Mozart could not reasonably expect help from the Emperor. The composer of Don Giovanni and the “Jupiter” symphony was unfortunate in his emperors.
The Emperor Joseph was in the habit of getting up at five o’clock; he dined on boiled bacon at 3.15 P.M.; he preferred water as a beverage, but would drink a glass of Tokay; he was continually putting chocolate drops from his waistcoat pocket into his mouth; he gave gold coins to the poor; he was unwilling to sit for his portrait; he had remarkably fine teeth; he disliked sycophantic fuss; he patronized the English, who introduced horse-racing; and Michael Kelly, who tells us many things, says that Joseph was “passionately fond of music and a most excellent and accurate judge of it.” We know that he did not like the music of Mozart.
Joseph commanded from his composer Mozart no opera, cantata, symphony, or piece of chamber music, although he was paying him 800 florins a year. He did order dances, for the dwellers in Vienna were dancing mad. Kelly, who knew Mozart and sang in the first performance of Le Nozze di Figaro in 1786, says in his memoirs (written by Theodore Hook): “The ridotto rooms, where the masquerade took place, were in the palace; and, spacious and commodious as they were, they were actually crammed with masqueraders. I never saw or indeed heard of any suite of rooms where elegance and convenience were more considered, for the propensity of the Vienna ladies for dancing and going to carnival masquerades was so determined that nothing was permitted to interfere with their enjoyment of their favorite amusement.... The ladies of Vienna are particularly celebrated for their grace and movements in waltzing, of which they never tire. For my own part, I thought waltzing from ten at night until seven in the morning a continual whirligig, most tiresome to the eye and ear, to say nothing of any worse consequences.”[39] Mozart wrote for these dances, as did Haydn, Hummel, Beethoven.
We know little or nothing concerning the first years of the three symphonies. Gerber’s “Lexicon der Tonkünstler” (1790) speaks appreciatively of him: the erroneous statement is made that the Emperor fixed his salary in 1788 at 6,000 florins; the varied ariettas for piano are praised especially; but there is no mention whatever of any symphony.
The enlarged edition of Gerber’s work (1813) contains an extended notice of Mozart’s last years, and we find in the summing up of his career: “If one knew only one of his noble symphonies, as the overpoweringly great, fiery, perfect, pathetic, sublime symphony in C.” And this reference is undoubtedly to the “Jupiter” the one in C major.
Mozart gave a concert at Leipsic in May, 1789. The programme was made up wholly of pieces by him, and among them were two symphonies in manuscript. At a rehearsal for this concert Mozart took the first allegro of a symphony at a very fast pace, so that the orchestra soon was unable to keep up with him. He stopped the players and began again at the same speed, and he stamped the time so furiously that his steel shoe buckle flew into pieces. He laughed, and, as the players still dragged, he began the allegro a third time. The musicians, by this time exasperated, played to suit him. Mozart afterwards said to some who wondered at his conduct, because he had on other occasions protested against undue speed: “It was not caprice on my part. I saw that the majority of the players were well along in years. They would have dragged everything beyond endurance if I had not set fire to them and made them angry, so that out of sheer spite they did their best.” Later in the rehearsal he praised the orchestra, and said that it was unnecessary for it to rehearse the accompaniment to the pianoforte concerto: “The parts are correct, you play well, and so do I.” This concert, by the way, was poorly attended, and half of those who were present had received free tickets from Mozart, who was generous in such matters.
Mozart also gave a concert of his own works at Frankfort, October 14, 1790. Symphonies were played in Vienna in 1788, but they were by Haydn; and one by Mozart was played in 1791. In 1792 a symphony by Mozart was played at Hamburg.
The early programmes, even when they have been preserved, seldom determine the date of a first performance. It was the custom to print: “Symphonie von Wranitsky,” “Sinfonie von Mozart,” “Sinfonia di Haydn.” Furthermore, it should be remembered that Sinfonie was then a term often applied to any work in three or more movements written for strings, or strings and wind instruments.
OVERTURE TO THE OPERA, “THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO”
Le Nozze di Figaro: dramma giocoso in quadro atti; poesia di Lorenzo Da Ponte, aggiustata dalla commedia del Beaumarchais, “Le Mariage de Figaro”; musica di W. A. Mozart, was composed at Vienna in 1786 and produced there on May 1 of the same year.