THE ART OF MOZART
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. It may be at once conceded that in certain directions he has been surpassed by one or other of those who have succeeded him. 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. From this point of view, it will be scarcely too much to call him the most wonderful "all-round" musician that the world has ever yet seen.
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. 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; he worked on lines that had been already laid down by others, contenting himself with improving as far as possible on his models. If his earlier operas be compared with the works of his Italian contemporaries, it will be found that the form of the songs and concerted pieces differs in no material respect from that to be seen in the operas of Cimarosa, Paisiello, or Sarti; that which distinguishes Mozart's work is its wonderful flow of melody, its perfect feeling for euphony, and the true dramatic instinct displayed wherever the libretto affords an opportunity. But his later operas, beginning with Idomeneo, stand upon an altogether higher footing. Mozart had at this time come under the influence of Gluck, whose works he had learned to know in Paris.
If we compare the score of Idomeneo with that of Gluck's Alceste, we cannot but see the similarity of style. True, Mozart's flow of melody is more abundant—we might even say more spontaneous; it is in the more dramatic treatment of the orchestra, and especially in the large amount of accompanied recitative (as distinguished from recitativo secco) that we note the resemblance. Yet while the influence of the older master is clearly to be traced, there is an essential difference in the method of the two composers. Gluck sometimes sacrifices his musical forms for dramatic effect; Mozart treats the accepted forms in such a way as to make them capable of expressing the emotions of the drama.
An important point, in which Mozart surpassed not only Gluck, but all other composers of his day, was his treatment of the orchestra. In his earlier works his employment of the instruments was somewhat conventional; but he soon freed himself from the trammels of tradition, and tried experiments in tone combination that were as new as they were striking. 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. It was the elaborate accompaniments of his operas, as compared with those of other composers of his day, that caused Gretry to reproach him with having placed the pedestal on the stage and the statue in the orchestra. At the present time we are so accustomed to the rich instrumentation of the modern school that Mozart's scores seem comparatively thin.
* As examples, may be named the serenade for two orchestras, one consisting of two violins, viola, and double-bass, and the other of string quartett and kettle-drums, and the very curious little pieces for two flutes, five trumpets, and four drums.
If we compare Mozart's instrumental works with those of Haydn, it will be seen that the difference between them is one of spirit rather than of form. Haydn's music flows on in a clear stream, of no great depth in general, but always pleasing, always intelligible, and most logical and coherent in its thematic developments. In Mozart's music the lyrical element predominates. His slow movements are in general more emotional than those of Haydn, both melody and harmony are richer, and the workmanship more finished. This statement must be taken only as a generalization, for in the later years of Haydn's life the influence of Mozart on his style is clearly to be seen, and some of the slow movements in the Salomon symphonies or the later quartetts are not unworthy to be placed by the side of Mozart's best. On the other hand, we find in Haydn's minuets and finales an element of humour, sometimes even of broad fun, which is rarely seen in Mozart's instrumental music, though abundant enough in the lighter scenes of his operas.
With a few important exceptions, Mozart's pianoforte works do not rank among his greatest achievements. Many of his sonatas, variations, etc., were written for his pupils, and possess little more than historical interest. Mozart lived at the transitional period in which the harpsichord was giving place to the piano, and in his earlier sonatas, etc., the style of harpsichord music is often to be seen. Yet some of his later works for the piano, such as the two fantasias in C minor, the sonatas in B flat and C minor, the rondo in A minor, and the adagio in B minor, though now, owing to the changes in popular taste, seldom heard, are far from deserving the neglect into which they have fallen. The same may be said of the best sonatas for piano and violin, and of many of the concertos. It is hardly a generation since the latter were often to be heard in public; the modern love of sensationalism and of display for its own sake seems to have banished them—it is to be hoped not permanently—from the concert room.
In estimating Mozart's Church music, it is needful to bear in mind that much of it, more especially the Masses composed at Salzburg, was written under special and in some respects arbitrary restrictions.
In a letter written in 1776 to Padre Martini, Mozart tells him that a Mass, including the regular five sections, besides an offertory or motett and a sonata at the epistle, was not allowed to last longer than three-quarters of an hour; for this reason most of his Masses are very concise in their form as compared with the later masses of Haydn or with Beethoven's Mass in C. Besides this, the Archbishop of Salzburg loved a showy and brilliant style of music, and Mozart was bound, to some extent, to make concessions to his taste. Yet it is going too far to say, as some German critics have done, that these masses are their composer's weakest works. 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. There is little reason to doubt that, had he been allowed free scope, his works in this field of art would have been little, if at all, inferior to those on which his fame most securely rests.
As a contrapuntist Mozart undoubtedly ranks second only to J. Sebastian Bach, of whom, indeed, his astounding facility in solving the most complex musical problems at times reminds us. Nowhere is the ars celare artem more perfectly exemplified than in the best specimens of Mozart's fugal and canonic writing. The example most frequently referred to as an illustration is the finale of the "Jupiter" symphony, but such pieces as the "Rex tremendæ" of the Requiem, with its quadruple canon, the final fugue in the Davidde penitente, or the "Laudate pueri" of the second Vespers, are scarcely less remarkable. The large number of canons for unaccompanied voices which he wrote show his preference, no less than his aptitude, for the stricter forms; yet, however elaborate, in his hands they never become dry, but are always full of melodic beauty. With Mozart technique is always the means, never the end.
The influence of Mozart on the music of the first half of the last century can hardly be fully estimated. It is clearly to be seen in the earlier works of Beethoven. By this it is not meant that the younger master borrowed, or even imitated, the actual themes of his predecessor; his individuality was from the first too strongly marked. But many of the works of what is known as Beethoven's "first manner" are clearly modelled upon corresponding works by Mozart. Thus, his trio for strings in E flat, Op. 3, was evidently suggested by Mozart's trio in the same key, while the septett and the quintett for piano and wind instruments clearly show traces of Mozart's manner. 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.
MOZART.
(From a portrait by Jäger.)
Passing over with a mere word of mention such composers of the second rank as Andreas Romberg and Hummel, we find two composers of marked individuality—Schubert and Mendelssohn—in whose earlier works the influence of Mozart is more or less traceable. As a song-writer, Schubert was original from the first; even in his instrumental works it is only occasionally that one is reminded of other composers. The suggestions of Mozart are chiefly to be found in Schubert's earlier symphonies. The variations which form the slow movement of the symphony in B flat might be inserted in one of Mozart's serenades without seeming out of place. In the works of Mendelssohn's youth the Mozart influence is more distinct,* though, like Schubert, he soon emancipated himself.
* The first subject of the finale of Mendelssohn's first piano quartett is a very close, though probably unconscious, imitation of the opening bars of the finale of Mozart's sonata in C minor.
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; the operatic reforms of Wagner are far-reaching, while Schumann, Chopin, and Brahms—not to mention more recent composers—have enlarged the harmonic resources of the art. But on all those whose musical palates have not been vitiated by the highly-spiced viands of the ultra-modern school, Mozart's pure, natural, soulful music can never cease to exert its charm. "A thing of beauty is a joy for ever," and, in spite of the proverbial danger of prophesying, it is hardly rash to predict that Mozart's best symphonies will outlive those of Berlioz or Tschaïkowsky, and that his Don Giovanni and Figaro will continue to be the delight and admiration of true musicians, even though changes in the popular taste should banish them from the stage. Mozart's place among the immortals is as secure as that of Bach or Beethoven.