VAN SWIETEN AND CLASSICAL MUSIC.
To the same time and school belongs the great fugue for two pianofortes in C minor, composed on December 29,1783 (426 K.). The beginning is preserved of another fugue for two pianofortes in G major of a totally different character (45 Anh. K.):—[See Page Image]
We may judge of the manner in which Mozart wished his fugues to be played from an expression to his sister, when he sent her the first of them (April 20, 1782):—
I have taken care to write "andante maestoso" on it, that it may not be played too fast; for, if a fugue is not played slowly, the recurring subject is not distinctly and clearly heard, and so loses its effect.
Afterwards (in June, 1788) Mozart arranged the C minor fugue for his string quartet, and wrote "a short adagio" as an introduction (546 K.), probably for Van Swieten, with whom he was then in closer intercourse than ever, in consequence of the instrumentation and performance of Handel's oratorios.
The ease and distinctness with which four-part movements of this metrical style could thus be executed, had already suggested to Mozart the arrangement of five fugues from Bach's "Wohltemperirte Klavier," for stringed instruments (405 K.). The handwriting points to 1782 or 1783, when Van Swieten's influence was at its highest. The fugues selected, doubtless with a view to their suitability for the purpose, were (in Breitkopf and Härtel's edition): KLAVIERSUITE, 1782-1783. No. 2, in C minor; No. 7, in E fiat major; No. 9, in E major; No. 8, transposed from D sharp major to D major; and No. 5, in D major.
An interesting illustration of the pleasure with which Mozart sought to follow in the steps of Handel and Bach, is afforded by the unfinished "Klaviersuite" (399 K.) belonging to 1782 or 1783. It begins, according to rule, with an overture (C major) consisting of two movements, a slow introduction in imitation, and a fugued Allegro closing on the dominant. Then follows, after traditional usage, an Allemande (C minor), a Courante (E flat major), and a Sarabande (G minor); of this last, however, only six bars are written. The imitation of the older masters is unmistakable in the design and many of the details of the movements, the only novelty being the changes of key. They may, in this sense, be considered as studies; but Mozart's originality constantly asserts itself, and the Courante in especial is completely imbued with it. Still more original and free is the "Short Gigue for the Klavier," which Mozart wrote on May 17, 1789, "in the album of Herr Engel, court organist in Leipzig" (574 K.), no doubt in remembrance of Bach, whose motetts he had there heard for the first time with unbounded delight. The light and flexible gigue had been transformed by Bach's freer, and at the same time severer, treatment into a fantastic, almost humorous movement, which took the same place in the suite that was afterwards given to the scherzo in the sonata. Mozart selected the severer style, and the intellectual skill with which the strictest forms of counterpoint, harmony, and rhythm are so freely and archly treated, as to make both player and listener hold their breath from surprise, renders this little composition a masterpiece. It causes regret that the suite, containing as it did so many elements capable of development, was not seriously taken up and carried to perfection by Mozart.
It must not be supposed that Mozart's study of Bach and Handel had no result but to teach him to write fugues; his earlier compositions show him to have been no novice in the art of counterpoint. What he found most admirable in VAN SWIETEN AND CLASSICAL MUSIC. these masters was their power of making forms strict even to rigidity the medium of a natural expression of their musical ideas and emotions; their use of all the available wealth of contrapuntal combinations was no mere trick of barren speculation, but a deliberate selection of a means of expression from the inexhaustible fund of their productive powers. That this was the sense in which Mozart reverenced his masters is proved by his criticism of Eberlin and of Hassler, who had learnt Bach's harmonies and modulations by heart, but was unable to work out an original fugue; and it is proved more satisfactorily still by his own works.
Even in compositions avowedly written as studies, Mozart's originality appears, and in his later works there is no trace of any attempt at servile imitation of Bach or Handel.[ 73 ] He imitated, not their work, but their way of working, drew from the sources to which they had given him access, and employed that which he received from them in accordance with his own nature and the task before him.[ 74 ]
Master-strokes of genius in many pieces of his chamber music—as also in the last movement of the C major symphony, and in the overture to the "Zauberflote," where art reaches its highest pitch in the union of strictest form with freest fancy—may be ascribed in no small degree to the impulses arising from his study of Bach and Handel. But their influence reaches beyond his compositions in the severe style. The perfection of polyphonic composition which characterises all Mozart's works, and wherein consists one of his chief merits, rests, even in its broadest and freest development, upon the foundations laid by those PIANOFORTE FUGUES. masters. So, too, the fertility and boldness of Mozart's harmonic treatment may be traced back to the same source. Harmonic beauties, novel and striking transitions and turns, are frequent enough in his earlier works, but they are simply harmonic combinations, whereas in his later works they appear as a free and intellectual development of the polyphonic principle.
