Although Mozart learned much from Haydn, Haydn learned more from Mozart. When Haydn wrote his first Symphony, Mozart was three years old. Mozart died while Haydn was enjoying his London triumphs. Haydn’s last Symphonies show the influence of Mozart, though Haydn never reached Mozart’s glowing and brilliant color.
It is singular to remember that Mozart wrote his first Symphony only five years after Haydn wrote his first; but then Mozart was only eight years old! It was, however, a real symphony, in three movements and scored for the usual Orchestra of two violins, viola, bass (violoncello), two oboes and two horns.
Mozart had a very great advantage over Haydn in having heard so much music and so many different Orchestras. At this time there were a great many fine Orchestras in Europe and Mozart heard them all. Particularly notable was that of Mannheim, where Mozart first heard clarinets. “Oh, if we only had clarinets!” he wrote home in 1778. “You cannot think what a splendid effect a symphony makes with flutes, oboes and clarinets!”
The Mannheim Orchestra was generally considered the best in Europe, though some critics thought those of Munich and Vienna were better.
“The excellence of the Mannheim Orchestra—whose performances excited as much admiration among contemporaries as those of the Paris Orchestra under Habeneck’s conductorship at a later date—gained for it the honor of taking a regular share in the Elector’s concerts. The Orchestra contained some of the first artists and virtuosi of the day, such as Cannabich, Toeschi, Cramer, Stamitz and Fränzel among the violins, Wendling as a flute-player, Le Brun and Ramm as oboists, Ritter as bassoonist and Lang as horn-player. But its fame rested chiefly on the excellent discipline of the Orchestra, which, among so many first-rate artists, it was no easy task to maintain. The Kapellmeister at the time of Mozart’s visit was Christian Cannabich (1731-1798), who had succeeded Stamitz in 1775. His compositions were, doubtless, overrated by his contemporaries; but he was admirable as a solo violinist and still better as an orchestral leader, besides being an excellent teacher. The majority of the violinists in the Mannheim Orchestra had issued from his school and to this was mainly owing the uniformity of their execution and delivery. Cannabich, who was more of an organizer than an originator, had experimented with every condition and device for producing instrumental effects and he laid special stress on technical perfection of execution in order to be certain of having good ensemble players.”[60]
Mozart had much to do in raising the standard of the Vienna Orchestra on his return home.
From this time forward the clarinet became conspicuous in Mozart’s compositions.
We get a glimpse of Mozart conducting in 1789 from Jahn. He was in Leipzig: