Otto Jahn

“ And it is in this that consists the successful cultivation of any art in youth: in this mastery of the means whereby the man in his maturity makes his genius felt without apparent effort. Whatever study and discipline could attain, Mozart had attained before he left Salzburg; it was time that he should emerge from his narrow surroundings, that he should win freedom and independence, both as a man and an artist, by contact with the world. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Mozart's organ and violin-playing created quite as much astonishment as his performances on the clavier:—
When I told Herr Stein that I should like to play upon his organ (in the Barfüsserkirche) , for that I had a passion for the organ, he was greatly astonished, and said: "What! a man like you, a clavier-player, willing to play on an instrument which has no douceur, no expression; which allows of neither piano nor forte, but goes on always the same!" "All that has nothing to do with it. To my mind, the organ is the king of all instruments." ”

“ 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 glorious contemplation of the organic development of a gifted nature, turning all to good account, FAMILY LIFE IN SALZBURG. [329] and rejecting what impedes its growth so soon as it has served its turn, is open for us in Mozart. To him it was given to master the external conditions of his art on every side without injury to his individuality and creative force. Artist and man grew together; the deeper the passion and the more intense the emotion, the more grand and impressive became the forms in which they were embodied. ”

“ The stay in Mannheim influenced his artistic life through the intellectual atmosphere of a capital in which flourished German science and German art; but beyond and above this, it was there that he was seized by the passion which sways the innermost being of man, and blunts for the time every other feeling. We have seen how susceptible he always was to female charms, and how he delighted in intercourse with agreeable women, whose attractions often threw a favourable light on his opinion of their musical acquirements. ”

“ But wonderful as were Wolfgang's accomplishments as a clavier-player, violinist, and vocalist, they were thrown into the shade by his talents as a composer. Even in his public performances the prominence given to improvisation is remarkable, and the readiness with which he adapted the most varied subjects, always fulfilling the conditions of musical art, presupposes not only great liveliness of imagination, but a perfect mastery of mechanical form. In estimating Mozart's early acquirements, the most impressive fact to be noticed is the absence of any exaggeration of feeling or over-cultivation ”

“ The task of the musician is the combination and elaboration of the detached elements into an interdependent whole, in which the laws of musical and dramatic art are in unconscious harmony; the master makes good his claim to the title by the depth with which he grasps the idea, by the delicacy with which he apportions the claims of individuals to independence, and by the strength and truth with which he gives life to his creations. Mozart's genius amply satisfies all these conditions. ”

“ An author who can seriously maintain that the great masters of counterpoint, Palestrina, Bach, and Handel were only called into being in order that the Requiem might be produced, an author who can only grasp and develop the idea of natural progress up to a certain point and no further—that author has surely mastered neither the idea of progress, nor the nature of the art, nor the work of the master whom he seeks to honour. Such a partial and exclusive appreciation of any artist may satisfy individual taste, for which it is proverbially impossible to account ”

“ The absolute monarchy of Zeno and Metastasio, whom all other poets slavishly imitated, would alone suffice to explain the fact that in the course of the last century opera seria received the fixed and unalterable form it still retains; we have seen that the tendency was the same as regards the music. This makes it comprehensible that in reading the text or the scores in the present day we have so lively an impression that they are but copies of one original. In no art does the feeling for what is enduring pass so easily and quickly into the taste for what pleases the age as in music. ”

“ If any one had told me fifteen or eighteen years ago, when I heard so much of the opera songs and symphonies of Lampugnani in England, and Melchior Chiesa in Italy, that these two men would perform your son's music, and take his place at the piano to accompany his opera, I should probably have directed such a person to the madhouse as an idiot. We see by this how the power of God works in us men when we do not bury the talents that He has graciously bestowed on us. ”

“ Thus, for instance, we coincided in our experience that at a certain period of our mental development Mozart's music had seemed cold and unintelligible to our restless spirits, ever soaring into the unknown, and incapable of appreciating a master whose passions in their workings are not laid bare to view, but who offers us perfect beauty victorious over turbulence and impurity. ”

“ After such harmonious renderings of a calm and collected mood, we are surprised by the words "Panis vivus" as an elaborate tenor song, altogether in the style of opera seria. In the succeeding movements, where the text seldom lends itself readily to musical adaptation, the hand of the master is visible in the admirable grouping of the larger sections and of the separate subjects, not less than in the true and beautiful expression of sentiment, and in the finely graduated and shaded unity of tone. ”

“ The survey we have taken of Mozart's church music will give some idea of the industry with which he strove to master the various forms of his art, as well as of the ease and fertility of his production, and the truth of his artistic feeling. Remembering his activity in operatic music, we are amazed at the wealth of his many-sided genius; but the unceasing exercise of all his musical powers serves to explain in part that marvellous acquaintance with all the technicalities and forms of his art which not even the possession of great genius can account for in so youthful a composer. ”

“ Wolfgang is made much of everywhere; but he plays quite differently from what he does at Salzburg, for there are nothing but pianofortes here, and you never heard anything like the way he manages them; in a word, every one that hears him declares that his equal is not to be found. Although Beecké has been here, as well as Schubart, they all agree that he surpasses them both in beauty of tone, in gusto, and delicacy; and what they most admire is his playing out of his head whatever is laid before him. ”

“ You will, I know, agree with me that the critic who, like Ulibicheff, depreciates Beethoven in order to maintain Mozart on his pedestal, does not understand Mozart. The distortion and exaggeration of such an idea leads further to the neglect of those clues to a right understanding of Mozart's development which exist in the circumstances of his life, in his youthful works, and in the conditions of his age and surroundings. These had all direct effect upon his genius, and, in so far as they are disregarded, our conception of the man and the artist will be defective. ”

“ No one knows better than yourself, my friend, the false conclusions to which this exaggeration of an idea, true and suggestive in itself, has led. The partiality of enthusiasm and dilettantism join issue here. It needs no great penetration to discover that Ulibicheffs epitome of the history of music is not the result of impartial research, or of a practical knowledge of even the more important works of past ages, but that it is compiled from a few easily recognised works with the express object of demonstrating that all that has gone before has its end and consummation in Mozart. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Inventive genius, technical scholarship, and deep, clear comprehension, are more evidently displayed by Mozart in this mass than ever before; the subjects have an intensity, a charm of beauty which had scarcely yet been suggested. Here, for the first time, we become aware of that wonderful beauty, Mozart's most special endowment, which we may designate sweetness, if we mean by that the perfect harmony of a naturally developed artistic organism. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The chorus calling on the spirits of the heroes for support and vengeance is serious to solemnity, with striking harmonies and an independent treatment of parts, giving animation to the whole—an altogether excellent piece of music, with much dramatic effect. Junia joins in with a prayer to the shade of her father. The pain of a proud, strong spirit is expressed in a simple and dignified adagio, which gives a fine soprano voice full scope for the display of its capabilities. ”

“ The evident striving of the youthful Mozart to express himself and his innermost feelings in his music affords a significant indication of his development as an artist. Life had not taught him the lessons of passion and disappointment, and his nature was too sound and healthy to attempt to anticipate or represent emotions which had not touched him; he shows himself to us as he is. ”

“ However bitterly he felt that ill-will and disappointment pursued him in Vienna as they had never done abroad, and that his opponents were Germans seeking to oppress a German, whom foreigners had treated with justice and liberality, yet intrigues and slanders never deprived him of patience and self-command:—
It is just the way of the world; if a man has no talent he is unhappy enough, but if he has talent, then envy follows him in proportion to his ability. ”

“ It had the most wholesome effect on the development of Mozart's character and genius that his father, who loved him as only a father can love, who justly estimated and admired his artistic genius, was never dazzled by it, never ignored nor concealed his weaknesses, but warned and blamed him, and strove to bring him up with a conscientious fidelity to duty. ”

“ L. Mozart's intention of taking Wolfgang to Italy remained firm as ever, and he considered their stay in Vienna as the first step towards its accomplishment. At that time, Italy was to musicians what she now is to painters and sculptors; a residence there was necessary to give the finishing touches to their education, and éclat to their reputation.
Music in Italy was not only an art universally diffused and esteemed, it was the Art par excellence. All classes shared the insatiable desire for music everywhere—in the churches, the theatres, the streets, and their own homes ”