Palace of Schönbrunn. The children played and were admired and duly rewarded. There have come down to us a quantity of pretty anecdotes about the pair—how Wolfgang climbed up in the lap of the Empress and was kissed by her; how he insisted on having the composer Georg Christian Wagenseil in the room when he was to play (“because he understands such things”); how, when he slipped on the polished floor and was helped to his feet by the princess, Marie Antoinette, he thanked her and then added “I shall marry you for this when I grow up!” Unquestionably the motherly tenderness of Maria Theresia went out to the child from Salzburg. Yet it is a question whether she actually saw in Wolfgang and his sister more than a pair of precocious little people in spite of Leopold’s extravagant claims. Certainly she was less agreeable several years later when she wrote her son, the archduke Ferdinand, governor-general of Lombardy, who contemplated taking Wolfgang into his service: “I do not know why you need saddle yourself with a composer or useless people.... It discredits your service when such individuals run about the world like beggars.”

At all events Leopold was voluble in the letters he wrote to his Salzburg landlord, Hagenauer, about the wonders of the Vienna visit and the impression exercised everywhere by Wolfgang’s talents and his lively intelligence and unaffected manner. Leopold built towering air castles. Two weeks later Wolfgang came down with what was said to be scarlet fever but which was actually (according to Bernhard Paumgartner) diagnosed by a German doctor, Felix Huch, as “erythema nodosum,” which could have had serious consequences and may have planted the seeds of Mozart’s last illness. Before returning to Salzburg, Leopold accepted the invitation of a Hungarian magnate to make a flying trip to neighboring Pressburg after Wolfgang had recovered. Finally, on January 5, 1763, the Mozarts came home to Salzburg. It is uncertain how much musical stimulation Wolfgang obtained from this first Viennese visit. The one important event in Vienna at this period—the première of Gluck’s Orfeo—went unmentioned by either Wolfgang or his father.

However, the success of the trip whetted Leopold’s appetite for more of the same thing. After a brief period for recuperation, plans were laid for a much more elaborate odyssey to include nothing less than Paris and London. On June 9, 1763, consequently, the family carriage set out for the Bavarian frontier—“the same road by which Leopold Mozart, then a hopeful student, had wandered into Salzburg.” This trip was to keep the Mozarts away from home for three years.

Success in Paris and London

The “celebrity tour” began, strictly speaking, in Munich where the pair of prodigies performed with sensational success before the Bavarian Elector Maximilian III, who wished to hear the young people “soon and often.” But Leopold was out for bigger game and wanted, incidentally, to exhibit his wonder children to his relatives in Augsburg before proceeding to world conquests. Besides old acquaintances the “Herr Kapellmeister” had the good luck to present his “gifts of God” to the noted Italian violinist, Pietro Nardini, then concertmaster of the court orchestra of Stuttgart, and to the Italian composer, worthy Niccolo Jommelli, who was struck by Wolfgang’s abilities but against whom the mistrustful Leopold harbored various unjust suspicions. In Schwetzingen the Mozarts had the first opportunity to hear the then unrivaled Mannheim orchestra, which was to play a significant part in Wolfgang’s development. He and his sister were put through all their paces as the weeks went by; besides playing and improvising they were made to perform all manner of showy stunts. Wolfgang had to name tones and chords sounded on keyboards covered with a cloth, as well as guess the exact pitch of bells, glasses, and clocks.

The travelers went on to Bonn, Cologne, and Aachen, where lived the Princess Amalia, sister of Frederick the Great, whose pressing invitations to Berlin left Leopold cold as soon as he realized she had no money; he reflected that the kisses without number which she gave the children would have pleased him better if they had had cash value! Finally, after further progress through the Low Countries the little band reached Paris, where the father discovered that most of his letters of recommendation and introduction amounted to little. Only when they were taken in charge by the Bavarian-born Baron Melchior Grimm, a literary figure of some distinction, did results begin to shape themselves. A first-rate publicity man, Grimm launched a campaign for the youngsters in his Correspondance littéraire, with the result that doors promptly opened and invitations began to pour in. On New Year’s Eve, 1764, the Mozarts were asked to a grand couvert at the court in Versailles. Wolfgang stood next to the Queen who fed him dainties and translated for the King—Louis XV—what the boy said to her in German.

The great Madame Pompadour was on hand and the elder Mozart noted that she must once have been a great beauty for all her present stoutness. Later, when Wolfgang offered to give her a kiss, she drew back; whereupon the boy indignantly asked, “Who does she think she is, anyhow? Our Empress herself did not refuse to kiss me!” Leopold was careful to note the countless features of the Parisian scene. For one thing, the abundance of make-up on the faces of the Frenchwomen was something to revolt “an honest German.” He saw eye to eye with Baron Grimm in his preference for Italian over French music, declaring that the latter was “not worth a farthing.” Wolfgang was eventually to share his distaste for French customs, French art, even the French language. Leopold brought his son to the attention of several prominent German musicians who happened to be in Paris, such as Johann Schobert, Gottfried Eckhart, and Leontzi Honnauer, all of whom registered appropriate astonishment and presented the children with some of their own compositions, suitably inscribed. Four sonatas for clavier with ad libitum violin parts by Wolfgang were printed, and on the title page it was duly noted that their author was “only seven years old.” For all their charm and freshness these works clearly betray the improving touch of Leopold.

On April 23, 1764, after an easy Channel crossing, the Mozarts arrived in London, where the children were announced as “Miss Mozart of Eleven and Master Mozart of Seven years of age, Prodigies of Nature.” The Hon. Daines Barrington subjected the boy to “scientific tests,” which demonstrated that his talents were, indeed, “out of the ordinary.” The musical George III and Queen Charlotte received them at St. James’s Palace on April 27. A few weeks later there was another concert before the royal couple, when the King asked Wolfgang to play at sight pieces by Wagenseil, Johann Christian Bach, Handel, and Carl Friedrich Abel. The monarch praised the lad’s performances on the organ even more than on the clavier, and had him accompany the Queen in a song and improvise a melody on a figured bass of Handel’s. Leopold wrote home that what his son knew now completely overshadowed his earlier abilities. At a charity concert in Ranelagh Gardens they made over a hundred guineas. Yet these successes did not last: several concerts had to be postponed because of Leopold’s sudden indisposition; a mental illness of George III increased alarmingly; the political situation was unfavorable; and the public began to lose interest in the wonder children.

But apart from the sympathy Wolfgang was always to feel with the English people, one experience