When he told his mother of his resolution she looked grave, and wept when all was ready for his departure. But Pirad, with a sympathizing distortion of countenance, said to her, “Be not disturbed, my good Madame von Beethoven! Louis shall come back to you much livelier than he is now; and even if he does not, why, the lot of the artist is always to suffer some privation, that he may cling more closely to his science. And, madam, you may comfort yourself with the hope that your son will become a great artist!”
Young Beethoven visited Vienna for the first time in the spring of the year 1792. He experienced strange emotions as he entered that great city; perhaps a dim presentiment of what he was in future years to accomplish and to suffer. He was not so fortunate this time as to find Haydn there; that artist had set out for London but a little before. He was disappointed, but the more anxious to make the acquaintance of Mozart.
Albrechtsberger, Haydn’s intimate friend, undertook to introduce him. “But we must not be out of patience, Beethoven,” said he, good humoredly, “if we have to go frequently to the master’s house without finding him. Schickaneder has got him in his clutches at present—for Mozart has written an opera for his company. There are some new and difficult scenes in the piece which the manager wants to arrange, and he gives our friend the master no rest, with his suggestions and contrivances. It is a shame that Mozart has to work for such a man; but he must live, you know, with his wife and children; and I heard Haydn say his place here has only brought him in eight hundred guilders for the last year.”
They went several times, in fact, to Mozart’s house before they found him at home. At last, on a rainy day, one that suited not for an excursion with the Impressario, they were so fortunate as to find him. They heard him from the street, playing; our young hero’s heart beat wildly as they went up the steps, for he looked on that dwelling as the temple of art.
When they were in the hall, they saw through a side door that stood open, Mozart sitting playing the piano; close by him sat a short, fat man, with a shining red face; and at the window Madame Mozart, holding her youngest son, Wolfgang, on her lap, while the eldest was sitting on the floor at her feet.
“Stop, my good sir,” cried the fat man, seizing Mozart’s hand, “I do not altogether like the last! You must alter it, you must indeed! Look you, this is what occurs to me: that slow adagio may stand, if you like; the people do not care about listening to it; they lean back in their seats and gaze at the doors swinging; but that allegro, it does not suit—”
“I believe you are a fool outright, besides having no conscience!” interrupted Mozart, rising angrily from the piano. “I have yielded you far too much, but the overture you have nothing to do with; and I wish I may be hanged if I alter a single note in it for you! I would rather take back the whole opera and throw it into the fire!”
“If you will not write popular music,” grunted the other, “you cannot expect me to have your pieces represented.”
“Very well,” said the master, decidedly, “then we owe each other nothing, and I need plague myself no more about it.”
“Nay, nay,” pursued the fat man, who changed his ground when he saw the composer was really in earnest, “you may leave the overture as it is; it is all the same to me; I only wanted to give you my ideas on the subject.”