MOZART.
It was in 1762 that Leopold Mozart, father of the two musical prodigies, Maria Anna and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, first began to turn to account his children's talent. Wolfgang was then six years old, and his sister between four and five years older. By easy stages the family journeyed to Vienna in the month of September, and it is told that upon their arrival the wonderful boy-musician saved his father the payment of customs duties. He made friends with the custom-house officer, showed him his harpsichord, played him a minuet on his little fiddle, and the thing was done,—"Pass—free of duty."
The imperial family were sincere lovers of music. Charles VI., the father of Maria Theresa, had two passions, hunting and music, and was an accomplished musician. He used to accompany operatic or other performances at court upon the clavier, and also composed pieces. At one time he wrote an opera, which was performed with great splendour in the theatre of his palace. On this occasion the emperor led the orchestra, and his two daughters, Maria Theresa and Maria Anne, danced in the ballet. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu speaks of an opera which she saw at Vienna in 1716, the decorations and dresses of which cost the emperor thirty thousand pounds. He called Metastasio from Italy to compose the operas for his court. Maria Theresa inherited this love of music, and in 1725, when only seven years old, sang in an opera by Fux, at a fête given in honour of her mother, the Empress Elizabeth. Alluding to this, she once said in a joking way to the celebrated singer, Faustina Hasse, that she believed herself to be the first of living vocalists. In 1739 she sang a duet with Senesino so beautifully that the famous old singer was melted to tears. Her husband, Francis I., was also a lover of music, and her daughters were carefully instructed in singing, and often appeared in operatic performances at court. Maria Theresa's son, afterward the Emperor Joseph, also sang well, and played both the harpsichord and the violoncello.
Mozart and His Sister before Maria Teresa.
From painting by A. Borckmann.
"With a court so favourably disposed toward music, it is not surprising that Leopold, a few days only after his arrival, should have received a command to bring his children on the 13th of October to Schönbrunn, an imperial palace near Vienna, and this without any solicitation on his part. The children remained three hours with the court, and were then obliged to repeat their performance. The Emperor Francis I., the husband of Maria Theresa, took a peculiar interest in the little 'sorcerer.'
"He made the little fellow play with only one finger, in which he perfectly succeeded. An attempt which little Mozart made at the special request of the emperor, to play with the keys covered by a piece of cloth, was also a brilliant success. It was, perhaps, owing to the imperial fancy that this species of artistic trick obtained considerable celebrity, and played a not unimportant part in the little 'sorcerer's' repertoire on all his long journeys. Wolfgang entered readily into any joke that was made with him, but sometimes he could be very serious, as, for instance, when he called for the court composer, Georg Christoph Wagenseil, a thorough connoisseur of the harpsichord, and himself a performer. The emperor stepped back and made Wagenseil come forward, to whom Mozart said, quite seriously, 'I play a concerto by you: you must turn over the pages for me.' The emperor ordered a hundred ducats to be paid to his father. The empress was very kind to the Mozarts, and sent them costly dresses. 'Would you like to know,' writes Leopold to Hagenauer, his host at Salzburg, 'what Wolferl's (a pet name for Wolfgang) dress is like? It is of the finest cloth, lilac-coloured, the vest of moire of the same colour. Coat and top-coat with a double broad border of gold. It was made for the Hereditary Duke Maximilian Franz.' In the picture which is preserved in the Mozart collection at Salzburg, Mozart is painted in this dress. Wolfgang never showed the least embarrassment in the society of the great."
"At court, as elsewhere, Mozart was a bright, happy child. He would spring on the empress's lap, throw his arms around her neck, and kiss her, and play with the princesses on a footing of equality. He was especially devoted to the Archduchess Marie Antoinette. Once, when he fell on the polished floor, she lifted him from the ground and consoled him, while one of her sisters stood by. 'You are good,' said Wolfgang, I will marry you.' The empress asked him why. 'From gratitude,' answered he; 'she was good to me, but her sister stood by and did nothing.'"
Nor was he shy with the Crown Prince Joseph, who, in after years, when emperor, reminded him of his playing duets with Wagenseil, and of Mozart's standing in the audience and calling out, "Fie!" or "That was false!" or "Bravo!" as the case might be.
As was to be expected, the children became the rage in society, and all the ladies fell in love with little Mozart. No musical entertainments could be given without him and Maria Anna, and they appeared in company with the most celebrated performers, being everywhere petted, feasted, and flattered, and receiving many costly gifts.
Their successes induced Leopold Mozart to plan a more extended tour, and in the summer of the next year he and his children set out on a journey which was intended to include visits to Paris and London. The trio arrived in Paris in November, and were greatly befriended by their countryman, Grimm, the encyclopaedist, secretary to the Duke of Orleans. Leopold wrote home thus, about the help this powerful friend had been to them: "He has done everything; he has introduced the matter at court, and arranged the first concert. He, alone, paid me eighty louis-d'ors, then sold three hundred and twenty tickets, and, moreover, bore the expense of lighting with wax. We burnt more than sixty candles. It was he who obtained permission for the concert, and now he is getting up a second, for which a hundred tickets have already been distributed. You see what one man can do, who possesses sense and a kind heart. He is a native of Ratisbon, but has been more than fifteen years in Paris, and knows how to guide everything in the right direction, so that all must happen as he intends."
