We must pass over the time of struggle which followed the severance of Mozart's connection with the Archbishop, when he found himself with only a single pupil as a visible means of support, but, fortunately, not without friends, and come to the point when, for the second time, he fell in love. He was lodging with his old friends the Webers. Fridolin Weber was dead; Aloysia had married, and was well known as a professional singer; and Madame Weber, with her two unmarried daughters, was living, in reduced circumstances, in Vienna. Mozart's prospects had greatly improved, for his latest opera, 'Entführung aus dem Serail,' had brought him increased fame, both in Vienna and in Prague, and he had secured the patronage of many distinguished personages, in addition to that of the Emperor Joseph. Bachelorhood to him now seemed insupportable. 'To my mind,' he says in a letter to his father, 'a bachelor lives only half a life,' and so he had determined to marry. The object of his choice was Constanze Weber, the third daughter, and, despite Leopold's remonstrances, Mozart made her his bride on August 16, 1782.
"There is the door!"[ToList]
His marriage marked the beginning of a new era of struggle, for Constanze, though a devoted wife, was incapable of managing a home, and as their means were uncertain to start with, they were soon involved in a sea of monetary troubles, from which there seemed to be no prospect of their extricating themselves. An unpropitious note had been struck on the very day of the wedding, when it must have appeared to Mozart that he had committed a crime in robbing the family of one of its members. 'As soon as we were married,' he wrote to his father, 'my wife and I both began to weep. All present, even the priest, were touched at seeing us so moved, and wept too.'
With the friends and influence which Mozart's genius had ranged upon his side it was hoped that a post of importance would by this time have been found for him in Vienna. The bestowal of a Court appointment would have relieved him of much of the drudgery of teaching and the anxiety of tiding over periods when pupils and engagements were scarce, but the Emperor, despite his sincere interest in all that concerned the composer, showed a seeming disinclination to make a proposal. Yet there could be no doubt of the appreciation in which Mozart was held at the Court, for in a letter to his father at this time he quotes a remark made by Prince Kaunitz to the Archduke Maximilian on the subject of the Emperor's inaction with regard to retaining Mozart's services: 'That men of that stamp only came into the world once in a hundred years, and that they ought not to be driven out of Germany, especially when, as good luck would have it, they were already in the capital.'
Mozart was, indeed, seriously contemplating a journey to London and Paris, and had even begun to make his preparations, but his father's urgent appeals for patience and further effort had the effect of postponing for the time the carrying out of his schemes. In the meantime Mozart seized the opportunity for which he had been longing of paying a visit to Salzburg to present Constanze to his father, and at the same time of fulfilling a vow which he had made that, if Constanze became his wife, he would have a Mass composed by him for the occasion performed in her honour. It was, on the whole, a very happy visit, and later on, when Mozart and his wife had once more settled down in Vienna, they had the pleasure of welcoming the father on a return visit. Leopold found his son immersed in work, and it gladdened his heart to witness the appreciation in which his playing and compositions were held. One never-to-be-forgotten evening they spent together in the company of Haydn, when, after hearing several of Mozart's quartets performed, Leopold was made the happy recipient of a testimony to his son's greatness, which he treasured above all else that had been spoken or written in his favour, and which came as a fitting reward for the unremitting care and solicitude which he had bestowed upon Mozart's welfare and training. Haydn took the old man aside at the close of the evening, and said: 'I declare to you before God as a man of honour that your son is the greatest composer that I know, either personally or by reputation. He has taste, and, beyond that, the most consummate knowledge of the art of composition.'
This pleasant time was rendered the happier by the fact that Leopold found Wolfgang and his wife in somewhat better circumstances, and their home brightened by the presence of a little grandson, Karl, who clambered upon his grandfather's knee, and filled the old man's mind with tender recollections of a little son whom he had lost before Wolfgang's birth. But it was destined to be the last meeting between Mozart and his father, for shortly after Leopold's return he was seized with illness, on hearing of which Wolfgang wrote to him a letter, in which he expressed his own views on death. 'As death, strictly speaking, is the true end and aim of our lives, I have accustomed myself during the last two years to so close a contemplation of this, our best and truest friend, that he possesses no more terrors for me—nothing but peace and consolation. And I thank God for enabling me to discern in death the key to our true blessedness. I never lie down in bed without remembering that, perhaps, young as I am, I may never see another day, and yet no one who knows me can say that I am melancholy or fanciful. For this blessing I thank God daily, and desire nothing more than to share it with my fellow-men.'
The news of his father's death, which occurred on May 28, 1787, reached Mozart shortly after he had accomplished one of the greatest successes of his life. The name of his latest opera, 'Le Nozze di Figaro,' was on every one's lips; its performances in Vienna and Prague had been hailed with enthusiastic delight by crowded audiences; its songs were to be heard in every street, and wandering minstrels in the country, as they halted at the village alehouses, were compelled to satisfy their groups of listeners with selections from its entrancing airs. Michael Kelly, the singer and friend of Mozart, who took part in the opera, has thus described its reception by the orchestra and performers: 'Never was anything more complete than the triumph of Mozart, and his "Nozze di Figaro," to which numerous overflowing audiences bore witness. Even at the first full-band rehearsal all present were roused to enthusiasm, and when Benucci came to the fine passage, "Cherubino, alla vittoria, alla gloria militar," which he gave with stentorian lungs, the effect was electric, for the whole of the performers on the stage, and those in the orchestra, as if actuated by one feeling of delight, vociferated, "Bravo! bravo! Maestro! Viva, viva, grande Mozart!" Those in the orchestra I thought would never have ceased applauding by beating the bows of their violins against the music-desks.' As for Mozart himself: 'I never shall forget his little animated countenance when lighted up with the glowing rays of genius; it is as impossible to describe it as it would be to paint sunbeams.'
Despite the success of 'Figaro' Mozart still remained a poor man—still was he compelled to earn a living by the hated drudgery of teaching. 'You happy man,' he said to a young musician who was leaving for a tour in Italy; 'as for me, I am off now to give a lesson to earn my bread.' The desire to visit England was once more uppermost in his mind, and when the Emperor, with a view to retaining him in Germany, appointed him Kammer-compositor at a salary of eight hundred gulden (about eighty pounds sterling), it must have occurred to many besides Mozart himself that such a 'beggarly dole' but poorly represented the value which his Majesty professed to set upon the composer's services to art. This feeling was accentuated in Mozart when he discovered how trivial were the requirements of his royal master in connection with the position. 'Too much for what I produce, too little for what I could produce,' were the bitter words which he penned on the official return stating the amount of his salary.