Italy and Mozart’s Early Operas
Leopold realized that the hour had now struck for that long-projected trip to Italy which he wished to take “before Wolfgangerl reached the age and stature which would deprive his accomplishments of all that was marvelous.” Plainly, it would not do to let the boy outgrow his precocity. And so on December 13, 1769, father and son set out on an adventure that was to resolve itself into three separate journeys to what was, rightly or wrongly, esteemed as the home of music and of art in general.
The youth was now ripe for Italy. The language he absorbed by second nature, as it were. Everywhere he made valuable new friendships and came across old acquaintances. In Milan he was commissioned to write an opera seria and the following October he composed Mitridate Re di Ponto, which, produced on December 26, 1770, amid cries of “Viva il Maestrino,” had twenty performances. In Bologna he greatly impressed the aged castrato Farinelli and the great Padre Martini, dean of Italian musicians. At Naples he had to remove a ring from his finger upon playing to convince the superstitious that it was not the real explanation of his “magic” skill. In Rome, after a single hearing of the Papal choir singing Allegri’s celebrated Miserere, which nobody was allowed to copy under penalty of excommunication, he wrote it down from memory and then listened to it a second time to make a few minor corrections. The Pope bestowed on Wolfgang the Order of the Golden Spur, which enabled him to sign his letters with the whimsical “Chevalier de Mozart.” He was invited to undergo a difficult examination for membership in the Philharmonic Academy of Bologna and passed it by working out in an hour a problem that consisted of producing in the “strict” church style an antiphon Quaerite primum. The real truth, however, is that the authorities accepted him only after they had charitably “corrected” what he submitted. It was not long before the Philharmonic Society of Verona likewise conferred membership upon him—this time presumably without the preliminary of a test. Now “Maestro di Cappella,” he was ordered to provide a serenata—Ascanio in Alba (Wolfgang completed its fairly voluminous score in twelve days)—for the impending marriage of Archduke Rudolf and the Princess Maria of Modena.
Leopold imagined his son “made” for life. But the boy’s music, for all its charm and fluency, still wanted the unmistakably creative touch. The tireless traveler, Dr. Burney, wrote a little later: “If I may judge of the music which I have heard of his composition, in the orchestra, he is one further instance of the early fruit being more extraordinary than excellent.” And the composer Hasse believed that “young Mozart is certainly a prodigy for his age. The father adores his son overmuch and does all he can to spoil him; but I have so good an opinion of the innate goodness of the boy that I hope that, despite his father’s adulation, he will not allow himself to be spoiled.”
The pair went briefly to Salzburg in 1771 and started south again for Milan, where Ascanio in Alba was to be given in October. The work was duly presented for the princely nuptials along with Hasse’s opera Ruggiero, likewise commissioned for the festivities. According to the father’s report, the youth’s festa teatrale completely eclipsed the work of the venerable master who, far from being jealous, is said to have remarked, “This boy will throw us all into the shade.”
Scarcely were the travelers home once more than the kindly Archbishop died. His successor was the former Bishop of Gurk, Hieronymus, Count of Colloredo. Like many others, the Mozarts scented trouble, for Colloredo was a hard-boiled bigot and in every respect the reverse of his predecessor. He lives on in history principally as Mozart’s evil genius and as the man who, in the end, was to fan Wolfgang’s detestation of Salzburg to white heat and to drive him to open mutiny. Hieronymus knew by a kind of intuition that his new subjects were not well disposed to him so, in the words of a contemporary chronicler, “he despised them and held himself aloof.” His rule, says Paumgartner, was something other than the “ancient regime” of his forerunner, the musical highlights of which had been Leopold Mozart, Ernst Eberlin, and Cajetan Adlgasser. Colloredo was a revolutionary and a deadly foe of routine and sought to put his ideas into force by sharpest disciplinary measures. His taste, however, ran to the easy grace of Italian music; yet he did in his chilly way at first look upon Wolfgang as a talent he might use for the greater glory of his court. For his new master’s festive installation in 1772 the composer wrote a one-act serenata along the lines of his Ascanio, entitled Il Sogno di Scipione, to a text by Metastasio, adapted from Cicero. The score was a typical “occasional work” of allegorical character. Far more important in the creative sense are at least eight symphonies and four divertimenti, in all of which are traces of the ripening genius shortly to emerge.
The third Italian visit differed in some ways from the earlier ones. Lucio Silla, produced in Milan on December 26, 1772, was not acclaimed as Mitridate had been. Outwardly it was successful and enjoyed more than twenty performances but did not hold the stage. To begin with, the opera had an inferior libretto and Wolfgang, absorbing other musical influences, was less concerned about catering meticulously to Italian tastes. Moreover, he was no longer the child prodigy whose every action was to be considered phenomenal. But the real reasons lay deeper. A prophetic ear might have detected the vibrations of a “storm and stress” period beginning to ferment in the spirit of the artist. Leopold made a vain effort to secure his son a post at the Grand Ducal Court of Tuscany, but Wolfgang received no more operatic commissions for Italy. So early in March 1773, taking a last leave of that land, they returned to Salzburg, where Leopold was angered to see Colloredo appoint an Italian rather than a German to the position of conductor.
The elder Mozart now determined to try his luck in Vienna. After the death in 1774 of Florian Gassmann, the court composer, Leopold hoped to secure the appointment for Wolfgang and the two obtained an audience with Maria Theresia, who, for all her graciousness, merely replaced Gassmann by one Giuseppe Bonno. At the moment there was no opportunity to earn anything in the capital; but the young man became acquainted with something that, in the long run, was to prove even more rewarding. This was the music of Joseph Haydn, whom he was not to meet personally until later. The influence of Haydn on Mozart as of Mozart on Haydn was to be incalculable from every standpoint.
On December 9, 1774, father and son were on a journey once more, this time to Munich where the Bavarian Elector, Maximilian III, had commissioned Wolfgang to write an opera for the following Carnival. It was a buffa, La Finta giardiniera, and on January 14, 1775, the composer wrote to his mother: “My opera went so well yesterday that I find it impossible to describe the applause. In the first place the theatre was so packed that many had to be turned away; after every aria there was a wild tumult, with handclappings and shouts of ‘Viva Maestro,’ which began again as soon as it ended!” And Christian Daniel Schubart wrote in the Teutsche Chronik: “I heard an opera buffa by the marvelous Mozart. The fires of genius lurk and dart in it. Yet this is still not the sacred fire which rises to the gods in clouds of incense. If Mozart does not become a hot-house plant he should be the greatest composer who ever lived.”
Il Re pastore
However, Archbishop Colloredo was growing irritable over these continual absences of his servants. He had not been able to refuse the request of the Elector to permit the Mozarts to go to Munich but he at last wanted his Vice-Kapellmeister and son back. Henceforth it was not going to be so easy to obtain the great cleric’s leave to go wandering, whatever the reason. So for the immediate future the impatient young genius settled down to compose and to perform. A stream of works were put on paper in 1775 and 1776. Five violin concertos were written the first year. They are the best known of Mozart’s concertos for that instrument and were conceived, in the main, for the violinist Brunetti of the court orchestra. With all their charm they still stand below the great clavier concertos in grandeur and epoch-making qualities. Wolfgang did not particularly enjoy the violin although his father exhorted him to practice and told him that he could be the greatest violinist in Europe.
Another work in 1775 was Il Re pastore, a cross between opera and cantata, to a poem by Metastasio composed for a visit to the Archbishop of Archduke Maximilian. A score of sensitive loveliness, it is known today chiefly for its tender soprano aria with violin solo, “L’amero, saro costante.” Of the many other creations of this period we can only mention in passing the six clavier sonatas for the Baron Dürnitz, the innumerable variations, the serenades, notturni, divertimenti, masses, offertories, organ sonatas, litanies, graduales; the stunning clavier concertos for his own use, for the French pianist Mlle. Jeunehomme, the Countess Lützow, and other high-placed local amateurs. Last, but far from least, he composed the Serenade (later transformed into a symphony by the elimination of a movement or two) for the wealthy Haffner family, of whom Sigmund Haffner, a merchant prince, was Burgomaster of Salzburg.