Thence, he went on to Mannheim, a town that is memorable as the place where he first met the Webers, and made the acquaintance of Herr Cannabich, the director of the music at the elector's court, and one who proved a stanch friend through everything to the young composer. Cannabich had a daughter named Rosa, a girl of thirteen, exceedingly pretty and clever, and Wolfgang appears to have admired her very much, and perhaps for a time to have flirted and been in love with her. He wrote her a sonata, and was delighted with the way in which she played it; the andante, he said, he had composed to represent her, and when it was finished he vowed she was just what the andante was. But this little love affair, if it existed, soon was forgotten in a more serious one with Aloysia Weber. Her father was a theatre copyist in poor circumstances. There were a number of children, and she was a beautiful girl of fifteen, with a magnificent voice. She was cousin, by the way, to Weber, afterward composer of the "Freischütz." Mozart was so charmed with her voice that he undertook to give her lessons, and we soon hear of him composing airs for her and meditating a concert tour in Italy in company with her, and her father and sister. In writing of it to his own father he sets out the advantages to be gained by co-partnership, and very prosaically says: "Should we stay long anywhere, the eldest daughter [Josepha, afterward Frau Hofer, for whom Mozart wrote the part of Astrafiammente in the "Zauberflöte">[ would be of the greatest use to us; for we could have our own ménage, as she understands cooking." But papa Mozart decidedly objected. "Your proposal to travel about with Herr Weber—N. B., two daughters—has driven me nearly wild," and he straightway orders his son off to Paris, whither, with a parting present of a pair of mittens knitted for him by Mlle. Weber, he reluctantly sets out in company with his mother.
His stay in Paris during the next year was not very eventful, and a symphony produced at the Concerts Spirituels seems to have been his most successful work at this time. It was clever and lively, full of striking effects, and was most warmly applauded. He says: "The moment the symphony was over I went off in my joy to the Palais Royal, where I took a good ice, told my beads, as I had vowed, and went home, where I am happiest and always shall be happiest." A great sorrow came to him here in the death of his mother. Owing to the great expense of living in Paris, they had been compelled to live together in a small, dark room, so cramped for space that there was not even room for the indispensable piano. Here she was taken ill, and though for fourteen days Wolfgang most devotedly attended to her wants, she died in his arms. The letters in which he breaks the news to his father and sister are full of the most beautiful tenderness and forgetfulness of his own grief in solicitude for theirs. Things did not indeed prosper with him in Paris; he tried to give lessons, but the ladies whom he taught paid him very shabbily, and the labor of getting from one part of the city to another to teach was so great that he found it difficult to give the time he wished to composition.
Music in Paris, just then, was at a low ebb. Vapidly pretty Italian operas were in fashion, and Piccinni was the favorite composer. It was some years afterward that the great contest between the Piccinnists and Gluckists culminated in the victory of the latter, though "Alceste," had already been produced, and "Iphigenia" was soon to follow. Mozart was a fervent admirer of Gluck, and the music of the older master had evidently an important influence on that of the younger and more gifted composer.
Once more his thoughts were turned to Salzburg, for two of the leading musicians there having died, the Archbishop Hieronymus offered their posts to the Mozarts, father and son, at a salary of a thousand florins for the two. The father anxiously entreated his son to return and accept this offer, mentioning as a further bait, that Aloysia Weber would probably be engaged to sing in Salzburg. Much as Wolfgang hated Salzburg, or rather the people living there, his love for his father and sister prevailed over his aversion; and though with no pleasure at all in the prospect of seeing the hateful archbishop again, he set out from Paris, travelling to Salzburg in very leisurely fashion via Strasbourg, Mannheim, and Munich. At Strasbourg he was induced to give several concerts, but they were not pecuniary successes, and he did not make by any one more than three louis d'or. But how the artist peeps out in every line of the letters in which he describes these! After saying how few were present, and how cold it was, he proceeds: "But I soon warmed myself, to show the Strasbourg gentlemen how little I cared, and played to them a long time for my own amusement, giving a concerto more than I had promised, and at the close extemporizing. It is now over, but at all events I gained honor and fame."
At Munich a great shock awaited him. He visited the Webers, and being in mourning for his mother, wore, after the French fashion, a red coat with black buttons. When he appeared, Aloysia hardly seemed to recognize him, and her coldness was so marked, that Mozart quietly seated himself at the piano, and sang in a loud voice, "Ich lass das Mädchen gern das mich nicht will" (I gladly give up the girl who slights me). It was all over, and he had to bear the loss of the fickle girl as best he might. There is a significant line in one of his letters at this time to his father: "In my whole life I never wrote worse than I do to-day, but I really am unfit for anything; my heart is so full of tears." After two years' absence he returned home to Salzburg, where he was warmly welcomed back. Here he remained for a little while, and wrote his first serious opera, "Idomeneo," to the text of an Abbe Varesco, a Salzburger. This opera Beethoven thought the finest of all that Mozart wrote. It was brought out at Munich in January, 1781, and was brilliantly successful. In the March following, an order was received from the archbishop to follow him to Vienna, where he wished to appear with all the full pomp and brilliant retinue of a prince of the church; and as one of this retinue Mozart had to follow him, little thinking at the time that he should never return to Salzburg, but that Vienna henceforth was to be his home.
In Vienna he found that he had to live in the archbishop's house, and was looked upon there as one of the ordinary servants. He says, "We dine at eleven o'clock in the forenoon, unluckily rather too early an hour for me. Our party consists of the two valets, the comptroller, Herr Zetti, the confectioner, the two cooks, Cecarilli, Brunetti (two singers), and my insignificant self. N. B.—The two valets sit at the head of the table. I have, at all events, the honor to be placed above the cooks; I almost believe I am back to Salzburg."
Mozart was a true gentleman, with no foolish false pride, but with the honorable self-respect that every gentleman must possess, and it was very galling to him to have to suffer such odious treatment from the mean-spirited archbishop. Indeed, it was only for his father's sake that he submitted to the continued contumely and petty slights to which the archbishop delighted in subjecting him. At last the open rupture came. The archbishop called him a knave and dissolute fellow, and told him to be off; and when Mozart waited upon Count Arco, the principal official, to obtain the regular dismissal that was necessary, the fellow poured abuse upon him, and actually kicked him out of the room. Poor Mozart was in a state of violent excitement after this outrage, and for some days was so ill that he could not continue his ordinary work. But now at least he was free, and though his father, like a timid, prudent old man, bewailed the loss of the stipend which his son had been receiving, Mozart himself knew that the release was entirely for the best.
In 1782 appeared "Die Entführung aus dem Serail," his first really important opera, full of beautiful airs, which at once became enormously popular with the Viennese. The Emperor Joseph II. knew very little about music, but, as frequently happens in such cases, considered that he possessed prodigious taste. On hearing it he said, "Much too fine for our ears, dear Mozart; and what a quantity of notes!"
The bold reply to this was, "Just as many notes as are necessary, your Majesty."
Much of the delight which Mozart felt in the success of the opera arose from the fact that it enabled him seriously to contemplate marriage. Aloysia Weber had been faithless to him, but there was another sister—with no special beauty save that of bright eyes, a comely figure, and a cheerful, amiable disposition—Constanze, whom he now hoped to make his wife. His father objected to all of the Weber family, and there was some difficulty in obtaining the paternal consent; but at last the marriage took place, on August 4, 1782. How truly he loved his wife from first to last, his letters abundantly show; her frequent illnesses were afterward a great and almost constant source of expense to him, but he never ceased to write to her with the passionate ardor of a young lover. He says: "I found that I never prayed so fervently, or confessed so piously, as by her side; she felt the same." And now for some time everything went smoothly in the modest little ménage in Vienna. Mozart had plenty of lessons to give, but none of the commissions for operas which he would have wished.