Life of Mozart

by Ludwig Nohl

He tells us that, shortly after, the father’s consent was received. There was no one present at the marriage ceremony but the mother, the youngest sister, the guardian and two witnesses. And he adds: “The moment we were made one, my wife as well as myself began to weep, which touched every one, even the priest; and they all cried when they witnessed how our hearts were moved.” The marriage feast consisted of a supper at Frau von Waldstaedten’s, of which Mozart writes: “It was more like a prince’s than a baron’s.” A few days later, he writes: “For a considerable length of time, while we were yet single, we went together both to mass and communion, and I find that I never confessed and communicated as devoutly as by her side; and the same was the case with her. In a word, we are made for one another, and God who ordains all things, and who therefore has brought about all that has passed with us will not forsake us.” And He did not forsake them. Their marriage was blessed, truly blessed; for it had its foundation in love; and even leaving his music out of consideration, we shall hear this sweetest echo of life, the joyful notes of pure, tender love, echo as clearly through the world as the name of Mozart, himself a minstrel of love.

For an account of the cheering and touching tenacity of the love of our artist, we must refer the reader to our large work on Mozart, in which we have endeavored to give a picture or rather a history of a part of his life of which the world has entertained an entirely false idea. There is no reason why a single trait in Mozart’s character should be concealed. Its every feature is human, and even his weaknesses are amiable and readily excusable. If that highest of all moral precepts: Let him who is without sin cast the first stone, be applicable anywhere, it is here. We shall have something more to say on this subject below. We now turn to Mozart’s subsequent achievements.

The emperor, indeed, valued Mozart’s talent decidé very highly, and one day summoned him to meet Clement, in single combat, that his majesty might enjoy his immense superiority over the more formal talent of that renowned Roman. But the emperor did not recognize the full value of the Elopement from the Seraglio, which he once characterized by saying of it: non era gran cosa—“it did not amount to a great deal.” This grieved Mozart sorely. He even thought of leaving Vienna in consequence of it, and of going first to France and then to England. In the meantime, the Italian musicians in Vienna, probably because of the steady and great success of the Elopement from the Seraglio, had induced the emperor to order a new and excellent opera buffa, which gave great satisfaction. Mozart wrote of it: “The basso buffo is remarkably good; his name is Benucci.” Lorenzo da Ponte, known to-day as the poet of the two greatest opere buffe of the world—our Figaro and Don Giovanni had been in Vienna for some time, and was there now. He had promised Mozart, who of course had an eye on this Italian opera, a new subject as soon as he had finished one for Salieri. Two years passed away, but Da Ponte’s word was kept at length. In the meantime, Mozart had, on the occasion of his visit to Salzburg, in the fall of 1783, begun a comic opera, “Die Gans von Cairo”—“The Goose of Cairo.” It was, however, never completed. The libretto was too bad and the goose-story too “stupid.”

To this epoch, ending with the Figaro, belongs a large abundance of purely instrumental music. The quartet for the piano with wind-instruments was ready on the 24th of March, 1784; the fantasy in C major, which was never surpassed even by Beethoven, and the Veilchen, in the spring of 1785; the piano quartet in G minor, which Mozart called the best he had written in his whole life, in July of the same year; and the six quartets, dedicated to Joseph Haydn, the creator of that species of music, in the fall of that year (1785), a year which must be considered among the most fertile of his life. And yet, even at this time, Mozart was engaged on the comic opera above named, and had begun another, the Il Sposo deluso, “The derided Bridegroom,” which he dropped, to work on the Figaro. Scarcely had this last subject begun to occupy his mind, than it took possession of it entirely. Not even to the Idomeneo and the Elopement from the Seraglio did he devote himself so entirely as to the Figaro. Into this last he put all his individuality. It was the first subject which occupied all his mind and soul, and, at the same time, afforded him an opportunity to show the real brilliancy of his wit and of his musical capacity. In this work, we have a perfect whole, a gem which shines with dazzling brightness. A few weaknesses due to its derivation from the Italian opera are cancelled by its excellences. It is a picture of life which seems indeed to belong to one particular period, but which, after all, shows us human nature itself with all its weaknesses, the butt of ridicule or the object of pity.

Count Almaviva, who, with the assistance of Figaro, the barber of Seville, had won his beautiful countess, is enamoured of her more charming waiting-maid, Susanna; and the latter is in love with Figaro. An effort must be made to cure the count of his folly. His jealousy is first excited against the page. To accomplish this, the help of a great many other persons becomes necessary; and thus we get a whole series of exquisite scenes ending in the total bewilderment of the count. The second part—the opera buffa has generally only two parts, having been originally nothing more than an “intermezzo,” between the three acts of the grave opera, opera seria—finds Susanna at the count’s, arranging a secret rendezvous with him for the evening, in the garden. The ladies had so arranged it that the countess herself, disguised as Susanna, should be in the garden at the time of the rendezvous, and that Susanna should play the countess and surprise the two by her sudden appearance on the scene. The page arrived too. The count gives him a box on the ear for his dainty attentions to the disguised countess. The page carries his grievance to the jealous Figaro, who, warned of the infidelity of his Susanna, had approached too near, notwithstanding the darkness. He makes a passionate declaration of love to the supposed countess, although she had given him to understand who she was, in the presence of the count. This of course, brought matters to a crisis. The count orders lights to be brought. Covered with shame at the discovery he makes, and lovingly forgiven by the countess, he is, as we may reasonably assume, cured of his wicked weakness for all time.

Such was the course of Mozart’s opera. It was attractive and cheerful, and for the time, not too daring. Mozart invested the female characters of the piece with the utmost goodness of heart and purity of soul. Even from the haughty giddiness of the count, he took the sting in such a way that we leave the presentation of this piece of human weakness entirely satisfied.

It was otherwise with the original work, the Le Mariage de Figaro ou la folle Journée, of the same Beaumarchais from whom Goethe borrowed his Clavigo. In it we find the vices and above all the high-handed violence of the nobility scourged with such a regardlessness of consequences, that the piece must be looked upon as a species of prelude to that historic night in August, 1789, on which every privilege of the nobility was wiped out with a stroke of the pen. It shows us at the same time the cordial gentleness and dignity of the man, Mozart, who had himself personally experienced the brutal pride of the privileged classes, and this in the most revolting manner. He, however, solved the whole problem in the kindest of humor, with a sympathy which may be seen shining through tears; explaining it by the limitations and weaknesses of human nature. This work was Mozart’s own even from the ordering of the libretto; and he it was that made choice of it.

The following are the particulars relating to its composition. Lorenzo da Ponte, of whom we made mention above, and who was at first so completely on the side of Salieri and the Italians, now turned to Mozart, in order to save his place, as libretto-poet, which he was in danger of losing. Paisiello, at this time a man of world-wide reputation, had come to Vienna, and achieved the greatest success with an opera—“King Theodore.” In order to supplant the poet of the opera, Casti, Da Ponte composed a libretto for Salieri, with which, however, Salieri made so complete a failure, that he swore he would rather have his fingers cut off, than set another verse written by Da Ponte to music. Salieri now turned to Casti and met with great success in his “Grotto of Trophonius.” Da Ponte who saw his position as poet for the theater in peril, in consequence of this, had recourse to Mozart. Thus it was the intrigue and jealousy of the Italians which eventually helped Mozart to the place which he was born to fill; and thus Salieri’s blow recoiled upon himself, for Mozart proposed Beaumarchais’ piece which had been given in Paris, in the spring of 1784, and had produced an immense sensation there. But the king had forbidden the piece in Vienna because of its “immoral style.” Besides, he had some doubts as to Mozart’s capacity. Mozart, he said, was a good composer of instrumental music, but had written an opera which did not amount to much. On this account, Mozart went quietly to work. He first composed a part of his opera, and Da Ponte then took occasion to have the emperor hear the part thus composed. His imperial majesty immediately ordered the completion of the work, and subsequently its performance.

Such is the story as it is to be gathered from the memoirs of the writer of the libretto and of one of the singers, O’Kelley, an Englishman. Both prove that the Italians now moved heaven and earth to shut Mozart out from the stage, and that, as a matter of fact, the emperor was obliged personally to interfere in his behalf, in the case of the Figaro. Moreover, just at this time he gave Mozart a token of his favor by commissioning him to write an opera called the Shauspieldirector, or “The Manager of the Theater,” for a garden-festival at Schœnbrunn. The subject of this opera is the competitive trial of two prima donnas before the manager—a comic piece which his enemies subsequently endeavored to interpret as a picture of scenes in his own life.

The Italians, indeed, had reason enough for fear. Salieri subsequently gave expression to their feelings when he said, it was well that Mozart was dead, since, if he had lived, it would soon have come to such a pass that not one of them would get as much as a mouthful of bread for his compositions. These compositions are, indeed, valueless to-day, while Mozart’s work is immortal, and while arias like Will der Herr Graf ein Taenzlein wagen, Neue Freuden neue Schmerzen and Ihr die ihr Triebe, will live as long as music lives.