It was these two men indeed, who, so to speak, gave expression to the whole of human life in this unrestrained language of music, and who, together with Beethoven, opened the hearts of their age and of humanity, by their sonatas, symphonies, and quartets. This explains why Mozart was able to write that the ladies detained him at the piano a whole hour after the concert, adding: “I think I should be sitting there still, if I had not stolen away!”
Again, he writes to his sister: “My only entertainment is the theater. I wish you could see a tragedy played here. I know no theater in which all kinds of plays are very well produced, unless it be here.” Shroeder no doubt contributed largely to produce this effect. Then Shakespeare’s plays had begun to attract attention in Germany, and German dramatic literature to blossom forth in Lessing and Goethe. No wonder that “Figaro” and “Don Giovanni,” now began to engage his attention. We have already spoken of a national German theater. It is not to be supposed that the Emperor Joseph II. sympathized with the Germans in music. His early impressions caused him to favor the Italian school, and, cultivated as was his talent for music, it was not great enough to enable him to overcome them. But he was compelled to assist the nation in its endeavors in this sphere, since Frederick the Great had anticipated him in almost every other. Thus Vienna, together with Mannheim and Weimar, constituted the glorious triad, the creators of German music and of a German stage; and the full significance of German endeavors, in this direction, may be inferred from the path of light beginning with Mozart’s “Magic Flute,” followed by Beethoven’s Symphonies, and ending with the “Ring of the Niebelungen” in Bayreuth in 1876. Verily a cycle of art, of which Germany may well be proud!
Mozart came just in time for the German operatic stage. Gluck had stopped composing; his victory was a decided one; he had almost reached his zenith; he was approaching his seventieth year. True, his pupil, Salieri, was the “idol of the emperor;” but he was an Italian, and the remaining Viennese composers of the time were of little or no importance. Haydn, properly speaking, did not busy himself in this sphere of the drama, and besides, he lived the greatest part of the time in Eisenstadt with prince Esterhazy. Northern Germany had no longer anything to show of those things which mark an epoch in history; and, what is more its preponderantly “learned” or formal music would not have pleased the taste of the Viennese. What then could be more natural than that they should open their arms to the young maestro who, in a new field, had just given evidence of his transcendent power? And, indeed, shortly after Mozart’s arrival in Vienna, the Emperor himself had given expression to a wish that he might write a German opera of this kind; and we are informed that after Count Rosenberg, the manager of the theatre, had heard the Idomeneo at a private rehearsal, he ordered the writing of a libretto for Mozart. This was “Belmonte and Constance,” or the “Elopement from the Seraglio.” Mozart tells how he was so cheered by this, that he hastened to his writing table with the greatest eagerness and sat at it with the greatest pleasure. He finished, at this first sitting, one of the arias of the Belmonte, and that the most beautiful of them all—the O wie aengstlich, o wie feurig!
The whole matter was postponed for a time, but to no disadvantage; for, in the meanwhile, Mozart experienced things which gave him that wonderful depth of coloring and that golden, mature sweetness which, besides himself and Raphael, scarcely another possesses—love moved him to the innermost depths of his soul. This love had as much influence on his life as on his music. It led to that most decided union of human hearts, marriage; and hence we have here to consider this important bit of the life of our artist, in his case as in all others, made up of anguish and bliss.
We have seen already that when Mozart was compelled to leave the archbishop’s palace, he hastened to the house of the Webers. Of his removal thither he wrote: “There I have my pretty room, am with obliging people ready to assist me in everything, when necessary.” After the death of her husband, Madame Weber supported herself by renting rooms, so that her daughters might remain with her. She lived in the Auge Gottes, which is still standing in the Petersplatz. The father’s suspicions were immediately awakened; and Mozart writes in answer to his expression of them: “In the case of Aloysia [Lange] I was a fool, but what may not a man become when he is in love!” For the present, Mozart was concerned only with finding comfortable lodging quarters and people who might take a personal interest in his father and in the devouring anger and sorrow which possessed him, on account of the course pursued towards him by the archbishop; and this interest he found here. And, indeed, now that he had to compose incessantly in order to eke out a livelihood, he needed a “clear head and a quiet mind.” His father, however, insisted on his leaving the Webers, and in the fall, he finally consented to quit them. But he greatly deceived himself when he said that he left them only on account of “the gossip of the people,” and wanted to know why he should be so recklessly taken to task, because he had moved into the house of the Webers, as if that meant that he was going to marry the daughter. The tender care which the third daughter Constance took of him and the disposition she manifested to do him every service in her power, generated in him the desire to care for and serve her, in like manner.
We cannot here enter into the minute details of the origin and tenacity of this beautiful affair of the heart; and we, therefore, confine ourselves to that which is most essential.
Constance Weber was born in 1764. She was now in her eighteenth year, and eight years younger than Mozart. She had been one of his pupils in Munich. He gave her lessons on the piano then, and now he was teaching her vocal music as well. Thus Mozart had, on both occasions, an inducement other than his feelings, to bring him to the house of the Webers. Music at first threw him and Constance involuntarily together; but the language of the soul was destined sooner or later to create a more intimate bond between them. In the evening they had their little chats; they were joined by friends of Constance’s own sex; and Mozart, in a letter written long after he was married, tells how they played “hide and seek” with them. Then again, a great many circumstances conspired to decide him to make choice of a partner for life. There were his years, and his temperament which inclined him to a quiet mode of life. From his earliest youth, he had never been taught economy, and as a consequence now had many unnecessary expenses. He felt lonely and desolate, when, tired by the exhausting labors of the day, he was not with the Webers. When he left their house in September, he was like a man who has left his own comfortable carriage for a stage-coach. And when, with that instinct which belongs only to our deepest feelings, he became gradually conscious that she was “the right one,” he frankly laid before his father the necessity of his marrying and his settled purpose to marry.
He writes in December, 1781: “But who is the object of my love? Do not be horrified, I pray you. Surely, not one of the Weber girls? Yes, one of the Weber girls, but not Josepha, not Sophia but Constance, the middle one.” And then he gives us a description which must have been somewhat exaggerated and colored by his feeling at the time. In no family, he tells us, had he found such inequality. The eldest daughter was lazy and coarse, and a little too knowing. Her tall sister was false and a coquette; and yet he had written in the spring that he had some liking for her. The youngest, Sophia, of whom we shall have something to say further on, was still too young to be much. She was nothing more than a good but giddy creature. He adds concerning her: “May God preserve her from temptation!” Next comes a description of his dear Constance. He says of her: “The middle daughter, my dear good Constance, is a martyr among them, and, on that very account, perhaps, the best-hearted, cleverest, in a word, the best in every way, among them. She takes care of everything in the house, and yet can please nobody.” He could if he desired, write whole pages of the ugly scenes in that house. It was these very scenes which had made the two so dear to one another. They tested their mutual affection.
And now he describes Constance herself. She was not ugly, but then she was far from being beautiful. All her beauty consisted in two small black eyes, and a fine figure. She had no wit, but common sense enough to enable her to fulfill her duties as a wife and mother. That she was not inclined to be lavish in her expenditures, was by no means true; but she was accustomed to being plain; for the mother used the little she had on the other two. She could make all her own things, understood housekeeping, and had the best heart in the world. “I love her,” he says, “and she loves me with all her heart. Tell me now, could I desire a better wife?” The best commentary to these words is furnished by the pieces which were already finished for “Belmonte and Constance,” but above all by the O wie aengstlich, o wie feurig,[6] which dates from the summer of 1781, and the aria Ach ich liebte, war so gluecklich,[7] the text of which is extant in Constance’s own handwriting.
But the painful lot of separation was destined at least to threaten him. First the father, next the daughters’ guardian, then the mother, and lastly his loved one’s own stubborn willfulness—the willfulness of youth—menaced him with the destruction of his happiness. His life’s happiness was indeed at stake here. This is very evident from Mozart’s letters written during this time of trouble; and no one can know Mozart thoroughly who does not follow him through this his heart trial.