Ebenezer Prout

“ Very few musicians will be found who will place him, either as a symphonist or as a writer for the piano, by the side of Beethoven; but, on the other hand, the latter is far inferior to Mozart in his treatment of the voice. Again, Mozart's songs, taken as a whole, will not compare with those of Schubert, but as an operatic composer Schubert has written nothing to approach, still less to equal, Figaro or Don Giovanni. There is hardly one department of musical composition on which the genius of Mozart has not left its mark. ”

“ In the music of La Finta Giardiniera a great advance on any of Mozart's previous operas is to be seen. Not only is there a richness of melodic invention worthy to compare with that of his later and greater works, but there is more organic unity in the music as a whole. Though some of the airs now appear unduly spun out, it must be remembered that long solos were the fashion of the day. The orchestra is treated with more independence than hitherto, and the score abounds with beautiful effects of colouring, though in most numbers but few wind instruments are employed. ”

“ Without underestimating his remarkable natural gifts, it can hardly be doubted that Mozart's surroundings conduced not a little to the versatility of his genius. Both in Salzburg and in Vienna Italian music was in the ascendant; and in this the vocal element was of far more importance than the instrumental. With his extraordinary power of assimilating all that was best in whatever he heard, and the almost supernatural facility in composition which seems to have come to him instinctively, it is not surprising that his earliest works show strong traces of Italian influence. ”

“ With the object of studying jurisprudence, Leopold entered the university of Salzburg, supporting himself by teaching music and playing the violin. He was a musician of considerable attainments, and in 1743 the Archbishop of Salzburg took him into his service, later appointing him Court composer and leader of the orchestra. He was a voluminous composer, but his works show little inventive power. His fame as a musician rests chiefly on his "School for the Violin," printed in 1756—the year of Wolfgang's birth. ”

“ We managed the matter, and he had the opportunity of hearing his concerto played off by Wolfgang as if he knew it by heart. The astonishment of this composer and performer, the expressions which he used in his admiration, gave us all to understand what I have just been pointing out to you. At last he said: 'I can, as an honourable man, say nothing else than that this boy is the greatest man now living in the world; it was impossible to believe.'"
Isolated cases of this kind could do but little to stem the torrent of calumny and depreciation to which the young composer was exposed. ”

“ You know, there are a hundred without knowledge to every one connoisseur, so do not forget the so-called 'popular' that tickles even the long ears." Wolfgang replied: "Don't trouble yourself about the so-called 'popular,' for in my opera is music for all kinds of people—only not for the long ears."
Idomeneo was produced on January 29, 1781, with a success that must have satisfied not only the composer, but also his father and sister, who came over from Salzburg to hear it. In this opera we find Mozart in his full maturity. ”

“ On October 30 Mozart and his mother arrived at Mannheim. The long stay of between four and five months which they made in this place had in more than one respect an important influence on Mozart's future. The orchestra at Mannheim was considered the finest in Europe, and the young composer writes of it to his father in enthusiastic terms. He was especially struck by the clarinets, which he here for the first time met with in the orchestra. He writes: "Ah, if we only had clarinets! You cannot believe what a splendid effect a symphony makes with flutes, oboes, and clarinets." ”

“ At first he earned only a precarious livelihood by playing at fashionable parties and teaching the piano; but he looked forward with great hopes to obtaining an appointment with the Emperor Joseph II. But the monarch, though always affable and even cordial to the composer, preferred Italian music to the more solid style of Mozart, whom he esteemed as a pianist rather than as a composer. "He cares for no one but Salieri," said Mozart of him; and there can be no doubt that the influence of the Italian on the Emperor was very great. ”

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

“ This was no doubt to some extent modified by the journeys which, as a child, he made with his father to Paris and London, in which cities he learned to know much of both French and German music; but nearly to the end of his life his style, especially in his vocal music, was rather Italian than distinctively German.
One of the most striking features of Mozart's music is the perfect command of form seen in even his earliest works. He was never a great innovator in the sense in which that word may be applied to Haydn, Beethoven, or Schumann ”

“ It has been advisable to give in considerable detail the particulars of Mozart's earliest years because the precocious development of his genius is absolutely without a parallel in the case of any other composer. The limits of the present volume will render it needful to be somewhat more concise in dealing with the rest of the biography. It is characteristic of the young Wolfgang that his simple nature does not appear to have been in the least spoiled by successes which were enough to have turned the head of an adult. ”

“ These were four sonatas for piano and violin, published in two sets, the first of which was dedicated to the Princess Victoria, the second daughter of the King, and the second to the Comtesse de Tesse, lady-in-waiting to the Dauphiness. It is not too much to say that these four sonatas are the most remarkable examples in existence of precocious musical genius. It is not so much that they show great originality in their subject-matter, though in the slow movements, especially in that of the fourth sonata, foreshadowings of the riper Mozart may be seen ”

“ The same may be said of the adagio of the first piano sonata, and of the whole of the sonata in D for piano and violin—to name but a few examples of many. Not the least disparagement of Beethoven is intended in saying this: every great composer has begun his career by imitating more or less closely the works of his predecessors, and it was inevitable that Mozart should have influenced one who had so many points of affinity with him. In Beethoven's later works the similarity of style is no longer to be noticed. ”

“ Some of these juvenile efforts have been preserved, and show that while the young musician had not at that time acquired any individuality of style, he had an instinctive feeling for clearness of form, while his harmony shows a correctness which is absolutely amazing in so young a child. ”

“ By means of introductions which he had brought with him, Leopold Mozart soon obtained permission for his children to play at Court, where the King's daughters showed themselves extremely friendly to them. The father in one of his letters tells how they went on New Year's Day to the supper-room of the royal family, and how Wolfgang stood near the Queen, who fed him with sweetmeats and talked to him in German, interpreting his answers to the King, who did not understand the language. Every where the child's performances excited the greatest wonder and admiration. ”

“ Among composers of the present day one would seek in vain for any traces of Mozart's influence. Times have changed, and the classical style has been supplanted by the romantic. Whether this is altogether to the advantage of modern music is a question which cannot be discussed here; but an energetic protest may at least be entered against the superficial criticism sometimes to be heard that Mozart's works are weak and old-fashioned. That music has made much progress since Mozart's days nobody will deny ”

“ In May, 1791, an old acquaintance of Mozart's, Emanuel Schickaneder, the manager of a small theatre at Vienna, being in embarrassed circumstances, proposed to Mozart to write an opera on a magic subject, of which he, Schickaneder, would prepare the libretto. Mozart, always ready to help a friend, agreed, though with some little hesitation, saying that he had never written a magic opera. The work was Die Zauberflöte, and Mozart began its composition at once. ”

“ Mozart, who had written no church music since his Mass in C minor eight years before, eagerly accepted the commission, and began work at once. It is now ascertained beyond a doubt that the individual who visited Mozart was the steward of a certain Count Walsegg, an amateur musician who desired to be thought a great composer, and who actually copied the score of the Requiem and had it performed as his own work. ”

“ Constanze, though endowed with many excellent qualities, was a bad housekeeper, while Mozart, besides being generous to a fault, had not the least capacity for business, nor even any idea of economy. No wonder, then, that when to the care and expense of a young family was added a long and severe illness of the wife, they were often in sore pecuniary difficulties. Jahn says that if Mozart had been as good a man of business as his father, he would have done very well in Vienna, for he earned a very good income. ”

“ Some of them, especially those in F and D major, both of which were written at Salzburg in 1774, are in every way worthy of Mozart, while there are but few of the others which do not contain movements of the greatest beauty. The same may be said of his litanies, vespers, and smaller sacred works. But his power as a composer of Church music is best shown in portions of the great Mass in C minor, which he began at Vienna in 1783, but never completed, and most of all in the Requiem, in which his genius rises to a greater height than in any of his other sacred compositions. ”

“ In surveying Mozart's art work as a whole, one of the first things to strike the student is the comprehensiveness of his genius. There is hardly another of the great composers who has produced so many masterpieces in so many different styles. ”

“ These novelties are to be seen less in his operas and symphonies than in his serenades and divertimenti.* It was not till his visit to Paris in 1779 that his command of orchestration reached its highest development. In his works from this time forward, whether purely instrumental, or vocal with orchestral accompaniment, are seen a richness and a feeling for beauty of colouring in advance of anything previously heard. ”

“ In spite of the support of the Emperor, the unscrupulous intrigues of Mozart's enemies, of which his father's letters convey a vivid idea, so influenced the manager of the theatre, Affligio—a scoundrel who, it is satisfactory to learn, ended his days at the galleys—that the opera was never produced. By way of consolation, however, the father had the pleasure of hearing a German operetta by Wolfgang performed. This was Bastien und Bastienne, a piece in one act, which was written for Dr. Messmer, a rich amateur who had built a small theatre in his garden. ”