The journey was proceeded with this time slowly. And, indeed, what cause was there for haste? He made a long stay in Strassburg and Mannheim, and entered into some negotiations there about the composition of a melodrama. “On receipt of this you shall take your departure,” was the positive order sent him; and yet there was “a real scramble” for him at Mannheim. His father consoles him by assuring him that he is not at all opposed to his love for Aloysia, and this all the less, since now she was able to make his fortune, not he hers! While on his journey, Mozart had invited “Baesle” also to Munich, adding: “You will, perhaps, get a great part to play.”
But, strange!—Aloysia does not seem, when he enters, to recognize the very man for whom she once had wept. Mozart, therefore, seated himself hastily at the piano, and sang aloud:
“Ich lass das Maedl gern, das mich nicht will!”[4]
This was told by Aloysia’s younger sister, Constance, who was afterwards Mozart’s wife, to her second husband, and she gave as the reason of it, the fact that Aloysia’s taste was offended because, following the custom of the time, he wore black buttons, in mourning for his mother, on his red coat. It may be, however, that the officers and gentlemen of the court pleased the prima donna better than the little man whose heart-tones had once entranced her. This time also, he left the faithless one a gift, a composition of his own, not, however, one which sprung from his heart, but one which showed his power as an artist. The aria which he now wrote for her, Popopoli di Tessaglia, discovers to us completely the full meaning of his Non so d’onde viene, in his own life.
Aloysia was not happy. We shall have more to say of this hereafter. Mozart did not, at this time, weep away his grief in tones. His pride vanquished his love. But his letters depict the state of his mind all the more truly, now that the hopes he had entertained of obtaining a position in Munich turned to smoke. Still, his present sojourn in Munich was destined to lead soon to a very important event in his life as an artist. He regrets that he cannot write, because his heart is attuned to weeping. A friend told the father that Wolfgang cried for a whole hour, spite of all efforts to dry his tears. And, writing of Mozart’s beautiful inner self, he says: “I never saw a child with more tenderness and love for his father than your son. His heart is so pure, so child-like to me, how much more pure and tender must it be for his father! Only, one must hear him; and who is there that would not do him justice as the best of characters, the most upright and most ardent of men!” We think we hear the sounds of the well-spring from which the tones of the Idomeneo and the aria of the Ilia were soon to flow.
The meeting of father and son could not fail to be a very touching sight. To form an idea of their feelings on that occasion, one must read the letter written by the father, after he received the news of the mother’s illness. Wolfgang came home immediately, but he came without her, the dearly beloved wife and mother. Every one received him with open arms; but he had already written: “Upon my oath and upon my honor, I say I cannot endure Salzburg or its people; their language and their whole mode of life is unbearable to me;” and the chief cause of his feeling thus lay in his art. He said later: “When I play in Salzburg, or when one of my compositions is produced there, I feel as if only chairs and tables were my listeners.” After this, it is easy to understand why Salzburg was not to his taste. He says: “When one has trifled away his young years in such a beggarly place, in inaction, it is sad enough, and besides, a great loss.”
“Baesle’s” merriness helped him to while away the first week of his second stay in his dull native city, in the beginning of 1779. But her simple ways could not now make her what she was to him, when he was less matured in mind and heart. His work was his most agreeable pastime, and, spite of everything, productions of the most varied nature written during his sojourn in Salzburg, afford very abundant proof of this. The symphonies he now wrote were, indeed, greatly excelled by others which he subsequently composed, and the masses eclipsed by his great requiem. But the music to a tragedy, “King Thamos,” has a sound so full and so appeals to the soul, that we feel the presence in it of the greater life-trials he had experienced. And hence it is that Mozart was subsequently able to adapt its choruses to other words, and to introduce them to the world as “hymns.” Their tone reminds us of the solemn, serious choruses of the “Magic Flute,” the drift of which was followed also in the matter of the drama. The composition of these works was due to Schikaneder, of whom we shall have something more to say when speaking of the “Magic Flute.” He was, at this time, director of the theater at Salzburg, and Mozart received an order to write a comic opera for him. This was the “Zaide” and the plot embraced a tale of abduction. Its composition was fast drawing to a close when, at last—it was in the fall of 1780—he saw signs of redemption from his captivity. He received an invitation to compose an opera for Munich. It was the Idomeneo, and its success sealed Mozart’s fate for all subsequent time. With the exception of a short visit paid there, he never saw Salzburg again.
The subject of this work is the old story of Jephtha’s vow. The scene, however, is transferred to Crete, whither its king Idomeneus, returns after the destruction of Troy. In a frightful storm which occurred during his journey, he vows to Neptune the first human being he shall meet. The victim is his own son, Idamante. Idomeneus wishes to send him away into a foreign country. But Neptune causes a still greater storm to rage and the whole country to be devastated by a monster. The people meet and hear of the vow that Idomeneus has made. When Idamante himself who, in the meantime, had slain the monster, is informed of his fate, he is ready to appease the anger of the god. Whereupon, Ilia, who loves him, throws herself between him and his father, and asks that she may suffer death in his place. But just as she casts herself on her knees, “a great subterraneous noise is heard, Neptune’s statue trembles on its base. The high priest is transported out of himself, all stand motionless with fear, and a deep majestic voice proclaims the will of the god:” that Idomeneus shall abdicate the throne, and that Idamante and Ilia happily united shall ascend it.
It is easy to see that we have here great and grave situations in the life of human creatures. Mozart knew how to do them justice. He grasped their very kernel and allowed that which was only of secondary importance to remain secondary. The whole, although taken from a French libretto, had been, according to the custom of the Italian opera of the time, broken up into a great many fragments for the purposes of music, and among them we find, especially, a large number of arias; and hence it did not satisfy true dramatic taste. But even these disjointed pieces,—it mattered not whether they gave expression to sorrow, terror, tenderness or joy, united to or mixed with one another—were always full of what they were intended to express, and were, not unfrequently, overflowing with musical beauty. It was only when he conceded, too much to the incompetence or narrowness of singers, that any sacrifice was made to the traditional form and sing-song of the Italians. But there were in the plot, and they were its chief part, some powerful scenes, susceptible of really dramatic presentation; and here Mozart demonstrated that he was a great master of the stage, and that he had adopted Gluck’s innovations not to allow the singers and their florid style, but the music to govern, and the music as the highest expression of the poetry, that is of the dramatic scene which is performing. Mozart’s own letters give us many details of great interest in this connection.
He again met his Mannheim artists, singers as well as the orchestra—all but Aloysia, who had been called a short time previously, to the national operatic theatre in Vienna—in Munich, and he was therefore well prepared to go to work. And he was anxious to do so, for it was a long time since he had an opportunity to show his full powers on the stage. He felt happy, nay, delighted, since his arrival. He lived in the Burggasse. A bronze tablet bearing his portrait has since been placed on the house in which he lived. The elector greeted him most graciously, and when Mozart gave expression to the peculiar ardor he felt, he tapped him on the shoulder and said: “I have no doubt whatever; everything will be well.” Every one was delighted and astonished at the rehearsal of the first act. Much had been expected of him, but the performance surpassed all expectation. Frau Cannabich, who had been obliged to remain at home with her sick daughter, Rose, embraced him, so overjoyed was she at his success; and the musicians went home almost crazed with delight. The hautboyist Ramm, with whom Beethoven played his quintet op. 16, in 1804, told him on his word as a true son of the fatherland, that no music had ever made such an impression on him—referring to the double choruses during Idomeneus’s shipwreck—and what joy would it bring to his father when he heard of it!