70. "Beecke told me (and it is true) that music is now played in the cabinet of the Emperor (Joseph II) bad enough to set the dogs a-running. I remarked that unless I quickly escape such music I get a headache. 'It doesn't hurt me in the least; bad music leaves my nerves unaffected, but I sometimes get a headache from good music.' Then I thought to myself: Yes, such a shallow-pate as you feels a pain as soon as he hears something which he can not understand."
(Mannheim, November 13, 1777, to his father. Beecke was a conceited pianist.)
71. "Nothing gives me so much pleasure in the anticipation as the Concert spirituel in Paris, for I fancy I shall be called on to compose something. The orchestra is said to be large and good, and my principal favorites can be well performed there, that is to say choruses, and I am right glad that the Frenchmen are fond of them….Heretofore Paris has been used to the choruses of Gluck. Depend on me; I shall labor with all my powers to do honor to the name of Mozart."
(Mannheim. February 28, 1778, to his father. On March 7 he writes: "I have centered all my hopes on Paris, for the German princes are all niggards.")
72. "I do not know whether or not my symphony pleases, and, to tell you the truth, I don't much care. Whom should it please? I warrant it will please the few sensible Frenchmen who are here, and there will be no great misfortune if it fails to please the stupids. Still I have some hope that the asses too will find something in it to their liking."
(Paris, June 12, 1778, to his father. The symphony is that known as the "Parisian" (Kochel, No. 297). It is characterized by brevity and wealth of melody.)
73. "The most of the symphonies are not to the local taste. If I find time I shall revise a few violin concertos,—shorten them,— for our taste in Germany is for long things; as a matter of fact, short and good is better."
(Paris, September 11, 1778, to his father, in Salzburg. In the same letter he says: "I assure you the journey was not unprofitable to me—that is to say in the matter of composition.")
74. "If only this damned French language were not so ill adapted to music! It is abominable; German is divine in comparison. And then the singers!—men and women—they are unmentionable. They do not sing; they shriek, they howl with all their might, through throat, nose and gullet."
(Paris, July 9, 1778, to his father. Mozart was thinking of writing a French opera.)