1777-1779.
THE GREAT PARISIAN ARTISTIC JOURNEY.
Disgusted With Salzburg—In Vienna Again—Salzburg Society—Character of Musicians in the Last Century—Jerome Colloredo, Archbishop of Salzburg—Mozart’s Letter to Him—The Father’s Solicitude for His Son—Paternal Advice—New Compositions—Incidents of his Journey—Meets With Opposition—Secret Enemies—His Ambition to Elevate the Character of the German Opera—Disappointments—His Description of German “Free City” Life—Meeting With Stein—In His Uncle’s Family—“Baesle”—Meeting With the Cannabichs—Attachment for Rosa Cannabich—Influence of this Attachment on His Music—The Weber Family—The Non so d’onde viene—Circumstances of its Composition.
IN a letter written in the year 1776, Wolfgang complained to Father Martini, of Bologna, that he was living in a city in which musicians met with little success; that the theater there had no persons of good ability, because persons of good ability wished good pay; and he adds: “Generosity is a fault of which we cannot be accused.” He informs the reverend father that he was engaged writing Church music and chamber music, but that the pieces had to be always very short, because such was the desire of the archbishop, and he closes thus: “Alas, that we are so far away from you, dearest master. Were we nearer to each other, how much I would have to say to you.”
It is easy to see that the young maestro felt impelled to go where he might breathe a freer air, and prove by his deeds the power that was in him. As early as in the summer of 1773, the father and son were again together in Vienna, but not even the shrewdness of the father, with all his experience, could devise any way to the success he desired there, and Wolfgang himself wrote from Munich to his mother that she should not wish for their immediate return, for she knew well enough how much he needed a breathing spell, and he says: “We shall be soon enough with ——.”
They lived at home, father, son and daughter, a happy family in their own narrow circle. They had, we are glad to say, some true and trusted friends with whom they employed the little leisure which they could afford to take, in the parlor games customary at the time, and other simple pleasures. And this leisure was small indeed, for they had to try to make both ends meet by writing musical compositions and giving instruction in music. The father’s salary amounted to only forty marks, and the son’s to only twenty-five marks a month. No wonder he wrote: “generosity is not our fault.” But their sense of refinement was offended yet more by the rude manner and the coarse tone prevalent in the place. The Salzburgian was looked upon as a fool, and the merry Andrews of Vienna mimicked his dialect. The mode of life and the views of the higher and lower “noblesse” were of a nature still less agreeable and refined. Mozart, who much preferred even the manners of the “boorish Bavarians,” as they were then universally called, to that of the Salzburg nobility, relates, in his letters, how one of the latter expressed so much surprise and crossed himself so frequently at the Munich opera, that they were greatly ashamed of him.
It is notorious that Mozart’s real colleagues, the musicians, had a well-merited reputation during the last century, as “drunkards, gamesters and dissipated, good-for-nothing fellows.” This was one of the reasons which inspired him with so great a hatred for Salzburg. “No decent man,” he writes, “could live in such company.” He was ashamed of them, and of the coarse and dissolute music of the court. Michael Haydn himself, Joseph Haydn’s brother, a very clever composer, was not free from at least one of these vices. There was no one in Salzburg but knew Haydn’s little drinking room in the Stiftskeller (monastery wine-cellar). On one occasion, when the organist of one of the city churches, drunk on the organ-seat, was struck with apoplexy, Wolfgang’s father wrote to him asking him to divine who had been appointed his successor. And he proceeds: “Herr Haydn—all laughed. He is, indeed, an expensive organist. He drinks a quart of wine after every part of the mass. He sends Lipp (another organist) to attend the other services—another man,” he adds forcibly enough, “who wants a drink.”
How now could it be said that here, in his own real province, the young artist found a reward worthy of his fiery spirit and of his already tested powers?
We have heard himself complain of the theatre, the parlor, and the orchestra. A wandering troupe performed in the theatre during the winter. The court-concerts were limited to, at most, an hour, during which several pieces had to be performed. Masses, even the most solemn, were not allowed to be longer than three-quarters of an hour. Moreover, the orchestra was a small one, without as much as even a clarionet. That, notwithstanding all this; that thus confined and narrowed, and with means thus limited, Mozart was able to produce works such as we possess in his masses, symphonies, and chamber music—works which far surpass those of his contemporaries, and find a worthy place by the side of the music of the same kind by Joseph Haydn, is a triumph which bears eloquent testimony to his industry and genius. But he could never be satisfied in Salzburg. That same genius urged him out into a purer atmosphere, in which action such as he was capable of, becomes possible, in which he might come in contact with men of culture. His resolve was made. The world was before him, and he said to himself: Go forth!
But in his way stood, bold and dark, the “—— ——” to whom they had, as Mozart writes, returned soon enough, the “Mufti,” as he called the man “with the keen glance from his grey eyes, the left of which was scarcely ever entirely open, and the rigid lines about the mouth”—Archbishop Jerome Colloredo. This man really could not appreciate how much he possessed in Mozart. “Let them only ask the archbishop, he will put them immediately on the right path,” Wolfgang writes, on one occasion, referring to him concerning a concert which had met with unusual success in Mannheim. The principal cause of complaint, however, was the archbishop’s niggardliness. He was thus rigorous with those in his employ, lest they should make any claims upon him. Mozart wrote, at a later period: “I did not venture on contradiction, because I came straight from Salzburg, where the faculty of contradiction has been lost by long abstinence from using it.” Whatever he composed was wrong, found fault with, and unsparingly. On one occasion, the archbishop had the face to tell Mozart that he did not understand anything of his art, and that he should first go to the Conservatory at Naples to learn something about music, and this to Mozart, the Academician of Bologna and Verona, the far-famed composer of operas! We are informed that he never flattered Mozart except when he wanted something; and Leopold told Padre Martini that, otherwise, the archbishop never paid Wolfgang a farthing for his compositions.
Suffering from the mania of the time, Jerome preferred the Italians in matters of music, and had surrounded himself with Italian musicians. The Mozarts were, in consequence, set back in every way and made the victims of “persecution and contempt.” All the elements of variance were here. A breach was inevitable; for on the one side were the father and son, both very frank, clear-headed and witty; Wolfgang, with something in him of the impetuosity of youth, conscious of his power and of the opinion which the world had of him, a consciousness which he took no trouble to conceal; on the other the archbishop, whose peculiarity it was to allow himself to be impressed by persons of fine, handsome figure, but not to respect little, insignificant-looking people like the slender, twenty-year-old Mozart.
We have Mozart’s letter to the archbishop. It saw the light—being found among the official papers of the archbishopric—just one hundred years after it was written. It gives us a great deal of information concerning a circumstance which had a great influence on Mozart’s life, and which was finally the cause of the most decided catastrophes to him. It shows us, at the same time, what was the entire tone of the period, and especially of Salzburg subserviency. Mozart writes:
“TO HIS ILLUSTRIOUS GRACE, MOST REVEREND PRINCE OF THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE:
Most Gracious Liege-Lord and Herr Herr!
I dare not trouble your illustrious grace with any minute description of our pitiful circumstances. My father has most humbly, upon his honor and conscience, and with all truth, called the attention of your illustrious grace to those circumstances in his most humble petition presented to your grace on the 14th of March of this year. But as your illustrious grace’s most gracious and propitious decision, which was hoped for, did not come to him, my father would have most humbly begged your illustrious grace, as long ago as the month of June, most graciously to allow us to make a journey of a few months, to the end that we might in this way do something to help ourselves in our necessity, were it not that your illustrious grace most graciously ordered that all your grace’s musicians should keep themselves in readiness for the occasion of his imperial majesty’s [Joseph II] passage through your grace’s city. After this, my father most humbly asked this same permission, but your illustrious grace refused it to him, and most graciously expressed a conviction that I, who am only half engaged in your grace’s service, might travel alone. Our circumstances are those of urgent need. My father resolved to send me on my way alone. But here also your illustrious grace interposed some most gracious objections. Most gracious liege-lord and Herr Herr, parents laboriously strive to put their children in a position such that they may earn their own daily bread; and this is a duty which they owe to themselves and to the state.
The more talents children have received from God, the greater are their obligations to make use of those talents for the amelioration of their own and their parents’ circumstances, to assist their parents and to take heed for their own advancement and for the future. The gospels teach us thus to put our talents out at interest. I therefore, in conscience, owe it to God to be grateful to my father who spends untiringly his every hour on my education; to lighten his burthen; and to care for my sister; for it would pain me greatly if, after spending so many hours at the piano, she should not be able to turn what she has so laboriously learned to account.
Your illustrious grace will, therefore, most graciously allow me to ask most humbly for my dismissal from your grace’s service, as I am forced to make use of the month of September this fall which is just beginning, so that I may not be exposed to the inclemency of the severe weather of the cold months which follow so soon upon it. Your illustrious grace will not take this most humble petition of mine ungraciously, as your grace most graciously pronounced against me three years ago, when I asked leave to travel to Vienna, told me that I had nothing to hope for, and that I would do better to seek my fortune in some other place. Most humbly do I thank your illustrious grace for all the high favors I have received from your grace, and with the flattering hope of being able to serve your illustrious grace with greater approval when I shall have reached man’s estate, I commend myself to the favor and grace of
Your most illustrious Grace,
My most gracious liege-lord and Herr Herr.
Most humbly and obediently,
WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART.
[Addressed]
TO HIS ILLUSTRIOUS GRACE
THE ARCHBISHOP OF SALZBURG, ETC., ETC.;
The most humble and obedient petition of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.”
It is no easy matter to imagine all that must have occurred before the father resolved to permit his son to take a step which might possibly cost himself both his position and his livelihood, but it may all be very readily divined from the following passages in the Mozart letters. The son writes: “I hope that you meet with less vexation now than when I was in Salzburg, for I must confess that I was its sole cause.” And again: “I was badly treated, I did not deserve it. You naturally sympathized with me, but too much. That was the principal reason why I hastened away from Salzburg.” And the father: “You are, indeed, right, my dear son. I felt the greatest vexation at the contemptible treatment which you received. It was that that preyed on my heart so, that kept me from sleeping, that was ever in my thoughts, and which would have surely ended by consuming me entirely.” And here follows an outburst characteristic of the feelings of the Mozarts: “My dear son, when you are happy, so am I, so is your mother, so is your sister, so are we all. And that you will be happy I hope from God’s grace, and through the confidence I place in your sensible behavior.”
And, indeed, this last was the only cause of solicitude the father had when his son started on his journey. Not that he had any doubt as to the young man’s character or goodness of heart. He had as much faith in both as in the “superiority of his son’s talents.” What alarmed him was Wolfgang’s want of experience. Wolfgang had never traveled alone. And who had better opportunity to know the extent of this inexperience than the faithful mentor who, as the son himself confesses, had always served him like a friend, nay like a servant? The father’s utterances here are full of beauty. They show us many a trait characteristic of the whole life of the yet youthful but immortal prodigy of art.
The father writes: “You know, my son, that you will have to do everything for yourself, and that you are not accustomed to get along entirely without the help of others; that you are not very familiar with the different kinds of coin, and that you have not the least idea how to pack your things, or to do much else which must be done.” He continues: “I would also remind you, that a young man, even if he had dropped down from heaven and stood head and shoulders above all the masters of art, will never get the consideration due him. To win this, he must have reached a certain age, and so long as a person is under twenty, enviers, enemies and persecutors will find matter for blame in his youth, in the little importance attached to him and his small experience.” And later: “My son, in all your affairs, you are hasty and headlong. Your whole character has changed since your childhood and boyhood years. As a child, you were rather serious than childish. Now, as it seems to me, you are too quick to answer every one in a jesting way at the very first provocation; and that is the first step towards familiarity which one must avoid in this world, if he cares to be respected. It is your good heart’s fault that you can see no defect in the person who pays you a clever compliment, who professes esteem for you and lauds you to the heavens, and that you take him into your confidence and give him your love.”
Even if all this paternal chiding was provoked only by the one special cause of which we shall soon have something to say, it is, nevertheless, true that the father here touches upon some of Mozart’s characteristic traits, especially his confiding goodness of heart, his wit and jocoseness in everything, which were led into wrong channels by the quickness of his mind. The parting of father and son was heart-rending indeed. We are sure that the words in which Leopold Mozart describes his feelings, when Wolfgang, in company with his mother, started out on his travels in September, 1777, came from the very bottom of a father’s heart. “After you had gone,” he writes, “I went, very tired, up the steps and threw myself in a chair. I tried hard to restrain myself on the occasion of our leave-taking, that I might not make our separation still more painful, and in my excitement I forgot to give my son a father’s blessing. I ran to the window and begged a blessing upon both of you, but I did not see you go out through the gate, and we could not but think that you had already passed it, because I sat there a long time without thinking of anything.” Nannerl cried so much that she was taken sick, and it was evening before either she or her father had so far recovered from the shock as to be able to distract themselves by attending to some little home duties, and enjoying what remained to them of domestic bliss. “Thus did this sad day pass—a sadder day than I believed life could ever bring me,” says the father, in his account of it, when answering the first letter he received from his son after his departure.
Wolfgang himself was very cheerful. He was out again in the bracing atmosphere of freedom. His confidence in human nature, the result of inexperience, hid from his eyes the thorns of life which were destined henceforth to sting him till he died. Trusting in his talents and his good will, he thought that his pathway would be strewn with roses. His father, in a somewhat gloomy excess of zeal writes him: “Cling to God, I beg you; you must do it, my dear son, for men are all knaves.”... “The older you get and the more you have to do with men, the more will you learn this bitter truth. Think only of the many promises, all the sycophancy and the hundred other things we have met with, and then draw your own conclusions as to how much you can build on human aid.” All Salzburg wondered and revolted at the course pursued by the archbishop, for young Mozart got his dismissal immediately and in a very unkind and ungracious way. The father, indeed, was allowed to retain his position, but the dissatisfaction of the court at the loss was very great, for strangers found nothing to admire but Wolfgang. One of the cathedral canons afterwards admitted this to Mozart himself, and the steward of the household, Count Firmian, who was very fond of Mozart, gives the following account of a conversation overheard by him while waiting on the court:
“We have now one musician less. Your illustrious grace has lost a great performer.”
“How so?”
“He is the greatest piano-player I ever heard in my life. As a violinist he served your illustrious grace exceedingly well, and he was besides a very good composer.”
The archbishop was silent.
All this was a rich source of satisfaction to Wolfgang, but it did not lessen his father’s cares. The preparations for his journey were of course very carefully made, even in the minutest details, especially in what related to his compositions, that he might “be able to show what he could do in everything:” in concertos for the piano and violin, sonatas, airs and ensemble pieces of the most various kind. The sonatas for the piano alone—as we would remark here to the lovers of music—known as Nos. 279-284 in L. Kœchel’s “Chron. themat. Verzeichniss,” are, as to their form, perfectly full of beauty, and the matter of them frequently interests us by the distinctness of its almost speaking pictures of life. More significant and important yet is the sonata in C major. Its Andante cantabile, in F major (3/4), is a dramatic scene which, although on a small scale, clearly bespoke the hand of the future composer of Figaro and Don Giovanni. And the variations with which the sonata in A major (6/8) begins were hardly equaled by Beethoven in his Op. 26. The trio in the minuet, on the other hand, was a full scene from life, taken from the Carnival to which the closing Alla Turca alludes. Compared with these youthful works of Mozart—for they belong to the end of the year 1770—what are the sonatas of Ph. E. Bach, and even of Joseph Haydn?
The travelers had also, with the assistance of the father, made every other preparation for their journey. The boot-tree or stretcher, even, which was, at the time, a necessary part of a traveler’s outfit, was not forgotten. And yet their first stopping-place was near enough. The father had once before knocked at the doors of Munich. Now the son went to seek his fortune by calling personally on the good-hearted elector.
We can here, of course, touch only on the principal incidents of Mozart’s journey, on those which influenced his subsequent life, and must refer the reader for more detailed information to his letters. We find in them the clearest and most charming descriptions of his life. They appeal to our deepest feelings; for they are addressed, almost without exception, to the father. The father’s answers had to be very explicit, for there was ample room for advice and timely precaution, much to deter from or to make good again, as occasion required, and not a little place for admonition. In every one of them, we find the reflection of the solid worth of these two faithful souls, a worth which was destined to find a really ideal and transfigured echo in Mozart’s music. This journey had for effect the development of Mozart’s inmost nature. It gave his artistic creations that sovereign and catholic character for which they are so remarkable.
Wolfgang wrote some letters home, when he reached the first station. In one of them we read: “We live like princes. There is nothing wanting to complete our happiness but papa. But, please God, all will be well with us.”... “I hope that papa will be cheerful and as well satisfied as I am. I can put up very well with my lot. I am a second papa. I look after everything. I have undertaken to pay the postillion, too, for I can talk to the fellows better than mamma can. Papa should take care of his health, and remember that the mufti J. C. [Jerome Colloredo] is a mean fellow, but that God is compassionate, merciful and kind.” No sooner, however, had they reached their first stopping-place than things began to wear a different aspect. Mozart received, indeed, a warm reception. There was no lack of admiration for, or of recognition of, his genius. But he met with no success. His receipts were small, and employment hard to find. The innkeeper, Albert, of the sign of the “Black Eagle” (the hotel Detzer of the present), received them. Albert was known as the “learned host,” and took no small interest in art. Mozart first called on the manager of the theatre, count Seeau. He thought that if he had only one more opera, all would be well with him. He next visited the bishop of Chiemsee, to whom he owed it that he had the opportunity to compose the Verstellte Gaertnerin. Everybody knew of his arrival, and advised him to go direct to the elector, who was a patron of the fine arts, and esteemed Mozart himself very highly. But many days did not pass before Wolfgang discovered that the bishop had had a private conversation at table, in Nymphenburg, from which he gathered that he could accomplish very little in Munich. The bishop said: “It is too soon yet. He must go; he must take a trip to Italy and become famous. I refuse him nothing; but it is too soon yet.” The father was right; the want of good will hides itself too frequently behind the mask of “youth and too little experience.” And yet, we must ask, who was so much more celebrated than this young Cavaliere filarmonico? The electoress, too, shrugged her shoulders, but promised to do her best.
Mozart, however, insisted on going to Nymphenburg. The elector wanted to bear mass just before going to hunt. Mozart thus dramatizes the scene in one of his letters:
“With your electoral highness’s permission, I would fain most humbly cast myself at your highness’s feet and offer my services to your highness.”
“Well, have you left Salzburg for good?”
“Yes, for good, your electoral highness.”
“But why for good? Have you quarreled?”
“Well, please your electoral highness, I only asked leave to take a trip. This was refused me, and hence I was compelled to take this step, although I had long contemplated leaving, for Salzburg is no place for me.”
“My God, and you a young man!”
“I have been in Italy three times. I have written three operas, am a member of the Academy of Bologna, and have been obliged to undergo an examination on which many a master has been obliged to work and to sweat over for four or five hours. I got through it in an hour. This may prove to your highness that I am able to be of service at any court. My only wish is to serve your electoral highness, who is himself a great....”
“Yes, my dear child, but I am sorry to say that there is not a place vacant. If there was only a vacancy.”
“I assure your highness that I would certainly do honor to Munich.”
“Well, it’s of no use to talk that way, there’s not a place vacant.”
We have here given the whole dialogue. It is a typical example of the way in which princes and magnates treated Mozart through the whole of his short life. There never was “a vacancy” for him. Real genius finds no place to lay its head. It would seem as if its god-given nature were fated to find nothing earthly to cling to.
But, to continue. Spite of this positive declaration, Mozart was not deterred from trying it again at court, and this spite of the fact that his father had written to him that the elector could not create a new place without any more ado, and that, besides, there were always secret enemies in such cases, who prevented a thing of that kind out of anxiety to save their own skin. Yet friends, true and false, found means to flatter him. First of all, there was count Seeau, who had a pecuniary interest in the theater, and understood what advantage a fertile mind like that of Mozart might be to him. He knew how to amuse Mozart, whom, on the occasion of the performance of his first opera, he saw to be all fire and flame, with fair hopes: Mozart was to write a German opera of the heroic kind, and this appealed powerfully to his patriotic feelings. He himself next stirred up his own friends. A number of those interested in him, it was proposed, should club together, and enable him, by a regular monthly contribution, to remain in Munich until he had written such a work, and thus obtained a foothold. Seeau had, indeed, expressed himself to the effect that he would like to retain Mozart, if he had only “a little assistance from home.” Mozart wanted to pledge himself to write four German operas a year, partly comic and partly serious, and estimated that his profits from them would be at least eight hundred and fifty marks, or about two hundred dollars; that count Seeau would give at least five hundred, and would be always invited—and how much there was to be gained here! And he adds: “I am very much liked here even now; but how popular I should be if I could only elevate the German opera! and this I certainly would be able to do, for I felt the greatest desire to write when I heard the German vaudeville.”
“Wolfgang’s first castles in the air!” the father must have said to himself when he read these lines. The “learned host” who had taken the matter of contributions in hand with honest zeal and with a true interest in young Mozart, could not find so many as ten persons to give a trifle over a ducat a month to aid in the good cause. Yet it must be remembered that the German national taste for art was fast awakening together with the freedom of German national, intellectual life—the result of many causes, but especially of the deeds and exploits of Old Fritz (Frederick the Great); and, that a German national opera was among the ideals both of princes and artists—at least of those of them who shared in the broader and nobler thought of the period. We shall have something to say on this point further on.
Thus are we able to understand Wolfgang’s warm attachment for the German opera—and, indeed, had not the prima donna Kaiser “drawn many and many a tear from him”—as well as his arduous endeavor to obtain a firm and permanent foothold in Munich. But Wolfgang’s success as a virtuoso made the father believe in him completely, and inspired him with confidence, spite of this first want of success. The son writes: “At the very last, I played my own cassation in B major. Every one wondered. I played as if I were the greatest fiddler in Europe.” To which the father answered: “You don’t know yourself, my son, how well you play the violin when you only do yourself justice and care to play with heart and spirit, just as if you were the first violinist in Europe.” A cassation is a piece of music in the form of Beethoven’s septett, but intended for a solo-instrument, and especially for serenades.
But he was doomed to disappointment. To see how the father watched over the credit of his son who, in his first endeavors to attain success, had fallen into a condition of dependence entirely unworthy of him, and thus become a laughing-stock for the archbishop; and how the son excused his inconsiderate and inordinate zeal by pleading his passion for the opera, we must consult the letters of both. Wolfgang, with his characteristic amiability, says: “I speak from my heart, and just as I feel. If papa convinces me that I am in the wrong, I shall submit, however reluctantly; for I am out of myself the moment I even hear an opera spoken of.”
They left Munich on the 11th of October, 1777—that is, a full fortnight after their arrival. The father reminds them that neither “fair words, compliments nor bravissimos pay the postmaster or the host.” “Do all you can to earn some money, and be as careful as possible about your expenses. The object of your journey is, and must be, either to obtain employment or to earn money.” This last, however, was not their object in the rich and free imperial city of Augsburg, whither they first directed their steps, because it was their father’s birthplace. They received a warm welcome there from the father’s brother, like Wolfgang’s grandfather, a book-binder. Mozart’s playing and composition, as well as himself, here as everywhere else, met with the greatest recognition, both in public and private, but he did not succeed in giving a concert. The “patricians” were not in funds. And when the Protestant patricians invited them to their boorish academy (to the vornehmen Bauernstub Akademie), the total amount of the present made was—two ducats. “I’m very sure,” the father says, “they would scarcely have gotten me into their beggarly academy;” and, we may add: “The prophet is without honor in his own country.”
But he has erected the best possible monument to those Gothamites, so foolishly proud of their old imperial-city denizenship. In Mozart’s letters to his father, we get an exquisitely faithful picture of “free city” life and “free city” men, with the exaggerated self-consciousness and self-satisfaction of inherited possession and honor, so frequently met with in them that even mere youths seemed almost in their dotage. One cannot but grow merry at the expense of that narrow little world. “His grace,” the chamberlain to the exchequer of the town, Herr von Langenmantel the “my lords,” his sons, and his “gracious” young wife, fare all the worse under the lash of the Mozart’s well-known “wicked tongue,” because Mozart might reasonably have hoped to find a becoming welcome in his father’s birthplace. Even the golden spur given Mozart by Pope Ganganelli did more to charm these “free citizens” than it did to remind them of the honors so young an artist had already won, and that he was, in consequence, the peer of any one of them. One officer of the imperial army, especially, who ignored this fact, was very properly snubbed, and taught the lesson that Mozart was not to be made sport of. We read in one of the father’s letters, “Whenever I thought of your journey to Augsburg, I could not help thinking of Wieland’s Abderites; a man should get an opportunity to see in natura what in reading he considers a pure ideal.” But Mozart had here the best of opportunities to pursue those studies which the artist needs, in order to paint from life. We are reminded of his experiences, like those in Augsburg, by the brutal, self-destructive, ridiculous haughtiness of Osmin in the “Elopement from the Seraglio.”
Mozart’s meeting with the celebrated piano manufacturer Stein, to whom he left it to guess who he was, was a very cheerful meeting, and the manner of it such as Mozart delighted in. He again characterizes as “bad” the playing of Stein’s eight-year-old little girl, afterwards Frau Streicher, who played so honorable and womanly a part in Beethoven’s life. His intercourse with his uncle’s family, in which the presence of his niece, (das Baesle), a young girl of eighteen, served somewhat to exercise his affections, and was the occasion, afterwards, of a series of jocose letters between them. He writes: “I can assure you, that, were it not that it holds a clever uncle and aunt and a charming ‘Baesle,’ I should regret exceedingly having come to Augsburg.” “Baesle” and he seemed made for one another, he thought; “for,” as he said, “she, too, has a little badness in her. The two of us banter the people, and we have very amusing times.”
Their separation was of such a nature that the father had the “sad parting of the two persons, melting into tears, Wolfgang and Baesle,” painted on a panel in their room. All else concerning this sojourn in Augsburg must be looked for in the letters themselves, where the reader will find some exquisite genre painting.
“How I like Mannheim? As well as I can like any place where ‘Baesle’ is not,” we soon hear him answer; for Mannheim, the home of the elector, Karl Theodore, who was as fond of reveling as he was of art, was the next nearest destination our travelers had in view in order to attain Wolfgang’s main object. True, he did not attain his object here either, but he had there that first genuine heart-experience which helped to mature his character as much as his mind was already developed beyond his years.
His next meeting was with the electoral Capellmeister, Cannabich, who knew him when he (Mozart) was a child. He was “extraordinarily polite,” but the orchestra stared at him. As he writes: “They think that because I am so little and young, I have not much that is great in me; but they will soon see.” And the mother, soon after: “You cannot imagine how highly Wolfgang is esteemed here, both by musicians and others. They all say that he has no equal. They fairly deify his compositions.” And yet, so far, he had composed nothing here that could be called really great, no opera; and to write one was the chief reason why Mozart protracted his stay in Mannheim so long. Karl Theodore was, above all, the promoter and protector of those who endeavored to create a German national operatic stage, and his orchestra, under the leadership of Cannabich, was so exquisitely good that it and old Fritz’s tactics were considered the most significant and noteworthy phenomena in Europe at the time. Moreover, the elector was very affable with his musicians, who were everywhere looked upon as “decent people”—a complete contrast with those of Salzburg.
The pleasure-seeking tone of the court had, indeed, invaded the middle classes of society, also; but what did Mozart’s pure heart know of that? On the contrary, he was destined to find, even in voluptuous Mannheim, a love as beautiful as it was pure.
His heart was now completely open to that irresistible impulse of the human breast. Even when in Munich composing, his Gaertnerin aus Liebe, he once said to his “dearest sister”: “I implore you, dearest sister, do not forget your promise; that is, to make the visit, you know, ... for I have my reasons. I beg of you to make my compliments there, ... but most emphatically ... and most tenderly ... and ... O ... well, I should not trouble myself about it. I know my sister too well; she is tenderness itself.” His trifling with “Baesle” had left no impression on his heart of hearts. She was both in mind and culture too much of the bourgeoise, too immature to captivate him. His jocose correspondence with her affords sufficient proof of this. But now we see that Cupid himself directed his pencil.
Young Mozart next informs us of the merry times he had at the houses of the musicians of a city, in which, as a writer of the times says, “the ladies,” were beautiful, sweet and charming. We soon find him again, “as usual,” at Cannabich’s, for supper. Of an evening of this kind, spent there, he writes: “I, John Chrysostome Amadeus Wolfgang Sigismund Mozart, plead guilty, that, day before yesterday and yesterday, as I have done frequently, I did not come home until midnight, and that from ten o’clock, in the presence and society of Cannabich, his wife and daughter, of Messrs. Ramm and Lang [two members of the orchestra], I have made rhymes, and not of the most exalted nature, in words and thoughts but not in deeds. I would not have acted in so godless a way were it not that Lisel had excited me to it, and I must confess that I found real pleasure in it.” On one occasion, at the house of the flute-player, Wendling, he was in such excellent humor, and played so well, that when he had finished, he had to kiss the ladies. He tells us that, in the case of the daughter, he found this a very easy and pleasant task. She had been the elector’s sweetheart, and, as Schubart says, in his Aesthetik der Tonkunst, the “greatest beauty in the orchestra.”
But Rosa Cannabich “a very sweet and beautiful girl,” as he writes of her himself, fettered him with the complete irresistibleness of her innocent charms more than could even this blooming flower. And this was the beginning of those sweet love-songs which now flowed in pure tones from his poet-heart; and, hence, this event marks a period in our artist’s life. He writes, shortly after his arrival in Mannheim: “She plays the piano very sweetly, and to make him (the father) a fast friend, I am writing a sonata for mademoiselle, his daughter.” When the first allegro was finished, a young musician asked him how he intended to write the andante. “I shall fashion it after mademoiselle Rosa’s character,” he answered; and he informs us further: “When I played it, it gave extraordinary satisfaction. It is even so. The andante is just like her.”
What was she like? A painter subsequently wrote of her thus: “How many such beautiful, priceless hours did heaven grant me in sweet intercourse with Rosa Cannabich. Her memory is an Eden to my heart;” and Wolfgang now wrote of her that, for her age, she was a girl of much mind, and of demure and serious disposition, one who said little, but that little in an affable, nay, charming manner. In Naples stands Psyche, a rose just opening. Mozart possessed the same refined, antique feeling for the soul-statue of man. Here, before his clear-seeing artist eye, the bud that in it lay was fully blown. This fruitful heart-life was destined soon to sow deeper germs in his own soul, and to cause his own art to bloom fully forth.
Here, accordingly, we discover one of those turning points in the development of Mozart’s inner nature, which had much to do with his intellectual growth, inasmuch as his passion disclosed to him for the first time the meaning of the homely truth, that both life and art are serious things. We proceed to show how this effect was produced.
The court had heard him in the very first week of his stay in Mannheim. “You play incomparably well,” said the elector to him. Shortly after Mozart spoke to the elector as “his good friend,” and the latter began: “I have heard that you wrote an opera in Munich.” “Yes, your highness,” Mozart replied, “I commend myself as your grace’s obedient servant. My highest wish is to write an opera I beg your highness not to forget me quite I know German also, and may God be praised and thanked for it.” “That is not at all impossible,” answered his most serene highness, and so Mozart made his arrangements for a longer sojourn in Mannheim. He took some pupils, and as we saw when speaking of the pretty Rosa Cannabich, he wrote sonatas, or variations for them. For this he needed a copyist But copying was, as he once complained to his father, very dear in Mannheim, and he was, therefore, overjoyed, copying being to himself a real torment, after a while—it was at the beginning of 1778—to find a man who performed that task for him, in consideration of his instructing his daughter in music.
This man was Fridolin von Weber, brother of the father of C. M. von Weber, and at that time, a prompter and a copyist in the Mannheim theater. The daughter’s name was Aloysia, later the celebrated singer, Madame Lange.
The family had seen better days, but the father’s passion for the stage had led him into these straits, where he had for years to support a family of six children on an annual salary of three hundred and fifty marks. But he made such good use of his knowledge of music that his second daughter, who was at this time—she was in her fifteenth year—an excellent singer, cooperated with him at the theater, and thus doubled her father’s salary. Mozart as a musician felt at home in the family—for the eldest daughter, Josepha became afterwards Frau Hofer, for whom the “Queen of the Night” in the Magic Flute was written—and so the sympathy of his good heart was soon awakened. “She needs nothing but action, and then she will make a good prima donna on any stage. Her father is a thoroughly honorable son of our German fatherland. He brings his children up well, and that is the very cause why the girl is persecuted here.” Thus did he sum up the chief points in this affair in the first news he sent home. Subsequently he wrote a propos of a performance at the house of the princess of Orange: “I may pass over her singing with a single word—it was superb!” And at the close of his letter: “I have the inexpressible pleasure to have formed the acquaintance of thoroughly honest and really Christian people. I only regret that I did not know them long ago.”
This tells the whole story. He henceforth devoted nearly all his leisure to the family, rehearsed with the young vocalist all her arias, procured her opportunities to have her music heard, and had the satisfaction to know that Raaff himself, the most celebrated tenor in Mannheim, and even in Germany, declared that she sang not like a pupil, but like an adept in the vocal art.
One incident here deserves to be specially mentioned, for it had a decided, far-reaching and direct influence on Mozart’s action, and on his development as an artist. He had set about writing an aria for the great tenor already mentioned, in order to win him over for his contemplated opera. “But,” he writes, with the utmost frankness, “the beginning of it seemed to me too high for Raaff, and I liked it too well to change it. I therefore resolved to write the aria for Miss Weber. I laid it aside, and resolved on other words for Raaff. But to no purpose. I found it impossible to write. The first aria haunted my mind and would not away, and then I decided to write it out to suit Miss Weber exactly.”
What was the import of those words which he selected simply because an air to the same words, composed by the London Bach, had pleased him so much and kept forever ringing in his ears, and because he wanted to try whether, spite of everything, he was not able to write an aria entirely unlike Bach’s? What were the words?
A king orders a youth who has made an attempt upon his life to be led to execution. But when he sees the young culprit, he immediately exclaims: “What is this strange power that agitates and moves me? His face, his eye, his voice! My heart palpitates; every fibre of my body quivers! Through all my feelings I look for the cause of this strange effect, and cannot find it. What is it, O God, what is it that I feel?” And hereupon follows that very aria, Non so d’onde viene: “I know not whence this tender feeling. Mere pity cannot produce a change so sudden!” Was not this the condition of Mozart’s own heart? He imagined that pity, and pity only, for the condition of the Weber family, and, at most, an interest in the “beautiful, pure voice,” and wonder at the combination of so much ability with such extreme youth, bound his heart to their home; but it was not that; it was the undivined depths which the first feeling of love opens before us; the wonder, the charm, the trembling, glowing exultation, the heart-felt, floating, exquisite bliss which with a longing foreboding discovers us to ourselves for the first time, and which, in the throes of our heart of hearts, seems to give a new birth to every drop of blood in our veins. In such a state, we may imagine, it was that he sang this: Non so d’onde viene—not as a musician, not as an artist, but urged thereto by that powerful, irresistible impulse of the heart which, in the last instance, begets in us all our truest life. And as Pygmalion, in a fit of such fiery ardor, moved the marble so Mozart melted in this first fire of the fullest and most human of feelings, the elemental substances of all music, and gave it what it hitherto had possessed only in isolated cases and accidentally, an impression full of soul, a meaning to its every tone.
It is hard to find before Mozart, except it be in national melodies, anything of this living, animated, thoroughly personal expression of feeling, such as we possess in this Non so d’onde viene. It is like Aloysia’s picture itself. Here we find a language plainer and more universally intelligible than words. It charms and enchants us; looks us in the face; speaks to us with an expression as if we alone were addressed. This is the highest, the very highest effect of art, and this the time when it becomes a second, an ideal, a transfigured life. The language which Mozart thus acquired for his art, he never forgot or dropped. He embellished it, amplified it, deepened it, until he reached that expression of the soul in which, like the melody in the Magic Flute, the soul itself stands face to face with its Creator, and in the calmness of its bliss, feels that it is “the image of God,” and His portion forever.
We here close the account of Mozart’s inner awakening. We may now compare with his first heart-trials his first intellectual exploits, the very beginning of which was this aria, Non so d’onde viene, to write which he was inspired by his love for Aloysia Weber.