In 1791 his beautiful opera of The Magic Flute was produced with tremendous success at Vienna. Constanza came on to hear it, and was thoroughly frightened by Mozart's altered looks. He was ashy pale, worn, and thin. She seems to have been full of a really tender feeling for him then. He was writing his famous mass, the "Requiem," and continued it even after he took to his bed, and while Constanza sat beside him watching with tears the feeble hand at work, he told her that his heart and soul were full of thoughts of the dear Lord who had died for him.
The Magic Flute was drawing crowded houses, while Mozart lay dying not far off. In the evenings he would time the performance, saying to Constanza and her sister Sophie, and some musical friends always with him, "Now they are singing this or that part."
The day before his death he read over the score of the Requiem, and asked the friends near him to try and sing it with him. They did so, Mozart coming in with his part in a sweet faint voice. Suddenly, at the Lacrimosa, he burst into tears, and laid down the score for the last time. That evening he murmured to Constanza, "Oh, that I could once more hear my Magic Flute!"
Constanza glanced at Roser, a musician who was with them, and, blinded by his tears, Roser sat down to the piano, and sang one of Mozart's favorite airs. It was almost the last sound his closing ears received. The next morning, Sunday, December 5, 1791, at the age of thirty-five, Mozart died.[4]
He left behind him so many works that I hardly know which to speak of first. His operas, Don Giovanni, Figaro, and The Magic Flute are known and prized all the world over; but besides there are the masses, the sonatas, the symphonies, and the quartettes. In the sonatas especially the young pianist may find the greatest advantage. As reading they are admirable, and for practice with four hands I know of nothing better, unless it be some of Haydn's quartettes.
STRATEGY.