Preparations were immediately made for his departure, and, after a little, Mozart was in Paris. The sonata for the piano in A minor, which bears the date “Paris, 1778,” tells us by its energetic rhythm and the passionate lament of the finale, better than all else, what was going on, at that time, in Mozart’s soul. It is the most direct language of a heart bowed down with sorrow, and discloses to us, just as the aria Non so d’onde viene did, a short time before, a region newly conquered to poetic expression, in tones. And, indeed, we find that Mozart’s character had noticeably matured after these first struggles with his beloved father. The sudden death of his mother in Paris contributed largely to intensify and elevate this, his earnestness of mind. Upon its heels followed the painful disappointment, that his love for the beautiful Aloysia was a mortal one, and he had, at last, though with great difficulty, to overcome himself and return to Salzburg, which he so thoroughly hated. Such are the events and experiences which lead us to the first real masterpiece of our artist, to his Idomeneo. We shall meet again in his later years with the traces of the trials of these days in Mannheim, and especially of the full recognition of the worth of a father’s controlling love, as he then most decidedly experienced it.
To continue our narrative. His father writes: “I have no, no not the least want of confidence in you, my dear Wolfgang. On the contrary, I have every confidence in your filial love. On you I base all my hopes. From the bottom of my heart, I give you a father’s blessing, and remain until death your faithful father and your surest friend.” Such was the parting salutation he received from home, when starting on his journey to a foreign land. And Wolfgang himself writes: “I must say that all who knew me parted with me reluctantly and with regret.” Aloysia had, “from goodness of heart,” knit a little memento for him. They all wept when their “best friend and benefactor departed.” He says: “I must ask your pardon, but the tears rush to my eyes when I think of it.” Besides, there was now “neither rhyme nor reason” with him in anything. He had, however, done his father’s will, and this was some consolation to him. He soon learned that Raaff had come to Paris; and what pleased him more, Raaff promised to take care of his dear Aloysia’s future.
In Paris, he met scarcely anything but discomfort and disappointment. The style of Parisian music did not please him. The Italian arias were distorted and the indigenous whining in singing grated on his musical feelings which craved above all the charm of the beautiful. And yet it was at this time, in Paris, that there was a decided controversy between two schools of music; between the disciples of Gluck and Piccini.
We saw above that, in the Italian opera, melody, the florid style (Coloratur) and vocal virtuosity became predominant. But the French had developed their opera independently. Action and a corresponding musical recitation in keeping with the words, were considered by them its chief features. The German Gluck at this point began his work in France. He was guided here by his own good sense; and by theoretical demonstrations he proved the weakness of the Italian style. He had already turned his attention to the sublime tragedies of the Greeks, and captivated Paris by his Iphigenia in Aulis. But as the great mass always favors trifles and the fashion, this innovation was soon confronted by a formidable opposition, which after all was only a further development of the national French opera. Contrary to the usual French custom, and misled by Rousseau’s influence, the Italian opera was put above the nation’s own, and a foreigner, the Neapolitan Piccini, called to Paris to retaliate on Gluck.
We know now who came off the victor in this struggle. Mozart’s feelings ranged him, at first, on the Italian side—that is, on that side so far as music alone was concerned. But his German nature told him that the ultimate source of music lay in that earnestness of feeling and of intellectual life which is the creator of poetry, and above all of tragic poetry; and here the Italians were altogether too superficial to satisfy him. And, then, he involuntarily favored the earnest endeavors of the French opera, much as he disliked the French music of the time. And, indeed, the whole mode of the really historic life of Paris, contrasted with the political wretchedness of Germany and Italy, must have made a forcible impression on his mind, spite of his many disagreeable experiences there, and of the many inconveniences and troubles he had to put up with. And, more than all else, the high regard in which the stage, at that time, was held, in France, did not escape his observation. It made a decided and lasting impression on his mind. In his letters, he subsequently made particular mention of the fact that the clown was banished even from the comic opera there. It was not, indeed, until he was about to leave Paris, that he became conscious of this greater, richer, more vigorous life,—of a life such as was evidenced ten years later by the great Revolution. But the fact remains that he did become conscious of it, and, as a consequence, his artistic taste and aims acquired greater fixedness and value. This was Mozart’s gain from his stay in Paris at this time. It was a gain of the mind which richly compensated for his want of pecuniary success.
The detailed account of this sojourn in Paris is to be found in Mozart’s own letters. It is a very vivid one, very clear, and the language used is frequently very strong. The letters themselves constitute a piece of the history of the art, and culture of the Paris of the time. The death of his mother, the result of a way of living to which she was not used and of great depression of spirits, had a very sad effect on his mind. But when he saw that he had no need to worry, at least about his father, he felt greatly encouraged, and the prospect of writing an opera for Paris infused new life into the sluggish blood of our young artist. A cheering evidence of this is to be found in the so-called French symphony which he wrote just at this time; and we can see what purely external cause it was that gave it its peculiarly lively tone. It was the character of the French themselves, with their peculiar love of life and of the external. All his hearers were carried away by a lively passage of this kind in the very beginning, but in the finale he took the liberty with his ingenuous musical audience to crack a joke like that subsequently played by Haydn in London, by the beating of the kettle-drum suddenly to attract the attention of the listeners. Contrary to the custom usual in Paris, he had two violins to begin to play piano, immediately followed by a forte. When they were playing piano a sound of sh-sh-sh—called for a dead silence; but “the moment his audience heard the forte, they broke out into hand-clapping and applause.” Thus adroitly and immediately did he employ in Paris the manner of working up a climax which he had noticed in Mannheim.
But envy and intrigue still dogged him. He fairly dazzled the Italian maestro, Cambini, the very first time he met him. Mozart played one of Cambini’s quartets from memory, and executed it in such a manner, that the latter exclaimed: “What a head that man has!” Cambini, after this, took care that no more of Mozart’s compositions should be performed in public, and hence he had to resort once more to the giving of lessons in music, to make ends meet. This was exceedingly difficult in Paris, and especially for an artist who, as he himself wrote at the time, was, so to say, “sunk in music—one whose thoughts it always occupied, and who liked to speculate, study and reflect the live-long day.”
A friend whom he had made during his previous stay in Paris, the encyclopædist, Grimm, was not of much use to him this time either. Wolfgang was not the man to see his way in such a city, or in such society. And Grimm wrote to the father that his son was too true-hearted, too inactive, too easily captivated, too little versed in the arts which lead to success. This, indeed, was Mozart’s character. He knew little of the ways of the world, and he remained ignorant of them through life. As nothing came of his prospects to write an opera, his father could not but wish that he might leave Paris entirely, which, after his mother’s death, he considered a dangerous place for him.
Wolfgang had turned his eyes towards Munich, where Karl Theodor was now elector. But the war still kept everything in a state of stagnation there. In the meantime, a vacancy occurred in Salzburg itself. A Capellmeister was needed in that city. Many a hint had been given the father previously, on another occasion, when a vacancy was created by death. Now he was appealed to again, at first in a round-about way and then directly. And what was the bait he held out to his son? Aloysia! The archbishop wanted a prima donna, also, and Wolfgang had already urged his father to take an interest in her welfare. He did not, at first, agree to the arrangement, but when it was certainly decided that he could have the position and was sure of more becoming treatment than he had formerly received there, and, when he heard that Miss Weber was very ardently desired by the prince and by all, his hatred for Salzburg and its hard and unjust archbishop abated. But without the positive assurance that he would be granted leave of absence to travel, an assurance which he received, he would not have been completely satisfied; for, he writes: “A man of only ordinary talent, always remains ordinary, whether he travel or not; a man of superior talent, and it would be wicked in me to deny that I possess such talent, deteriorates by remaining always in the same place.”
But, in the meantime, Aloysia found a place in Munich. Mozart learned this fact before his departure, and all his aversion for Salzburg was again suddenly awakened. Paris again stood out before him, a place in which he would certainly have “earned honor, fame and money, and where he would have been able to free his father from debt.” He now thought of getting a place once more in Munich himself, for he had recently learned again how much the girl loved him. Rumors of his death had been put in circulation, and the poor child had gone to church every day to pray for him. Writing of this incident, he says: “You will laugh, I cannot; it touches me, and I can’t help it.” But this was a serious matter with the father. His own place, as well as his daily bread, was certainly at stake now, if Wolfgang retreated!