Peierl bist so faul als wie ein Gaul; O lieber Freundverzeihe mir! Nepomuk! Peierl! verzeihe mir!"[ 47 ] There is nothing particularly refined or amusing about the jest except the very excellent and effective canon. This was so highly applauded that it was employed on other occasions with more emphatic invectives, addressed to other individuals.[ 48 ] Mozart's marvellous gift of improvisation, showing itself in this form among others, is illustrated by an anecdote vouched for by Rochlitz. The evening before Mozart left Leipzig for Berlin, whence he intended to return in a few days, he supped with the Precentor Doles, with whom he was very intimate. His entertainers, melancholy at the prospect of parting, begged for a few lines of his writing by way of remembrance. Mozart was in a merry mood, laughed at their "whining," and declared he would rather go to bed than write music. At last he took a sheet of note-paper, tore it in half, sat down and wrote—at the most for five or six minutes. Then he handed one-half to the son, the other to the father. On one page was a three-part canon in long notes without words, and when sung very melancholy and melodious. On the second page was also a three-part canon without words, but in quavers, and full of drollery. When they had discovered THE MUSIKALISCHE SPASS. that the two might be sung together, Mozart wrote to the first the words, "Lebet wohl, wir sehn uns wieder!" To the second, "Heult noch gar wie alte Weiber"—and so they were sung.[ 49 ] Unhappily this double canon is not preserved.
Many comic compositions of this kind are ascribed to Mozart wrongly or on insufficient grounds.[ 50 ] One most diverting example of his love of humour exists in the "Musikalische Spass," as he calls it himself—the "Bauem-symphonie," as it is sometimes designated—which was probably written for a special occasion on June 11, 1787; owing, no doubt, to pressure of time it was only partially scored. Ignorant composers and unskilful performers are ridiculed together in this piece, which is in the form of a divertimento (Vol. I., p. 303) in four movements for string quartet and two horns. The ridicule of the players is very broad, as, for instance, when the horns, where they should come in solo in the minuet, play actual wrong notes, or when the first violin at the close of a long cadenza, consisting of a number of trivial disconnected passages, finishes off with an ascending scale, and goes at least half a tone too high. But the most amazing confusion occurs at the end, where, in the midst of a fanfare in F major for the horns, the stringed instruments strike in one after another, each in a different key. A semitone higher or lower is treated as a matter of small importance, thirds are carried on even where they are out of place; but sometimes, when a part seems to come in too soon, or when nothing but accompaniment is heard for several bars, as if the principal parts were pausing too long, or when at a particular point a note occurs which sounds excruciatingly false, it is only by the context that we can be assured that no actual mistake has happened, and that the composer does not deserve to be hissed on his own SOCIAL INTERCOURSE. account. This is repeatedly the case also in the plan and treatment of the movements as a whole; they are after the usual pattern, turns and passages occur of the customary kind, with here and there a striking modulation, but there is a complete lack of power to grasp or carry out an idea; two or three bars bring each effort to an end, and there is a constant recurrence to the traditional formula of the closing cadence. The attempt after thematic elaboration in the finale is very ludicrous; it is as though the composer had heard of such a thing, and strove to imitate it in a few phrases, greatly to his own satisfaction. The art is most remarkable whereby the pretended ignorance never becomes wearisome, and the audience is kept in suspense throughout. The effect rests partly on the shrewd conception of what is truly comic in ignorant pretension (for nowhere is irony more dangerous than in music, the impression of discord being one difficult of control), partly on the perfect mastery of the instruments displayed by the composer.[ 51 ]
Among the compositions resulting mainly at least from friendship or social circumstances may be included the songs or ballads (Lieder) of which we have already noticed some examples.[ 52 ] In Vienna and South Germany the "Lied" was far from having attained, at that time, the importance it afterwards possessed. Even in social circles, classical and, therefore so far as song was concerned, Italian music predominated, and aspiring dilettanti sought exclusively for songs which should display their artistic cultivation. Dilettantism was then just beginning to bear sway, especially over the pianoforte, and its dominion speedily extended to vocal music, where the "Lied" became its peculiar form of expression. In North Germany the state of affairs was somewhat different. Italian opera in Dresden and Berlin was too isolated to LIEDER. have much influence; the want of practised singers had caused the cultivation of the operetta, which fell back on the confined form and simple expression of the "Lied," and in its turn raised the "Lied," which had lingered only in taverns[ 53 ] and the domestic circle, to higher significance and cultivation. Weisse expressly declared that his operas were intended to incite the Germans to social song. Nor had earlier and greater composers, such as Telemann, Graun, Ph. Em. Bach, and others, disdained to compose ballads, or odes as they were then called, for domestic practice. In Berlin this tendency was especially active, and Marpurg, in his "Critical Letters," treats of the musical ode ("Chanson, Strophenlied") historically and aesthetically, and appends a long list of examples. The influence of the operetta upon the development of the 44 Lied" is unmistakable. It was something more than chance which caused the simultaneous rise of German lyric poetry in many parts of North Germany, which produced such lyric poets as Weisse, Uz, Gleim, Hagedom, Jacobi, &c., and the "Dichterbund" of Gottingen, with Hiller as their special composer. Klopstock had little to do with the movement. His odes have found composers, especially (not to mention Reefe) Gluck, who followed his principles in keeping close to the words of the poet, and aiming at declamatory effect.[ 54 ] He was followed by Reichardt, a warm admirer of Klopstock,[ 55 ] who wrote an essay on the composition of Klopstock's odes.[ 56 ] But they had little influence, and the musical treatment of lyrical poetry received its chief impulse when Herder awoke the taste for national songs, and Goethe produced genuine German lyric poems: Reichardt[ 57 ] and Schulz[ 58 ] were the two composers who felt SOCIAL INTERCOURSE. this impulse most strongly, and mainly strove for the development of the German ballad in its own simple popular style.
But this phase of musical influence had, in Mozart's day, hardly penetrated to Vienna. Hofmann, Steffan, Beecké, Haydn, and others had indeed composed Lieder, but they laid claim to nothing higher than the amusement of social circles; the words are generally of mediocre merit, and the music so simple as to make it evident that the song did not intend to intrude into good society. Mozart only occasionally composed Lieder.[ 59 ] He was in the habit, as his wife writes to Hartel, of writing down in a book kept for the purpose any poem which he admired, or which incited him to composition; but his reading was not extensive, and there was little to attract him in Vienna at that time. He had his own opinions on this subject as on others, and we are struck with his remarks in a letter to his father (December 23,1782):—
I am at work upon a very difficult matter, viz., the setting of an ode on Gibraltar, by Denis.[ 60 ] But it is a secret, for a Hungarian lady wishes to surprise Denis with it. The ode is dignified—fine, if you like—but too pompous and exaggerated for my taste. How can it be otherwise? Truth and moderation are hardly known and never valued nowadays. If a thing is to succeed it must either be so easy that a hackney-coach-man could imitate it, or so incomprehensible that, just because they do not understand it, everybody is ready to praise it.
Every competent critic will endorse Mozart's opinion on Denis's ode;[ 61 ] but how many then in Vienna were as independent and candid in their judgment on the favourite poet as the young composer? A facsimile of Mozart's hasty sketch of part of this ode is taken from the archives of the Mozarteum at Salzburg. Whether the ode was ever finished I do not know.
We may gather that Mozart's Lieder were the result of occasional impulses, from the fact that they occur at long intervals, and that he usually wrote several at one time. On May 7, 1785, he composed three poems by Weisse; on the autograph (472-474, K.) is noted, "Weisse, erster Band, p. 18,14,29"; Weisse's lyrical poems (Leipzig, 1772) formed part of Mozart's modest library. The year 1787, however, was most fruitful, owing doubtless to his constant intercourse with Jacquin; we find four in May (517-520, K.), two on June 24 (523, 524, K.), two at Prague on November 6 (529, 530, K.), and another on December 11 (531 K.). Then there is a pause until January 14, 1791, when three ballads (596-598, K.) were composed, according to Nissen, for a children's publication.[ 62 ] Mozart published but few of these compositions;[ 63 ] they generally remained in the possession of those for whom they were written, and were circulated in MS. copies, which explains why many were attributed to him which he never wrote, while some of his own composition were attributed to others.[ 64 ] The greater number of them SOCIAL INTERCOURSE. are true "Strophenlieder," such as the ballads from Campe's "Kinderbibliothek" (595, 598, K.), to which also belongs the ballad for little Fritz's birthday (529 K.), to which very unsuitable words have been adapted. These are all manifestly easy and simple, and possess the same charm from the mouths of children as "Komm lieber Mai." Hagedom's little song, "Zu meiner Zeit bestand noch Recht und Bil-ligkeit" (517 K.), is jestingly treated; Mozart himself has written over it, "A little through the nose," to emphasise the proper comic delivery. The quality which distinguishes these songs from the majority of those contemporary with them is not so much their perfect form and finish, their attractive melodies, or their harmonious delicacy (though these exist in full measure) as their vivid expression of a poetic mood, be it cheerful, earnest, or passionate. The poems of Hagedorn, Weisse, Jacobi, Overbeck, Hölty, Miller, Claudius, and others whose names are unknown, seem to us little calculated to stir the poetical productivity of the composer; and the passionate expression and forcible accentuation of some of the songs strike us as being almost in opposition to the words of the poem. Look only at the close of the second song, "Zufriedenheit"
(473 K.), "Und angenehm ist selbst mein Schmerz, wenn ich vor Liebe weine"; or the words in the "Betragenen Welt" (474 K.), "Eswird ein prachtig Fest vollzogen, bald hinkt die Reue hinterdrein." We must not leave out of account, however, that the standpoint of literary cultivation accepted by Mozart and his contemporaries had its own conceptions and standard of poetic representation;[ 65 ] a perhaps not very distant future will doubtless feel equal wonder at some of the poems set to music in our own day. It is more important to note Mozart's exposition of his own poetic nature, which led him to grasp and embody, not so much the words and the form, as the animating idea of the poem before him. Therefore LIEDER. it is that he gives us in his music a depth and truth of emotion which are wanting in the words. Take, for example, the first song by Weisse, "Der Zauberer." Divest it of the pastoral costume, which is strange to us, and of the tame, somewhat clumsy expression, and retain the situation of a young girl awaking to her first consciousness of love with timid amazement. This we shall find in Mozart's composition; certainly not in Weisse's shepherdess.
In one song of passionate and sorrowful expression—"Trennung und Wiedervereinigung," by Jacobi—two verses, in which the sentiment is considerably modified, have a fresh setting, and the first melody recurs only at the close. Others have each verse the same. One of these is the song "An Chloë" (524 K.), perhaps the best known and liked of all Mozart's pleasant, easy melodies; but it is the least significant and song-like of any, being formed after the manner of Italian canzonetti. "Abendempfindung" (523 K.) is more original and finer in its expression of emotion and in its form, which appears to yield to its changing moods, but is in reality both finished and well defined; "Unglückliche Liebe" (520 K.) is passionate and almost dramatic, a definite situation being indicated by the poet in the superscription: "Als Louise die Briefe ihres ungetreuen Liebhabers verbrannte."