Opinions on the Idomeneo—Tired of Salzburg—Goes to Vienna—The Archbishop Again—Mozart Treated by him with Indignity—Paternal Reproaches—Assailed by Slander—He Leaves Salzburg—Experiences in Vienna—Austrian Society—The German Stage—The Emperor Expresses a wish that Mozart might Write a New Opera—Mozart’s Love for Constance Weber—Description of Constance—Performance of the New Opera—Mozart’s Marriage—The Emperor’s Opinion of Mozart’s Music—Mozart’s Interest in the Figaro—Particulars Relating to its Composition—Its Success—Mozart’s Poverty—Mozart in Bohemia—His Popularity in Prague—Meaning of the Don Giovanni—Richard Wagner on Mozart.
We are told that Mozart, even in his later years, prized the Idomeneo very greatly, and it is certain that connoisseurs have always entertained a very high opinion of its music. It combines the freshness of youth, great force and vitality, with a great variety in invention, and has all the characteristics of art. It is easy to conceive that the consciousness of being the possessor of so much power, especially while he was engaged on the work itself, made Mozart’s bosom swell, and that in such moments the memory of the narrowness and “chicanery” of Salzburg must have been exceedingly mortifying to him. “Out! out into the wide world and into the air of freedom!”—he must have heard now ringing in his ears as he had four years before. And had not Vienna, at that time the capital of Germany, intellectually advanced, and had not the Emperor Joseph, established a national opera there?
As early as in December 1780, he had written to inquire how it stood about his leave of absence. He told his father that he was in Salzburg only to please him, and that, most assuredly, if it depended on him, he would have scorned the place; for, he adds, “upon my honor, the prince and the proud nobility become more intolerable to me every day.” It would now, he said, be easy for him to get on in Munich without the protection of the great, and it brought the tears to his eyes when he thought of the state of things in Salzburg. Yet he could stay longer than his leave of absence allowed him; for the archbishop remained some time in Vienna on business, and thus Mozart found leisure, after the opera was completed, to rest in Munich and to participate in the pleasures of the carnival, while otherwise his greatest diversion would have been to be with his beloved Rose and the Cannabichs.
In the midst of this youthful jollity, which seems very natural after the great strain upon the minds of all during many months, he received the archbishop’s order to repair to Vienna. This was in the middle of March, 1781. Jerome was witness of the ostentation of the princes in that city; and what reason was there why his “illustrious grace” should not cut a figure also? His eight handsome roan horses were there already. The members of his household followed him, and who was there who, in the music at a feast, had a Mozart to show? Thus did our artist unexpectedly realize his wish to come to Vienna; and circumstances so had it, that he remained there.
His reception was a good one. He had indeed, as was the custom of the time, to sit at table with cooks and valets de chambre, but these he kept at a proper distance by “great gravity” and silence. Yet even now we hear that the archbishop was only giving himself airs with his attendants; for when an opportunity presented itself for Mozart to show his powers, in other noble houses, the archbishop refused him permission to do so; and still, it was only in such houses, that he could expect to meet the Emperor Joseph—a circumstance on which everything now depended. Rather did this domineering ecclesiastic do all in his power to make Mozart feel his dependence more keenly. The father did all he could to appease him, but Wolfgang felt that the archbishop used him only to tickle his own ambition; that, in all other respects, that worthy served only to hide his light. Besides he had to stand about the room like a servant. Yet Mozart tells us how, at a performance at prince Galizin’s, he had left the other musicians entirely, and how he had gone directly up to the host in the music room, and remained with him. Nothing was paid him for his compositions for the archbishop’s soirées. Mozart, indeed, helped to lend éclat to a concert for the widows of deceased musicians in the Haydn Society, because “all the nobility of Vienna had tormented the archbishop to permit him to do so.” But his grace would not allow him to give a concert for his own benefit, spite of the fact that he had been received so well. The hardest blow of all to our artist was the news that he would have to go back to Salzburg with the rest. He at first paid no attention to intimations of this nature, for he wanted to give a concert before he left. He had, besides, a prospect of a position in the imperial city itself. But his father at home would agree to nothing.
Mozart now writes “in natural German, because all the world should know it,” that the archbishop owed it entirely to his father that he did not lose him yesterday, for all time. He had been annoyed altogether too much at the concert yesterday. After a little, dissension broke out in earnest. “I am out of myself. My patience has been tried so long that it is at an end.” The archbishop had, even before this, called him “a low fellow,” and told him to go his way. Mozart bore it for his father’s sake. Then he was ordered suddenly to leave the house, and he went to old Madame Weber’s, and had to live at his own expense. He, therefore, did not want to go until this outlay at least was made up for.
“Well, fellow, when do you go?” snarlingly asked this prince spiritual, and he then proceeded, in a single breath, to tell him that he was a dissipated fellow, that no one used him so badly, and that he would stop his pay. We scarcely believe our ears when we hear a prince-bishop call our artist a scamp, a young blackguard, an idiot! Wolfgang’s blood became too hot at last, and he asked whether his illustrious grace was not satisfied with him.
“What? Threats? You idiot! There’s the door! I will have nothing more to do with such a miserable villain.”
“Nor I with you.”
“Then go!”