His predictions were verified. It was not long before he had gained the esteem and admiration of the Mannheim musicians, the ready goodwill with which he placed his talents and services at their disposal, and his cheerfulness and good breeding in society, rendering him a universal favourite. His spirits rose in proportion as the memory of his position at Salzburg faded from his mind. Even from Munich he wrote to his father (September 26, 1777): "I am always in the best of spirits. I feel as light as a feather since I left all that chicanery behind! I am fatter, too, already." At Mannheim, in daily intercourse with cultivated artists, he MANNHEIM. must have felt completely at his ease. The members of the band were well paid[ 64 ] and well treated; Karl Theodor's love of music and general affability gave them considerable freedom of position, and intercourse with their circle was liberal and pleasant. Schubart declares that the houses, tables, and hearts of all the musicians were open to him during the whole of his stay, and that he had his share in their practisings and their festivities.[ 65 ] Mozart's experience was the same; although, his stay being longer, he could not fail to observe that the superficial frivolity of court life had affected the tone even of the artistic circles.[ 66 ]
His friendly reception by Cannabich led to an intimate friendship and daily intercourse with the whole family, in which Wolfgang's mother was included. He often dined with them, and no long time elapsed before he found himself "al solito" at supper and spending the evening with the Cannabichs; they chatted, played a little sometimes, or Wolfgang used to take a book out of his pocket and read. Occasionally the party became merrier and not quite so decorous, as the following mock confession made by Wolfgang to his father will show (November 14,1777):—
I, Johannes Chrisostomus Amadeus Wolfgangus Sigismundus Mozart, do hereby confess that both yesterday and the day before (and on various other occasions) I remained out until twelve o'clock at night; and that from ten o'clock until the above-named hour I was at Cannabich's house, in company with Cannabich, his wife and daughter, Herr Schatzmeister, Herr Ramm, and Herr Lang, making rhymes and perpetrating bad jokes in thought and word, but not in deed. But I should not have conducted myself in so godless a fashion had not the ringleader of the sport, the above-named daughter, Liesel, incited and abetted me therein; and I must acknowledge that I found it extremely amusing. I bewail all these my sins and transgressions from the bottom of my heart; and, hoping to confess the same thing very frequently, I make an earnest resolution to amend my former sinful life. I therefore beg for a dispensation, that is if it is an easy one; if not, it is all the same to me, for the game is not like to come to an end very soon.
That Mozart was always ready when music was wanted we cannot doubt; on one of his first visits to Cannabich he played all his six sonatas one after the other. Cannabich was not slow to recognise his extraordinary talent, nor to make use of it on occasion, as when Wolfgang made good clavier arrangements of his ballets for him. But self-interest had no share in the feelings with which he came to regard Wolfgang; both he and his wife loved him as their own son, threw themselves zealously into all that concerned his wellbeing, and watched over him as true friends. The magnet which attracted Wolfgang to the house at first, and kept him chained there for a time, was Cannabich's eldest daughter Rosa, who was then thirteen, "a pretty, charming girl," as Wolfgang writes to his father (December 16,1777); "she has a staid manner and a great deal of sense for her age; she speaks but little, and when she does speak it is with grace and amiability."[ 67 ] The day after his arrival (October 31) she played something to him; he thought her playing good, and began to compose a sonata for her, as a mark of attention to Cannabich. The first allegro was ready on the same day. "Young Danner asked me" he continues, "what I meant to do for the andante. 'I mean to make it exactly like Mdlle. Rose herself.' When I played it they were all wonderfully pleased. Young Danner said afterwards, 'You were quite right; the andante is exactly like her.'" On November 8 he wrote the rondo at Cannabich's, "consequently they would not let me away again. Mdlle. Rose's talent gained in interest for him when, on studying this sonata with her, he found that it had been neglected. "The right hand is very good, but the left is utterly ruined; if I were her regular master I would lay aside all music, cover the keys with a handkerchief, and make her practise passages, shakes, &c., first with the right MANNHEIM. hand and then with the left, slowly to begin with until the hands were perfectly independent; after that I believe I should make an excellent player of her." The regular lessons followed in due time; he gave an hour daily to the young lady, and was very well satisfied with the result. "Yesterday she gave me indescribable pleasure," he writes (December 6,1777), "by playing my sonata most beautifully. The andante (a slow one) was full of feeling; she enjoys playing it." His father thought the sonata wonderfully good (December 11, 1777); there was a little of the Mannheim affected taste in it, but not enough to spoil Wolfgang's own good style.
Another musician with whom Mozart entered into very friendly relations was the distinguished flute-player, Joh. Bapt. Wendling. Cannabich introduced him; "every one was as polite as could be" he informs his father. "The daughter Augusta, who was at one time the Elector's mistress, plays the clavier well.[ 68 ] Afterwards I played. I was in an excellent humour, and played everything out of my head, and three duets with the violin, which I had never seen before in my life, and the name of whose author I did not even know. They were all so delighted that I was obliged—to kiss the ladies! I had no objection as far as the daughter was concerned, for she is not by any means ugly." He composed a French song for this Mdlle. Gustl, of whom Wieland said that she was so like one of Raphael's or Carlo Dolce's Madonnas, that he could hardly refrain from addressing a "Salve Regina" to her.[ 69 ] She had given him the words, and her delivery of them was so charming that the song was called for every day "at Wendling's," and they all "raved about it." He promised to compose some more for her, and one at least was begun at a later time.[ 70 ] An aria with recitative was also sketched out for Dorothea Wendling, the mother; she had herself selected the words from FLUTE AND OBOE CONCERTOS. Metastasio's "Didone" (II. 4), "Ah! non lasciarmi no, bell' idol mio," and she, as well as her daughter, "went wild over this song." It was Mozart's custom in sketching his songs to write out the bass entire, and even some indications of the accompaniment, so that the song could be sung and in some measure accompanied from the sketch. Whether this particular song was ever completed we do not know. Mozart did not forget Wendling himself. We are told that a concerto of his was rehearsed at Cannabich's, to which Mozart had arranged the instruments (November 22, 1777). He had a dislike to the flute and a mistrust of flute-players, but he made an exception in favour of Wendling. When Wend-ling's brother teased him for this he said: "Yes, but you see, it is quite another thing with your brother. He is not a piper, and one need not be always in terror for fear the next note should be too high or too low—he is always right, you see; his heart and his ear and the tip of his tongue are all in the right place, and he does not imagine that blowing and making faces is all that is needed; he knows too what adagio means."[ 71 ]
Wolfgang presented his oboe concerto to the oboist Friedr. Ramm (b. 1744), whom he met at Cannabich's, and who "went wild" over it (November 4, 1777). He made it his cheval de bataille, playing it five times during the same winter (February 13, 1778) with great success, "although it was known to be by me."
Mozart soon became universally liked and admired, as well for his readiness and good-nature in composing as for his performances on the organ and clavier; but we hear nothing more of his violin-playing. He gave a humorous description to his father of the effect made by his organ-playing soon after his arrival in Mannheim (November 13, 1777)
Last Sunday I played the organ in the chapel for a joke. I came in during the Kyrie, played the end of it, and, after the priest had given out the Gloria, I made a cadenza. Nothing like it had ever been heard here before, so that everybody looked round, especially Holzbauer. He MANNHEIM. said to me, "If I had only known I would have chosen another mass." "Yes," said I, "in order to do for me altogether." Old Toeschi (the concertmeister) and Wendling stood near me. The people were inclined to laugh, because every now and then, when I wanted a pizzicato effect, I gave little bangs to the notes. I was in my best humour. A voluntary is always played here instead of the Benedictus; I took the idea of the Sanctus and carried it out as a fugue. There they all stood and made faces. At the end, after the Missa est, I played another fugue. The pedal is different from ours, and that puzzled me a little at first, but I soon got used to it.
When the new organ in the Lutheran Church was tried (December 18) all the kapellmeisters were invited, and Wolfgang's mother writes how a distinguished Lutheran came and invited him also. He admired the organ both in pieno and in its single stops, but he disliked Vogler, who played it; he would not play much himself, only a prelude and fugue, but he arranged to go again with a party of friends, and then he meant to "have some rare fun on the organ." In the Reformed Church also, where the organ was considered a remarkably fine one,[ 72 ] he once played to a friend for an hour and a half.