Otto Jahn

“ An agitated recitative is followed by a long, elaborate Allegro, expressive of the passion of a brave and noble mind. Scorn for perfidy overpowers even pain at the loss of the beloved one; tones which seem to scorch and wither pour forth like glowing metal on the betrayer; then comes a subject which has already made itself heard more than once in the orchestra as a cry of suppressed pain, and this leads to a gentler mood; grief for the lost love is expressed in a beautiful recitative, and dies away into calm and composed melancholy with a Cavatina, which concludes the scena. ”

“ Artists die, after devoting all that was granted them of life to the glorification of their art. The admiration of all mankind follows them to the grave, nations mourn for them, and yet the universal fate of these great men is—to be forgotten of their admirers. It shall not be so with us, my brethren! Mozart's early death is an irreparable loss to art. His genius, displayed in earliest childhood, rendered him the wonder of his age—half Europe was at his feet—the great ones of the earth called him their darling—and we called him—brother. ”

“ And in very truth the merry, lively movement pursues its uninterrupted course from the first eager murmur of the violins to the final flourish of trumpets. One bright, cheerful melody succeeds another, running and dancing for very lightness of heart, like a clear mountain stream rippling over the pebbles in the sunshine. A sudden stroke here and there electrifies the motion; and once, when a gentle melancholy shines forth, the merriment is as it were transfigured into the intensest happiness and content. A piece of music can hardly be more lightly and loosely put together than this ”

“ After all, in an opera, the poetry must be the handmaid of the music. Why do Italian comic operas always please, in spite of their wretched librettos—even in Paris, as I was witness myself? Because the music is supreme, and everything else is forgotten. All the more then will an opera be likely to please in which the plan of the piece is well carried out, and the words are written simply to suit the music; not turned and twisted so as to ruin the composition for the sake of a miserable rhyme, which God knows does far more harm than good in a dramatic representation. ”

“ In Vienna, of all places, the birthplace and domain of Haydn's chamber-music, the ambitious youth would exert himself to satisfy the demand for the highest class of compositions. Most of them have the approved four movements, and the composer's invention and execution keep pace with the more extended scope of the composition. The quartets are manlier and more mature than in the earlier works of the kind; but the singular beauty of form, the grace and freshness of Mozart in his full development, only show themselves in momentary gleams of inspiration. ”

“ It is impossible in any art (and more especially so in music) to separate absolutely form and substance, and to treat each as a self-sufficing element, and equally impossible to divide at any given point the creative, inventive force of an artistic production from its formative, executive force. The process of production, whether physical or mental, is a mystery to mankind; whence and how the artist is inspired as by a lightning flash with an idea, he knows himself as little as he can trace in his completed work the actual momentum of its conception. ”

“ Implacable as Elvira shows herself in her pursuit of revenge on Don Giovanni, her love for him has taken such deep root in her heart, his personality exercises such a magic power over her, that she is ready to forget all that is past, and to trust herself to him again. Poetry could only make this visible by means of a chain of connecting links; music is happier in its power of rendering the most hidden springs of human action; once let the right key be struck, and the state of mind to be represented is there. ”

“ I will gladly give lessons as a favour, particularly to any one who shows genius and a real wish to learn. But to be obliged to go to a house at a certain hour, or to be obliged to wait at home for a pupil, is what I cannot do, even if it were to bring me some profit. I leave that to those who can do nothing but play the clavier. I am a composer, and a born kapellmeister; I ought not to bury my talent for composition which a merciful God has so richly bestowed upon me (I may say it without pride, for I feel it now more than ever) ; and pupils are most distracting to the mind. ”

“ The fact of his probation taking place for the most part in silence is of disadvantage to him, both as a tenor and a lover; the dark cave and the wandering through fire and water are not particularly terrifying to the spectators, and his praiseworthy endeavours after virtue are too abstract to be interesting. And yet Mozart has filled in this colourless outline with the warm tints of youthful enthusiasm for all that is noble in life and in love. ”

“ Each understood and appreciated the other, each freely acknowledged his indebtedness to the other from a musical point of view, and each, in his own consciousness of power and independence, found the standard for estimating the worth of his brother-artist.
Those who strove to raise the dust of dissension between them are, for the most part, forgotten or relegated to their due position in the background of musical history: Mozart and Haydn stand side by side on the heights, witnessing for ever to the truth that the greatness of a genuinely artistic nature attracts and does not repel its like. ”

“ Wave follows upon wave, and each one seems to be like the last; yet underlying the apparent monotony there exists an ever-varied life, an invincible strength, manifesting itself alike in peaceful calm and raging storm, and filling the mind with a sense of sublimity and grandeur, without satiety and without fatigue. But so soon as one melody was distinguished above the rest the union and equality of the voices was disturbed. ”

“ The orchestra executes an independent piece of music, carefully worked-out and rounded in most delicate detail, which admirably renders the situation, and yet only serves as a foil to the independent voice-part. A tone of playful humour runs through the whole long piece from beginning to end; it is the merriment of youth, finding an outlet in jest and teasing, expressed with all possible freshness and grace. ”

“ You must make a name for yourself. When did Gluck, when did Piccinni, when did all these people come forward? Gluck is not less than sixty, and it is twenty-six or twenty-seven years since he was first spoken of; and can you really imagine that the French public, or even the manager of the theatre, can be convinced of your powers of composition without having heard anything by you in their lives, or knowing you, except in your childhood as an excellent clavier-player and precocious genius? You must exert yourself, and make yourself known as a composer in every branch ”

“ He considered the accomplishments of an artist as no mere pastime for hours of recreation, no passing breath of visionary inspiration; but as the ripe food of ceaseless labour, of untiring progress in moral and artistic self-knowledge. He was not content to recognise in the wonderful receptive and productive powers of his son a passport to easy indolence, but strove to make him consider them as deposits to be turned to the best account by study and cultivation. ”

“ But here again Mozart has turned one of the resources of musical construction into a development of a psychological idea. How deeply suggestive it is that the warning cries should be heard woven into the imitations, dying into tender, almost melancholy entreaty, and finally, as the mocker seems determined to treat it all as a jest, rising into an awful call to repentance, sounding again and again with a force that penetrates into the very marrow of one's bones! ”

“ The orchestra has a more independent part here than in the two other choruses. The character of them all is fresh and cheerful; as with a man rejoicing in the fulness of his health and strength, everything is stirring and full of sound and bustle, so it is with these choruses, which, without any striking qualities, are thoroughly effective where they stand. The charming chorus previous to the embarkation of Electra and Idamante is more characteristic, and seems to mirror the cheerful heavens and the calm sea, together with Electra's happy frame of mind. ”

“ The creative power of genius is indeed a gift of nature, but a mastery of art is only acquired by hard labour and pains; strength to labour indefatigably and ability to make the labour bear fruit are the prerogatives of genius. It would be doing Mozart an injustice to deny him the reputation of true and conscientious industry; the beauty of perfect work proves not that no labour has been bestowed on it, but that the labour has been successful. ”

“ The statues of the Parthenon or the figures of Raphael teach how the great masters of the formative arts follow nature in all and each of their creations; they teach, too, how the treasure which the eye of genius descries in the depths of nature must be first received into a human heart, thence to emerge as a complete and self-contained whole, appealing to the sympathies of all mankind. Nor is it otherwise with the great masters of sound, whatever be the impulse which urges them to expression, whether the words of the poet, the experiences of life, the impressions of form, colour, or sound ”

“ It would be a hard task indeed to fathom the nature of an artist to that point where the threads of his personal powers and proclivities, and those of the cultivation of his time and nation, are so interwoven that they appear as the root of his artistic individuality; we must be content with tracing onward the path of his development.
Although Mozart's training had so imbued him with the spirit of Italian music that its essence appeared to him as the essence of music itself, yet he transformed the elements which he had so absorbed with the whole force of his individuality. ”

“ L. Mozart felt that immediate action was necessary; all his former objection to the journey to Paris vanished before the necessity of extricating his son from his present dangerous entanglement. "Away with you to Paris, and that soon!" he cried. "Put yourself at the side of great men—aut Cosar aut nihil! The mere thought of seeing Paris should have preserved you from all passing distractions. The name and fame of a man of great talent goes through all the world from Paris." The company of Wendling and Ramm was not as important to him as his was to them. ”

“ Some men's impressions of a great work are involuntary, and they seek later to comprehend the grounds of their enjoyment; others strive consciously to grasp the idea of the work and to incorporate it into their being; but to the man of creative genius alone is it given to preserve his own totality while absorbing all that is good in the works of other artists.
Without ever losing his own individuality, an artist of true genius absorbs impressions from nature and from other works of art than his own, and constructs them anew from his inner consciousness. ”

“ The spirits themselves Mozart has wisely kept in the background. Invisible in the darkness, they summon their victim in few, monotonous, but appalling notes. This allows of a more animated expression to the torture of despair which seizes Don Giovanni, and to the terror of Leporello; while the orchestra depicts the tumult of all the powers of nature. This scene can only attain to its full effect when theatrical managers can make up their minds to allow the music to work on the imagination and feeling of the audience, unimpeded by a display of fireworks and demoniac masks. ”

“ It must not be overlooked that the apprehension of dramatic truth and character varies with different times and different nations, and that the genius of first-rate artists could inspire life into what now appears a lifeless assemblage of notes. But it must at the same time be allowed that Mozart's operas of this period come under the influence of a taste perverted in many respects, which the youthful master had not yet overcome; and his forced compliance with many purely conventional demands must of necessity have left traces on his work as deep and lasting as those of his creative genius. ”

“ The fresh new life which had awakened in German poetry, and which first caused a consciousness of national existence to show itself in the realm of art, touched Mozart at a time when his musical education was already firmly grounded. He could therefore without self-contradiction continue along the trodden path, and carry on the development of the Italian opera as a settled form of art, which he had made his own in the truest sense. But the impulse of German art laid hold, as we shall see, of his innermost being, and gave him clear consciousness of his capabilities as a German artist. ”

“ The death which ends the pain of the Commendatore, the mingled pity and triumph of Don Giovanni, the horror and fear of Leporello, are blended into such harmony as to leave the mind—relieved from suspense—full of true emotion. The unusual combination of three bass voices seems as though expressly chosen for the serious tone of the situation; the stringed instruments accompany the voices in the simplest manner, with a few sustained notes for the horns and bassoons, and only in the concluding symphony do the oboes and flutes enter with a plaintive chromatic passage. ”

“ Every artist, no matter how many-sided his genius, feels his nature impelled in a certain direction in which his creative strength works freely and independently, while other paths remain strange to him or are altogether closed. Experience and cultivation go far to equalise his powers, but they are powerless to alter the original impulse. Now dramatic representation makes demands upon the artist for the satisfaction of which he must not indeed overstep the bounds of his individuality—that no man can do with impunity—but he must stretch them to their extremest limits. ”

“ The conquered pain breaks out again in the introduction to the last movement, but its sting is broken—it dies away to make room for another feeling. The new émotion is not merely resignation, but joy—the passionate consciousness of bliss, just as inspired, just as restlessly excited as the previous pain. But the exultant dithyramb has not the same engrossing interest for the hearers; man is readier to sympathise with the sorrows of others than with their joys, although he would rather bear his sorrow alone than his joy. ”

“ Especially characteristic is the middle movement of this song. One seems to see a wild beast, now yawning and stretching, now crouching for a spring; grim cruelty and lustful indolence are wonderfully characterised by the alternation of octaves and dissonant suspensions in the accompaniment, as well as by the triplet passages which are given by the orchestra in unison, as if there could be no harmony here; the expression of joy is mingled with unspeakable brutality, and comes to a climax in the shrill note of exultation at the close. ”

“ The flourish is heard again, the curtain rises, and the andante is repeated in its main points, the instrumental movement serving as a foundation for the free motion of the voices. The different points are more sharply accented, and the hearer's enjoyment is intensified by the richer and more brilliant working out of the movement, which shows itself, as it were, in an altogether new light. The ensemble is inspired with cheerful humour, full of dramatic life, and showing distinctly Mozart's own art of giving independence and freedom to the voices and orchestra, as members of one perfect whole. ”

“ Now that you tell me you are about to write an opera, follow my advice, and reflect that your whole reputation hangs on your first piece. Listen before you write, and study the national taste; listen to their operas, and examine them. I know your wonderful powers of imitation. Do not write hurriedly—no sensible composer does that. Study the words beforehand with Baron von Grimm and Noverre; make sketches, and let them hear them. It is always done: Voltaire reads his poems to his friends, hears their judgments, and follows their suggestions. ”

“ A Don Giovanni, a very demon, who seeks in sensual love to satisfy his cravings for the supernatural; who, weary and satiated with earthly pleasures, despising mankind, and in utter scorn against nature and his Creator seeks to compass the ruin of every woman he meets, is as foreign to the age, the character, and the music of Mozart as a Donna Anna who, loving the greatness which originally existed in Don Giovanni, yields to him without resistance, only to feel doubly conscious of her abasement and absorbed in the desire for revenge. ”

“ It is true that Mozart could not have rendered love so truly without having felt it in its full intensity. But if we stop to realise the difficulties and vexations with which Mozart had to struggle as a lover, we shall rather wonder that he could compose at all under such circumstances, and the Entführung" becomes a striking proof that creative genius sets the artist free from the pressure of life, and raises him into the region of beauty in which true art is begotten. ”