MOZART WITH HIS FATHER AND SISTER.
(From a rare print.)
It was while he was in Paris that his father had his first compositions printed for him. These were four sonatas for piano and violin, published in two sets, the first of which was dedicated to the Princess Victoria, the second daughter of the King, and the second to the Comtesse de Tesse, lady-in-waiting to the Dauphiness. It is not too much to say that these four sonatas are the most remarkable examples in existence of precocious musical genius. It is not so much that they show great originality in their subject-matter, though in the slow movements, especially in that of the fourth sonata, foreshadowings of the riper Mozart may be seen; it is the wonderful command of form, the feeling for rhythm and for balance in the different parts of a movement which excite astonishment. The harmony, too, is for the most part absolutely correct, though in one place—in the minuet of the fourth sonata—consecutive fifths are to be seen. Leopold Mozart had corrected them in the proofs, but the correction had not been made before printing, and the father consoled himself with the reflection that they would serve as a proof that the boy had really composed the sonatas himself, which people might otherwise have been not unnaturally inclined to doubt.
In April, 1764, the Mozarts left Paris and came to London. George III. and Queen Charlotte were both extremely fond of music, and the success the children had met with in Paris was even surpassed at the English Court. Wolfgang played at first sight pieces by Wagenseil, Bach, Abel, and Handel, which the King placed before him; he accompanied the Queen in a song and a flutist in a solo; finally, he took a bass part of one of Handel's songs, and extemporized a beautiful melody above it. His father wrote of him at this time: "It surpasses all conception. What he knew when we left Salzburg is a mere shadow to what he knows now. My girl, though only twelve, is one of the cleverest players in Europe; and the mighty Wolfgang, to put it briefly, knows all, in this his eighth year, that one could ask from a man of forty. In short, anyone who does not see and hear it cannot believe it. You all in Salzburg know nothing about it, for the matter is quite different now."
On June 5 Leopold Mozart gave a concert to introduce his children to a London public. The result was a great success, and he, in his own words, "was frightened at taking one hundred guineas in three hours." Subsequently Wolfgang played the piano and organ at a concert given at Ranelagh Gardens for a charitable object. In August Leopold Mozart was attacked by a dangerous inflammation of the throat, which confined him to the house for seven weeks, during which time no music was heard. Wolfgang utilized the occasion by writing his first symphony for orchestra, and his sister afterwards told how, when she was sitting at his side, he said to her: "Remind me to give the horns something good." Like the first sonatas already spoken of, the first symphony, though not remarkable for its themes, shows the wonderful knowledge of instrumental forms that the child had almost intuitively acquired.
After the father's recovery the family were again invited to Court on October 29 for the festivities on the fourth anniversary of the King's coronation. In recognition of the royal favour, Leopold Mozart had six sonatas by Wolfgang for piano and violin engraved at his own expense. They were dedicated to the Queen, who rewarded the composer with a present of fifty guineas. These sonatas, though concise in form and bearing marks of immaturity, already show a perceptible advance on those printed a year earlier in Paris.
It was in London, at the Italian Opera, that the young composer first had the opportunity of hearing great singers. Chief among these were the male soprani, Manzuoli and Tenducci, the former of whom gave him lessons in singing. How he profited by them we learn from his friend Grimm, who, hearing him in Paris on his return there in the following year, writes that he sang with as much feeling as taste. With so impressionable a nature as his, it can scarcely be doubted that these early lessons contributed not a little to the formation of that pure style of vocal writing so characteristic of his music for the theatre and the church.
Finding that, when the novelty had worn off, the performances of his children no longer attracted the same attention as before, the Mozarts left London on July 24, 1765, on a visit to the Hague, as the Princess von Weilburg, sister of the Prince of Orange, was very anxious to see the boy. They were most graciously received, but had not been long at the Hague when Marianne was taken so dangerously ill that her life was despaired of, and extreme unction was administered. Scarcely was she recovered when Wolfgang was seized with a violent fever, which confined him to his bed for several weeks. Even during this illness his ruling passion showed itself. He would have a board laid upon his bed on which he could write, and even when he was weakest it was difficult to restrain him from writing and playing.
In January, 1766, two concerts were given in Amsterdam, the programmes of which consisted entirely of Wolfgang's instrumental compositions. Two months later they returned to the Hague to be present at the festivities of the coming of age of the Prince of Orange. Here Wolfgang, at the desire of the Princess of Weilburg, wrote six more sonatas for piano and violin, besides several smaller pieces for her.
We must pass briefly over the remainder of this long tour. Passing through Mechlin, they returned to Paris, thence by Dijon and Lyons to Switzerland, where they stayed some time. It was not till the end of November, 1766, that, after an absence of nearly three years and a half, the family found themselves once more at home at Salzburg.
It has been advisable to give in considerable detail the particulars of Mozart's earliest years because the precocious development of his genius is absolutely without a parallel in the case of any other composer. The limits of the present volume will render it needful to be somewhat more concise in dealing with the rest of the biography. It is characteristic of the young Wolfgang that his simple nature does not appear to have been in the least spoiled by successes which were enough to have turned the head of an adult. Jahn tells us that he would ride round the room on his father's stick, or jump up from the piano in the middle of his extemporizing to go and play with a favourite cat. Doubtless the judicious training he received from his good and wise father furnishes the explanation of this estimable trait in his character.