“At the age of three years, young Mozart, attending to the lessons which his sister, then seven years old, was receiving at the harpsichord, he became acquainted with harmony, and when she had left the instrument, he would instantly place himself at it, find the thirds, sound them with the liveliest joy, and employ whole hours at the exercise. His father, urged by such early and striking indications of genius, immediately began to teach him some little airs; and soon perceived that his pupil improved even beyond the hopes he had formed of him. Half an hour was generally sufficient for his acquiring a minuet, or a little song, which, when once learned, he would of himself perform with taste and expression.
“At the age of six years, he made such a progress, as to be able to compose short pieces for the harpsichord, which his father was obliged to commit to paper for him. From that time, nothing made any impression upon him but harmony; and infantine amusements lost all their attractions, unless music had a share in them. He advanced from day to day, not by ordinary and insensible degrees, but with a rapidity, which hourly excited new surprise in his parents—the happy witnesses of his progress.
“His father, returning home one day with a stranger, found little Mozart with a pen in his hand. “What are you writing?” said he.—“A concerto for the harpsichord,” replied the child. “Let us see it,” rejoined the father, “it is a marvellous concerto, without doubt.”—He then took the paper, and saw nothing at first, but a mass of notes mingled with blots of ink, by the mal-address of the young composer, who, unskilled in the management of the pen, had dipped it too freely in the ink; and having blotted and smeared his paper, had endeavoured to make out his ideas with his fingers; but, on a closer examination, his father was lost in wonder, and his eyes, delighted and flowing with tears, became riveted to the notes.—“See!” exclaimed he, to the stranger, “how just and regular it all is! but it is impossible to play it; it is too difficult.”—“It is a concerto,” said the child, “and must be practised till one can play it. Hear how this part goes.” He then sat down to perform it; but was not able to execute the passages with sufficient fluency, to do justice to his own ideas. Extraordinary as his manual facility was universally allowed to be, for his age, it did not keep pace with the progress of his knowledge and invention. Such an instance of intellectual advancement, in a child only six years of age, is so far out of the common road of nature, that we can only contemplate the fact with astonishment, and acknowledge, that the possible rapidity of mental maturation is not to be calculated.
“In the year 1762, his father took him and his sister to Munich, where he performed a concerto before the elector, which excited the admiration of the whole court; nor was he less applauded at Vienna, where the emperor called him the little sorcerer.
“His father gave him lessons only on the harpsichord; but he privately taught himself the violin; and his command of the instrument afforded the elder Mozart the utmost surprise, when he one day, at a concert, took a second violin, and acquitted himself with more than passable address. True genius sees no obstacles. It will not, therefore, excite our wonder, if his constant success, in whatever he attempted, begot an unbounded confidence in his own powers; he had even the laudable hardihood to undertake to qualify himself for the first violin, and did not long remain short of the necessary proficiency.
“He had an ear so correct, that he felt the most minute discordancy; and such a fondness for study, that it was frequently necessary to take him by force from the instrument. This love of application never diminished. He every day passed a considerable time at his harpsichord, and generally practised till a late hour at night. Another characteristical trait of real genius, always full of its object, and lost as it were in itself.
“It is lamentable that premature genius too rarely enjoys a long career. The acceleration of nature in the mental powers seems to hurry the progress of the animal economy, and to anticipate the regular close of temporal existence.
“In the year 1791, Mozart, just after he had received the appointment of Maitre-de-Chapelle of the church of St. Peter, and when he was only thirty-five years of age, paid the last tribute, and left the world at once to admire the brilliancy, and lament the shortness of his earthly sojournment.
“Indefatigable, even to his death, he produced, during the last few months of his life, his three great master-pieces, La Flute Enchantée, La Clemence de Titus, and a Requiem, his last production. La Flutte Enchantée was composed for one of the theatres at Vienna; and no dramatic olio could ever boast of a greater success. Every air struck the audience with a new and sweet surprise; and the tout-ensemble was calculated to afford the deepest and most varied impressions. This piece had, in fact, so great a number of successive representations, that, for a long time, it was unnecessary to consult the opera bill, which only announced a permanent novelty. And the airs selected from it, and repeated throughout the empire, as well in the cottage as in the palace, and which the echoes have resounded in the most distant provinces, favoured the idea, that Mozart had actually the design to enchant all Germany with his Flutte Enchantée.
“La Clemence de Titus was requested by the states of Bohemia, for the coronation of Leopold. The composer began it in his carriage, during his route to Prague, and finished it in eighteen days.