The master looked surprised; but without reply wrote some lines on a leaf of paper and handed it to the young man. Beethoven looked over it; it was a difficult chromatic fuguetheme, the intricacy of which demanded much skill and experience. But without being discouraged, he collected all his powers and began to execute it.
Mozart did not conceal the surprise and pleasure he felt when Louis first began to play. The youth perceived the impression he had made, and was stimulated to more spirited efforts. As he proceeded the master’s pale cheeks flushed; his eyes sparkled; and stepping on tiptoe to the open door, he whispered to his guests, “Listen, I beg of you! you shall have something worth hearing.”
That moment rewarded all the pains, and banished the apprehensions of the young aspirant after excellence. Louis went through his trial piece with admirable spirit, sprang up, and went to Mozart; seizing both his hands and pressing them to his throbbing heart, he murmured, “I also am an artist!”
“You are, indeed!” cried Mozart, “and no common one! And what may be wanting, you will not fail to find, and make your own. The grand thing, the living spirit, you bore within you from the beginning, as all do who possess it. Come back soon to Vienna, my young friend—very soon! Father Haydn, Albrechtsberger, friend Stadler and I will receive you with open arms; and if you need advice or assistance, we will give it you to the best of our ability.”
The other guests crowded round Beethoven, and hailed him as a worthy pupil of art! even the silly Impressario looked at him with vastly increased respect, and said, “I can tell you, I know the public,—well, we will talk more of the matter this evening over a glass of wine.”
“I also am an artist!” repeated Louis to himself, when he returned late to his lodgings. Much improved in spirits, and re-inspired with confidence in himself, he returned to Bonn; and ere long put in practice his scheme of paying Vienna a second visit.
This he accomplished at the Elector’s expense, being sent by him. He did not, indeed, see Mozart again, nor could he even find the grave of his deceased friend. But the spirit of the illustrious master was with him; and the world knows well, how Father Haydn honored the last request of his friend.
And thus I close this brief account of the early years of the greatest master of modern times. His boyhood was not free from care and suffering; his youth was troubled; and we who are familiar with the events of his life, know how much he endured as a man, even while his hours were passed in preparing “joy, pure, spiritual joy” for us all. But he was a true artist; he fulfilled his noble mission; and that consciousness, and his earnest longings after the pure and the good, gave him strength to bear the woes of life, strength to pass through the dark valley of death, whither he went down rejoicing, as a conqueror to victory.
His first disappointment is immortalized in his song of “Adelaide.” In his opera “Leonore,” he has loved to remember Truth, while forgetting the deserts of Faithlessness; and while his great symphonies paint the strifes of humanity, does not his “Egmont” proclaim the victory of the falling hero? But to still deeper and higher feelings has he appealed—exalted devotion, joy heaven-born; hope eternal; faith in Infinite Love. Never shall his sacred compositions cease to awaken the purest and loftiest emotions that can sway the human heart.