Mozart’s meeting with the celebrated piano manufacturer Stein, to whom he left it to guess who he was, was a very cheerful meeting, and the manner of it such as Mozart delighted in. He again characterizes as “bad” the playing of Stein’s eight-year-old little girl, afterwards Frau Streicher, who played so honorable and womanly a part in Beethoven’s life. His intercourse with his uncle’s family, in which the presence of his niece, (das Baesle), a young girl of eighteen, served somewhat to exercise his affections, and was the occasion, afterwards, of a series of jocose letters between them. He writes: “I can assure you, that, were it not that it holds a clever uncle and aunt and a charming ‘Baesle,’ I should regret exceedingly having come to Augsburg.” “Baesle” and he seemed made for one another, he thought; “for,” as he said, “she, too, has a little badness in her. The two of us banter the people, and we have very amusing times.”
Their separation was of such a nature that the father had the “sad parting of the two persons, melting into tears, Wolfgang and Baesle,” painted on a panel in their room. All else concerning this sojourn in Augsburg must be looked for in the letters themselves, where the reader will find some exquisite genre painting.
“How I like Mannheim? As well as I can like any place where ‘Baesle’ is not,” we soon hear him answer; for Mannheim, the home of the elector, Karl Theodore, who was as fond of reveling as he was of art, was the next nearest destination our travelers had in view in order to attain Wolfgang’s main object. True, he did not attain his object here either, but he had there that first genuine heart-experience which helped to mature his character as much as his mind was already developed beyond his years.
His next meeting was with the electoral Capellmeister, Cannabich, who knew him when he (Mozart) was a child. He was “extraordinarily polite,” but the orchestra stared at him. As he writes: “They think that because I am so little and young, I have not much that is great in me; but they will soon see.” And the mother, soon after: “You cannot imagine how highly Wolfgang is esteemed here, both by musicians and others. They all say that he has no equal. They fairly deify his compositions.” And yet, so far, he had composed nothing here that could be called really great, no opera; and to write one was the chief reason why Mozart protracted his stay in Mannheim so long. Karl Theodore was, above all, the promoter and protector of those who endeavored to create a German national operatic stage, and his orchestra, under the leadership of Cannabich, was so exquisitely good that it and old Fritz’s tactics were considered the most significant and noteworthy phenomena in Europe at the time. Moreover, the elector was very affable with his musicians, who were everywhere looked upon as “decent people”—a complete contrast with those of Salzburg.
The pleasure-seeking tone of the court had, indeed, invaded the middle classes of society, also; but what did Mozart’s pure heart know of that? On the contrary, he was destined to find, even in voluptuous Mannheim, a love as beautiful as it was pure.
His heart was now completely open to that irresistible impulse of the human breast. Even when in Munich composing, his Gaertnerin aus Liebe, he once said to his “dearest sister”: “I implore you, dearest sister, do not forget your promise; that is, to make the visit, you know, ... for I have my reasons. I beg of you to make my compliments there, ... but most emphatically ... and most tenderly ... and ... O ... well, I should not trouble myself about it. I know my sister too well; she is tenderness itself.” His trifling with “Baesle” had left no impression on his heart of hearts. She was both in mind and culture too much of the bourgeoise, too immature to captivate him. His jocose correspondence with her affords sufficient proof of this. But now we see that Cupid himself directed his pencil.
Young Mozart next informs us of the merry times he had at the houses of the musicians of a city, in which, as a writer of the times says, “the ladies,” were beautiful, sweet and charming. We soon find him again, “as usual,” at Cannabich’s, for supper. Of an evening of this kind, spent there, he writes: “I, John Chrysostome Amadeus Wolfgang Sigismund Mozart, plead guilty, that, day before yesterday and yesterday, as I have done frequently, I did not come home until midnight, and that from ten o’clock, in the presence and society of Cannabich, his wife and daughter, of Messrs. Ramm and Lang [two members of the orchestra], I have made rhymes, and not of the most exalted nature, in words and thoughts but not in deeds. I would not have acted in so godless a way were it not that Lisel had excited me to it, and I must confess that I found real pleasure in it.” On one occasion, at the house of the flute-player, Wendling, he was in such excellent humor, and played so well, that when he had finished, he had to kiss the ladies. He tells us that, in the case of the daughter, he found this a very easy and pleasant task. She had been the elector’s sweetheart, and, as Schubart says, in his Aesthetik der Tonkunst, the “greatest beauty in the orchestra.”
But Rosa Cannabich “a very sweet and beautiful girl,” as he writes of her himself, fettered him with the complete irresistibleness of her innocent charms more than could even this blooming flower. And this was the beginning of those sweet love-songs which now flowed in pure tones from his poet-heart; and, hence, this event marks a period in our artist’s life. He writes, shortly after his arrival in Mannheim: “She plays the piano very sweetly, and to make him (the father) a fast friend, I am writing a sonata for mademoiselle, his daughter.” When the first allegro was finished, a young musician asked him how he intended to write the andante. “I shall fashion it after mademoiselle Rosa’s character,” he answered; and he informs us further: “When I played it, it gave extraordinary satisfaction. It is even so. The andante is just like her.”
What was she like? A painter subsequently wrote of her thus: “How many such beautiful, priceless hours did heaven grant me in sweet intercourse with Rosa Cannabich. Her memory is an Eden to my heart;” and Wolfgang now wrote of her that, for her age, she was a girl of much mind, and of demure and serious disposition, one who said little, but that little in an affable, nay, charming manner. In Naples stands Psyche, a rose just opening. Mozart possessed the same refined, antique feeling for the soul-statue of man. Here, before his clear-seeing artist eye, the bud that in it lay was fully blown. This fruitful heart-life was destined soon to sow deeper germs in his own soul, and to cause his own art to bloom fully forth.
Here, accordingly, we discover one of those turning points in the development of Mozart’s inner nature, which had much to do with his intellectual growth, inasmuch as his passion disclosed to him for the first time the meaning of the homely truth, that both life and art are serious things. We proceed to show how this effect was produced.