During this interval Mozart also completed the clavier sonatas, with violin accompaniment, which he had begun at Mannheim (301-306 K.), the fourth bearing the inscription "ä Paris," and busied himself to find a publisher for them who would pay him well.[ 21 ] He found leisure, also, to compose a capriccio for his sister's birthday.
Thus we see Mozart, disliking Paris and the Parisians, deriving little practical gain from all his exertions, and yet striving in his own way to attain the position which was his due, when an event occurred which plunged himself and his family into the deepest grief. Paris had never agreed with the Frau Mozart. Their lodging in the "Hötel des quatre fils d'Aymon," in the Rue du Gros-Chenet—a musical quarter DEATH OF MOZART'S MOTHER. —was bad, as well as the living, and she sat all day "as if under arrest," Wolfgang's affairs necessitating his almost constant absence. She was ill for three weeks in May, and intended, on her recovery, to seek out better lodgings, and manage the housekeeping herself. But in June she fell ill again; she was bled, and wrote afterwards to her husband (June 12, 1778) that she was very weak, and had pains in her arm and her eyes, but that on the whole she was better. But the improvement was only apparent, and her illness took a serious turn; the physician whom Grimm sent in gave up hope, and after a fortnight of the deepest anxiety, which Wolfgang passed at his mother's bedside, she gently passed away on July 3. His only support at this trying time was a musician named Heina, who had known his father in former days, and had often, with his wife, visited Frau Mozart in her solitude. Wolfgang's first thought was to break the news gently to his father, who was ill prepared for so crushing a blow. He wrote to him at once, saying that his mother was ill, and that her condition excited alarm; at the same time he acquainted their true friend Bullinger with the whole truth, and begged him to break the dreadful news to his father as gently as possible. In a few days, when he knew that this had been done, he wrote again himself in detail, offering all the consolation he could, and strove to turn his father's thoughts from the sad subject to the consideration of his own prospects. This letter[ 22 ] affords a fresh example of the deep and tender love which bound parents and children together, and of Wolfgang's own sentiments and turn of mind. The consolations he offers, and the form in which he expresses them, are those of one who has himself passed through all the sad experiences of life; but to his father, whose teaching had tended to produce this effect, his expressions were justified and correct. With a natural and genuine sorrow for his irreparable loss is combined a manly composure, which sought not to obtain relief by indulging in sorrow, but to look forward calmly and steadily to the future and its duties.
As a loving son, he set himself to the filial task of comforting and supporting his father. After hearing that the latter was aware of his wife's death, and resigned to God's will, Wolfgang answers (July 31, 1778):—
Sad as your letter made me, I was beyond measure pleased to find that you take everything in a right spirit, and that I need not be uneasy about my dear father and my darling sister. My impulse after reading your letter was to fall on my knees and thank God for His mercy. I am well and strong again now, and have only occasional fits of melancholy, for which the best remedy is writing or receiving letters—that restores my spirits again at once.
He felt, and with justice, that his father's anxiety on his account would now be redoubled. In keeping him informed of all his exertions and successes he satisfied his own longing to confide in his father, and gave the latter just that kind of interest and occupation of the mind which would serve to dispel his grief. It is touching to see the pains he takes to keep his father informed of all that he thinks will interest him, and how a certain irritability which had occasionally, and under the circumstances excusably, betrayed itself in his former letters, now completely disappears before the expression of tender affection: even the handwriting, which had been blamed as careless and untidy by his father, becomes neater and better. Trifles such as these are often the clearest expression of deep and refined feeling.
When the heavy blow fell, Wolfgang was alone, his Mannheim friends having left Paris; his father might well be apprehensive lest he should neglect the proper care of himself and his affairs. But Grimm now came forward; he, or more properly, as Mozart declares, his friend Madame D'Epinay, offered him an asylum in their house,[ 23 ] and a place at their table, and he willingly agreed, as soon as he was convinced that he should cause neither appreciable expense nor inconvenience. He soon found himself obliged occasionally to borrow small sums of Grimm, which gradually mounted MOZART AS GRIMM'S GUEST. "piecemeal" to fifteen louis-d'or; Grimm reassures the father by telling him that repayment may be indefinitely postponed. But Wolfgang soon found the way of life in Grimm's household not at all to his mind, and wrote of it as "stupid and dull." And, indeed, a greater contrast cannot well be imagined than when, from the house whence issued with scrupulous devotion bulletins of Voltaire's health, contradictory reports of his religious condition, and finally the announcement of his death (May 30, 1778), Wolfgang should write to his father (July 3, 1778): "I will tell you a piece of news, which perhaps you know already; that godless fellow and arch-scoundrel Voltaire is dead, like a dog, like a brute beast—that is his reward!" The condescending patronage with which he was treated soon became intolerable to him, and he complains of Grimm's way of furthering his interests in Paris as better fitted to a child than a grown man. We can well imagine that Grimm, like Mozart's own father, desired that he should make acquaintances, should gain access to distinguished families as a teacher and clavier-player, and should seek to win the favour of the fashion-leading part of the community; no doubt, too, Grimm felt it his duty to remonstrate openly with Wolfgang for what he considered his indolence and indifference. It is impossible to deny the good sense and proper appreciation of the position of all Grimm's remarks, but they were resented by Mozart on account of the tone of superiority with which they were enforced. Grimm was indeed openly opposed to Mozart, and told him frankly that he would never succeed in Paris—he was not active, and did not go about enough; and he wrote the same thing to Wolfgang's father.[ 24 ]
It soon became apparent that Grimm was not really of opinion that Mozart's talents were of such an order as to offer him a career in Paris; he said that he could not believe that Wolfgang would be able to write a French opera likely to succeed, and referred him for instruction to the Italians. "He is always wanting me," writes Mozart (September 11, 1778), "to follow Piccinni or Caribaldi (Vol. I., p. 77), in fact, he belongs to the foreign party—he is false—and tries to put me down in every way." He longed above all things to write an opera to show Grimm "that I can do as much as his dear Piccinni, although I am only a German." Grimm's character was not a simple one;[ 25 ] he had both won and kept for himself under adverse circumstances an influential position, which was no easy matter in Paris at any time. Queer stories were told of him,[ 26 ] and his love of truth was not implicitly relied on.[ 27 ] Rousseau describes him as perfidious and egotistical. Madame D'Epinay, on the other hand, extols him as a disinterested friend, and others speak of his benevolence and ready sympathy.[ 28 ] There is, at any rate, no reason to suspect that he meant otherwise than well by Mozart, although he did not appreciate his genius, and interested himself more for the father's sake than the son's. He had striven for years to assert the supremacy of Italian music, and his ideal was Italian opera performed in Paris by Italian singers in the Italian language. When De Vismes, who was anxious to propitiate all parties, engaged a company of Italian STUDY OF FRENCH OPERA. singers,[ 29 ] Grimm hailed the auspicious day on which Caribaldi, Baglioni, and Chiavacci appeared in Piccinni's "Finte Gemelle" (June n, 1778).[ 30 ] It is therefore quite conceivable that he renounced all interest in Mozart's artistic future as soon as he was convinced of his falling off from purely Italian notions, and it is interesting to us to have so clear an indication that even thus early in his career Mozart had set himself in opposition to the Italian school. He had long since learnt all that it had to teach, and he fully recognised the fact that it was his mission to carry on the reform set on foot by Gluck and Grétry, at the same time retaining all that was valuable in the Italian teaching.
A confirmation of this is found in a later expression of opinion made by Mozart to Joseph Frank, who found him engaged in the study of French scores, and asked him if it would not be better to devote himself to Italian compositions; whereupon Mozart answered: "As far as melody is concerned, yes; but as far as dramatic effect is concerned, no; besides, the scores which you see here are by Gluck, Piccinni, Salieri, as well as Grétry, and have nothing French but the words."[ 31 ] This view was confirmed by his stay in Paris, a stay quite as fruitful for his artistic development as that at Mannheim had been. Grimm's accounts show that Mozart had opportunities for hearing the operas of numerous French composers. Besides Gluck's "Armide" which was still new, "Orpheus," "Alceste," and "Iphigenia in Aulis," which had been revived, Piccinni's "Roland," Grètry's "Matroco," "Les Trois Ages de l'Opéra," and "Le Jugement de Midas" were given, as well as Philidor's "Ernelinde," Dezaide's "Zulima," Gossec's "Fête du Village," Rousseau's "Devin du Village." Added to these were Piccinni's Italian opera "Le Finte Gemelle," and doubtless many others of which we know nothing. It may well excite wonder that Mozart's letters to his father describe PARIS, 1778. none of the new artistic impressions which he must have received in Paris. But, apart from the fact that personal affairs naturally held the first place in his home correspondence, it must be remembered that abstract reflections on art and its relation to individual artists were not at that time the fashion, and were besides quite foreign to Mozart's nature. His aesthetic remarks and judgments whether they treated of technical questions or of executive effects, are mostly founded on concrete phenomena. The practical directness of his productive power, set in motion by every impulse of his artistic nature, prevented his fathoming the latest psychical conditions of artistic activity, or tracing the delicate threads which connect the inner consciousness of the artist with his external impressions, or analysing the secret processes of the soul which precede the production of a work of art. He does not seem any more actively conscious of the effect wrought upon him by the works of others. Some men's impressions of a great work are involuntary, and they seek later to comprehend the grounds of their enjoyment; others strive consciously to grasp the idea of the work and to incorporate it into their being; but to the man of creative genius alone is it given to preserve his own totality while absorbing all that is good in the works of other artists.
