Part 3
For a change Mozart had things more or less his own way. The Weber family had moved to Vienna, much to Leopold’s relief, and for the moment the composer had no time to worry about Aloysia but went ahead putting his new opera into shape and helping to prepare the production. On the whole he met with sympathetic cooperation. The Elector, Carl Theodor, welcomed him cordially. The Intendant, Count Seeau, was helpful, and the women singers declared themselves pleased with their arias. The chief difficulties were caused by the aging tenor, Raaff, who had the title role, and the sixteen-year-old artificial soprano cast for the part of Idamantes. Mozart, who used to call him “mio molto amato castrato Del Prato,” deplored the poor boy’s lack of stage experience, musicianship, and vocal method. Nevertheless, _Idomeneo_, when brought out late in January 1781, was warmly acclaimed, and the Elector, who had followed the rehearsals from the first, marveled that “so small a head should contain such great things,” insisting he had never been so stirred by any music.
He had reason for his enthusiasm. The score of _Idomeneo_ is one of its composer’s most superb achievements and, if it lives on today chiefly as a museum piece, it does so because, like _Mitridate_, _Lucio Silla_, and _Il Re pastore_ before it and _La Clemenza di Tito_ after it, the work is a specimen of _opera seria_—a form that had lost every trace of vitality and dramatic punch. Yet to the end of his days its creator valued it highly and made some unavailing efforts to reanimate it.
Mozart’s Break with Salzburg
Mozart had reason to suppose that the work might gain him a permanent and rewarding position. Once more he was disappointed; and a short time after the production he received a summons from Salzburg to join the Archbishop in Vienna, whither Colloredo had gone with a part of his musical staff. Leopold, it should be added, was left at home. Wolfgang boiled inwardly at the prospect of “having the honor once more of sitting above the cooks at table.” His father begged him to be patient, but to no avail. In a way he welcomed the present call to Vienna and seemed to sense his impending liberation, if without knowing exactly how it was to come. “It seems as if good fortune is about to welcome me here,” he wrote his parent not long afterwards from the capital, “and now I feel that I must stay. Indeed, I felt when I left Munich, that, without knowing why, I looked forward most eagerly to Vienna.” He was seeking an opportunity to break forever with his detested chief, to whom he alluded as an “Erzlümmel” (“Archbooby”).
He soon found his chance. The archbishop at first refused Mozart permission to appear at the Tonkünstler-Societät, about which he wrathfully wrote to his father (yet a postscript added that, in the end, he got it). That his place at table was between the valets and the cooks is, Alfred Einstein says, rightly shocking both to the composer and to us. But Mozart’s rank as court organist was actually that of personal servant, and according to eighteenth century etiquette, which knew nothing of special treatment for genius, this seating at table was formally correct. In the end the threatened explosion did occur. Colloredo ordered him back to Salzburg on a certain day. Alleging some “important engagement” in Vienna, he refused and, when the archbishop told him he could “go to the devil,” he applied for his dismissal from the cleric’s service. Three times he presented applications. Finally, when he made an effort to enter Colloredo’s apartment to hand him the paper personally, Count Arco, son of the court chamberlain, kicked him out of the room. But Mozart _did_ get the discharge he had demanded.
The tale of the kick is familiar even to people who have not the vaguest familiarity with eighteenth-century codes. We might be well advised, however, to suspend our judgment till we know both sides of the celebrated story.
“No more Salzburg for me!” Wolfgang gaily wrote his father. Barring repeated journeys to different cities, Vienna was to be his home for the rest of his days. He was not to find the material rewards and the secure position he had sought for so long, but he had that freedom his spirit craved. And in Vienna he was to absorb those creative impulses that Haydn had known before him and Beethoven was to know after him. In a mood of elation he begged his father to leave Salzburg and join him in Vienna. But Leopold was no longer young and, besides, he was made of other clay.
Marriage
Mozart renewed his ties with the Webers once more. Aloysia, indeed, was now out of his reach, but there were three other daughters, the youngest still a child, to be sure. The oldest, Josepha, had a good voice but she left Wolfgang cold. He was more attracted to Aloysia’s sister, Constanze, a fact that was not lost on the scheming Mother Weber, now a widow, content to rent rooms and take in boarders. In May 1781, he settled in the Weber house, _Zum Auge Gottes_, just off the Graben. Needless to say, Leopold was greatly upset, for he had as low an opinion of the Webers as ever. But Wolfgang was no longer disposed to let his father’s tastes sway him and, when he felt that he really loved Constanze, he determined to make her his wife regardless of parental wishes. The unscrupulous Madame Weber, pleased at the turn of affairs, took care that gossip should spread, and people began to talk about the probability of the marriage. Mozart, yielding to Mother Weber’s “advice,” left the _Auge Gottes_ in September 1781, though returning for daily visits. Constanze’s mother played her cards cleverly so as to compromise her daughter and enjoyed the satisfaction of having Mozart ask his father for his “approval.” A Weber for a daughter-in-law was the last thing Leopold wanted. Finally on August 4, 1782, the couple married, the elder Mozart’s reluctant consent not arriving in Vienna until August 5. He never forgave his son, however, for this step. No more did Nannerl, who had quite as little use for her brother’s wife.
Later, after the composer’s death, Schlichtegroll’s necrology said of Constanze: “Mozart found in her a good mother for the two children she bore him, who sought to restrain him from many follies and dissipations...”—the rest of which passage Constanze was subsequently moved to make illegible. Be all of which as it may, there is no use pretending that Mozart was, earlier or later, in the least indifferent to feminine allurements. Sometimes it was the women who plagued him with attentions, a capital instance of which was his pupil, the pianist Josephine Aurnhammer, a talented but exceedingly repulsive person, of whom he left us a gruesome picture in a letter dated August 22, 1781: “She is as fat as a farm wench, perspires so that you feel inclined to vomit, and goes about so scantily clad that you really can read as plain as print: ‘Pray, do look here.’” It was for this same Aurnhammer, nonetheless, that he wrote the adorable clavier concerto, K. 453.
Alfred Einstein maintains that Constanze owes her fame “to the fact that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart loved her, and in so doing preserved her name for eternity, as a fly is preserved in amber. But this does not mean that she deserved either his love or the fame it brought her.” Certainly, she could not follow his flights of genius; neither was she always above reproach in her private conduct. Before their marriage her “honest and devoted” lover was writing to point out her thoughtless behavior in allowing some man “to measure her leg” in a game of forfeits; and nearly a decade later he was begging her “to consider appearances,” to be “careful of her honor,” and to keep away from the Baden casino because “the company is ... you understand what I mean!” Einstein believed that the only woman of whom Constanze had a right to be jealous “was Nancy Storace, his first Susanna.... Between Mozart and her there must have been a deep and sympathetic understanding. She was beautiful, an artist and a finished singer....”
_Die Entführung aus dem Serail_
The composer was probably delighted to have the chance to place on the stage a character named Constanze; and in the summer and autumn of 1781 he began the music of his next major opera, _Belmonte und Constanze_ or _Die Entführung aus dem Serail_ (“The Abduction from the Seraglio”). This _Singspiel_, the book of which was originally the work of Christian Friedrich Bretzner, had been presented a year earlier in Germany with a score by Johann André. Under Wolfgang’s careful supervision the three-act piece underwent dramatic and textual modifications by Christian Gottlob Stephanie the Younger. Mozart had written his father: “The book is good; the subject is Turkish and is called ‘The Abduction from the Seraglio.’” Rehearsals did not start till June 1782, and on July 16 of that year the work was produced in Vienna with extraordinary success. The stimulus back of Stephanie’s revisions was unquestionably the penetrating theater sense of the composer himself. Into the love songs of the tenor, Belmonte, Mozart poured all his tender feelings for Constanze Weber, whom he was shortly to lead to the altar. The characterizations throughout have a life, a diversity, and a psychological truth that had not been met with in any previous Mozartean operatic effort.
The Emperor, though he recognized the genius in the work, thought it necessary to warn Mozart that the music seemed to him “too good for the Viennese” and contained “a powerful quantity of notes”—whereupon the ready-witted Mozart retorted, “Just as many as are necessary, Your Majesty!” His older contemporary, Gluck, was himself stirred to enthusiasm by the work (in which he unquestionably detected the influence of his own exotic _Les Pèlerins de la Mecque_) and invited the composer to dinner. _Die Entführung_—which Carl Maria von Weber was to say was such a work as Mozart could have written only once in his lifetime—quickly spread through most other theaters of Central Europe, where, after close to two hundred years, it still leads a lusty existence. The more amusing, therefore, is a notice the disgruntled Bretzner inserted in a Leipzig newspaper: “A certain person in Vienna named Mozart has had the effrontery to misuse my drama ‘Belmonte und Constanze’ for an opera libretto. I herewith protest most solemnly that I reserve the right to take further steps against this outrage.”
On the surface the newly married couple were happy. Yet it might be inquiring too closely to ask whether Wolfgang did not, as time passed, suffer from that deep-seated loneliness and lack of understanding that are sooner or later the lot of a genius of this caliber. Under today’s conditions we have reason to assume that a triumph like _Die Entführung_, and the numberless other treasures he was giving the world, would lift him above material cares. Instead, financial troubles began to thicken about him and grew continually more burdensome. They were, indeed, to beset him to his end.
For all the stir it created, the opera did not bring its composer the appointment he expected. And money was becoming a pressing necessity. Constanze’s pregnancies were frequent during her married life and, though only two children survived infancy (to become, it is ironic to reflect, wretched but fairly long-lived mediocrities), her various confinements and her slow recovery from them did not help to further her housewifely qualities. It is not wholly surprising that Mozart’s religious conviction, which had earlier been a sort of childlike faith, weakened little by little—the more so because he was brought into growing contact with men who were profound thinkers and of whom many belonged to the secret society of Freemasons. Freemasonry had political implications and was frowned upon by the Church. Frederick the Great had been a Freemason, Goethe was one, likewise Joseph II, Gluck, and Joseph Haydn. Eventually Mozart persuaded his father to join the society. Who shall say that its principles and philosophies did not serve Wolfgang as a protective armor, enabling him the more bravely to endure his social and material tribulations?
Pupils and Friends—Haydn
Mozart took his wife to Salzburg in the summer of 1783. He had made a vow the previous year that when he married Constanze and presented her to his father he would bring along a newly composed mass for presentation in his native town. The superb one in C minor was the outcome, but for some reason it remained unfinished. We cannot speculate here on the reasons for its incompleteness. The torso (or shall we say patchwork?) was rehearsed in St. Peter’s Church in Salzburg, and Constanze sang some of the soprano solos. Despite its incompleteness the C minor Mass is a soaring masterwork, the music of which Mozart later put to use in the oratorio _Davidde Penitente_.
The relentless dislike for the Webers that both Leopold and Nannerl continued to harbor was not mollified by this visit, which proved uncomfortable as long as it lasted. Wolfgang and his wife were relieved when the troublesome “duty call” came to its chilly end and they were back in Vienna once more. There was no end of professional business for Mozart to transact—composition in flooding abundance, lessons to give, concerts (“academies”) to organize, musical personages to cultivate. Just now, at least, there were no interminable travels such as had filled Mozart’s boyhood years. His pupils were sometimes talented, sometimes the reverse. A few striking names stand out among them—Johann Nepomuck Hummel, Xaver Süssmayr, Thomas Attwood. Of the composers and executants with whom he came in contact we must mention Clementi, Salieri, Paisiello, Righini, Haydn. With Clementi he appeared as a pianist in a contest before Joseph II and some visiting Russian blue-bloods. So evenly were the two players matched that the competition was declared a draw. Paisiello, composer of _The Barber of Seville_, was a lovable character for whom Wolfgang developed a great liking. Salieri, a disciple of Gluck and a teacher of Schubert, appears to have criticized some of Mozart’s works, and Viennese gossip did what it could to make the matter worse. The result was that Salieri lives on in history largely because of a wild slander that he had given Mozart a poison causing the latter’s untimely death!
The meeting with Joseph Haydn resulted in one of the noblest and most rewarding friendships the records of music afford. Artistically their creations benefited inestimably from the mutual influence of their works and personalities. Haydn, says Dr. Karl Geiringer, “was fascinated by Mozart’s quicksilver personality, while Mozart enjoyed the sense of security that Haydn’s steadfastness and warmth of feeling gave him.” It was as if the two men kindled brighter sparks in each other’s souls. They played chamber music together whenever Haydn made a trip to Vienna, and the younger man was quick to acknowledge that it was from his older colleague he first really learned to write string quartets. The six that he composed between 1782 and 1785 and dedicated with moving words to his “beloved friend Haydn” are doubtless among the finest he wrote. It was on a visit of Leopold Mozart’s to Vienna that Haydn made to him the oft-quoted remark: “I tell you before God and as an honest man that your son is the greatest composer known to me either in person or by reputation!” And later, when someone questioned a detail in _Don Giovanni_ and asked Haydn’s opinion, he replied: “I cannot settle this dispute, but this I know: Mozart is the greatest composer that the world now possesses.... It enrages me to think that the unparalleled Mozart has not yet been engaged by some imperial or royal court! Do forgive this outburst; but I love the man too much!” It is heartbreaking that Haydn was not able, as he would have loved to be, to secure a post for Mozart in England.
Mozart had another encounter of a different sort at this period in Vienna—acquaintance with the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. Through the Baron van Swieten he had an opportunity to know the scores of Bach and Handel and later even to write for certain Handel oratorios “additional accompaniments” for use in performances Van Swieten was in the habit of giving on Sundays at the Imperial Library and in some private homes. And the depth, the grandeur, and the polyphony of these masters he assimilated to the added greatness of his own most mature works.
“Haffner” Symphony
With his concerts, teaching, clavier playing, and miscellaneous composing Mozart may well have felt, as he remarked on one occasion, that “people sometimes expected impossibilities of me.” The Haffner family in Salzburg, for instance, asked Leopold to write a symphony for some family festivity, to be ready in something like a fortnight! Wolfgang, at that time up to his ears in a quantity of other schemes, found the labor shifted to his own shoulders by his father, who was otherwise busied. Somehow or other he contrived to turn out (in a trifle over the appointed time, it is true) the work we now know as the “Haffner” Symphony. The excellent Salzburg burgomaster, Sigmund Haffner appears to have been well pleased. The composer himself instantly forgot the work and was astonished and delighted when, a considerable time afterwards, his father sent him the score. He worked at several operatic projects but nothing lasting came of them—not even of _The Goose of Cairo_, which contains charming passages and which, now and then, people have attempted to revive. There was, indeed, an amateur performance in Vienna of _Idomeneo_. But these and several other schemes must all be dismissed as transient compared with the masterpiece we now approach—_Le Nozze di Figaro_ (The Marriage of Figaro).
Le Nozze di Figaro
Mozart had longed for years to write a German opera. He boasted of himself as a thoroughly patriotic German and longed for the day when “we should dare to ‘feel as Germans and even, if I may say so, to sing in German.’” The nearest he had come to composing a German _Singspiel_ was when as a child he had produced his little song-play _Bastien und Bastienne_ and again when, in 1782, he turned out the inimitable _Die Entführung aus dem Serail_. But his ambitions soared even higher and he consumed no end of time and energy perusing the countless opera books sent to him without finding anything that suited his true artistic and dramatic purposes. For a while he had dreamed of accomplishing something in his Mannheim days, even listening with interest, but nothing more, to stuff like Holzbauer’s _Gunther von Schwarzburg_. Though he briefly thought of a _Rudolf von Habsburg_, he had no choice, in the end, but to return to Italian models—now, however, with a difference!
Soon after the amateur presentation of _Idomeneo_ in Vienna he had the good fortune to be brought together with Lorenzo da Ponte, whose real name was Emmanuele Conegliano and who belonged to a Jewish family in Ceneda, near Venice. The youth entered a theological seminary and became an industrious student with a poetic bent, which resulted in quantities of Italian and Latin verse. An outspoken adventurer, with countless amorous escapades _à la_ Casanova to his credit, he began his theatrical career in Dresden, went to Vienna where he was to enjoy the favor of Joseph II, and in the process of time went to London and finally to America, where he became a teacher of languages, a liquor merchant, a theater enthusiast, and what-not. He died in New York many years after Mozart but, like him, was buried in a grave of which all traces have been lost.
Mozart suggested to his picturesque collaborator (who cheerfully wrote opera books for Salieri, Martin, Righini, and others) a libretto to be adapted from Pierre Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais’ _Les Noces de Figaro_, of which Paisiello had recently composed Beaumarchais’ predecessor, _Le Barbier de Seville_. But _Figaro_ had been prohibited in France because it reflected on the morals of the aristocracy and the same ban had been in effect in Vienna. Da Ponte, altering it for Mozart’s purposes, adroitly eliminated its barbed satire and then, tactfully explaining his alterations to the Emperor, secured his permission for the performance. The composer, who limited his teaching to the afternoon in order to complete the score, had been “as touchy as gunpowder and threatened to burn the opera” if it were not produced by a certain time. To Joseph II’s credit it must be said that the music delighted him as soon as Mozart played him a few samples.
_Figaro_ was produced at the Burgtheater on May 1, 1786. A lucky star shone on its birth in spite of intrigues set in motion against it. Its success was tremendous and was abundantly foreshadowed during the rehearsals. The Irish tenor, Michael Kelly (Italianized as “Occhelly”), left us in his memoirs a striking account of the delight with which the singers and orchestra joined the listeners at the end of the first act in acclaiming the composer. “I shall never forget,” he says, “his little animated countenance when lighted up with the glowing rays of genius; it is as impossible to describe as it would be to paint sunbeams.” Father Mozart wrote to Nannerl that, not only had almost every number to be repeated, but that, at the following performance, five were encored, the “Letter Duet” having to be sung three times. In the end the Emperor forbade repetitions. That season _Figaro_ received nine hearings—and for the two following years not a single one! Mozart’s opponents, after a momentary check, had conspired successfully once more.
Prague
Luckily, the incorrigibly musical Czechs championed Mozart to the limit! With _Die Entführung_ he had won them heart and soul, and by the time _Figaro_ reached Prague, that city was on the way to becoming the true Mozart capital of Europe. From that moment nothing seemed greatly to matter but that opera. In the composer’s own words, people would listen to nothing else and talk of nothing else. Its melodies were worked up into dance arrangements. Players in beer gardens and even the wandering street musicians who begged for pennies on corners had to sing or strum their _Non piu andrai_ and the rest of the tunes if they wanted any passer-by to pay attention to them. “Truly a great honor for me,” mused the composer. Prague, now a high altar of Mozart worship, was for some time to remain so.
The creator of _Figaro_ had valued friends in Prague. Among the dearest of these were the Duscheks, whom he had known in Salzburg—Franz, a gifted pianist and composer, and his wife, Josefa, both older than Mozart. Josefa, an excellent musician, became an exceptional singer, and for her Wolfgang was to compose some superb though difficult concert arias. She was well-to-do and, with the money an admirer lavished on her, she bought herself an estate known as the _Bertramka_—still one of the show places of Prague, despite the vicissitudes of more than a century and a half. Here Mozart was often an honored guest, and to this day the villa and the hilly gardens surrounding it seem to breathe his spirit.
The permanent Italian company that supplied opera to the people of Prague, though not large, was exceedingly capable. At this time it was managed by a certain Pasquale Bondini. Its two efficient conductors (both of them Bohemians), Josef Strobach and J. B. Kucharz, were heart and soul devoted to Mozart. The intensely music-loving Czechs jammed Mozart’s academies and could not hear enough of his symphonies and clavier works. Small wonder, therefore, that Bondini resolved to take advantage of the heaven-sent opportunity of Mozart’s presence to commission him to write a new opera for the company next season. The fee was the usual sum of 100 ducats (no more!), the opera—_Don Giovanni_.