Mozart: The Man and the Artist, as Revealed in His Own Words Part 5

92. "Handel knows better than any of us what will make an effect; when he chooses he strikes like a thunderbolt; even if he is often prosy, after the manner of his time, there is always something in his music."

(Mozart valued Handel most highly. He knew his masterpieces by heart--not only the choruses but also many arias. [Reported by Rochlitz. H.E.K.])

93. "Apropos, I intended, while asking you to send back the rondo, to send me also the six fugues by Handel and the toccatas and fugues by Eberlin. I go every Sunday to Baron von Swieten's, and there nothing is played except Handel and Bach. I am making a collection of the fugues,--those of Sebastian as well as of Emanuel and Friedemann Bach; also of Handel's, and here the six are lacking. Besides I want to let the baron hear those of Eberlin. In all likelihood you know that the English Bach is dead; a pity for the world of music."

(Vienna, April 10, 1782, to his father. Johann Ernst Eberlin (Eberle), born in 1702, died in 1762 as archiepiscopal chapelmaster in Salzburg. Many of his unpublished works are preserved in Berlin. The "English" Bach was Johann Christian, son of the great Johann Sebastian. As a child Mozart made his acquaintance in London.)

94. "I shall be glad if papa has not yet had the works of Eberlin copied, for I have gotten them meanwhile, and discovered,--for I could not remember,--that they are too trivial and surely do not deserve a place among those of Bach and Handel. All respect to his four-part writing, but his clavier fugues are nothing but long-drawn-out versetti."

(Vienna, April 29, 1782, to his sister Nannerl.)

95. "Johann Christian Bach has been here (Paris) for a fortnight.

He is to write a French opera, and is come only to hear the singers, whereupon he will go to London, write the opera, and come back to put it on the stage. You can easily imagine his delight and mine when we met again. Perhaps his delight was not altogether sincere, but one must admit that he is an honorable man and does justice to all. I love him, as you know, with all my heart, and respect him; as for him, one thing is certain, that to my face and to others, he really praised me, not extravagantly, like some, but seriously and in earnest."

(St. Germain, August 27, 1778, to his father. Johann Christian Bach was the second son of Johann Sebastian, and born in 1735.

He lived in London where little Wolfgang learned to know him in 1764. Bach took the precocious boy on his knee and the two played on the harpsichord. [Bach was Music Master to the Queen. "He liked to play with the boy," says Jahn; "took him upon his knee and went through a sonata with him, each in turn playing a measure with such precision that no one would have suspected two performers. He began a fugue, which Wolfgang took up and completed when Bach broke off." H.E.K.])

96. "Bach is the father, we are the youngsters. Those of us who can do a decent thing learned how from him; and whoever will not admit it is a..."

(A remark made at a gathering in Leipsic. The Bach referred to is Phillip Emanuel Bach, who died in 1788.)

97. "Here, at last, is something from which one can learn!"

(Mozart's e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n when he heard Bach's motet for double chorus, "Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied," at Leipsic in 1789.

Rochlitz relates: "Scarcely had the choir sung a couple of measures when Mozart started. After a few more measures he cried out: 'What is that?' and now his whole soul seemed to be in his ears.")

98. "Melt us two together, and we will fall far short of making a Haydn."

(Said to the pianist Leopold Kozeluch who had triumphantly pointed out a few slips due to carelessness in Haydn's compositions.)

99. "It was a duty that I owed to Haydn to dedicate my quartets to him; for it was from him that I learned how to write quartets."

(Reported by Nissen. Joseph Haydn once said, when the worth of "Don Giovanni" was under discussion: "This I do know, that Mozart is the greatest composer in the world today.")

100. "n.o.body can do everything,--jest and terrify, cause laughter or move profoundly,--like Joseph Haydn."

(Reported by Nissen [the biographer who married Mozart's widow.

H.E.K.].)

101. "Keep your eyes on him; he'll make the world talk of himself some day!"

(A remark made by Mozart in reference to Beethoven in the spring of 1787. It was the only meeting between the two composers. [The prophetic observation was called out by Beethoven's improvisation on a theme from "Le Nozze di Figaro." H.E.K.])

102. "Attwood is a young man for whom I have a sincere affection and esteem; he conducts himself with great propriety, and I feel much pleasure in telling you that he partakes more of my style than any scholar I ever had, and I predict that he will prove a sound musician."

(Remarked in 1786 to Michael Kelly, who was a friend of Attwood and a pupil of Mozart at the time. [Thomas Attwood was an English musician, born in 1765. He was chorister of the Chapel Royal at the age of nine, and at sixteen attracted the attention of the Prince of Wales, afterward George IV., who sent him to Italy to study. He studied two years in Naples and one year in Vienna with Mozart. Returned to London he first composed for the theatre and afterward largely for the church. He and Mendelssohn were devoted friends. H.E.K.])

103. "If the oboist Fischer did not play better when we heard him in Holland (1766) than he plays now, he certainly does not deserve the reputation which he has. Yet, between ourselves, I was too young at the time to p.r.o.nounce a judgment; I remember that he pleased me exceedingly, and the whole world. It is explained easily enough if one but realizes that tastes have changed mightily since then. You would think that he plays according to the old school; but no! he plays like a wretched pupil....And then his concertos, his compositions! Every ritornello lasts a quarter of an hour; then the hero appears, lifts one leaden foot after the other and plumps them down alternately. His tone is all nasal, and his tenuto sounds like an organ tremulant."

(Vienna, April 4, 1787, to his father. Johann Christian Fischer--1733-1800--was a famous oboist and composer for his instrument. [Fischer was probably the original of the many artists of whom the story is told that, having been invited by a n.o.bleman to dinner, he was asked if he had brought his instrument with him, replied that he had not, for that his instrument never ate. Kelly tells the story in his "Reminiscences" and makes Fischer the hero.

H.E.K.])

104. "I know nothing new except that Gellert has died in Leipsic and since then has written no more poetry."

(Milan, January 26, 1770. Wolfgang was on a concert tour with his father who admired Gellert's writings and had once exchanged letters with him. The lad seems to have felt ironical.)

105. "Now I am also acquainted with Herr Wieland; but he doesn't know me as well as I know him, for he has not heard anything of mine. I never imagined him to be as he is. He seems to me to be a little affected in speech, has a rather childish voice, a fixed stare, a certain learned rudeness, yet, at times, a stupid condescension. I am not surprised that he behaves as he does here (and as he would not dare do in Weimar or elsewhere), for the people look at him as if he had fallen direct from heaven. All stand in awe, no one talks, everyone is silent, every word is listened to when he speaks. It is a pity that he keeps people in suspense so long, for he has a defect of speech which compels him to speak very slowly and pause after every six words. Otherwise his is, as we all know, an admirable brain. His face is very ugly, pockmarked, and his nose rather long. He is a little taller than papa."

(Mannheim, December 27, 1777, to his father. On November 22, Mozart had reported: "In the coming carnival 'Rosamunde' will be performed--new poetry by Herr Wieland, new music by Herr Schweitzer." On January 10, 1778, he writes: "'Rosamunde' was rehea.r.s.ed in the theatre today; it is--good, but nothing more. If it were bad you could not perform it at all; just as you can't sleep without going to bed!")

106. "Now that Herr Wieland has seen me twice he is entirely enchanted. The last time we met, after lauding me as highly as possible, he said, 'It is truly a piece of good fortune for me to have met you here,' and pressed my hand."

(Mannheim, January 10, 1778.)

107. "Now I give you a piece of news which perhaps you know already; that G.o.dless fellow and arch-rascal, Voltaire, is dead--died like a dog, like a beast. That is his reward!"

(Paris, July 3, 1778, to his father, who, like the son, was a man of sincere piety and abhorred Voltaire's atheism.)

108. "When G.o.d gives a man an office he also gives him sense; that's the case with the Archduke. Before he was a priest he was much wittier and intelligent; spoke less but more sensibly. You ought to see him now! Stupidity looks out of his eyes, he talks and chatters eternally and always in falsetto. His neck is swollen,--in short he has been completely transformed."

(Vienna, November 17, 1781, to his father. The person spoken of was Archduke Maximilian, who afterward became Archbishop of Cologne, and was the patron of Beethoven. [The ambiguity of the opening statement is probably due to carelessness in writing, or Mozart's habit of using double negatives. H.E.K.])

WOLFGANG, THE GERMAN

Mozart's Germanism is a matter of pride to the German people. To him "German" was no empty concept, as it was to the majority of his contemporaries. He is therefore honored as a champion of German character and German art, worthy as such to stand beside Richard Wagner. Properly to appreciate his patriotism it is necessary to hear in mind that in Mozart's day Germany was a figment of the imagination, the French language, French manners and Italian music being everywhere dominant. Wagner, on the contrary, was privileged to see the promise of the fulfillment of his strivings in the light of the German victories of 1870-1871.

When the genius of Germany soared aloft she carried Wagner with her; Wagner's days of glory in August, 1876, were conditioned by the great war with France. How insignificant must the patronage of Joseph II, scantily enough bestowed on Mozart in comparison with that showered on Salieri, appear, when we recall the Maecenas Ludwig II.

109. "Frequently I fall into a mood of complete listlessness and indifference; nothing gives me great pleasure. The most stimulating and encouraging thought is that you, dearest father, and my dear sister, are well, that I am an honest German, and that if I am not always permitted to talk I can think what I please; but that is all."

(Paris, May 29, 1778, to his father.)

110. "The Duke de Guines was utterly without a sense of honor and thought that here was a young fellow, and a stupid German to boot,--as all Frenchmen think of the Germans,--he'll be glad to take it. But the stupid German was not glad and refused to take the money. For two lessons he wanted to pay me the fee of one."

(Paris, July 31, 1778, to his father. Mozart had given lessons in composition to the Duke's daughter. See No. 51.)

111. "An Italian ape, such as he is, who has lived in German countries and eaten German bread for years, ought to speak German, or mangle it, as well or ill as his French mouth will permit."

(Said of the violoncellist Duport, the favorite of King William I, of Prussia, in 1789, when Mozart was in Berlin and Duport asked him to speak French.)

112. "I pray G.o.d every day to give me grace to remain steadfast here, that I may do honor to myself and the entire German nation, to His greater honor and glory, and that He permit me to make my fortune so that I may help you out of your sorry condition, and bring it to pa.s.s that we soon meet again and live together in happiness and joy. But His will be done on earth as in heaven."

(Paris, May 1, 1778, to his father who had plunged himself in debt and was giving lessons in order to promote the career of his son. His sister also helped n.o.bly.)