(Reported by Nissen. Joseph Haydn once said, when the worth of "Don Giovanni" was under discussion: "This I do know, that Mozart is the greatest composer in the world today.")
100. "Nobody can do everything,—jest and terrify, cause laughter or move profoundly,—like Joseph Haydn."
(Reported by Nissen [the biographer who married Mozart's widow.
H.E.K.].)
101. "Keep your eyes on him; he'll make the world talk of himself some day!"
(A remark made by Mozart in reference to Beethoven in the spring of 1787. It was the only meeting between the two composers. [The prophetic observation was called out by Beethoven's improvisation on a theme from "Le Nozze di Figaro." H.E.K.])
102. "Attwood is a young man for whom I have a sincere affection and esteem; he conducts himself with great propriety, and I feel much pleasure in telling you that he partakes more of my style than any scholar I ever had, and I predict that he will prove a sound musician."
(Remarked in 1786 to Michael Kelly, who was a friend of Attwood and a pupil of Mozart at the time. [Thomas Attwood was an English musician, born in 1765. He was chorister of the Chapel Royal at the age of nine, and at sixteen attracted the attention of the Prince of Wales, afterward George IV., who sent him to Italy to study. He studied two years in Naples and one year in Vienna with Mozart. Returned to London he first composed for the theatre and afterward largely for the church. He and Mendelssohn were devoted friends. H.E.K.])
103. "If the oboist Fischer did not play better when we heard him in Holland (1766) than he plays now, he certainly does not deserve the reputation which he has. Yet, between ourselves, I was too young at the time to pronounce a judgment; I remember that he pleased me exceedingly, and the whole world. It is explained easily enough if one but realizes that tastes have changed mightily since then. You would think that he plays according to the old school; but no! he plays like a wretched pupil….And then his concertos, his compositions! Every ritornello lasts a quarter of an hour; then the hero appears, lifts one leaden foot after the other and plumps them down alternately. His tone is all nasal, and his tenuto sounds like an organ tremulant."
(Vienna, April 4, 1787, to his father. Johann Christian Fischer—1733-1800—was a famous oboist and composer for his instrument. [Fischer was probably the original of the many artists of whom the story is told that, having been invited by a nobleman to dinner, he was asked if he had brought his instrument with him, replied that he had not, for that his instrument never ate. Kelly tells the story in his "Reminiscences" and makes Fischer the hero. H.E.K.])
104. "I know nothing new except that Gellert has died in Leipsic and since then has written no more poetry."