by Will Durant
Nine or ten of the 104 Haydn symphonies still live. The names they bear were not his choice, but were applied by commentators or editors. We have noted elsewhere the evolution of the sinfonia (i.e., assembled sounds) from the overture through the experiments of Sammartini and Stamitz; many others preceded Haydn in molding the structure of the “classic” symphony; and when he emerged from Esterháza into a wider world he was not too old to learn from Mozart how to fill out the structure with significance and feeling. The Oxford Symphony marks his rise to greater amplitude and power, and the London Symphonies show him in his fullest symphonic reach. No. 101 (the Clock Symphony) is delightful, and No. 104 is quite up to Mozart.
Generally we perceive in his music a kindly, gracious nature which may never have felt the depths of grief or love, and which had been compelled to produce too rapidly to permit the maturing of concept, theme, or phrase. Haydn was too happy to be profoundly great, and spoke too often to say much. And yet there is a treasure of pure and placid delight in these playful scores; here, as he put it, “the weary and worn, or the man burdened with affairs, may enjoy some solace and refreshment.”44
Haydn fell out of fashion soon after his death. His works reflected a stable feudal world, and an environment of aristocratic security and ease; they were too gay and self-content to satisfy a century of revolutions, crises, and romantic ecstasies and despair. He came back into favor when Brahms praised him and Debussy wrote Homage à Haydn (1909). Men then realized that though the Raphael and the Michelangelo of music who followed him poured deeper thought with subtler mastery into their compositions, they were able to do this because Haydn and his predecessors had molded the forms to receive their gold. “I know that God has bestowed a talent upon me,” Haydn said, “and I thank Him for it. I think I have done my duty, and been of use; … let others do the same.”45
CHAPTER XV
Mozart
I. THE WONDERFUL BOY: 1756-66
SALZBURG, like Prague and Pressburg and Esterháza, was a musical outpost of Vienna. It had its own character, partly from the salt mines that explain its name, partly from its environing mountains and its bisecting Salzach River, partly from having grown up around the monastery and episcopal see founded there about A.D. 700 by St. Rupert of Worms. The archbishop had been made an Imperial prince in 1278, and from that time till 1802 he was the civic as well as the ecclesiastical ruler of the city. In 1731-32 some thirty thousand Protestants had been forced to migrate, leaving Salzburg thoroughly and theocratically Catholic. Otherwise the archiepiscopal rule rested lightly on an orthodox population which, assured of eternal certainties, devoted itself to epidermal contacts and other worldly joys. Sigismund von Schrattenbach, archbishop during Mozart’s youth, was especially genial and kindly, except to heretics.
To this lovely town Leopold Mozart had come in 1737, aged eighteen, from his native Augsburg, presumably to study theology and become a priest. But he lost his heart to music, served for three years as musician and valet in a patrician’s home, and in 1743 became fourth violinist in the Archbishop’s orchestra. When he married Anna Maria Pertl (1747) he and she were rated the handsomest couple in Salzburg. He composed concertos, Masses, symphonies, and wrote a long-honored textbook of violin technique. In 1757 he was appointed court composer to the Archbishop. Of his seven children only two survived childhood: Maria Anna (Marianna, “Nannerl”), born 1751, and Wolfgang Amadeus, born January 27, 1756. (The boy’s full name—soliciting the intercession of several saints—was Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart; Theophilus was translated from Greek into Latin as Amadeus, Lover of God.) Leopold was a good husband and father, devoted and industrious. His letters to his son are warm with love, and not wanting in wisdom. The Mozart home—allowing for a little obscenity—was a haven of mutual affection, parental piety, childish pranks, and music without end.
Every German child was expected to become in some measure, on some instrument, a musician. Leopold taught his children music with their ABC’s. Marianna was already at eleven a virtuoso at the clavichord. Wolfgang, stimulated by her lead, took eagerly to the clavier: at three he picked out chords; at four he played several pieces from memory; at five he invented compositions which the father put on paper as they were played. Leopold refrained, at some cost, from taking other pupils, wishing to give full attention to his children. He did not send “Wolf” to school, for he proposed to be his teacher in everything. Presumably some German discipline was used, but not much was needed in this case; the boy would of his own accord remain at the keyboard for hours on end till forced away.1 Years later Leopold wrote to him:
Both as a child and as a boy you were serious rather than childlike; and when you were at the clavier, or otherwise engaged with music, you would not suffer the least joking to go on with you. Your very countenance was so serious that many observant persons prophesied your early death, on the ground of your precocious talent and earnest mien.2
In January, 1762, while Germany was still torn with war, Leopold took daughter and son to Munich to display their artistry before the Elector Maximilian Joseph; and in September he led them to Vienna. They were invited to Schönbrunn; Maria Theresa and Francis I were delighted with the children; Wolfgang leaped into the Empress’ lap, hugged and kissed her; challenged by the Emperor, he played the violin with one finger, and played the clavichord unerringly though the keys were covered with a cloth. Romping with the princesses, Wolfgang stumbled and fell; the Archduchess Maria Antonia, seven years old, picked him up and comforted him. “You are good,” he said, and gratefully added, “I will marry you.”3 A dozen aristocrats opened their homes to the Mozarts, marveled at the music they heard, and rewarded the trio with money and gifts. Then the boy was bedded for a fortnight with scarlet fever—the first of many illnesses that were to mar his travels. In January, 1763, the troupe returned to Salzburg.
The indulgent Archbishop overlooked the fact that Leopold had exceeded his leave of absence; indeed, he promoted him to be Vize-Kapellmeister. But on June 9, forfeiting further promotion, Leopold took to the road again, this time with his wife, to show his brood to Europe; after all, they could not remain child prodigies forever. At Mainz the children gave two concerts, at Frankfurt four; sixty years later Goethe recalled that he had heard one of these, and how he had marveled at “the little man with wig and sword”—for so Leopold had accoutered his son. Wolfgang was exploited by his father as almost a circus wonder. An announcement in a Frankfurt newspaper of August 30, 1763, promised that in the concert of that evening
the little girl, who is in her twelfth year, will play the most difficult compositions of the greatest masters; the boy, who is not yet seven, will perform on the clavichord or harpsichord; he will also play a concerto for the violin, and will accompany symphonies on the clavier, the keyboard being covered with a cloth, with as much facility as if he could see the keys. He will instantly name all notes played at a distance, whether singly or in chords, on the clavier or on any other instrument—bell, glass, or clock. He will finally, both on the harpsichord and the organ, improvise as long as may be desired, and in any key.4
Such demands upon the boy’s talents may have done some damage to his health or nerves, but he seems to have enjoyed the applause as much as his father enjoyed the florins.
They played at Coblenz, were disappointed at Bonn and Cologne, but had a concert at Aachen. At Brussels they expected that the governor-general, Prince Charles of Lorraine, would honor their performance with his presence, but he was busy. Leopold angrily reported:
We have now been nearly three weeks in Brussels … and nothing has happened. … His Highness does nothing but hunt, gobble, and swill, and we may in the end discover that he has no money.... I own that we have received sundry presents here, but we do not wish to convert them into cash. … What with snuffboxes and leather cases and such-like gewgaws, we shall soon be able to open a stall.5
The Prince finally agreed to attend; a concert was given, florins were collected, and
the troupe encoached for Paris.
On November 15, 1763, they arrived in Paris after tumbling three days on rough and rutted roads. They had letters of introduction to many notables, but none proved so valuable as the one to Melchior Grimm. He arranged to have the Mozarts received by Mme. de Pompadour, by the royal family, finally by Louis XV and Queen Marie Leszczinska. Now the most lordly homes were opened to the visitors, private and public concerts went off well, and Grimm wrote enthusiastically to his clientele:
True miracles are rare, but how wonderful it is when we have the opportunity to see one! A Salzburg Kapellmeister by the name of Mozart has just come here with two of the prettiest children in the world. His daughter, aged eleven, plays the piano in the most brilliant fashion, performs the longest and most difficult pieces with astounding precision. Her brother, who will be seven next February, is such an extraordinary phenomenon that you can hardly believe what you see with your own eyes. … His hands are hardly big enough to take a sixth. … He improvises for an hour, yielding himself to the inspiration of his genius, with a wealth of delightful ideas. … The most consummate Kapellmeister cannot possibly have so deep a knowledge of harmony and modulation as this child.... It is nothing for him to decipher whatever you put before him. He writes and composes with marvelous ease, and does not find it necessary to go to the piano and look for his chords. I wrote out a minuet for him and asked him to put a bass to it. He seized a pen, and without going to the piano he wrote the bass. … The child will turn my head if I listen to him much more. … What a pity that so little is understood of music in this country!6
After many triumphs in Paris the family departed for Calais (April 10, 1764). In London they were received by George III. For four hours, on May 19, before King and court, Wolfgang played Handel and Bach and other masters at sight; he accompanied Queen Charlotte’s singing, and improvised a new melody to the bass of a Handel aria. Johann Christian Bach, who had settled in London in 1762, placed the boy on his knee and played a sonata with him, each playing a bar in turn, “with so much precision that no one would have suspected two performers.”7 Bach began a fugue, Wolfgang pursued it, again as if the two geniuses were one. Thereafter, for several years, Mozart’s compositions showed the influence of Johann Christian Bach. On June 5 the children gave a concert which gladdened Leopold with a hundred guineas net. But the father was afflicted with severe inflammation of the throat, and the family retired to Chelsea for seven weeks’ rest, during which Wolfgang, now eight, composed two symphonies (K. 16 and 19).
On July 24, 1765, they left London for Holland, but at Lille both father and son took sick, and the tour was halted for a month, though Archbishop von Schrattenbach had long ago called for Leopold’s return. They reached The Hague on September 11, but on the next day Marianna fell ill in her turn, and soon worsened so that on October 21 she received the last sacrament. On September 30 Wolfgang gave a concert without his sister’s aid. She had scarcely recovered when he was seized with a fever, and the family had to live in costly idleness till January, 1766. On January 29 and February 26 they gave concerts at Amsterdam; now for the first time a Mozart symphony (K. 22) was publicly performed. During these months the boy composed furiously. In May they returned to Paris, where much of their baggage had been left; Grimm secured comfortable lodgings for them; they again performed at Versailles and in public; not till July 9 did they tear themselves away from the fascinating capital.
They dallied at Dijon as guests of the Prince de Condé; they spent four weeks at Lyons, three at Geneva, one in Lausanne, another in Bern, two in Zurich, twelve days at Donaueschingen; then brief stops at Biberach, Ulm, and Augsburg; a longer stay at Munich, where Wolfgang again took sick. At last, toward the end of November, 1766, after an absence of three and a half years, the family regained Salzburg. The old Archbishop forgave them, and they could now appreciate the comforts of home. All seemed well, but Mozart was never quite healthy again.
II.ADOLESCENCE: 1766-77
Leopold was an unrelenting taskmaster. He put his son through a hard course of instruction in counterpoint, thorough bass, and such other elements of composition as had come down to him from German and Italian music. When the Archbishop heard that Wolfgang composed, he wondered was not the father co-operating. To settle the question he invited the boy to stay with him for a week; he isolated him from all outside help, gave him paper, pencil, and harpsichord, and bade him compose part of an oratorio on the First Commandment. At the close of the week Mozart presented the result; the Archbishop was told that it merited praise; he commissioned his Konzertmeister, Michael (brother of Joseph) Haydn, to compose a second part, and his organist to compose a third; the whole was performed at the archiepiscopal court on March 12, 1767, and was judged worthy of repetition on April 2. Mozart’s part is now included as No. 35 in Köchel’s catalogue.*
Learning that the Archduchess Maria Josepha was soon to marry King Ferdinand of Naples, Leopold thought the ceremonies to be held at the Imperial court would offer a new opportunity for his children. On September 11, 1767, the family left for Vienna. They were admitted to the court, with the result that both Wolfgang and Marianna caught smallpox from the bride. The unhappy parents took their prodigies to Olmütz in Moravia, where Count Podstatsky gave them shelter and care. Mozart was blind for nine days. On January 10, 1768, the family was back in Vienna; both the Empress and Joseph II received them cordially, but the court was mourning the death of the bride, and concerts were out of the question.
After a long and unprofitable absence the family returned to Salzburg (January 5, 1769). Mozart continued his studies with his father, but toward the end of the year Leopold decided that he had taught the boy all that he could, and that what Wolfgang needed now was acquaintance with the musical life of Italy. Having secured letters of introduction to Italian maestri from Johann Hasse and others, father and son set out on December 13, 1769, leaving Marianna and mother to keep a footing in Salzburg. On the next evening Mozart gave a concert at Innsbruck; he played at sight an unfamiliar concerto placed before him as a test of his skill; the local press acclaimed his “extraordinary musical attainments.”8 At Milan they met Sammartini, Hasse, and Piccini, and Count von Firmian secured for Wolfgang a commission for an opera; this meant a hundred ducats for the family coffers. At Bologna they heard the still marvelous voice of Farinelli, who had returned from his triumphs in Spain, and they arranged with Padre Martini that Wolfgang should return to take the tests for the coveted diploma of the Accademia Filarmonica. At Florence, at the court of the Grand Duke Leopold, Mozart played the harpsichord to Nardini’s violin. Then father and son hurried on to Rome for the Holy Week music.
They arrived on April 11, 1770, in a storm of thunder and lightning, so that Leopold could report that they had been “received like grand people with a discharge of artillery.”9 They were just in time to go to the Sistine Chapel and hear the “Miserere” of Gregorio Allegri, which was sung there annually. Copies of this famous chorale, written for four, five, or nine parts, were hard to get; Mozart listened to it twice and wrote it out from memory. They stayed four weeks in Rome, giving concerts in the homes of the civil or ecclesiastical nobility. On May 8 they undertook the journey to Naples; robbers made the road perilous; the Mozarts traveled with four Augustinian monks to secure divine protection or an emergency viaticum. Naples held them for a full month, for the aristocracy, from Tanucci downward, invited them to soirees and placed lordly equipages at their disposal. When Wolfgang played at the Conservatorio della Pietà the superstitious audience ascribed his prowess to some magic in the ring he wore; they were amazed when, having discarded the ring, he played as brilliantly as before.
After enjoying Rome again they crossed the Apennines to worship the Virgin in her Santa Casa at Loretto; then they turned north to spend three months at Bologna. Almost daily Mozart received instruction from Padre Martini in the arcana of composition. Then he took the test for admission to the Accademia Filarmonica: he was given a piece of Gregorian
plain chant, to which, while he was shut up alone in a room, he was required to add three upper parts in stile osservato—strict traditional style. He failed, but the good padre corrected his work, and the revised form was accepted by the jury “in view of the special circumstances”—presumably Mozart’s youth.
On October 18 father and son were in Milan. There Wolfgang had his first triumph as a composer, but after hard work and much tribulation. The subject for his commissioned opera was Mitridate, re di Ponto; the libretto was taken from Racine. The fourteen-year-old youth toiled so hard in composing, playing, and rewriting that his fingers ached; his enthusiasm became a fever, and his father had to restrict his hours of work and cool his agitation with an occasional walk. Mozart felt that this, his first opera seria, was a far more critical test than that antiquarian trial at Bologna; his career as an operatic composer might depend upon the outcome. Now, though not much inclined to piety, he begged his mother and sister to pray for the success of this venture, “so that we may all live happily together again.”10 At last, when he was near exhaustion with rehearsals, the opera was presented to the public (December 26, 1770); the composer conducted, and his triumph was complete. Every important aria was received with wild applause, some with cries of “Evviva il maestro! Evviva il maestrino!” The opera was repeated twenty times. “We see by this,” wrote the proud and pious father, “how the power of God works in us when we do not bury the talents that He has graciously bestowed upon us.”11
Now they could go home with their heads high. On March 28, 1771, they reached Salzburg. They had hardly arrived when they received a request from Count von Firmian, in the name of the Empress, that Wolfgang write a serenata or cantata, and come to Milan in October to conduct it as part of the ceremonies that were to celebrate the marriage of Archduke Ferdinand to the Princess of Modena. Archbishop Sigismund consented to another absence of Leopold from his duties; and on August 13 pater et filius set out again for Italy. Arrived in Milan, they found that Hasse was there, preparing an opera for the same ceremonies; perhaps without intending it so, the managers had arranged a battle of genius between the most renowned living composer of Italian opera, who was in his seventy-third year, and the fifteen-year-old lad who had barely tried his operatic wings. Hasse’s Ruggiero was performed to great applause on October 16. On the next day Mozart’s cantata, Ascanio in Alba, was sung under his baton, and “the applause was extraordinary.” “I am sorry,” wrote Leopold to his wife, “that Wolfgang’s serenata should have so entirely eclipsed Hasse’s opera.”12 Hasse was generous; he joined in the praise of Mozart, and made a famous prophecy: “Questo ragazzo ci farà dimenticar tutti” (This boy will throw us all into oblivion).13