Life of Mozart

by Ludwig Nohl

THE GREAT PARISIAN ARTISTIC JOURNEY.

Disgusted With Salzburg—In Vienna Again—Salzburg Society—Character of Musicians in the Last Century—Jerome Colloredo, Archbishop of Salzburg—Mozart’s Letter to Him—The Father’s Solicitude for His Son—Paternal Advice—New Compositions—Incidents of his Journey—Meets With Opposition—Secret Enemies—His Ambition to Elevate the Character of the German Opera—Disappointments—His Description of German “Free City” Life—Meeting With Stein—In His Uncle’s Family—“Baesle”—Meeting With the Cannabichs—Attachment for Rosa Cannabich—Influence of this Attachment on His Music—The Weber Family—The Non so d’onde viene—Circumstances of its Composition.

In a letter written in the year 1776, Wolfgang complained to Father Martini, of Bologna, that he was living in a city in which musicians met with little success; that the theater there had no persons of good ability, because persons of good ability wished good pay; and he adds: “Generosity is a fault of which we cannot be accused.” He informs the reverend father that he was engaged writing Church music and chamber music, but that the pieces had to be always very short, because such was the desire of the archbishop, and he closes thus: “Alas, that we are so far away from you, dearest master. Were we nearer to each other, how much I would have to say to you.”

It is easy to see that the young maestro felt impelled to go where he might breathe a freer air, and prove by his deeds the power that was in him. As early as in the summer of 1773, the father and son were again together in Vienna, but not even the shrewdness of the father, with all his experience, could devise any way to the success he desired there, and Wolfgang himself wrote from Munich to his mother that she should not wish for their immediate return, for she knew well enough how much he needed a breathing spell, and he says: “We shall be soon enough with ——.”

They lived at home, father, son and daughter, a happy family in their own narrow circle. They had, we are glad to say, some true and trusted friends with whom they employed the little leisure which they could afford to take, in the parlor games customary at the time, and other simple pleasures. And this leisure was small indeed, for they had to try to make both ends meet by writing musical compositions and giving instruction in music. The father’s salary amounted to only forty marks, and the son’s to only twenty-five marks a month. No wonder he wrote: “generosity is not our fault.” But their sense of refinement was offended yet more by the rude manner and the coarse tone prevalent in the place. The Salzburgian was looked upon as a fool, and the merry Andrews of Vienna mimicked his dialect. The mode of life and the views of the higher and lower “noblesse” were of a nature still less agreeable and refined. Mozart, who much preferred even the manners of the “boorish Bavarians,” as they were then universally called, to that of the Salzburg nobility, relates, in his letters, how one of the latter expressed so much surprise and crossed himself so frequently at the Munich opera, that they were greatly ashamed of him.

It is notorious that Mozart’s real colleagues, the musicians, had a well-merited reputation during the last century, as “drunkards, gamesters and dissipated, good-for-nothing fellows.” This was one of the reasons which inspired him with so great a hatred for Salzburg. “No decent man,” he writes, “could live in such company.” He was ashamed of them, and of the coarse and dissolute music of the court. Michael Haydn himself, Joseph Haydn’s brother, a very clever composer, was not free from at least one of these vices. There was no one in Salzburg but knew Haydn’s little drinking room in the Stiftskeller (monastery wine-cellar). On one occasion, when the organist of one of the city churches, drunk on the organ-seat, was struck with apoplexy, Wolfgang’s father wrote to him asking him to divine who had been appointed his successor. And he proceeds: “Herr Haydn—all laughed. He is, indeed, an expensive organist. He drinks a quart of wine after every part of the mass. He sends Lipp (another organist) to attend the other services—another man,” he adds forcibly enough, “who wants a drink.”

How now could it be said that here, in his own real province, the young artist found a reward worthy of his fiery spirit and of his already tested powers?

We have heard himself complain of the theatre, the parlor, and the orchestra. A wandering troupe performed in the theatre during the winter. The court-concerts were limited to, at most, an hour, during which several pieces had to be performed. Masses, even the most solemn, were not allowed to be longer than three-quarters of an hour. Moreover, the orchestra was a small one, without as much as even a clarionet. That, notwithstanding all this; that thus confined and narrowed, and with means thus limited, Mozart was able to produce works such as we possess in his masses, symphonies, and chamber music—works which far surpass those of his contemporaries, and find a worthy place by the side of the music of the same kind by Joseph Haydn, is a triumph which bears eloquent testimony to his industry and genius. But he could never be satisfied in Salzburg. That same genius urged him out into a purer atmosphere, in which action such as he was capable of, becomes possible, in which he might come in contact with men of culture. His resolve was made. The world was before him, and he said to himself: Go forth!

But in his way stood, bold and dark, the “—— ——” to whom they had, as Mozart writes, returned soon enough, the “Mufti,” as he called the man “with the keen glance from his grey eyes, the left of which was scarcely ever entirely open, and the rigid lines about the mouth”—Archbishop Jerome Colloredo. This man really could not appreciate how much he possessed in Mozart. “Let them only ask the archbishop, he will put them immediately on the right path,” Wolfgang writes, on one occasion, referring to him concerning a concert which had met with unusual success in Mannheim. The principal cause of complaint, however, was the archbishop’s niggardliness. He was thus rigorous with those in his employ, lest they should make any claims upon him. Mozart wrote, at a later period: “I did not venture on contradiction, because I came straight from Salzburg, where the faculty of contradiction has been lost by long abstinence from using it.” Whatever he composed was wrong, found fault with, and unsparingly. On one occasion, the archbishop had the face to tell Mozart that he did not understand anything of his art, and that he should first go to the Conservatory at Naples to learn something about music, and this to Mozart, the Academician of Bologna and Verona, the far-famed composer of operas! We are informed that he never flattered Mozart except when he wanted something; and Leopold told Padre Martini that, otherwise, the archbishop never paid Wolfgang a farthing for his compositions.

Suffering from the mania of the time, Jerome preferred the Italians in matters of music, and had surrounded himself with Italian musicians. The Mozarts were, in consequence, set back in every way and made the victims of “persecution and contempt.” All the elements of variance were here. A breach was inevitable; for on the one side were the father and son, both very frank, clear-headed and witty; Wolfgang, with something in him of the impetuosity of youth, conscious of his power and of the opinion which the world had of him, a consciousness which he took no trouble to conceal; on the other the archbishop, whose peculiarity it was to allow himself to be impressed by persons of fine, handsome figure, but not to respect little, insignificant-looking people like the slender, twenty-year-old Mozart.