But after all that may be accomplished in honour of Mozart by the most enthusiastic of his admirers, his true and imperishable fame rests upon his works. A history of modern music will be concerned to show how his influence has worked upon his successors, displaying itself sometimes in conscious or slavish imitation, sometimes in the freer impulse it has given to closely allied natures; and it may truly be said that of all the composers who have lived and worked since Mozart there is not one who has not felt his inspiration, not one who has not learnt from him, not one who at some time or another has not encroached upon his domain. Like all great and original geniuses, he belongs to two ages which it was his mission to bring together; while quickening and transforming all that his own age can offer him as the AT THE GRAVE. inheritance of the past, he leaves to posterity the offspring of his individual mind to serve as a germ for new and more perfect life.
It would be presumptuous to attempt to summarise in a few phrases the result of a life of ceaseless mental activity, and of strongly marked individuality. In view of this difficulty many biographers take refuge in a comparison of the subject of their work with other great men, and thus emphasise the points of resemblance or divergence which exist in their natures. No such parallel appears to me more justifiable than one between Mozart and Raphael.[ 20 ] The majestic beauty which appears to absorb all the other conditions of art production, and to blend them into purest harmony, is so overpoweringly present in the works of both masters that there is no need to enforce the comparison by dwelling on the many points of resemblance in their career both as men and artists, and in their moral and intellectual natures. Such a comparison, however, is not profitable unless it can be shown how and under what conditions this beauty, so varied in its manifestations, so similar in its effects, is produced.[ 21 ] Although it will readily be acknowledged that Mozart is closely related to Shakespeare[ 22 ] in fertility, force, and reality of dramatic invention and in breadth of humour, and to Goethe[ 23 ] in simplicity and naturalness of human sentiment and in plastic clearness of idea, yet here again we are confronted with the distinguishing qualities of great artists in different provinces of art, and Mozart's individuality in his own art is as far as ever from explanation. The frequently attempted parallels with great CONCLUSION. musicians, with Haydn[ 24 ] or Beethoven,[ 25 ] bring out still more clearly the characteristics which distinguish him from all others; and it is to be feared that the more ingeniously these comparisons are carried out in detail the more the images are distorted and the judgment biassed.
With whatever feelings, and from whatever point of view, we regard Mozart, we are invariably met by the genuine purity of an artist's nature, with its irrepressible impulses, its inexhaustible power of production, its overflowing love; it is a nature which rejoices in nothing but in the manifestation of beauty which is inspired by the spirit of truth; it infuses all that it approaches with the breath of its own life, and, while conscientious in serious work, it never ceases to rejoice in the freedom of genius. All human emotions took a musical form for him, and were by him embodied in music; his quick mind grasped at once all that could fittingly be expressed in music, and made it his own according to the laws of his art. This universality, which is rightly prized as Mozart's distinguishing quality, is not confined to the external phenomena which he has successfully portrayed in every region of his art—in vocal and instrumental, in chamber and orchestral, in sacred and secular music. His fertility and many-sidedness, even from this outward point of view, can scarcely indeed be too highly extolled; but there is something higher to be sought in Mozart: that which makes music to him not a conquered territory but a native home, that which renders every form of musical expression the necessary outcome of his inner experience, that by means of which he touches every one of his conceptions with the torch of genius whose undying flame is visible to all who approach his works with the eyes AT THE GRAVE. of their imagination unbound. His universality has its limits only in the limits of human nature, and consequently of his own individual nature. It cannot be considered apart from the harmony of his artistic nature, which never allowed his will and his power, his intentions and his resources, to come into conflict with each other; the centre of his being was the point from which his compositions proceeded as by natural necessity. All that his mind perceived, or that his spirit felt, every experience of his inner life, was turned by him into music; from his inner life proceeded those works of imperishable truth and beauty, clothed in the forms and obedient to the laws of his art, just as the works of the Divine Spirit are manifested in the forms and the laws of nature and history.[ 26 ]
And, while our gaze is lifted in reverence and admiration to the great musician, it may rest with equal sympathy and love upon the pure-hearted man. We can trace in his career, lying clear and open before us, the dispensation which led him to the goal of his desires; and, hard as he was pressed by life's needs and sorrows, the highest joy which is granted to mortals, the joy of successful attainment, was his in fullest measure.
"And he was one of us!" his countrymen may exclaim with just pride.[ 27 ] For, wherever the highest and best names of every art and every age are called for, there, among the first, will be the name of Wolfgang Amade Mozart.
APPENDIX I. MARIANNE MOZART.
OLFGANG MOZART'S sister, Maria Anna Walburga Ignatia, known to her family and friends as Nannerl, was born July 30, 1751, and was thus five years older than her brother. She early showed a decided talent for music, and made extraordinary progress under her father's tuition. She made her appearance as a clavier-player during the early professional tours of the Mozart family in 1762, 1763-1766, and 1767, competing successfully with the first performers of the day, and overshadowed only by the accomplishments of her younger brother. Her father writes (London, June 8, 1764): "It suffices to say that my little lass at twelve years old is one of the most accomplished players in Europe"; and independent accounts which have come down to us coincide in this expression of opinion. During their stay at the Hague in October, 1765, she was seized with a serious illness and brought to the brink of the grave; her recovery, which had been despaired of by her parents, was hailed by them with delight. In November, 1767, she and Wolfgang were both struck down by smallpox at Olmütz; this also she happily recovered.