowledge of composition."

"Le Nozze di Figaro," the "greatest musical comedy" ever written—a true "dramma giocoso," as Rossini called it—was produced at Vienna on May 1, 1786. Its reception is described in the "Reminiscences" of Kelly, the singer, who performed in it. "Never was anything more complete," he says, "than the triumph of Mozart and his 'Nozze di Figaro.' ... Even at the final rehearsal, all present were roused to enthusiasm; and when Benucci came to the fine passage, 'Cherubino, alla vittoria, all Gloria military!' which he gave with stentorian lungs, the effect was electric. The whole of the performers on the stage and those in the orchestra vociferated 'Bravo! Bravo Maestro! Viva, Mozart! Grande Mozart!' And Mozart? I shall never forget his little countenance when lighted up with the glowing rays of genius; it is impossible to describe it, as it would be to paint sunbeams." Encores became so frequent that the Emperor had to forbid them; and on his saying that he believed that in this he had done the singers a service, Mozart replied, to the Emperor's amusement: "Do not believe it, your Majesty; they like to have an encore. I, at least, can certainly say so, for my part."

"Don Giovanni" followed, in October, 1787; and "Die Zauberflöte" four years afterward, only six months before Mozart's death. His health was rapidly giving way—the result of combined anxiety and overwork—and, though he would never admit that he was ill, he became a prey to fits of the deepest melancholy. It was during this period of distress that he composed his two greatest symphonies—those in G minor and C major—of which Richard Wagner wrote that in them "he seemed to breathe into his instruments the passionate tones of the human voice ... and thus raised the capacity of orchestral music for expressing the emotions to a height where it could represent the whole unsatisfied yearning of the heart.

In the summer of 1791 Mozart received a mysterious commission to compose a "Requiem," on condition that he made no attempt to discover for whom it was intended. He accepted the task, but with an unconquerable presentiment that the "Requiem" would also be his own. The foreboding was only too true. He never lived to finish it; indeed he was actually at work on it when was seized by the final attack of the illness which proved fatal to him. At one o'clock on the morning of December 5, 1791, he died.

Infinitely sad is the epilogue to his life. So poor was he at the last that his wife could not afford even the humblest ceremony of funeral; and though there were more than enough who, after his death, lamented the loss of so great a genius, none was found to provide him with the scant honor of a decent burial. So died Mozart, if not the greatest, the most brilliant musician the world has ever seen; and this man, who had been the friend of emperors and princes, and a prince himself in the realm of his art, was allowed to find his last resting-place in a pauper's grave in the churchyard of St. Marx at Vienna.

His widow, when she had recovered from the first shock of grief, went to visit the cemetery; but the grave-digger was unable to point out to her under which of the nameless mounds lay all that was mortal of the great Mozart.

II

Mozart is Mozart by virtue of the exquisite tenderness and charm of his nature, which breathes from every bar of his music. Never has a more delicate soul been cast upon the tender mercy of a cruel world. There is something in the childlike nature of Mozart's nature, in his beautiful sympathy not only for the nobler aspirations of humanity, but also for its weaknesses and foibles, which has a pathos that is beyond tears. That this man should have been buffeted through life by boors and hounded at last into a nameless grave is one of the tragedies of musical history.

Mozart's facility of composition was unequaled, and the amount of work that he got through during the thirty-six years of his life was prodigious. We must remember how much of his music was written when he was a boy—a boy of genius, it is true, but still of an age when nothing but the clever reproduction of the ideas of others could be expected from him—and that another considerable fraction was produced to order, and to the order of a man whom he hated. This too may be conveniently neglected in summing up his life's work. There remains a body of work of such marvelous strength and beauty and exhibiting such varied gifts that the world is still in doubt as to whether Mozart is greatest in orchestral or chamber music, in sacred music or in opera. One thing is certain, that the composer of the six quartets dedicated to Haydn, the symphonies in E flat, G minor, and the "Jupiter," the "Requiem," "Figaro," "Don Giovanni," and "Die Zauberflöte," whatever branch of music be under consideration, must stand in the very front rank of the world's musicians.

Mozart's position in the history of the quartet, and even more so in that of the symphony, is rather a curious one. He found the form perfected by Haydn; he took it and infused into it a power of thought and a vigor of expression that were far beyond Haydn's reach, and handed it back to his master, who profited so far by Mozart's achievements that, as regards his symphonies at any rate, he now lives chiefly by the works that he produced under the influence of the younger man. Haydn's symphonies express, so far as they express anything, his honest, good-humored acceptance of life as it is, untinged by any complexity of thought or profundity of emotion.

Mozart first touched music with what we may briefly call the modern spirit. He made it the vehicle of direct emotional expression, not necessarily the expression of personal emotion, for his range of thought was so wide and his sympathies were so universal that he seems to be the spokesman of the world at large rather than to be lifting the veil from his own private feelings. It is impossible to hear, let us say, the G minor symphony without feeling that once for all instrumental music had been emancipated from its old-time condition of "Tafel-Musik," a pleasing concourse of sounds put together to aid the digestion of a dyspeptic nobleman. For better, for worse, it must henceforth rank with other art-forms as a means of expressing all that is highest and noblest in the soul of man.

We have spoken chiefly of Mozart's symphonies, but we would not have it thought that in his other orchestral works there are not treasures of beauty and grandeur, in fact it rarely happens that one of his minor works is revived without impressing its hearers with new wonder at the limitless range of the composer's genius. Recently his little "Maurerische Trauermusik," a piece written for the funeral of a brother freemason, has been repeatedly played in many cities.

In Mozart's chamber music the same emancipating influence is felt. He clothed the Haydnesque form with new and marvelous raiment, not merely in his string quartets, but in the works written for novel combinations of instruments, such as the clarinet quintet, the quintet for wind and piano, and his many works for various groups of wind instruments. In the latter he enlarged the borders of chamber music in an extraordinary manner, his marvelous knowledge of the special quality of each instrument guiding him with unerring certainty. His works for wind instruments are totally different in style from those written for strings. There is something colossal, something almost superhuman (to take one instance) about his great serenade in C minor for hautboys, clarinets, horns, and bassoons. It moves with a deliberate solemnity that seems to belong to a different world from that of his works for strings with their quick play of checkered feeling. In Mozart's day the clarinet was a new instrument, but he divined its capabilities with inspired sagacity. No one has written for it as has he; but his mastery of orchestration has passed into a proverb, and though modern composers with their far more extended resources may call his scores slight, they dare not call them monotonous or ineffective.

From the modern point of view, Mozart's pianoforte works are not so interesting as much that he has left us, though their place in the history of music is none the less important. The development of technique has helped to shelve them, though pianists still say that, in spite of its apparent simplicity, a Mozart concerto is as severe a test of good playing as can be found. Still more have been affected by the improvement in the manufacture of pianofortes. Mozart wrote for an instrument which, though bearing the same name, really belonged to a different world from that of our modern pianos. On a "concert grand" it is practically impossible to realize the delicate effects that Mozart had in view.

Mozart's sacred music, if viewed as a whole, must be relegated to a lower place in the catalogue of his works than perhaps any other branch of his composition. A great deal of it was written at Salzburg in compliance with the orders of the hated Archbishop, and it is not surprising that in this situation his heart was not in his work. It is in the sacred music of his later years that we find the true Mozart, in works like the "Requiem," the mass in C minor, which he left unfinished at his death, and which has recently been published with the missing movements supplied by adaptation from Mozart's other works, and, perhaps, most beautiful of all, the exquisite little "Ave Verum," a work as pure and tender in inspiration as a motet by Palestrina. These are the works to which we must turn if we want to know what Mozart could do in the field of sacred music. In the "Requiem" Mozart measures himself against the great masters of an earlier generation, and comes gloriously from the encounter. His music has a breadth and dignity of style worthy of Bach or Handel, allied to a poignancy of expression that suggests a later age. Simple as are the means he employs compared with the elaborate resources of modern composers, such as Verdi and Gounod, his picture of the unearthly terrors of the Judgment Day remains unequaled in its thrilling intensity, while the human elements of the scene are treated with that tenderness and divine sympathy of which only such as he have the secret.

Great as Mozart proved himself in everything he touched, it is in his operas that he makes the surest appeal to modern hearers. No lapse of time nor change of fashion can dim the luster of these marvelous works. We find him first as a mature artist in "Idomeneo" (1781), and for the next ten years he gained steadily in range of vision and in power of expression, until his career culminated in "Die Zauberflöte." In Mozart's operatic career two influences work side by side, the Italian and the German. We find him in his childish days writing first an Italian operetta, "La Finta Semplice," for Salzburg, and then a German one, "Bastien und Bastienne," for Vienna. So having idealized Italian opera in "Idomeneo," and endowed it with a wealth of orchestral color and a richness of concerted music of which Italy had never dreamed, he turned to his native tongue, and in "Die Entführung aus dem Serail" practically laid the foundation upon which the imposing edifice of modern German opera has been constructed. In this work we find the first suggestion of what was one of Mozart's greatest gifts, his unequaled power of characterization. Mozart's characters live in their music like the creations of one of our great novelists. In music he reveals to us every thought as plainly as if we were reading a printed page.

If this is true of "Die Entführung," much more is true of "Le Nozze di Figaro," in which Mozart's art exalted a tale of artificial and at times unpleasant intrigue into on of the great music dramas of the world. Here for the first time we find Mozart with his panoply complete. What a set of puppets the characters in "Figaro" are! Hardly one of them merits our affection, certainly not our esteem. Yet the enchanter breathes life into them, and we follow the mazy entanglements of their plots and counterplots with a delight that never tires. If there is one quality more than another in which Mozart excels other composers, it is his power of characterization. Each one of his people stands out perfect and distinct, a type realized with infinite knowledge of humanity, and drawn with unfairly certainty of touch.

Mozart is never a caricaturist. It is in his sympathy with the faults and follies of human nature that the supreme charm of his personality lies. Behind the dancing puppets one sees the sad-eyed enchanter with his wan face and pitying smile. Greater even than "Figaro" is "Don Giovanni," for here the canvas is broader and the passions are nobler. The libretto of "Don Giovanni" is not dramatic in the usual theatrical sense, but for operatic purposes it has rarely been surpassed. It deals almost entirely with emotion, which music interprets so well, and hardly at all with incident, which music interprets so badly or at times cannot interpret at all. "Don Giovanni" ranges over the whole gamut of human feeling. From the buffoonery of Leporello to the supernatural terrors of the closing scene is a wide step, but Mozart's touch never falters. One can hardly say that the characterization is more perfect than in "Figaro," but in "Don Giovanni" the contrasts are more striking and the master's brush takes a wider sweep. What, for instance, could be finer than his differentiation of the three women: Anna, the noble virgin, strong in the ardor of her passionate chastity; Elvira, the loving, trusting wife, with whom to know all is to pardon all; and Zerlina, an embodiment of rustic coquetry? Never for a moment does Mozart lose his grip of the initial conception of his characters, though his inimitable art blends their different idiosyncrasies into a dramatic whole of perfect beauty. In "Cosi fan tutte" we are again in the world of "Figaro"' this gay and brilliant little work, after a period of unmerited neglect, is now on the way to regain the favor that it deserves.

In "Die Zauberflöte" Mozart produced what many distinguished persons, including Beethoven and Goethe, have pronounced to be his masterpiece. The libretto, which is a curious compound of fantastic imagination and buffoonery, is usually taken to be an allegorical presentment of the triumph of freemasonry. Undoubtedly the masonic element counts for a good deal, but behind this the discerning bearer will perceive the outlines of an allegory nobler in substance and loftier in scope, the ascent of the human soul, purified by trial, to the highest wisdom. Mozart's music is amazing in its many-colored beauty, and in the imaginative splendor by means of which it clothes scenes and situations of all kinds with a garment of romance.

"Die Zauberflöte" is in a sense a summoning up of Mozart's genius. The range of thought is tremendous, and whatever the nature of the scene, Mozart paints it with unerring touch. The lighter parts of the opera are the very incarnation of irresponsible gaiety, and in the solemn scenes the composer rises to heights of sublimity. Over all the work hangs a mysterious atmosphere of poetical imagination, through which we discern figures walking, as it were, in a golden haze.

We know not if "Die Zauberflote" has ever been compared to "The Tempest," but to us it seems that the two crowning works of Mozart and Shakespeare have much in common. Not only is Sarastro a tolerably close counterpart of Prospero, while Tamino and Pamina may stand for Ferdinand and Miranda, but the attitude to life, if we may call it so, of the two works is curiously alike. Both deal with a tale of the most fantastic imagination, under cover of which the author wrestles with the most profoundest problems of human existence. In both there is that breadth of view that comes from a mind risen above the petty troubles of earth, that serene wisdom born of ripe experience and a knowledge of good and evil, and that supreme mastery of craftsmanship to which only the greatest can attain. In each the master magician of his time bade farewell to the scene that his genius had enriched.

"Die Zauberflöte" fitly closed Mozart's career. What that career was, and what its value has been to the world at large, may best be summed up in Gounod's eloquent words: "O Mozart, divine Mozart! How little to they know thee who do not adore thee—thee, who art eternal truth, perfect beauty, inexhaustible charm, profound yet ever limpid, all humanity with the simplicity of a child—who hast felt everything and expressed everything in a musical language that has never been and never will be surpassed!"

III

We cannot better conclude this sketch than by making liberal use of a chapter on Mozart written by Herr C.F. Pohl of Vienna, in which, among many interesting observations, the following appear especially appropriate for citation here.

Mozart's handwriting was small, neat, and always the same, and when a thing was once written down he seldom made alterations. "He wrote music as other people write letters," said his wife, and this explains his apparently inexhaustible power of composing, although he always declared that he was not spared that labor and pains from which the highest genius is not exempt. His great works he prepared long beforehand; sitting up late at night, he would improvise for hours at the piano, and "these were the true hours of creation of his divine melodies." His thoughts were in fact always occupied by music. "You know," he wrote to his father, "that I am, so to speak, swallowed up in music, that I am busy with it all day long—speculating, studying, considering." But this very weighing and considering often prevented his working a thing out; a failing with which his methodical father reproached him: "If you will examine your conscience properly, you will find that you have postponed many a work for good and all." When necessary, however, he could compose with great rapidity, and without any preparation, improvising on paper, as it were. Even during the pauses between games of billiards or skittles he would be accumulating ideas, for his inner world was beyond the reach of any outer disturbance. During his wife's confinement he would spend his time between her bedside and his writing-table. When writing at night he would get his wife to tell him stories, and would laugh heartily.

He considered the first requisites for a pianist to be a quiet steady hand, the power of singing the melody, clearness and neatness in the ornaments, and of course the necessary technique. It was the combination of virtuoso and composer which made his playing so attractive. His small well-shaped hands glided easily and gracefully over the keyboard, delighting the eye nearly as much as the ear. Clementi declared that he had never heard anybody play with so much mind and charm as Mozart. Dittersdorf expressed his admiration of the union of taste and science, in which he was corroborated by the Emperor Joseph. Haydn said with tears in his eyes, that as long as he lived he should never forget Mozart's playing, "it went to the heart." No one who was fortunate enough to hear him improvise ever forgot the impression. "To this hour, old as I am," said Rieder, "those harmonies, infinite and heavenly, ring in my ears, and I go to the grave fully convinced that there was but one Mozart." His biographer Niemetschek expresses himself in similar terms: "If I might have the fulfillment of one wish on earth, it would be to hear Mozart improvise once more on the piano; those who never heard him cannot have the faintest idea of what it was."

As a teacher (in Vienna) he was not in much request. He was neither methodical nor obsequious enough; it was only when personally attracted by talent, earnestness, and a desire to get on, that he taught willingly. Many people preferred to profit by his remarks in social intercourse, or took a few lessons merely to be able to call themselves his pupils.

He gave lessons in composition to a few ladies, a cousin of Abbé Stadler among the number. The manuscript book he used with her is in the Imperial Library at Vienna, and is interesting as showing the cleverness with which, in the midst of jokes and playful remarks, he managed to keep his lady pupils to their grammar. With more advanced pupils he, of course, acted differently. Thomas Attwood began by laying before him a book of his own compositions, and Mozart looked it through, criticizing as he went, and with the words, "I should have done this so," rewrote whole passages, and in fact recomposed the book.

Mozart was short, but slim and well-proportioned; as a young man he was thin, which made his nose look large, but later in life he became stouter. His head was somewhat large in proportion to his body, and he had a profusion of fine hair, of which he was rather vain. He was always pale, and his face was a pleasant one, though not striking in any way. His eyes were well formed, and of good size, with fine eyebrows and lashes, but as a rule they looked languid, and his gaze was restless and absent. He was very particular about his clothes, and wore a good deal of embroidery and jewelry; from his elegant appearance Clementi took him for one of the court chamberlains. On the whole he was perhaps insignificant-looking, but he did not like to be made aware of the fact, or to have his small stature commented upon. When playing the whole man became at once a different and a higher order of being. His countenance changed, his eye settled at once into a steady calm gaze, and every movement of his muscles conveyed eh sentiment expressed in his playing.

He was fond of active exercise, which was the more necessary as he suffered materially from his habit of working far into the night. At one time he took a regular morning ride, but he had to give it up, not being able to conquer his nervousness. It was replaced by billiards and skittles. He even had a billiard-table in his own house. When no one else was there he would play with his wife, or even by himself. His favorite amusement of all, however, was dancing, for which Vienna afforded ample opportunities. He was particularly fond of masked balls, and had quite a talent for masquerading in character.

In society Mozart found amusement of the highest kind, and inspiration, as well as affection and true sympathy. One can quite understand that the refreshment of social intercourse was a real necessity after his hard brain-work. On such occasions he was full of fun, ready at a moment's notice to pour out a stream of doggerel rhymes or irresistibly droll remarks; in short, he was a frank open-hearted child, whom it was almost to identify with Mozart the great genius. His brother-in-law Lange says that he was most full of fun during the time he was occupied with his great works.

His religious sentiments, more especially his views on death, are distinctly stated in a letter to his father at first hearing of his illness: "As death, strictly speaking, is the true aim and end of our lives, I have for the last two years made myself so well acquainted with this true, best friend of mankind, that his image no longer terrifies, but calms and consoles me. And I thank God for giving me the opportunity of learning to look upon death as the key which unlocks the gate of true bliss. I never lie down to rest without thinking that, young as I am, before the dawn of another day I may be no more; and yet nobody who knows me would call me morose or discontented. For this blessing I thank my Creator every day, and wish from my heart that I could share it with all my fellowmen."

Mozart has often been compared with other great men: Shakespeare, Goethe, Beethoven, Haydn, etc., but the truest parallel of all is that between him and Raphael. In the works of both we admire the same marvelous beauty and refinement, the same pure harmony and ideal truthfulness; we also recognize in the two men the same intense delight in creation, which made them regard each fresh work as a sacred task, and the same gratitude to their Maker for his divine gift of genius. The influence of each upon his art was immeasurable; as painting has but one Raphael, so music has but one Mozart.

Notes

1. He was christened Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus. Instead of Theophilus his father wrote Gottlieb—in Latin, Amadeus.