Thus the Figaro and Don Giovanni, together with Germany’s classic poetry, occupy a place at the beginning of a great dramatic epoch which commenced one hundred years ago. They are a part of the life of modern humanity in general. In them Mozart first fully developed his inexhaustible genius. And thus it is that these works, like the antique and the art of the Renaissance, belong to the whole cultured world.
Mozart’s concluding labors are a condensation of all the impressions of his life, and of all the perceptions of his mind, in their very depths. The Magic Flute, especially by its purely human and ethico-religious tendency, became the starting point of the efforts of an art which was peculiarly German, but of which the universal art-creations of the present day were born. This leads us to the fifth and last chapter of our biography.
CHAPTER V.
1787-1791.
THE MAGIC FLUTE—TITUS—THE REQUIEM.
Haydn’s Opinion of Mozart—Made Court Composer by Joseph II.—Don Giovanni in Vienna—Mozart’s Extreme Poverty—His Cheerfulness under Adverse Circumstances—“The Song of the Swan”—Other Compositions—Mozart’s Opinion of Handel—He becomes Acquainted with Sebastian Bach—Mozart’s Opinion of Church Music—Traveling Again—Some of Mozart’s Characteristics—Audience with the Emperor—Petition to his Imperial Majesty—His Religious Feelings—Joins the Free Masons—History of the Composition of the Magic Flute—The Mysterious Stranger—The Requiem—Success of the Magic Flute—Mozart as Reflected in his Music—His Industry—Last Illness—Strange Fancies—Incidents of his Last Days—His Death.
The composer of Figaro, Mozart himself, writes in 1785: “If there were only a single German patriot in a position of influence, with him things would wear a different aspect. But, then, perhaps, our national theatre, now only in bud, would come to full bloom; and, of course, it would be an everlasting shame for Germany, if we should seriously begin to think German, act German, speak German, and even to sing German!” Chance would have it, that, towards the close of his days he was able to give his pen and not merely his tongue, as he did here, free rein on this point. And the very fact that his circumstances became poorer, and that the parties, which prevailed at the time, succeeded in relegating him to an inferior social position, was here of decisive influence.
Haydn now writes to Prague, where Mozart had declined the composition of another opera: “You ask me for another opera. With all my heart, if you wish to have something for yourself alone.” But he would have had too much to risk in writing for the theatre there, inasmuch as scarcely any one could be compared with the great Mozart. The noble master continues: “For if I could impress on the souls of all lovers of music, but above all on the great, the inimitable works of Mozart; could I endow them with a proper comprehension of music, and impart to them the feeling with which I understand and feel them, the nations would emulate one another for the possession of that jewel.” Prague, he said, should keep such a man, but at the same time, it should remunerate him properly, for when not properly remunerated the history of genius is sad indeed. And he concludes: “It grieves me sorely that Mozart, who has no equal, has not yet been engaged at some royal or imperial court.... Pardon me for not keeping to my subject, but I am so fond of the man.”
Schwind, the painter, who, during his youth in Vienna, knew very many of Mozart’s friends, writes: “People spoke of him as one speaks of the person he loves. Why was it that ‘the great’ did nothing for him?”
The success of the Don Giovanni in Prague had a good effect in Vienna, and when it was learned that Mozart was going to leave that city for England, Joseph II. named him—it was on the 7th of December, 1787—his court composer with a salary of 800 guldens in all; of which Mozart once wrote on his tax-returns: “too much for what I do, too little for what I might do.” In his position, he had no duties but to write the dancing music for the imperial masquerades! And yet, the position which Gluck held from the emperor with a salary of two thousand guldens had just become vacant by that composer’s death! Mozart must have had wicked enemies and enviers and only half friends, at this court. His patron, Maximilian Francis, elector of Cologne, was now in Bonn, where he had found young Beethoven, and the emperor himself liked the lighter music better than Mozart’s. Thus Salieri again gained the advantage; and before the opera Azur, which had been ordered by the emperor, was given, Don Giovanni was not to be thought of.