The masterly treatment of the orchestra in the "Entführung has been repeatedly pointed out, and there is no need to repeat that Mozart turned to account all the advantages offered to him by the Vienna orchestra. In comparison with "Idomeneo" the instrumentation is not exactly scantier, but it is clearer and simpler; the tendency to employ the different instruments independently, to bring forward subordinate subjects, &c., is held in check, and the details are more lightly treated on account of stage effects. "I think I may venture to lay down," says Weber, "that in the 'Entführung' Mozart's artist experience came to maturity, and that his experience of the world alone was to lead him to further efforts. The world might look for several operas from him like 'Figaro' and 'Don Juan,' but with the best will possible he could only write one 'Entführung.' I seem to perceive in it what the happy years of youth are to every man; their bloom never returns, and the extirpation of their defects carries with it some charms which can never be recovered."[ 66 ]
CHAPTER XXVI. COURTSHIP.
IT has often been pointed out that Mozart wrote the "Entführung" as an accepted lover; and many analogies have been drawn THE WEBERS. between his own love affairs and those represented in the opera, with the view of accounting for the depth and truth of his expression of the tenderest of passions. It is true that Mozart could not have rendered love so truly without having felt it in its full intensity. But if we stop to realise the difficulties and vexations with which Mozart had to struggle as a lover, we shall rather wonder that he could compose at all under such circumstances, and the Entführung" becomes a striking proof that creative genius sets the artist free from the pressure of life, and raises him into the region of beauty in which true art is begotten.
We have already seen the relief it was to Mozart, when obliged to quit the house of the Archbishop, to find a lodging with Madame Weber, his old Mannheim friend. After Aloysia's marriage to the actor Lange, the mother lived in somewhat reduced circumstances with her other three daughters, and was glad to let her spare rooms; it was a comfort to Mozart to be relieved by friendly hands of the little housekeeping cares which he was ill-fitted to attend to himself. But his father was averse to the arrangement; he feared that the Webers would make a tool of him, as they had, in his opinion, in Mannheim. He was not at all satisfied with Wolfgang's reassurances on the subject, and pressed him to take another lodging; Wolfgang declared himself quite willing if he could find one equally comfortable. As this did not seem likely, and a report reached Salzburg that Mozart was engaged to be married to one of Madame Weber's daughters, his father insisted on compliance with his desire. Wolfgang answered (July 25, 1781):—
I repeat that I have long wished to take another lodging, if only to stop people's chatter; and it annoys me to have to do it for the sake of COURTSHIP. absurd gossip, in which there is not a word of truth. I should like to know what pleasure it can be to certain people to spread such baseless reports. Because I am living with the family I must, forsooth, marry the daughter! There is no talk of affection—they jump over all that; I simply go to the house, and then get married. If ever in my life I was far from thinking of marriage, it is at this moment. I wish for nothing less than a rich wife; and even if I could make a good marriage now I must perforce wait, for I have other things in my head. God has not given me my talent that I might cripple it with a wife, and waste my prime in inactivity. Shall I embitter my life at its very opening? I have nothing to say against matrimony, but for me at present it would be an unmitigated evil. Well, if there is no other way, false as it all is, I must avoid even the appearance of it, although the appearance has no foundation except my lodging in the house. No one who does not live in the house can imagine how very little intercourse I have with them; for the children seldom go out—never except to the play—and I cannot accompany them because I am seldom at home at that hour. We have been on the Prater once or twice, but the mother was with us; being in the house I could not avoid going, and I heard no such foolish gossip then. I must tell you, too, that I paid only my own share;[ 1 ] and the mother, having become aware of the gossip from others as well as from myself, objects to our going anywhere together again, and has herself advised me to move my quarters to avoid further annoyance, for she says she would not willingly injure me, however innocently. This is my only reason for leaving, and this is no valid reason; but people's mouths must be stopped. It would not be difficult to find a better room, but very difficult to meet with such kind and obliging people. I will not say that I am uncivil and never speak to the young lady to whom report has wedded me, but I am not in love with her; I chat and joke with her when I have time—that is in the evenings, when I sup at home; in the morning I write in my own room, and in the afternoon I am nearly always out—and so that is really all about it. If I am to marry all the girls I have made fun with, I shall have at least a hundred wives. Now farewell, my dear father, and trust your son, who has really the best intentions towards all honest people! Trust him, and believe him sooner than certain people who have nothing better to do than to calumniate honest folk.
An unfinished allegro to a clavier sonata (400 K.) remains as a curious and amusing instance of the influence exerted on a composer by his immediate surroundings. After a very THE MESSMERS—RIGHINI. cheerful first part, a plaintive tone is struck in the second, and a very strongly accentuated musical dialogue occurs. The names of the two sisters Weber are written against the characterising phrases of the music:—[See Page Image]
The Messmer family had offered Mozart apartments in their house in the suburbs, but he could not make up his mind to accept the offer: "The house is not what it was," he writes to his sister (December 15, 1781). Messmer had staying with him at the time Vine. Righini (1756-1812), formerly an opera-buffa singer and then a composer; they were on very intimate terms, and Madame Messmer was especially friendly to Righini. The latter, as Mozart informs his father in answer to his inquiries, makes a great deal of money by giving lessons, and his cantata (probably "Il Natale d' Apollo") had been given twice during Lent with great success. "He writes prettily; is not superficial, but a great thief. He gives back his stolen goods so unblushingly and in such overflowing abundance that people can hardly digest them" (August 29, 1781).[ 2 ]
Another musical family would have been glad to receive him as an inmate, and his father appears to have been not unwilling that he should form a closer connection in this case. Wolfgang had been introduced to Herr Aurnhammer, whose "fat lady-daughter" Josephine was considered one of the first clavier-players of the day. They received him kindly, and often invited him, as he informs his father (June 27, 1781): "I dine almost daily with Herr Aurnhammer; the young lady is a horror—but she plays divinely; she seems COURTSHIP. to lose her really refined taste in singing, however, and drags everything."[ 3 ]
