(Mannheim, November 20, 1777, to his father.)
90. "Clementi plays well so far as execution with the right hand is concerned; his forte is passages in thirds. Aside from this he hasn't a pennyworth of feeling or taste; in a word he is a mere mechanician."
(Vienna, January 12, 1782, to his father. Four days later Mozart expressed the same opinion of Muzio Clementi, who is still in good repute, after having met him in competition before the emperor. "Clementi preluded and played a sonata; then the Emperor said to me, 'Allons, go ahead.' I preluded and played some variations.")
91. "Now I must say a few words to my sister about the Clementi sonatas. Every one who plays or hears them will feel for himself that as compositions they do not signify. There are in them no remarkable or striking passages, with the exception of those in sixths and octaves, and I beg my sister not to devote too much time to these lest she spoil her quiet and steady hand and make it lose its natural lightness, suppleness and fluent rapidity. What, after all, is the use? She is expected to play the sixths and octaves with the greatest velocity (which no man will accomplish, not even Clementi), and if she tries she will produce a frightful zig-zag, and nothing more. Clementi is a Ciarlatano like all Italians. He writes upon a sonata Presto, or even Prestissimo and alla breve, and plays it Allegro in 4-4 time. I know it because I have heard him! What he does well is his passages in thirds; but he perspired over these day and night in London. Aside from this he has nothing,—absolutely nothing; not excellence in reading, nor taste, nor sentiment."
(Vienna, June 7, 1783, to his father and sister.)
92. "Handel knows better than any of us what will make an effect; when he chooses he strikes like a thunderbolt; even if he is often prosy, after the manner of his time, there is always something in his music."
(Mozart valued Handel most highly. He knew his masterpieces by heart—not only the choruses but also many arias. [Reported by Rochlitz. H.E.K.])
93. "Apropos, I intended, while asking you to send back the rondo, to send me also the six fugues by Handel and the toccatas and fugues by Eberlin. I go every Sunday to Baron von Swieten's, and there nothing is played except Handel and Bach. I am making a collection of the fugues,—those of Sebastian as well as of Emanuel and Friedemann Bach; also of Handel's, and here the six are lacking. Besides I want to let the baron hear those of Eberlin. In all likelihood you know that the English Bach is dead; a pity for the world of music."
(Vienna, April 10, 1782, to his father. Johann Ernst Eberlin (Eberle), born in 1702, died in 1762 as archiepiscopal chapelmaster in Salzburg. Many of his unpublished works are preserved in Berlin. The "English" Bach was Johann Christian, son of the great Johann Sebastian. As a child Mozart made his acquaintance in London.)
94. "I shall be glad if papa has not yet had the works of Eberlin copied, for I have gotten them meanwhile, and discovered,—for I could not remember,—that they are too trivial and surely do not deserve a place among those of Bach and Handel. All respect to his four-part writing, but his clavier fugues are nothing but long-drawn-out versetti."