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Title: Mozart: The Man and the Artist, as Revealed in his own Words
Author: Friedrich Kerst and Henry Edward Krehbiel
Release Date: May, 2003 [Etext #4042]
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Edition: 11
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INFORMATION ABOUT THIS E-TEXT EDITION
The following is the text of "Mozart: The Man and the Artist, as Revealed in his own Words," compiled and annotated by Friedrich Kerst and translated into english, and edited, with new introduction and additional notes, by Henry Edward Krehbiel. Each page was cut out of the original book with an X-acto knife and fed into an Automatic Document Feeder Scanner to make this e-text, so the original book was disbinded in order to save it.
Some adaptations from the original text were made while formatting it for an e-text. Italics in the original book were ignored in making this e-text, unless they referred to proper nouns, in which case they are put in quotes in the e-text. Italics are problematic because they are not easily rendered in ASCII text.
This electronic text was prepared by John Mamoun with help from numerous other proofreaders, including those associated with Charles Franks' Distributed Proofreaders website. Thanks to C. Franks, S. Harris, A. Montague, S. Morrison, J. Roberts, R. Rowe, R. Tremblay, R. Zimmerman and several others for proof-reading.
Corrections for version 11 of this text made by Andrew Sly.
MOZART: THE MAN AND THE ARTIST, AS REVEALED IN HIS OWN WORDS
BY
FRIEDRICH KERST
TRANSLATED BY HENRY EDWARD KREHBIEL
MOZART: THE MAN AND THE ARTIST, AS REVEALED IN HIS OWN WORDS
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INFORMATION ABOUT THIS E-TEXT EDITION BRIEF BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH MOZART: THE MAN AND THE ARTIST, AS REVEALED IN HIS OWN WORDS
EDITOR'S NOTE THE SIGNIFICANCE OF MOZART CHIPS FROM THE WORKSHOP CONCERNING THE OPERA MUSICAL PEDAGOGICS TOUCHING MUSICAL PERFORMANCES EXPRESSIONS CRITICAL OPINIONS CONCERNING OTHERS WOLFGANG, THE GERMAN SELF-RESPECT AND HONOR AT HOME AND ABROAD LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP WORLDLY WISDOM IN SUFFERING MORALS RELIGION
BRIEF BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
The German composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) was not only a musical genius, but was also one of the pre-eminent geniuses of the Western world. He defined in his music a system of musical thought and an entire state of mind that were unlike any previously experienced. A true child prodigy, he began composing at age 5 and rapidly developed his unmistakable style; by 18 he was composing works capable of altering the mind-states of entire civilizations. Indeed, he and his predecessor Bach accomplished the Olympian feat of adding to the human concepts of civility and civilization. So these two were not just musical geniuses, but geniuses of the humanities.
Mozart's music IS civilization. It encompasses all that is humane about an idealized civilization. And it probably was Mozart's main purpose to create and propagate a concept of a great civilization through his music. He wanted to show his fellow Europeans, with their garbage-polluted citystreets, their violent mono-maniacal leaders and their stifling, non-humane bureaucracies, new ideas on how to run their civilizations properly. He wanted them to hear and feel a sense of civilized movement, of the musical expressions of man moving as he would if upholding the highest values of idealized societies. One need only listen to the revolutionary opening bars of his famous Eine Kleine Nachtmusik to see this.
He was an extremely sophisticated and complex man. His letters reveal him as remarkably creative, fascinated by the arts, principled, religious and devoted to his father. He had an energetic personality that was almost completely devoid of any cynicism, pessimism or discouragement from creating music. While rumors suggest that he was a lascivious individual, there is no evidence of this at all in his letters. Quite the contrary, the evidence seems overwhelmingly to suggest the opposite, and that Mozart may not have had any relations with women except with his own wife.
He was not as shrewd as he was civilized, however. He was peculiarly lax about profiting from his history-changing music. His promoters constantly short-changed him.
He died nearly penniless and in debt, and at his death at age 35 an apathetic public took little notice of this man who had done so much in service to civilization. He was buried in an unmarked pauper's grave with few mourners. After his death, the bones of this great paragon of self-sacrifice for the sake of improving civilization were dug up and disposed of. His grave was then re-used, and to this day no one knows where his bones lie. Perhaps they are in a catacomb somewhere, in a huge bone-pile containing thousands of anonymous cadavers.
But the sounds he heard in his head live on, stimulating millions in elevators, doctors' offices, train terminals, concert halls and myriad other places to be more civilized, assuming that they pay attention to the music.
EDITOR'S NOTE
The purpose and scope of this little book will be obvious to the reader from even a cursory glance at its contents. It is, in a way, an autobiography of Mozart written without conscious purpose, and for that reason peculiarly winning, illuminating and convincing. The outward things in Mozart's life are all but ignored in it, but there is a frank and full disclosure of the great musician's artistic, intellectual and moral character, made in his own words.
The Editor has not only taken the trouble to revise the work of the German author and compiler, but, for reasons which seemed to him imperative, has also made a new translation of all the excerpts. Most of the translations of Mozart's letters which have found their way into the books betray want of familiarity with the idioms and colloquialisms employed by Mozart, as well as understanding of his careless, contradictory and sprawling epistolary style. Some of the intimacy of that style the new translation seeks to preserve, but the purpose has chiefly been to make the meaning plain.
H.E.K.
New York, June 7, 1905
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF MOZART
Mozart! What a radiance streams from the name! Bright and pure as the light of the sun, Mozart's music greets us. We pronounce his name and behold! the youthful artist is before us,—the merry, light-hearted smile upon his features, which belongs only to true and naive genius. It is impossible to imagine an aged Mozart,—an embittered and saddened Mozart,—glowering gloomily at a wicked world which is doing its best to make his lot still more burdensome;—a Mozart whose music should reflect such painful moods.
Mozart was a Child of the Sun. Filled with a humor truly divine, he strolled unconstrainedly through a multitude of cares like Prince Tamino through his fantastic trials. Music was his talisman, his magic flute with which he could exorcise all the petty terrors that beset him. Has such a man and artist—one who was completely resolved in his works, and therefore still stands bodily before us with all his glorious qualities after the lapse of a century—has
But we are in the case of the man in the fairy tale who could not forget the merry tune of the forest bird which he had heard as a boy. We gladly permit ourselves to be led, occasionally, out of the rude realities that surround us, into a beautiful world that knows no care but lies forever bathed in the sunshine of cloudless happiness,—a world in which every loveliness of which fancy has dreamed has taken life and form. It is because of this that we make pilgrimages to the masterpieces of the plastic arts, that we give heed to the speech of Schiller, listen to the music of Mozart. When wearied by the stress of life we gladly hie to Mozart that he may tell us stories of that land of beauty, and convince us that there are other and better occupations than the worries and combats of the fleeting hour. This is what Mozart has to tell us today. In spite of Wagner he has an individual mission to fulfill which will keep him immortal. "That of which Lessing convinces us only with expenditure of many words sounds clear and irresistible in 'The Magic Flute':—the longing for light and day. Therefore there is something like the glory of daybreak in the tones of Mozart's opera; it is wafted towards us like the morning breeze which dispels the shadows and invokes the sun."
Mozart remains ever young; one reason is because death laid hold of him in the middle of his career. While all the world was still gazing expectantly upon him, he vanished from the earth and left no hope deceived. His was the enviable fate of a Raphael, Schiller and Korner. As the German ('tis Schumann's utterance) thinks of Beethoven when he speaks the word symphony, so the name of Mozart in his mind is associated with the conception of things youthful, bright and sunny. Schumann was fully conscious of a purpose when he called out, "Do not put Beethoven in the hands of young people too early; refresh and strengthen them with the fresh and lusty Mozart." Another time he writes: "Does it not seem as if Mozart's works become fresher and fresher the oftener we hear them?"
The more we realize that Wagner places a heavy and intoxicating draught before us the more we shall appreciate the precious mountain spring which laves us in Mozart's music, and the less willing we shall be to permit any opportunity to pass unimproved which offers us the crystal cup. In the mind of Goethe genius was summed up in the name of Mozart. In a prophetic ecstasy he spoke the significant words: "What else is genius than that productive power through which deeds arise, worthy of standing in the presence of God and Nature, and which, for this reason, bear results and are lasting? All the creations of Mozart are of this class; within them there is a generative force which is transplanted from generation to generation, and is not likely soon to be exhausted or devoured."
CHIPS FROM THE WORKSHOP
1. "If one has the talent it pushes for utterance and torments one; it will out; and then one is out with it without questioning. And, look you, there is nothing in this thing of learning out of books. Here, here and here (pointing to his ear, his head and his heart) is your school. If everything is right there, then take your pen and down with it; afterward ask the opinion of a man who knows his business."
(To a musically talented boy who asked Mozart how one might learn to compose.)
2. "I can not write poetically; I am no poet. I can not divide and subdivide my phrases so as to produce light and shade; I am no painter. I can not even give expression to my sentiments and thoughts by gestures and pantomime; I am no dancer. But I can do it with tones; I am a musician….I wish you might live till there is nothing more to be said in music."
(Mannheim, November 8, 1777, in a letter of congratulation to his father who was born on November 14, 1719. Despite his assertion Mozart was an admirable dancer and passionately devoted to the sport. [So says Herr Kerst obviously misconceiving Mozart's words. It is plain to me that the composer had the classic definition of the dance in mind when he said that he was no dancer. The dance of which he was thinking was that described by Charles Kingsley. "A dance in which every motion was a word, and rest as eloquent as motion; in which every attitude was a fresh motive for a sculptor of the purest school, and the highest physical activity was manifested, not as in coarse pantomime, in fantastic bounds and unnatural distortions, but in perpetual delicate modulations of a stately and self-sustained grace." H.E.K.])
3. "The poets almost remind me of the trumpeters with their tricks of handicraft. If we musicians were to stick as faithfully to our rules (which were very good as long as we had no better) we should make as worthless music as they make worthless books."
(Vienna, October 13, 1781, to his father. He is writing about the libretto of "Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail," by Stephanie. The trumpeters at the time still made use of certain flourishes which had been traditionally preserved in their guild.)
4. "I have spared neither care nor labor to produce something excellent for Prague. Moreover it is a mistake to think that the practice of my art has become easy to me. I assure you, dear friend, no one has given so much care to the study of composition as I. There is scarcely a famous master in music whose works I have not frequently and diligently studied."
(A remark to Conductor Kucharz in Prague, who led the rehearsals for "Don Giovanni" in 1787.)
5. "They are, indeed, the fruit of long and painstaking labor; but the hope which some of my friends aroused in me, that my work would be rewarded at least in part, has given me courage and the flattering belief that these, my offspring, will some day bring me comfort."
(From the dedication of the Six Quartets to Haydn in 1785. The quartets were sent back to the publisher, Artaria, from Italy, because "they contained so many misprints." The unfamiliar chords and dissonances were looked upon as printers' errors. Grassalkowitsch, a Hungarian prince, thought his musicians were playing faultily in some of these passages, and when he learned differently he tore the music in pieces.)
6. "I can not deny, but must confess that I shall be glad when I receive my release from this place. Giving lessons here is no fun; you must work yourself pretty tired, and if you don't give a good many lessons you will make but little money. You must not think that it is laziness;—no!—but it goes counter to my genius, counter to my mode of life. You know that, so to speak, I am wrapped up in music,—that I practice it all day long,—that I like to speculate, study, consider. All this is prevented by my mode of life here. I shall, of course, have some free hours, but they will be so few that they will be necessary more for recuperation than work."
(Paris, July 31, 1778, to his father.)
7. "M. Le
(Paris, October 3, 1778, to his father. An evidence of the retentiveness of Mozart's memory. In this instance, however, he did not carry out his expressed intention. Le Gros was director of the Concerts spirituels.)
8. "Melody is the essence of music. I compare a good melodist to a fine racer, and counterpointists to hack post-horses; therefore be advised, let well alone and remember the old Italian proverb: Chi sa piu, meno sa—'Who knows most, knows least.'"
(To the English tenor Michael Kelly, about 1786, in answer to Kelly's question whether or not he should take up the study of counterpoint.)
9. "One of the priests gave me a theme. I took it on a promenade and in the middle (the fugue was in G minor) I began in the major, with something jocose but in the same tempo; finally the theme again, but backwards. Finally I wondered if I might not use the playful melody as a theme for a fugue. I did not question long, but made it at once, and it went as accurately as if Daser had measured it for the purpose. The dean was beside himself."
(Augsburg, October 23, 1777, to his father. Daser was a tailor in
Salzburg.)
10. "Above us is a violinist, below us another, next door a singing teacher who gives lessons, and in the last room opposite ours, a hautboyist. Merry conditions for composing! You get so many ideas!"
(Milan, August 23, 1771, to his "dearest sister.")
11. "If I but had the theme on paper,—worked out, of course. It is too silly that we have got to hatch out our work in a room."
(A remark to his wife while driving through a beautiful bit of nature and humming all manner of ideas that came into his head.)
12. "I'd be willing to work forever and forever if I were permitted to write only such music as I want to write and can write—which I myself think good. Three weeks ago I made a symphony, and by tomorrow's post I shall write again to Hofmeister and offer him three pianoforte quartets, if he has the money."
(Written in 1789 to a baron who was his friend and who had submitted a symphony for his judgment. F.A. Hofmeister was a composer and publisher in Vienna.)
13. "You can do a thing like this for the pianoforte, but not for the theatre. When I wrote this I was still too fond of hearing my own music, and never could make an end."
(A remark to Rochlitz while revising and abbreviating the principal air in "Die Entfuhrung.")
14. "You know that I had already finished the first Allegro on the second day after my arrival here, and consequently had seen Mademoiselle Cannabich only once. Then came young Danner and asked me how I intended to write the Andante. 'I will make it fit the character of Mademoiselle Rose.' When I played it, it pleased immensely….I was right; she is just like the Andante."
(Mannheim, December 6, 1777, to his father. Rose Cannabich was a pupil of Mozart's, aged thirteen and very talented. "She is very sensible for her age, has a staid manner, is serious, speaks little, but when she does speak it is with grace and amiability," writes Mozart in the same letter. It is also related of Beethoven that he sometimes delineated persons musically. [Also Schumann. H.E.K.])
15. "I have composed a Quintet for Oboe, Clarinet, Horn, Bassoon and Pianoforte, which has been received with extraordinary favor. (Kochel, No. 452.) I myself think it the best thing I ever wrote in my life."
(Vienna, April 10, 1784, to his father.)
16. "As an exercise I have set the aria, 'Non so d'onde viene,' which Bach composed so beautifully. I did it because I know Bach so well, and the aria pleases me so much that I can't get it out of my head. I wanted to see whether or not in spite of these things I was able to make an aria that should not be a bit like Bach's. It isn't a bit, not a bit like it."
(Mannheim, February 28, 1778, to his father. The lovely aria is
No. 294 in Kochel's catalogue. The Bach referred to was Johann
Christian, the "London" Bach.)
17. "I haven't a single quiet hour here. I can not write except at night and consequently can not get up early. One is not always in the mood for writing. Of course I could scribble all day long, but these things go out into the world and I want not to be ashamed of myself when I see my name on them. And then, as you know, I become stupid as soon as I am obliged to write for an instrument that I can not endure. Occasionally for the sake of a change I have composed something else—pianoforte duets with the violin, and a bit of the mass."
(Mannheim, February 14, 1778, to his father. Mozart was ill disposed toward the pianoforte at the time. His love for Aloysia Weber occupied the most of his attention and time.)
18. "Herewith I am sending you a Prelude and a three-voiced Fugue (Kochel, No. 394)….It is awkwardly written; the prelude must come first and the fugue follow. The reason for its appearance is because I had made the fugue and wrote it out while I was thinking out the prelude."
(Vienna, April 20, 1782, to his sister Marianne. Here Mozart gives us evidence of his manner of composing; he worked out his compositions completely in his mind and was then able, even after considerable time had elapsed, to write them down, in which proceeding nothing could disturb him. In the case before us while engaged in the more or less mechanical labor of transcription he thought out a new composition. Concerning the fugue and its origin he continues to gossip in the same letter.)
19. "The cause of this fugue seeing the light of this world is my dear Constanze. Baron von Swieten, to whom I go every Sunday, let me carry home all the works of Handel and Sebastian Bach after I had played them through for him. Constanze fell in love with the fugues as soon as she had heard them; she doesn't want to hear anything but fugues, especially those of Handel and Bach. Having often heard me improvise fugues she asked me if I had never written any down, and when I said no, she gave me a good scolding, for not being willing to write the most beautiful things in music, and did not cease her begging until I had composed one for her, and so it came about. I purposely wrote the indication 'Andante maestoso,' so that it should not be played too rapidly;—for unless a fugue is played slowly the entrance of the subject will not be distinctly and clearly heard and the piece will be ineffective. As soon as I find time and opportunity I shall write five more."
(Vienna, April 20, 1782, to his sister Marianne. Cf. No. 93. [Mozart's remark that he carried home "all the works" of Handel and Bach, must, of course, be read as meaning all that were in print at the time. H.E.K.])
20. "I have no small amount of work ahead of me. By Sunday week I must have my opera arranged for military band or somebody will be ahead of me and carry away the profits; and I must also write a new symphony. How will that be possible? You have no idea how difficult it is to make such an arrangement so that it shall be adapted to wind instruments and yet lose nothing of its effect. Well, well;—I shall have to do the work at night."
(Vienna, July 20, 1782, to his father who had asked for a symphony for the Hafner family in Salzburg. The opera referred to is "Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail.")
21. "I was firmly resolved to write the Adagio for the clock-maker at once so that I might drop a few ducats into the hands of my dear little wife; and I began it, but was unlucky
(Frankfort-on-the-Main, October 3, 1790, to his wife. "A Piece for an Organ in a Clock." [Kochel's catalogue, No. 594.] It was probably ordered by Count Deym for his Wax-works Museum on the occasion of the death of the famous Field Marshal Laudon. The dominant mood of sorrow prevails in the first movement; the Allegro is in Handel's style.)
CONCERNING THE OPERA
When he was twenty-two years old Mozart wrote to his father, "I am strongly filled with the desire to write an opera." Often does he speak of this ambition. It was, in fact, his true and individual field as the symphony was that of Beethoven. He took counsel with his father by letter touching many details in his earlier operas, wherefore we are advised about their origin, and, what is more to the purpose, about Mozart's fine aesthetic judgment. His four operatic masterpieces are imperishable, and a few words about them are in place, particularly since Mozart has left numerous and interesting comments on "Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail." This first German opera he composed with the confessed purpose of substituting a work designed for the "national lyric stage" for the conventional and customary Italian opera. Despite its Hispano-Turkish color, the work is so ingenuous, so German in feeling, and above all so full of German humor that the success was unexampled, and Mozart could write to his father: "The people are daft over my opera." Here, at the very outset, Mozart's humor, the golden one of all the gifts with which Mother Nature had endowed him, was called into play. With this work German comic opera took its beginning. As has been remarked "although it has been imitated, it has never been surpassed in its musically comic effects." The delightfully Falstaffian figure of Osmin, most ingeniously characterized in the music, will create merriment for all time, and the opera acquires a new, personal and peculiarly amiable charm from the fact that we are privileged to see in the love-joy of "Belmont" and "Constanze" an image of that of the young composer and his "Stanzerl."
After "Die Entfuhrung" (1782) came "Le Nozze di Figaro" (1786), "Don Giovanni" (1787), and "Die Zauberflote" (1791). It would be a vain task to attempt to establish any internal relationship between these works. Mozart was not like Wagner, a strong personality capable of devoting a full sum of vital force to the carrying out of a chosen and approved principle. As is generally the case with geniuses, he was a child; a child led by momentary conditions; moreover, a child of the rococo period. There is, therefore, no cause of wonderment in the fact that Italian texts are again used in "Le Nozze di Figaro" and "Don Giovanni," and that another, but this time a complete German opera, does not appear until we reach "Die Zauberflote."
Nevertheless it is possible to note a development towards a climax in the four operas respecting Mozart's conception of the world. It has been denied that there is a single red thread in Mozart's life-work. Nevertheless our method of study will disclose to us an ever-growing view of human lift, and a deeper and deeper glimpse into the emotional and intellectual life of man, his aims and destiny. From the almost commonplace conditions of "Die Entfuhrung," where a rascal sings in the best of humor of first beheading and then hanging a man, we reach a plane in "The Marriage of Figaro," in which despite the refinement and mitigation of Beaumarchais's indictment we feel the revolutionary breeze freshly blowing. In "Don Giovanni" we see the individual set up in opposition to God and the world, in order that he fulfill his destiny, or live out his life, as the popular phrase goes today. Here the tremendous tragedy which lies in the story has received a musical expression quite without parallel, notwithstanding the moderation exercised in the employment of means. In "Die Zauberflote," finally, we observe the clarification which follows the fermentation. Here we breathe the pure, clear atmosphere of heaven, the atmosphere within which he can live who has freed himself from selfish desire, thus gaining internal peace, and who recognizes his ego only in the happiness and welfare of others.
22. "I have an unspeakable desire to compose another opera….In Italy one can acquire more honor and credit with an opera than with a hundred concerts in Germany, and I am the happier because I can compose, which, after all, is my one joy and passion….I am beside myself as soon as I hear anybody talk about an opera, sit in a theatre or hear singing."
(Munich, October 11, 1777, to his father, reporting an expectation of making a position for himself in Italy.)
23. "I beg of you do your best that we may go to Italy. You know my greatest longing—to write operas….Do not forget my wish to write operas! I am envious of every man who composes one; I could almost weep from chagrin whenever I hear or see an aria. But Italian, not German; seria not buffa."
(Mannheim, February 2, 1778, to his father. Mozart wanted to go with the Weber family (he was in love with Aloysia, his future sister-in-law) to Italy while his father was desirous that he should go to Paris.)
24. "I am strongly possessed by the desire to write an opera— French rather than German, but Italian rather than either German or French. Wendling's associates are all of the opinion that my compositions would please extraordinarily in Paris. One thing is certain; I would not fear the test. As you know I am able to assimilate and imitate pretty much all styles of composition."
(Mannheim, February 7, 1778, to his father. Wendling was a flautist in Mannheim.)
25. "I assure you that if I get a commission to compose an opera I shall not be frightened. True the (French) language is of the devil's own making, and I fully appreciate all the difficulties that composers have encountered; but I feel myself as capable of overcoming them as any other composer. Au contraire when I convince myself that all is well with my opera, I feel as if my body were afire—my hands and feet tremble with desire to make the Frenchman value and fear the German. Why is no Frenchman ever commissioned to write a grand opera? Why must it always be a foreigner? In my case the most unendurable thing would be the singers. Well, I'm ready. I shall begin no dickerings, but if I am challenged I shall know how to defend myself. But I should prefer to get along without a duel; I do not like to fight with dwarfs."
(Paris, July 31, 1778, to his father.)
26. "Do you imagine that I would write an opera comique in the same manner as an opera seria? There must be as little learning and seriousness in an opera buffa as there must be much of these elements in an opera seria; but all the more of playfulness and merriment. I am not responsible for the fact that there is a desire also to hear comic music in an opera seria; the difference is sharply drawn here. I find that the buffoon has not been banished from music, and in this respect the French are right."
(Vienna, June 16, 1781, to his father. Mozart draws the line of demarcation sharply between tragedy and comedy in opera. ["Shakespeare has taught us to accept an infusion of the comic element in plays of a serious cast; but Shakespeare was an innovator, a Romanticist, and, measured by old standards, his dramas are
27. "In opera, willy-nilly, poetry must be the obedient daughter of music. Why do Italian operas please everywhere, even in Paris, as I have been a witness, despite the wretchedness of their librettos? Because in them music rules and compels us to forget everything else. All the more must an opera please in which the plot is well carried out, and the words are written simply for the sake of the music and not here and there to please some miserable rhyme, which, God knows, adds nothing to a theatrical representation but more often harms it. Verses are the most indispensable thing in music, but rhymes, for the sake of rhymes, the most injurious. Those who go to work so pedantically will assuredly come to grief along with the music. It were best if a good composer, who understands the stage, and is himself able to suggest something, and a clever poet could be united in one, like a phoenix. Again, one must not fear the applause of the unknowing."
(Vienna, October 13, 1781, to his father. The utterance is notable as showing Mozart's belief touching the relationship between text and music; he places himself in opposition to Gluck whose ideas were at a later day accepted by Wagner. ["It was my intention to confine music to its true dramatic province, of assisting poetical expression, and of augmenting the interest of the fable, without interrupting the action, or chilling it with useless and superfluous ornaments; for the office of music, when joined to poetry, seemed to me to resemble that of coloring in a correct and well disposed design, where the lights and shades only seem to animate the figures without altering the outline." Gluck in his dedication of "Alceste" to the Grand Duke of Tuscany. "The error in the genre of opera consists herein, that a means of expression (music) has been made the end, while the end of expression (the drama) has been made a means." Wagner, "Opera and Drama." H.E.K.])
28. "Nota bene, what has always seemed unnatural in an aria are the asides. In speech one can easily and quickly throw in a few words in an aside; but in an aria, in which the words must be repeated, the effect is bad."
(Munich, November 8, 1780, to his father. Mozart had been invited to Munich to compose an opera, "Idomeneo, Re di Creta," for the carnival of 1781. [In contradistinction to the observations touching poetry and music in the preceding paragraph, this remark shows that he nevertheless had a sense of dramatic propriety. He accepted the form as he found it, but protested against the things which stood in the way of its vitalization. H.E.K.])
29. "The second duet will be cut out entirely—more for the good than the harm of the opera. You shall see for yourself, if you read over the scene, that it would be weakened and cooled by an aria or duet, which, moreover, would be extremely annoying to the other actors who would have to stand around with nothing to do; besides the magnanimous contest between 'Ilia' and 'Idamante' would become too long and therefore lose in value."
(Munich, November 13, 1780, to his father. The reference is to the opera "Idomeneo.")
30. "It will be better to write a recitative under which the instruments can do some good work; for in this scene, which is to be the best in the whole opera, there will be so much noise and confusion on the stage that an aria would cut but a sorry figure. Moreover there will be a thunder-storm which is not likely to cease out of respect for an aria, and the effect of a recitative between two choruses will be incomparably better."
(Munich, November 15, to his father. Mozart was at work on
"Idomeneo.")
31. "Don't you think that the speech of the subterranean voice is too long? Think it over, carefully. Imagine the scene on the stage. The voice must be terrifying—it must be impressive, one must believe it real. How can this be so if the speech is too long—the length itself convincing the listener of the fictitiousness of the scene? If the speech of the 'Ghost' in 'Hamlet' were not so long it would be more effective."
(Vienna, November 29, 1780, to his father, who had made the following suggestions respecting the opera "Idomeneo." "Idamante and Ilia have a short quarrel (near the close of the opera) in a few words of recitative which is interrupted by a subterranean noise, whereupon the oracle speaks also from the depths. The voice and the accompaniment must be moving, terrifying and most extraordinary; it ought to make a masterpiece of harmony.")
32. "In a word: far-fetched or unusual words are always out of place in an agreeable aria; moreover, I should like to have the aria suggest only restfulness and satisfaction; and if it consisted of only one part I should still be satisfied—in fact, I should prefer to have it so."
(Munich, December 5, 1780, to his father. "Idomeneo" is still the subject of discussion.)
33. "As to the matter of popularity, be unconcerned; there is music in my opera for all sorts of persons—but none for long ears."
(Munich, December 16, 1780, to his father, who had expressed a fear that Mozart would not write down to the level of his public. [On December 11, his father had written: "I recommend you not to think in your work only of the musical public, but also of the unmusical. You know that there are a hundred ignorant people for every ten true connoisseurs; so do not forget what is called popular and tickle the long ears." H.E.K.])
34. "I have had a good deal of trouble with him about the quartet. The oftener I fancy it performed on the stage the more effective it seems to me; and it has pleased all who have heard it on the pianoforte. Raaff alone thinks it will make no effect. He said to me in private: 'Non c'e da spianar la voce—it is too curt.' As if we should not speak more than we sing in a quartet! He has no understanding of such things. I said to him simply: 'My dear friend, if I knew a single note which might be changed in this quartet I would change it at once; but I have not been so completely satisfied with anything in the opera as I am with this quartet; when you have heard it sung together you will talk differently. I have done my best to fit you with the two arias, will do it again with the third, and hope to succeed; but you must let the composer have his own way in trios and quartets.' Whereupon he was satisfied. Recently he was vexed because of one of the words in his best aria—'rinvigorir' and 'ringiovenir,' particularly 'vienmi a rinvigorir'—five i's. It is true it is very unpleasant at the conclusion of an aria."
(Munich, December 27, 1780, to his father. Raaff was the principal singer in the opera "Idomeneo," which Mozart had been commissioned to write by the Elector for Munich. The observation shows how capable Mozart was of appreciating foreign criticism.)
35. "My head and hands are so full of the third act that it would not be strange if I were myself transformed into a third act. It has cost me more care than an entire opera, for there is scarcely a scene in it which is not interesting. The accompaniment for the subterranean voice consists of five voices only—three trombones and two French-horns, which are placed at
(Munich, January 3, 1781, to his father, whom in the same letter he invites to Munich to hear the opera.)
36. "After the chorus of mourning the King, the populace, everybody, leave the stage, and the next scene begins with the directions: 'Idomeneo in ginochione nel tempio (Idomeneus, kneeling in the temple).' That will never do; he must come with all his following. That necessitates a march, and I have composed a very simple one for two violins, viola, bass and two oboes, which is to be played a mezza voce, during which the King enters and the priests make the preparations for the sacrifice. Then the King sinks on his knees and begins his prayer. In Electra's recitative, after the subterranean voice, the word 'Partono (they go)' should be written in; I forgot to look at the copy made for the printer and do not know whether or how the direction has been written in. It seems silly to me that everybody should hurry away only in order to leave Mademoiselle Electra alone."
(Munich, January 3, 1781, to his father.)
37. "I am glad to compose the book. The time is short, it is true, for it must be performed about the middle of September; but the circumstances connected with the performances, and a number of other purposes, are of such a character that they enliven my spirits in such a degree that I hurry to my writing desk and remain seated there with great joy."
(Vienna, August 1, 1781, to his father. The opera referred to is "Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail." The "circumstances" were the court festivals which were to celebrate the coming of the Russian Grand Duke, from which Mozart, as was his wont, expected all manner of future benefits.)
38. "As regards the work of Stephanie you are right, of course, but nevertheless the poetry is well fitted to the character of the stupid, coarse and malicious Osmin. I know full well that the style of the verse is none of the best, but it has so adjusted itself to the musical thoughts (which were promenading in my brain in advance) that the lines had to please me, and I will wager there will be no disappointment at the performance. So far as the songs are concerned they are not to be despised. Belmont's aria 'O, wie angstlich' could scarcely have been written better for music."
(Vienna, October 13, 1781, to his father. Stephanie was the author of the libretto of "Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail.")
39. "An aria has been written for Osmin in the first act….You have seen only the beginning and end of it, which must be effective; the rage of Osmin is made ridiculous by the use of Turkish music. In developing the aria I have given him (Fischer, a bass) a chance to show his beautiful low tones. The 'By the beard of the Prophet' remains in the same tempo but has quicker notes, and as his anger grows continually, when one thinks that the aria is come to an end, the Allegro assai must make the best kind of an effect when it enters in a different measure and key. Here is the reason: a man who is in such a violent rage oversteps all order, all moderation; he forgets himself, and the music must do the same.
"Inasmuch as the passions, whether violent or not, must never be carried in their expression to the verge of disgust, and music, even in the most awful situations must not offend the ear but always please, consequently always remain music, I have not chosen a key foreign to F (i.e. the key of the aria), but a related one,—not the nearest, D minor, but the more distant, A minor. You know how I have given expression to Belmont's aria, 'O, wie angstlich, O wie feurig,'—there is a suggestion of the beating heart,—the violins in octaves. This is the favorite aria of all who have heard it,—of myself, as well,—and is written right into the voice of Adamberger. One can see the reeling and trembling, one can see the heaving breast which is illustrated by a crescendo; one hears the lispings and sighs expressed by the muted violins with flute in unison. The Janizary chorus is, as such, all that could be asked, short and jolly, written to suit the Viennese."
(Vienna, September 26, 1781, to his father. Concerning the composition of "Die Entfuhrung," Mozart delivered himself at greater length and more explicitly than about any other opera. From the above excerpt one can learn his notions touching musical characterization and delineation. ["Turkish" music, or "Janizary" music, is that in which the percussion effects of Oriental music are imitated—music utilizing the large drum, cymbals, etc. H.E.K.])
40. "The close will make a deal of noise; and that is all that is necessary for the end of an act;—the noisier the better, the shorter the better, so that the people shall not get too cool to applaud."
(Vienna, September 26, 1781, to his father. The Trio at the end of the first act is the finale referred to.)
41. "My opera is to be performed again next Friday, but I have protested against it as I do not want it to be ridden to death at once. The public, I may say, are daft about this opera. It does a fellow good to receive such applause."
(Vienna, July 27, 1782, to his father.)
42. "My opera was performed again yesterday, this time at the request of Gluck. Gluck paid me many compliments on it. I am to dine with him tomorrow."
(Vienna, August 7, 1782, to his father. [How Mozart and Gluck differed in principle on the relation between text and music the reader has already had an opportunity to learn. H.E.K.])
43. "The most necessary thing is that the whole be really comical; then, if possible, there should be two equally good female parts, one seria, the other mezzo carattere; but one must be as good as the other. The third woman may be all buffa, also all the men if necessary."
(Vienna, May 7, 1783, to his father, in Salzburg, where the Abbe
Varesco was to write an opera libretto.)
44. "It would be a pity if I should have composed this music for nothing, that is to say if no regard is to be shown for things that are absolutely essential. Neither you, nor Abbe Varesco, nor I, reflected that it will be a bad thing, that the opera will be a failure, in fact, if neither of the principal women appears on the scene until the last minute, but both are kept promenading on the bastion of the fortress. I credit the audience with patience enough for one act, but it would never endure the second. It must not be."
(Vienna, December 6, 1783, to his father. The opera in question, entitled "L'Oca del Cairo," was never finished.)
45. "Abbe Varesco has written over the cavatina for Lavina: a cui servira la musica della cavatina antecedente,—that is the cavatina of Celidora. But that will never do. In Celidora's cavatina the words are comfortless and hopeless, while in Lavina's cavatina they are full of comfort and hope. Moreover it is hackneyed and no longer customary habit to let one singer echo the song of another. At best it might only be done by a soubrette and her sweetheart at ultime parti."
(Vienna, December 24, 1783, to his father. The Italian phrase is a direction that the music of a preceding cavatina might be used for a second cavatina.)
46. "It is much more natural, since they have all come to an agreement in the quartetto to carry out their plan of attack that the men leave the stage to gather their helpers together, and the women quietly retire to their retreat. All that can be allowed them is a few lines of recitative."
(Vienna, December 24, 1783, to his father. The situation referred to was in Varesco's opera which never reached completion.)
47. "At six o'clock I drove with Count Canal to the so-called
(Prague, January 15, 1787, to a friend, whose name is unknown.)
48. "'Don Giovanni' was not written for the Viennese; rather for the people of Prague, but most of all for me and my friends."
(Reported by Nissen, who also relates that Mozart often said "The Bohemians are the ones who understand me." When "Le Nozze di Figaro" received an enthusiastic reception in Prague, Mozart said: "Because the Bohemians understand me so well I must write an opera for them." The opera was "Don Giovanni.")
49. "I am just home from the opera; it was as crowded as ever. The duet, 'Mann und Weib,' and the bells in the first act, were repeated as usual,—also the trio of the boys in the second act. But what delights me most is the silent applause! It is easy to see how this opera is ever rising."
(Vienna, October 7, 1791, to his wife. The opera was "Die
Zauberflote.")
MUSICAL PEDAGOGICS
50. "Herr Stein is completely daft on the subject of his daughter. She is eight years old and learns everything by heart. Something may come of her for she has talent, but not if she goes on as she is doing now; she will never acquire velocity because she purposely makes her hand heavy. She will never learn the most necessary, most difficult and principal thing in music, that is time, because from childhood she has designedly cultivated the habit of ignoring the beat."
(Augsburg, October 23, 1777, to his father. Nanette Stein afterward married Andreas Streicher, who was Schiller's companion in his flight to Franconia. As Frau Streicher she became Beethoven's faithful friend and frequently took it upon herself to straighten out his domestic affairs.)
51. "If she does not get some thoughts and ideas (for now she has absolutely none), it will all be in vain, for God knows, I can not give her any. It is not her father's intention to make a great composer out of her. 'She shall,' he says, 'not write any operas, or arias, or symphonies, but only great sonatas for her instrument and mine!' I gave her her fourth lesson today, and so far as the rules of composition and her exercises are concerned I am pretty well satisfied with her. She wrote a very good bass to the first minuet which I set her, and has already begun to write in three parts. It goes, but she gets bored too quickly. I can not help her; progress is impossible, she is too young even if she had talent. Unfortunately she has none; she must be taught artificially; she has no ideas, there are no results, I have tried in every sort of way. Among other things it occurred to me to write down a very simple minuet and to see if she could write a variation on it. In vain. Well, thought I, it is because she does not know how to begin. I then began a variation of the first measure and told her to continue it in the same manner; that went fairly well. When she had made an end I asked her to begin something of her own,—only the first voice, a melody. She thought a full quarter of an hour, and nothing came. Thereupon I wrote four measures of a minuet and said to her: 'Now look what an ass I am; I have begun a minuet and can't finish even the first part; be good enough to finish it for me.' She thought it impossible. At length she produced a little something to my joy. Then I made her finish the minuet, i.e. only the first voice. For her home work I have given her nothing to do except to alter my four measures and make something out of them, to invent another beginning, to keep to the harmony if she must, but to write a new melody. We shall see what comes of it tomorrow."
(Paris, May 14, 1778, to his father. The pupil was the daughter of the Duke de Guines, an excellent flautist. "She plays the harp magnificently," writes Mozart in the same letter; "has a great deal of talent and genius, and an incomparable memory. She knows 200 pieces and plays them all by heart." When it came to paying Mozart for the lessons the Duke was anything but a nobleman.)
52. "The Andante is going to give us the most trouble, for it is full of expression and must be played with taste and accurately as written in the matter of forte and piano. She is very clever and learns quickly. The right hand is very good but the left utterly ruined. I can say that I often pity her when I see that she is obliged to labor till she gasps, not because she is unapt, but because she can't help it,—she is used to playing so, nobody ever taught her differently. I said to her mother and her that if I were her regular teacher, I would lock up all her music, cover the keyboard with a handkerchief, and make her practice both hands at first slowly on nothing but passages, trills, mordents, etc., until the difficulty with the left hand was remedied; after that I am sure I could make a real clavier player out of her. It is a pity; she has so much genius, reads respectably, has a great deal of natural fluency and plays with a great deal of feeling."
(Mannheim, November 16, 1777, to his father. The pupil was Rose Cannabich, to whom the sonata referred to is dedicated. Her father, whom Mozart admired greatly as an able conductor, was Chapelmaster of the excellently trained orchestra at Mannheim. He lived from 1731 to 1798. [The Andante from which trouble was expected was that which Mozart wrote with the purpose that it should reflect the character of Rose Cannabich, a lovely and amiable girl, according to all accounts. H.E.K.])
53. "This E is very forced. One can see that it was written only to go from one consonance to another in parallel motion,—just as bad poets write nonsense for the sake of a rhyme."
(From the exercise book of the cousin of Abbe Stadler who took lessons in thorough-bass from Mozart in 1784. It is preserved in the Court Library in Vienna.)
54. "My good lad, you ask my advice and I will give it you candidly; had you studied composition when you were at Naples, and when your mind was not devoted to other pursuits, you would, perhaps, have done wisely; but now that your profession of the stage must, and ought to, occupy all your attention, it would be an unwise measure to enter into a dry study. You may take my word for it, Nature has made you a melodist, and you would only disturb and perplex yourself. Reflect, 'a little knowledge is a dangerous thing;'—should there be errors in what you write, you will find hundreds of musicians in all parts of the world capable of correcting them, therefore do not disturb your natural gift."
(To Michael Kelly, the Irish tenor, to whom Mozart assigned the parts of Basilio and Don Curzio at the first performance of "Le Nozze di Figaro" in 1786. Kelly had asked Mozart whether or not he should study counterpoint. [See No. 8. Three years later Kelly returned to England, began his career as composer of musical pieces for the stage. He was fairly prolific, but failed to impress the public with the originality of his creative talent. He went into the wine business, which fact led Sheridan to make the witty suggestion that he inscribe over his shop: "Michael Kelly, Composer of Wines and Importer of Music." He was born in 1764 and died in 1826. H.E.K.])