Mozart now went to Leipzig, itself, and the successor of the great Sebastian, the cantor Doles, master of the choir in the church of Saint Thomas, was very friendly to him. He first displayed his powers at the organ here. Says an eye-witness: “Doles was charmed with the artist’s playing, and imagined Sebastian Bach returned to life.” “With the greatest facility,” Mozart had put all the arts of harmony in operation, and improvised the chorale, “Jesus my trust,” in a masterly manner. This way of working up a chorale was the peculiar art of the North German school of artists. As a token of gratitude, Doles caused Bach’s motetto for eight voices, Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied, to be sung for him. Our artist was overjoyed, and exclaimed: “That is something full of suggestion!” When Beethoven heard this same motetto with all its elemental power and magnitude, he exclaimed, referring to its composer: “His name should not be Bach (brook), but Meer (the sea).” A similar expression of opinion is ascribed to Wagner, who performed the same motetto, in 1848, in Dresden.
When Mozart heard that the church of Saint Thomas had several other such motettoes, he asked for them all, and laid the several parts on his knees—there being no score—and on the chairs about him, and gave his whole soul to their study until he had thoroughly mastered them. At his request Doles gave him a copy of them.
Can we imagine what now passed in Mozart’s soul? The artist recognized the artist. Of predecessors, with like creative powers, he could have named only Palestrina. But what moved him still more, and stirred him to the very depths of his heart, was the sublimity of the religious feeling which lives in this spirit, and which laid hold of and lifted Mozart, the Catholic, up all the more because Bach was a Protestant. “Then he grew suddenly quiet, turned bitter, drank a great deal of strong wine, and spoke not another rational word,” writes Rochlitz, who became acquainted with him at this time, and who subsequently distinguished himself as a writer on Mozart. The opera here afforded him no opportunity to display his power, and writing for his own church had little attraction, since, through the reforms of Joseph II., the expenses allowed for music, even for a divine service, the very exigencies of which had created the art, were curtailed to the very utmost. But we shall soon see from his own compositions that he was deeply affected by the sublime peace of this great choir-master. And here, in Leipzig, we notice that he did not allow melancholy, at least externally, to lord it over him. He dined the last evening he spent there at Doles’ house. His host and hostess were very sad, and begged for a memento from his hand. He wrote, in at the most from five to six minutes, on two small leaves of paper, a canon or round for each, one in long notes and very melancholy, the other exceedingly droll. “When it was noticed,” says Rochlitz, “that they could be sung together, he wrote under the one: ‘Farewell, we shall meet again,’ and under the other, ‘Wail away like women old.’ It is impossible to describe what a ridiculous and yet profound, not to say angry and cutting effect this made upon us all, and if I do not mistake, upon himself, for, in a somewhat wild voice, he suddenly exclaimed, ‘Good-bye, children,’ and vanished.”
A closer acquaintance with “old Bach,” was the only lasting gain of this long-extended journey. Frederick William I. had, after the frank opinion Mozart had given of his private band, of which J. F. Reichardt was the leader, tendered him that position, at a yearly salary of three thousand thalers. But Mozart asked himself: “Shall I forsake my emperor?” This was the expression of the home-feeling he had for Austria—a feeling the fruitful and fostering soil of which would certainly have been lost in the sands of a margrave. One hundred Frederick sd’or, in a golden snuff-box, and a commission for three quartets—the king, who himself played the cello, was very fond of this kind of music—were, however, a moderate remuneration.
His friends at home urged him at least to lay the case before the emperor; for the king of Prussia had left his offer open a whole year. Mozart had an audience with his imperial majesty. The emperor said: “How, do you want to leave me?” To which Mozart replied: “I beg your majesty’s pardon; I shall remain.” And this was the only result of the audience. To a friend, who alluded to a possible increase of salary, he gave the characteristic reply: “Who on earth would think of that at such a time?” Mozart was an Austrian and idealized his emperor, especially at this time, when Joseph’s best intentions were misunderstood in his own country, and Turkey and Belgium caused him equal anxiety. Was he, who now felt himself forsaken by his own, to see himself separated from one of the very best of his subjects? That was more than Mozart’s feelings could stand. However, the emperor now ordered that Figaro should be put on the stage again. Mozart had added to it the great aria of the countess in F major, and the renewed success of the work determined the emperor to charge him with the writing of a new opera, the words of which were suggested by the thoughtless bet of two officers. It was the Cosi fan tutte (So They All Do, or The Lover’s School.)
Two officers and a bachelor make a wager as to the fidelity of their intended wives, and actually succeed, with the assistance of the waiting-maid, and by desperately intimidating them, in rendering them faithless, each to the other, whereupon they take refuge in the sorry consolation: Cosi fan tutte—so they all do.
It is hard to imagine a subject more frivolous. But, leaving out of consideration the tone of the time—a time when it was palpably evident that the deluge was impending, and when people thoughtlessly enjoyed all that was to be enjoyed—Mozart did not treat it seriously. He rather illustrated by it the masquerade character of the opera buffa, made of it a species of magic-lantern performance, the excuse for, and the basis, so to speak, of his dream-like music. And, indeed, that music is wonderfully balmy, like a half-veiled sunny-cloudy morning, on which every object is still concealed, or only duskily seen shining through the air—such music as only a Mozart could write. But the words were so trifling and frivolous that it was soon all over with this opera, and all efforts to resuscitate it have proved vain. It was not until life, which had become a deceptive play to the profoundly thoughtful mind of our artist, arose before him like a picture of fairy-land, that he was able to infuse into that picture the full breath of the higher truth, which is not to be found in such a coarse, hollow-eyed and worm-eaten reality as the wager of those two officers. This brings us to the Magic Flute, and to the final perfection and full concentration of Mozart’s purposes and powers.
Cosi fan tutte was given on the 26th of January, 1790, and was very successful. The work was written entirely in the light style of Italian music, so popular at the time. But the man who had prompted it never saw it. The emperor Joseph was sick at the time it was given, and fell a victim to the grief and worry of the last years of his reign, in February, 1790, without having done anything further for Mozart. In no year of his life did Mozart write fewer musical compositions. He ascribes this fact himself to his extreme pecuniary distress. To his shame, and still more to ours, who have come after him, he was obliged to write, just at this time, to his “dearest friend,” Puchberg: “You are right in not deigning to answer me. My importunity is too great.... I can only beg you to consider my circumstances in all their bearings, to pity and forgive my warm friendship and my trust in you.” Even his industry did not avail him. His compositions found no purchasers. They were above the comprehension of the people of his time, and thus he was soon left entirely without the means of support. The keeper of a neighboring inn surprised him one morning early, waltzing about his room with Constance. They were without fuel, and took this strange way of protecting themselves against the cold. O the mortal pilgrimage of genius!
A petition to the new emperor, Leopold I., and a memorial to an archduke, were drawn up, the draft of each of which is still extant. The court had its own orchestra in the court chapel of Saint Augustine; and, mindful of the church of Saint Thomas, in Leipzig, Mozart says, in his petition to the emperor: “A desire for fame, love of action, and a conviction of my abilities, embolden me to petition for a second place as Capellmeister, especially, as the very able Capellmeister, Salieri, never devoted himself to the church style of music, while I have made that style a favorite study from my youth.” He also requested to be allowed to instruct the royal family “because of the little fame the world had accorded him for his skill at the piano.” He had great hopes because the emperor retained his petition. But Gluck’s former patron was not friendly to Mozart, and, besides, it was scarcely to be expected that any one who had stood in close relations with Joseph I. would find favor in his eyes.
On the 17th of May, 1790, the composer of Figaro and Don Giovanni was obliged to write: “I have now two scholars. I would like to bring the number up to eight. Try to spread it abroad that I am giving lessons.” In the meantime, he finished at least three quartets for Frederick William I., and, through Swieten, received Handel’s Alexander’s Feast, and the Ode for Saint Cecilia’s day, to re-arrange. When Mozart saw that, on the occasion of the presence of the King of Naples, in September, 1790, he was passed over entirely, and that Salieri, as well as his pupil, Weigl, were preferred to him, he became convinced that he would have to seek his fortune in foreign parts. The emperor was to be crowned in Frankfurt, in October. Mozart decided on going there. He took his eldest sister-in-law’s husband, the violin player, Hofer, with him; for he had no doubt of his success on this occasion. It was not vouchsafed to him, however, to attach himself to the court as its composer of chamber music, and his silver-ware had to go to the pawn-shop, that he might procure as much as a vehicle to travel in. This journey for the purposes of his art—it was destined to be his last—is described in his letters to his “best and dearest wife of my heart.” They breathe the deepest melancholy. In reading them, we cannot fail to see that the shadows of death were even now playing about his head.