Pupils and Friends—Haydn
Mozart took his wife to Salzburg in the summer of 1783. He had made a vow the previous year that when he married Constanze and presented her to his father he would bring along a newly composed mass for presentation in his native town. The superb one in C minor was the outcome, but for some reason it remained unfinished. We cannot speculate here on the reasons for its incompleteness. The torso (or shall we say patchwork?) was rehearsed in St. Peter’s Church in Salzburg, and Constanze sang some of the soprano solos. Despite its incompleteness the C minor Mass is a soaring masterwork, the music of which Mozart later put to use in the oratorio Davidde Penitente.
The relentless dislike for the Webers that both Leopold and Nannerl continued to harbor was not mollified by this visit, which proved uncomfortable as long as it lasted. Wolfgang and his wife were relieved when the troublesome “duty call” came to its chilly end and they were back in Vienna once more. There was no end of professional business for Mozart to transact—composition in flooding abundance, lessons to give, concerts (“academies”) to organize, musical personages to cultivate. Just now, at least, there were no interminable travels such as had filled Mozart’s boyhood years. His pupils were sometimes talented, sometimes the reverse. A few striking names stand out among them—Johann Nepomuck Hummel, Xaver Süssmayr, Thomas Attwood. Of the composers and executants with whom he came in contact we must mention Clementi, Salieri, Paisiello, Righini, Haydn. With Clementi he appeared as a pianist in a contest before Joseph II and some visiting Russian blue-bloods. So evenly were the two players matched that the competition was declared a draw. Paisiello, composer of The Barber of Seville, was a lovable character for whom Wolfgang developed a great liking. Salieri, a disciple of Gluck and a teacher of Schubert, appears to have criticized some of Mozart’s works, and Viennese gossip did what it could to make the matter worse. The result was that Salieri lives on in history largely because of a wild slander that he had given Mozart a poison causing the latter’s untimely death!
The meeting with Joseph Haydn resulted in one of the noblest and most rewarding friendships the records of music afford. Artistically their creations benefited inestimably from the mutual influence of their works and personalities. Haydn, says Dr. Karl Geiringer, “was fascinated by Mozart’s quicksilver personality, while Mozart enjoyed the sense of security that Haydn’s steadfastness and warmth of feeling gave him.” It was as if the two men kindled brighter sparks in each other’s souls. They played chamber music together whenever Haydn made a trip to Vienna, and the younger man was quick to acknowledge that it was from his older colleague he first really learned to write string quartets. The six that he composed between 1782 and 1785 and dedicated with moving words to his “beloved friend Haydn” are doubtless among the finest he wrote. It was on a visit of Leopold Mozart’s to Vienna that Haydn made to him the oft-quoted remark: “I tell you before God and as an honest man that your son is the greatest composer known to me either in person or by reputation!” And later, when someone questioned a detail in Don Giovanni and asked Haydn’s opinion, he replied: “I cannot settle this dispute, but this I know: Mozart is the greatest composer that the world now possesses.... It enrages me to think that the unparalleled Mozart has not yet been engaged by some imperial or royal court! Do forgive this outburst; but I love the man too much!” It is heartbreaking that Haydn was not able, as he would have loved to be, to secure a post for Mozart in England.
Mozart had another encounter of a different sort at this period in Vienna—acquaintance with the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. Through the Baron van Swieten he had an opportunity to know the scores of Bach and Handel and later even to write for certain Handel oratorios “additional accompaniments” for use in performances Van Swieten was in the habit of giving on Sundays at the Imperial Library and in some private homes. And the depth, the grandeur, and the polyphony of these masters he assimilated to the added greatness of his own most mature works.