Part 4

His songs, of which he wrote many, have passed for the most part into deserved oblivion. Some of his canzonets are marked by grace and delicacy, but the sign of age is unmistakably on them. His masses display that eternal freshness and that cheerfulness of spirit that are peculiarly Haydn's, and the more important of them must rank forever among the masterpieces of their class, notably the "Mariazell" Mass in C-major, and the "Cecilia" Mass, in the same key.

"The Seasons" and "The Creation" are remarkable not only in themselves, but as productions of his old age. It is true that his fame does not rest on them, and it is equally true that if he had written nothing else these works would not have brought the composer's name down to our day with the glory that now surrounds it. Some portions of "The Creation" however, are noble music, and these will always be listened to with delight. Never was the human voice treated in a more masterly manner than it has been by Haydn in these "oratorios," and the study of their scores is still valuable to all who would learn how to support the voice by flowing and brilliant orchestration without giving undue prominence to the instruments.

The dramatic interest of "The Creation" is not strong. There is nothing in the shape of declamation, and the singers are confined to mere description. The result is a lack of passion and a consequent monotony of sentiment. The tone-picture of Chaos, with which the work opens, stands out as one of the noblest bits of instrumentation that Haydn ever wrote. The air "With Verdure Clad" is exquisite, in melody and orchestration, but its many repetitions mar it and make it tiresome. "On mighty pens" is another lovely air, but here too the composer has not been fortunate in respect to discreet brevity. The choruses reach a high point of beauty in regard to themes, development and voice treatment, and "The Heavens are telling" still remains one of the noblest oratorio choruses outside of Bach and Handel. But the breadth and dignity of all the choruses are impaired by the elaborateness of the orchestration. Haydn was essentially an instrumental composer, and it was but natural that he should have yielded to the temptation to produce effects of which he was practically the inventor and at which the musical world still marvelled. It is, with all its faults, an amazing work for a man not far from three-score and ten years of age; and it may still be listened to with pleasure, when the last part is omitted; for the wooings and cooings of Adam and Eve have become incurably old-fashioned; and the grace, melodiousness and tenderness of the music do not atone for its monotonous effect and its lack of dramatic color.

"The Seasons," by its well sustained pastoral tone, its fresh and cheerful melodies, the fidelity with which the composer has adhered to the spirit of his poem, and the simple grace of style that marks the work throughout, make it still delightful in the hearing when it is produced with care and in harmony with the chaste sentiment that pervades it. When it is remembered that the composer compassed this work at the age of 69, and consequently near the end of a busy life whose active pursuit might well have exhausted his capacity to invent, its wealth of melody is astonishing. And yet, he said to Michael Kelly, "It is the tune which is the charm of music, and it is that which is most difficult to produce." In our day it would seem that tune is exhausted or that it is more difficult to produce than it was. In this connection another saying of Haydn's may be reproduced for the felicity with which it applies to the present time: "Where so many young composers fail is, that they string together a number of fragments and break off almost as soon as they have begun; so that at the end the hearer carries away no clear impression." By omitting the word "young," the words will not be any the less true now.

Of Haydn's lighter vocal works there is no need to speak, for they have passed away forever. His operas have been wholly forgotten, and not unkindly. It is, however, as an instrumental composer that Haydn is entitled to the most earnest consideration. In this field of his industry he has left an imperishable name. He was, to all intents and purposes, the creator of orchestral music. His place in musical history is among the greatest in his art. He broke with pedantry at the outset of his career, enlarged the scope and dignified the aim of music, and made the world the happier for his presence and in the rich legacy he left it. Music has changed greatly since his day, and in its progress it has departed widely and is still departing, even more widely, from the conditions in which he left it; but in all its changes it has left his position unassailed. His best achievements in his art are yet listened to with delight, despite the richer orchestration and the larger design that characterize the music of our time. He has outlived every mutation thus far, and it is perhaps not overbold to prophesy that his fame will endure long after the vague, restless and labored music that is peculiar to the present era, is forgotten. The moral of his life is devotion to art for art's sake. He was loyal to it through poverty, suffering and disappointment, never doubting his mission on earth. His early career was through tears, but as Heine says: "The artist is the child in the fable, every one of whose tears was a pearl. Ah! the world, that cruel step-mother, beats the poor child the harder, to make him shed more tears."

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART

Johann Georg Mozart, the grandfather of the great composer, was a bookbinder. He lived in Augsburg, and in 1708 he married Anna Maria Peterin, the widow of a fellow-handicraftsman named Banneger. By her he had five children, and the youngest boy was Johann Georg Leopold, the author of the "Violin School" and the father of Wolfgang, the immortal composer.

Leopold Mozart was a man of no ordinary parts. His face is known to us by the engraving from the portrait painted by the amateur Carmontelle in Paris, 1763, and by the family group in the Mozarteum in Salzburg. It is an honest face, keen, austere; a mocking jest might have passed the lips, but neither flatteries nor lies. His tastes were simple, his life was ever free from dissipation. In money matters he was regarded as close, and the reproach has been made by some that he acted as a Barnum towards his two precocious children. The reproach is unjust. The man was poor. His earnings were small. He needed money to pay his debts and support his family. But no specific charge of meanness or avarice has been substantiated. On the other hand he was scrupulously honest, sincere in the duties of his profession, and of a profoundly religious nature that was shown in profession and practice. At the same time he was not a bigot. He would not yield to the tyranny of priests; he was free from superstition of every sort; his sane spirit and his bitter wit were exercised in spiritual as well as temporal affairs. Grimm, who was no mean judge of men, wrote of him as follows: "The father is not only a skilful musician, but a man of good sense and ready wit, and I have never seen a man of his profession who was at the same time so talented and of such sterling worth." As a musician he was thorough, well educated, and a composer of merit. His treatise upon violin playing was known throughout Europe, and it showed the solid qualities of the musician and the ironical temperament of the man. All of his gifts were used, however, chiefly in directing and developing most wisely the extraordinary genius of the young Wolfgang. The affection shown him, however, was lavished equally upon his wife and other children.

Salzburg is a town renowned for its beauty. "To see it shining in the sun, with its large white façades, its flat roofs, its terraces, its church and convent cupolas, its fountains, one would take it for an Italian city." The advantages of its natural situation and the artifical charms of the place were, if the opinion of the eighteenth century may be accepted, only equalled by the stupidity of the inhabitants. There was a German proverb that ran as follows: "He who comes to Salzburg grows foolish the first year, becomes an idiot the second; but it is not until the third year that he is a Salzburger." The German Harlequin _Hanswurst_, however, was a Salzburg creation; and the inhabitants were fond of heavy and coarse jokes. No wonder then that the town and the society were distasteful to Leopold Mozart. He left his birthplace to study law in Salzburg; and in 1743 he entered the service of the Archbishop Sigismund, as a court-musician. Later he became court-composer and leader of the orchestra; in 1762 he was second Kapellmeister. In 1747 he married Anna Maria Pertl or Bertl. She was the daughter of the steward of a hospital. She was very beautiful, good natured, loving, and of limited education. Seven children were born of this marriage. Five died at a very early age. The fourth, Maria Anna (born July 30, 1751), was familiarly known as "Nannerl," and she was a musical prodigy. The seventh and last was born at eight o'clock in the evening, Jan. 27, 1756, and the mother nearly died in the child-bed. According to the certificate of baptism, he was named Joannes-Chrysostomus-Wolfgangus-Theophilus. His first compositions published in Paris in 1764 are signed J. G. Wolfgang. Later works bear the name Wolfgang Amade. In private life he was known as Wolfgang. Variations sometimes found in the biographies come from the fact that Theophilus and Amadeus and Gottlieb are but one and the same name.

Schachtner, the court trumpeter, and a house-friend of the father, preserved for us in a letter written to Mozart's sister many interesting details of the early manifestations of the boy's genius. At the age of three he sought thirds upon the keys of the pianoforte. At the age of four his father began to teach him little pieces. When he was five he dictated minuets to his father, which are of natural but correct harmony, melodious and even characteristic. The first of these minuets is given herewith. These are not legends, but well attested facts. Four minuets and an allegro have been published by Otto Jahn in the second edition of his "Mozart." Singular indeed are some of the stories related. Up to the age of ten he could not endure the sound or sight of the trumpet. He wrote a pianoforte concerto, clearly conceived, but of unsurmountable difficulty, when he was four. His sense of pitch was extraordinary. The father watched this astounding precocity with loving fear and prayed that he might be wise enough to direct it.

[Music: MOZART'S FIRST COMPOSITION.

Minuet.]

In 1762 Wolfgang and Maria Anna--the latter was now a pianoforte virtuoso--played before the Elector of Bavaria in Munich, and the enthusiasm provoked by their appearance was so great, that Leopold obtained leave of absence in September of the same year and went with his family to Vienna. At Passau the children played before the Bishop, who marvelled greatly and gave the father a ducat. At Linz they gave their first concert. They then descended the Danube to Vienna, stopping at the monastery of Ips, where Wolfgang played so effectively upon the organ that the Franciscan fathers left the dinner table that they might hear him; which miracle is doubtless recorded in the annals of the abbey.

The Austrian imperial family was passionately fond of music. Francis the First was a distinguished connoisseur, and Maria Theresa was a pupil of Wagenseil, as well as an accomplished singer. The Mozart children were received with open arms. The courtiers were astonished at the display of genius. The Emperor spent hours in testing and wondering at the powers of Wolfgang. The young Marie Antoinette romped with the boy who promised to marry her when he was old enough.

The noble families of the town vied with each other in their attentions. The children were given money, court dresses, and tokens of genuine affection, and the first portrait of Wolfgang was painted then in Vienna, in which he has powdered hair, and he carries a sword. The boy was seized with scarlet fever in October, and in the beginning of 1763 Leopold went back to Salzburg. But the 9th of June of the same year, with his wife and children, he set out for Paris, having letters of credit from his good friend Haguenauer. They had adventures, and they gave concerts on the way. They arrived at Ludwigsburg, the Versailles of Stuttgart, where Jomelli, with his carriages and horses, houses and yearly salary of four thousand florins, brought to Leopold's mind his own modest condition, and provoked him to bitter remarks. Frankfort, Bonn and Brussels were seen, and finally the family arrived in Paris the 18th of November. The story of this visit, as well as the visit of 1778, has been most entertainingly told by Jullien in the brochure "Mozart à Paris," to which the reader is referred for interesting details. The letters of Leopold contain much curious information about the musical condition of the city. Frederick Melchior Grimm, who was regarded as an authority, exerted himself most actively in the behalf of his compatriots. They were presented at Court; they were celebrated in prose and in verse; their portraits were painted; and four sonatas "pour le clavecin" were engraved and published. In April, 1764, Leopold left Paris for London, by Calais, Dover, and he took with him the opinion that French music and French morals were detestable. In England the family were received most kindly by the King and the Queen, who, as is well known, were passionate amateurs of music. The curiosity of the Londoners to hear the children was great; the learned Daines Barrington proved the genius of Wolfgang in many ways, and then made it the subject of a letter preserved in the annals of the "Philosophical Transactions" of the year 1770; and guineas chinked pleasantly together in Leopold's pocket. Here Wolfgang wrote three symphonies, four according to Jahn and Koechel, but Wilder gives good reasons for doubting the date of the one in B-flat major. He also dedicated six sonatas for pianoforte and violin or flute to the Queen. His London visit benefited his education. Pohl in his interesting and valuable "Mozart in London" gives a full account of the condition of music at the time. Wolfgang had an opportunity of hearing Handel's oratorios and Italian opera; he became intimate with Christian Bach; he heard the castrate Tenducci, the master of cantabile; he took singing lessons of the famous male soprano Manzuoli. In July 1765 Leopold and the children started for the Hague; at Lille, Wolfgang was seriously ill, and at the Hague the sister was attacked by a violent fever. Wolfgang wrote while in Holland six sonatas and other pieces. After passing through Paris and Swiss towns, the family arrived at Salzburg in November, 1766. Wolfgang was pleased at seeing again his favorite cat, and then under his father's direction he began the study of the "Gradus" of Fux. In 1767 he learned Latin and set to Latin words a comedy, "Apollo et Hyacinthus," at the instigation of the Archbishop, who had hitherto played the part of doubting Thomas. He also wrote four pianoforte concertos for his own use in concerts.

Leopold was not blind to the fact that Italy was the home of great composers and illustrious singers; that its atmosphere was stimulating to musical thought; that its very name was synonymous with music. Under pretext of a short visit to Vienna, he made his excuses to the Archbishop and started, in September, 1767, with his family on a longer journey. In Vienna, the children were seized with small-pox, and it was not until January, 1768, that they were able to enter into the musical life of the town. They heard Gluck's "Alceste," and Leopold preferred to it Hasse's "Partenope." Joseph II., a man of frugal mind, demanded of Wolfgang an opera for his theatre, and the boy wrote "La Finta Simplice," an opera-buffa in three acts. It won the unqualified praise of the singers and such composers as Hasse, but the cabal against Wolfgang was too strong, and the opera was not given. "Bastien und Bastienne," an opera in one act, was written immediately after, and produced with great applause in the house of a Vienna doctor. (The pastoral theme of the instrumental introduction, the intrada, anticipates in a singular manner the opening of Beethoven's Third Symphony.) Wolfgang's first mass was given in public, and he himself directed. The Archbishop of Salzburg sent word to Leopold that his pay would continue only while he was actually in Salzburg, and so the family returned home. But the Italian journey was still in Leopold's head, and hoping to pay the expenses of the trip by giving concerts, he started out with Wolfgang in December, 1769. At Roveredo and Verona, the enthusiasm of the people was unbounded; at Milan they met the generous Von Firmian, who was the means of procuring a contract for Wolfgang to write an opera for the Christmas holidays; at Bologna they became acquainted with Father Martini and Farinelli; at Florence, Wolfgang met his friend Manzuoli and Thomas Linley, the English violinist of his own age; and in Holy Week they were at Rome, and they heard the Allegri _Miserere_. The story of the boy memorizing this famous composition at a hearing, writing it out, and correcting it after a second hearing, is familiar to all. The feat provoked the wildest curiosity to see him, and he was looked at superstitiously, just as, soon after, at Naples his virtuosoship was attributed to a ring worn upon a finger of the left hand. The concerts in these towns refilled the drained purse; in 1770, the pope ennobled the boy, giving him the cross of the Golden Spur; and he was received into the famous _accademia filarmonica_ of Bologna. Meanwhile Wolfgang was considering the opera promised for Milan, and the 26th of December, 1770, "Mitridate, re di Ponto" was produced and received with unbounded enthusiasm. It was given twenty times, and the impresario hastened to make a new contract with the _cavaliere filarmonico_, as the Milanese called him. Father and son then visited Turin and Venice, and about this time Wolfgang probably wrote the oratorio "Betulia liberata." In the spring of 1771 they returned to Salzburg, where they found a letter from Count Firmian asking for a pastorale to celebrate the wedding of the Archduke Ferdinand with the Princess Beatrice of Modena. And now the boy fell in love with a woman ten years his elder. She was betrothed to another, and her marriage and Wolfgang's return to Milan in August ended the affair. Although in the house where he lodged, violinists, a singing teacher, and an oboe player plied assiduously their business, Wolfgang finished the promised composition, "Ascanio in Alba" in twelve days. It was first heard October 17. Its success was so great that Hasse's opera "Ruggiero" was neglected; and the kindly veteran simply said, "This young rascal will cause us all to be forgotten."

About the time that Wolfgang returned home, December, 1771, Sigismund, the Archbishop, died, and Hieronymus ruled in his stead. He was a man of mean and tyrannical spirit, and his reputation had preceded him, so that when he arrived in Salzburg he was received in gloomy silence. Nevertheless there were festivities, and Wolfgang wrote "Il sogno di Scipione," a composition unworthy of his pen. It was in this same year, 1772, that Dr. Charles Burney received a letter from a correspondent, saying that the lad was still a pianoforte virtuoso of great merit, but that as a composer he had reached his limit; and the writer then moralized over musical precocities, comparing them to premature fruits. Yet at this same epoch, Wolfgang wrote the celebrated Litany "de venerabile." In November he visited Milan again to compose and put on the stage the opera "Lucio Silla." There were many obstacles before and even during the representation; but the success of the work was unquestioned. This was the last opera written by Wolfgang for Italy. The impresarios were willing and eager; but the Archbishop was reluctant in granting even ordinary favors to his servant. And here is the end of the first period of Mozart's musical career.