There can have been no lack of opportunities for intercourse with his fellow-artists and with the numerous accomplished and wealthy amateurs then in Vienna, and we can well imagine that Mozart's social impulses found constant and lively exercise. Music was the principal object of meeting, and Mozart brought his tribute to the entertainment in the form of improvisation, both grave and gay; he was a lively and cheerful companion, too, in other respects, always ready for a joke, and fond of exercising his gift for improvising comic doggerel verses.[ 94 ]
Of all amusements, Mozart was fondest of dancing, and MARRIED LIFE. found ample opportunity for indulging his passion in Vienna, where dancing was at that time an absolute rage.[ 95 ] His wife confided to Kelly, who saw Mozart dance on the occasion of their first meeting, that her husband was an enthusiastic dancer, and thought more of his performances in that line than in music; he was said to dance the minuet very beautifully.[ 96 ] His letters have many indications of this partiality, and he gives his father a merry and complacent account of a ball at his own house (January 22, 1783):—
Last week I gave a ball in my own house; but of course the gentlemen paid two florins each. We began at six o'clock in the evening and left off at seven. What! only one hour? No, no; seven o'clock in the morning! You will scarcely believe that I could find room for it.
He had lately moved, and had taken apartments with Herr von Wezlar, a rich Jew:—
There I have a room a thousand paces long, and a bedroom, then an anteroom, and then a fine large kitchen; there are two fine large rooms next to ours, which stand empty at present, and these I made use of for the ball. Baron Wezlar and his wife were there, so were the Baroness Waldstädten, Herr von Edelbach, Gilowsky the boaster, young Stephanie, Adamberger and his wife, the Langes, &c.
Still more exciting entertainments were the masked balls; and we have already seen (Vol. I.,p. 337) that Mozart possessed both inclination and talent for disporting himself in assumed characters. He writes from Vienna (January 22, 1788), begging his father to send him his harlequin's dress, because he would like to go on the Redoute as harlequin: "but so that nobody should know it; there are so many here (chiefly great asses) who go on the Redoute." Several good friends associated themselves into a "compagnie-masque," and performed a pantomime on Whit Monday, which filled up the half-hour before dancing began. Mozart was Harlequin, Madame Lange Columbine, Lange played Pierrot, an old dancing-master named Merk, who "drilled" the company, took Pantaloon, and the painter Grassi the Doctor.
The plot and music were by Mozart, the doggerel verses AMUSEMENTS—ILLNESS with which the pantomime was introduced by the actor Müller; it might have been better, Mozart thought, but he was satisfied with the acting: "I assure you we played very well," he informs his father (March 12,1783). Of the music for this pantomime thirteen numbers for stringed instruments in parts are preserved, the first violin written by Mozart (446 K.) It is, as may be imagined, very unpretending, as are also the briefly indicated situations; for instance: "Columbine is sad—Pantaloon makes love to her—she is angry—he is gay—she angry—he angry too."
Another passion of Mozart's was billiard-playing; Kelly relates that he often played with Mozart, but never won a game.[ 97 ] He had a billiard-table in his own house, and played with his wife in case of need,[ 98 ] or even quite alone. This was certainly a luxury, though far from an unusual one in Vienna at that time, and it was occasioned not solely from love of the game,[ 99 ] but, as Holmes rightly remarks, from the care of the physicians for Mozart's health.
In the spring of 1783 he was seized with cholera, which was raging as an epidemic,[ 100 ] and in the following summer he was again seriously ill, as Leopold Mozart informs his daughter (September 14, 1784):—
My son has been very ill in Vienna. He was very much overheated at Paesiello's new opera, "Il Reteodoro," and was obliged to go into the open air to look for the servant who had charge of his overcoat, because orders had been given that no servants should be admitted to the theatre by the ordinary entrance. This brought on rheumatic fever, which without careful attention might have turned to typhus. Wolfgang writes: "I have had raging colic every day for a fortnight at the same hour, accompanied by violent vomiting. My doctor, Herr Sigmund Barisani, was in the habit of visiting me almost daily even before this illness; he is very clever, and you will see that he will soon make himself a name."