CHAPTER VI
A Chapter for Composers and Music Lovers
Music is a greater revelation than all science and philosophy!—L. van Beethoven.
Mozart’s Affection
Mozart loved his parents tenderly. When quite a little fellow, he composed a song, which he sang with his father every night before going to bed, while standing on a chair where his father had to put him. This ceremony over, he would kiss them and retire in peace and contentment. This nightly performance he kept up until he reached his tenth year.
Mozart Before the Emperor
When Mozart was six years old, his father took him to the palace, to play before Emperor Francis I. Taking him to the piano the Emperor started to turn the leaves for him, when the boy said: “No, you let Wagenseil (the leader of the orchestra) do that, he knows how.”
A Rapid Composer
The evening before the first performance of “Don Juan” at Prag, Mozart told his wife that he intended to write the overture during the night, and asked her to make a punch for him and stay with him, to keep him awake. But exertion and sleepiness made the work so hard, that his wife begged him to rest on the sofa, promising to waken him in an hour. He slept so soundly that she let him sleep two hours. It was five o’clock when she wakened him. At seven the copyist was to come. Mozart worked now so rapidly, that in two hours the overture was finished.