It has pleased some hitherto unknown person in Vienna to take in hand my opera, "Belmont und Constanze," or "Die Entführung aus dem Serail," and to publish the piece in a very altered form. The alterations in the dialogue are not considerable, and may be passed over; but the adapter has inserted a vast number of songs, the words of which are in many cases edifying and touching in the highest possible degree. I would not willingly deprive the improver of the glory belonging to his work, and I therefore take this opportunity of specifying these inserted songs as belonging to the Vienna edition and Mozart's composition.
In conclusion, and after giving "a specimen of the improver's work from the quartet," Bretzner exclaims: "And this is called improvement!" Nevertheless the text was improved, and although far from first-rate, it had been rendered a fairly satisfactory and practicable libretto, which has not yet been very far surpassed in the literature of German comic opera. The plot is certainly not thrilling, but it THE "ENTFÜHRUNG," A GERMAN OPERA. allows the natural development of a succession of musical situations. It was, as we have seen, Mozart's merit to recognise these in his musical representation, to make them available in such a way as to distinguish the "Entführung" from all earlier vaudevilles and operettas.
Mozart's performance was not confined to the adoption of certain ready-developed forms of Italian opera, pressed into the service of the German opera, partly from necessity, partly from the narrow principle that the songs were to be sung by personages of supposed high position.[ 43 ] This would have been no sufficient reason for substituting the aria for the Lied; it was done to give full scope to musical construction, and to make the standard and measure of the execution to consist only in the artistic conditions of the dramatic situations, and in the nature of the musical expression.[ 44 ]
At home as he was in Italian, French and German opera, in sacred and instrumental music, he had obtained such a mastery over musical forms as gave him a freedom of action which his favourable circumstances in Vienna allowed him to make use of, and the fact that he was composing a German opera gave him a sense of a still higher freedom. He was German in every thought and feeling, and German music was his natural way of expressing himself as an artist, requiring no unusual form, no special characterisation, nothing but freedom of thought and action. In the "Entführung," German sentiment, emotion, and disposition found expression for the first time at the hands of a true artist. It is easy to understand how the fulness of life and truth in such a work would throw into the shade all who believed solely in those forms which were borrowed from foreign DIE EXTFÜHRUXG AUS DEM SERAIL. sources, and only superficially remodelled.[ 45 ] This truly German and truly Mozart-like style is nowhere more decidedly exemplified than in the part of Belmont. It is only necessary to note the contrast between the male sopranos of the opera seria, or the comic lovers of the opera buffa, and this Belmont, who expresses manly love in all its force and intensity. It is plain that his love is not the wild and transitory gleam of passion, but an emotion having its roots deep in the heart, sanctified by sorrow, and held with the constancy of a true moral nature. Manliness is the ground-tone of all his agitated sentiments; the steady glow of a well-balanced mind penetrates every" expression of his feelings. It is an easier task to portray the wild excitement of passion than to depict a mind and character in its totality by means of each separate expression;[ 46 ] and the conception of love, the essential motive power of musical drama, from this point of view, marks an era in musical representation, important alike for its national character and its artistic construction. It was not by mere chance that Mozart made the tenor voice, which had been virtually deprived of its proper province in Italian opera, into the organ of manly love and tenderness. Belmont has become a type in German opera. Adamberger, judging from contemporary testimony was the most fitting representative of such a character.[ 47 ] Various songs composed for him by Mozart characterise him as a singer of noble and expressive delivery.[ 48 ]
Belmont's character and tone of mind are drawn in firm lines in his first cavatina (1). His state of anxious suspense is implied rather than fully indicated by his expression of secret devotion. But this little song, which none but a master-hand could have thrown off so lightly and so surely, is of most significance, by reason of its connection with the overture. Mozart makes no remark to his father on the overture except that it was short, and that "it alternates between forte and piano, the Turkish music being always forte, modulated by changes of key, and I do not think any one can go to sleep over it, even if they have lain awake all the night before" (September 26, 1781). As usual, when he speaks of his compositions, he only indicates the means employed and the external effect, and does not attempt any verbal description of the music itself. It is certainly true that a lively and incessant suspense is kept up by the constant modulatory changes, especially from major to minor, and by sharp contrasts of forte and piano. But this is not all; the character of the overture is so singularly fanciful that a few bars suffice to place the hearer in an imaginative mood. The most varied emotions of joy and sorrow are lightly touched, but never held, the tone of the whole is so fresh and cheerful that the listener involuntarily yields to the spell; and the impressions of the new world in which he finds himself are heightened by the highly original tone-colouring. Then comes a slower movement, expressing longing desires in the tenderest, most appealing tones. It has scarcely died away before we are again whirled along our fantastic course, which ends in an appealing cry, followed without a pause by Belmont's cavatina, "Hier soli ich dich denn sehen, Constanze!" We recognise at DIE ENTFÜHRUNG AUS DEM SERAIL. once the middle movement of the overture, but changed from the minor to the major key. This change, and the difference of shading between the arrangement for the voice and that for the orchestra, give to the charming little movement two distinct expressions, just as the same landscape has two different aspects seen at noon or in the moonlight. The overture renders us free to receive the effect of the work of art as such, prepared by what forms the starting-point of the work; and the first song sets the crown on the overture, while it transports us at once into the frame of mind which predominates throughout the opera. Still more important in its climax and composition is Belmont's second song (4). The situation is more definitely developed; Belmont knows now that Constanze is there, that he will soon see her, and this certainty condenses all the emotions roused by the memory of a sorrowful past, and the prospect of a perilous future, into the one feeling of their speedy reunion. Mozart was so taken with this song that he wrote it down as soon as he received the libretto. "This is the favourite song of all who have heard it—myself included," he wrote to his father (September 26, 1781), "and is exactly calculated for Adamberger's voice. 'Fo wie ängstlich, o wie feurigl' You can imagine how it is expressed, with the very beating of the heart—the violins in octaves. One can see the trembling, the hesitation, the very swelling of the breast is expressed by a crescendo, one can hear the sighs, the whispers, rendered by the violins muted, with one flute in unison."
It would be doing Mozart an injustice to consider this sound-painting as his first object; it is in reality but a subordinate, although a very effective and useful element of the whole musical conception. Belmont's two other songs—one in the second act, before the meeting with Constanze (15),[ 49 ] and the other at the beginning of the third act, before the CONSTANZE. abduction (17)[ 50 ]—are much quieter in tone, and are characterised by manly composure combined with warm sensibility. These qualities are visible also in the musical construction of the broad and expressive cantilene, which allows free scope for the display of a full tenor voice in its best position. The structure of the melodies diverges in a remarkable degree from that which predominates in Mozart's Italian operas, and approaches nearer to that employed in his instrumental music. And yet the national character of the melodies is not so pronounced in the "Entführung" as in the "Zauber-flöte," nor are the songs in their whole design so completely absolved from Italian forms.
The part of Constanze, so far as musical characterisation is concerned, is not nearly so well thought out as that of Belmont. "I have been obliged," writes Mozart to his father (September 26, 1781), "to sacrifice Constanze's song (6) in some degree to the voluble organ of Mdlle. Cavalieri. But I have sought to express 'Trennung war mein banges Loos und nun schwimmt mein Aug' in Thranen' as far as is compatible with an Italian bravura song."[ 51 ] We shall readily allow that he has been so far successful; and that, apart from the inserted bravura passages, the song is not only fine from a musical point of view, but appropriate to the situation. But in the great bravura song of the second act everything has been sacrificed to Mdlle. Cavalieri's voluble organ, and, as Gluck would have said, it smells of music,[ 52 ] It is, as we have seen, inserted without reference to the plot, and this may have led to the further consequence of treating it altogether as an extraneous piece. As regards length and difficulty, it is one of the greatest of bravura songs, and is accompanied by four obbligato instruments—flute, oboe, violin, and DIE ENTFÜHRUNG AUS DEM SERAIL. violoncello.[ 53 ] Considered as a concert piece it is of importance by reason of the plan, artistic in design and execution, which permits the treatment of the five obbligato parts as integral divisions of the whole, while making due provision for sound effects and musical interest. The song is still often sung, although the glitter surrounding mere execution has passed away. But it does not belong to the "Entführung." Together with the brilliant execution there is a certain heroic tone in the song which is quite out of keeping with the opera and with the character of Constanze in it. The true Con-stanze, as Mozart imagined her, is found in the second air (10), which expresses with much truth and intensity the ardent longing of the maiden sorrowing for her lover. Firmness and assurance are manly attributes, but a dreamy resigned absorption in the contemplation of vanished happiness is proper to a woman, and to this maidenly sentiment Mozart has given beautiful expression. This feminine tone gives the song a certain resemblance to that of Ilia in "Idomeneo" (Vol. II., p. 151); but the latter is, as the situation requires, drawn in darker lines, and takes more hold on the mind. Here as elsewhere the same point is noticeable, viz., that when Mozart works outward from the heart of an individual situation, the separate elements of the musical construction are more striking, and the form is freer and more lifelike than it would otherwise be.[ 54 ]
The instrumentation also is peculiarly effective, especially by the employment of the wind instruments, which shed a gentle glow over the whole. Mozart, against his custom, OSMIN. makes use of the basset-horn instead of the clarinet in this song. In the part of Belmont, too, the instrumentation is modified to some extent. The second song (4) is very delicate and tender in its instrumentation, the wind instruments being treated as solos, although not concertante; in the others there is a very pithy forcible tone, which in the last (16) becomes almost brilliant.
The duet (20), owing to the singularity of the situation, differs materially in character from an ordinary love duet. Within sight of death each of the lovers has the painful consciousness of having led the other to destruction; and their mutual endeavour to console one another with the certainty of their love, which death may consummate but cannot destroy, raises them to the height of enthusiastic inspiration. This sentiment is excellently well expressed in the first calm movement with fervour and clearness, and a perceptible blending of painful emotion and loving consolation; the second movement does not quite reach the same high level. Not only do some of the passages, and the very tedious conclusion, make concessions to passing effect, but the expression does not rise to the ecstatic strain which is implied in the situation.[ 55 ]