75. "Ah, if we too had clarinets! You can't conceive what a wonderful effect a symphony with flutes, oboes and clarinets makes. At the first audience with the Archbishop I shall have much to tell him, and, probably, a few suggestions to make. Alas! our music might be much better and more beautiful if only the Archbishop were willing."
(Mannheim, December 3, 1778, to his father. Mozart was on his return to Salzburg where he had received an appointment in the Archiepiscopal chapel. It seems that wood-wind instruments were still absent from the symphony orchestra in Salzburg.)
76. "Others know as well as you and I that tastes are continually changing, and that the changes extend even into church music; this should not be, but it accounts for the fact that true church music is now found only in the attic and almost eaten up by the worms."
(Vienna, April 12, 1783, to his father, who was active as Court Chapelmaster in Salzburg, and who had been asked by his son in the same letter, when it grew a little warmer, "to look in the attic and send some of your (his) church music.")
77. "The themes pleased me most in the symphony; yet it will be the least effective, for there is too much in it, and a fragmentary performance of it sounds like an ant hill looks,— that is as if the devil had been turned loose in it."
(In a letter written in 1789 to a nobleman who was a composer and had submitted a symphony to Mozart for criticism.)
78. "So far as melody is concerned, yes; for dramatic effect, no.
Moreover the scores which you may see here, outside those of
Gretry, are by Gluck, Piccini and Salieri, and there is nothing
French about them except the words."
(A remark made to Joseph Frank, whom Mozart frequently found occupied with French scores, and who had asked whether the study of Italian scores were not preferable.)
79. "The ode is elevated, beautiful, everything you wish, but too exaggerated and bombastic for my ears. But what would you? The golden mean, the truth, is no longer recognized or valued. To win applause one must write stuff so simple that a coachman might sing it after you, or so incomprehensible that it pleases simply because no sensible man can comprehend it. But it is not this that I wanted to discuss with you, but another matter. I have a strong desire to write a book, a little work on musical criticism with illustrative examples. N.B., not under my name."
(Vienna, December 28, 1782, to his father. "I was working on a very difficult task—a Bardic song by Denis on Gibraltar. It is a secret, for a Hungarian lady wants thus to honor Denis." When Gibraltar was gallantly defended against the Spaniards, Mozart's father wrote to him calling his attention to the victory. Mozart replied: "Yes, I have heard of England's triumph, and, indeed, with great joy (for you know well that I am an arch-Englishman)." The little book of criticism never appeared.)