Mozart: The Man and the Artist, as Revealed in His Own Words Part 4

70. "Beecke told me (and it is true) that music is now played in the cabinet of the Emperor (Joseph II) bad enough to set the dogs a-running. I remarked that unless I quickly escape such music I get a headache. 'It doesn't hurt me in the least; bad music leaves my nerves unaffected, but I sometimes get a headache from good music.' Then I thought to myself: Yes, such a shallow-pate as you feels a pain as soon as he hears something which he can not understand."

(Mannheim, November 13, 1777, to his father. Beecke was a conceited pianist.)

71. "Nothing gives me so much pleasure in the antic.i.p.ation as the Concert spirituel in Paris, for I fancy I shall be called on to compose something. The orchestra is said to be large and good, and my princ.i.p.al favorites can be well performed there, that is to say choruses, and I am right glad that the Frenchmen are fond of them....Heretofore Paris has been used to the choruses of Gluck. Depend on me; I shall labor with all my powers to do honor to the name of Mozart."

(Mannheim. February 28, 1778, to his father. On March 7 he writes: "I have centered all my hopes on Paris, for the German princes are all n.i.g.g.ards.")

72. "I do not know whether or not my symphony pleases, and, to tell you the truth, I don't much care. Whom should it please? I warrant it will please the few sensible Frenchmen who are here, and there will be no great misfortune if it fails to please the stupids. Still I have some hope that the a.s.ses too will find something in it to their liking."

(Paris, June 12, 1778, to his father. The symphony is that known as the "Parisian" (Kochel, No. 297). It is characterized by brevity and wealth of melody.)

73. "The most of the symphonies are not to the local taste. If I find time I shall revise a few violin concertos,--shorten them,-- for our taste in Germany is for long things; as a matter of fact, short and good is better."

(Paris, September 11, 1778, to his father, in Salzburg.

In the same letter he says: "I a.s.sure you the journey was not unprofitable to me--that is to say in the matter of composition.")

74. "If only this d.a.m.ned French language were not so ill adapted to music! It is abominable; German is divine in comparison. And then the singers!--men and women--they are unmentionable. They do not sing; they shriek, they howl with all their might, through throat, nose and gullet."

(Paris, July 9, 1778, to his father. Mozart was thinking of writing a French opera.)

75. "Ah, if we too had clarinets! You can't conceive what a wonderful effect a symphony with flutes, oboes and clarinets makes. At the first audience with the Archbishop I shall have much to tell him, and, probably, a few suggestions to make. Alas!

our music might be much better and more beautiful if only the Archbishop were willing."

(Mannheim, December 3, 1778, to his father. Mozart was on his return to Salzburg where he had received an appointment in the Archiepiscopal chapel. It seems that wood-wind instruments were still absent from the symphony orchestra in Salzburg.)

76. "Others know as well as you and I that tastes are continually changing, and that the changes extend even into church music; this should not be, but it accounts for the fact that true church music is now found only in the attic and almost eaten up by the worms."

(Vienna, April 12, 1783, to his father, who was active as Court Chapelmaster in Salzburg, and who had been asked by his son in the same letter, when it grew a little warmer, "to look in the attic and send some of your (his) church music.")

77. "The themes pleased me most in the symphony; yet it will be the least effective, for there is too much in it, and a fragmentary performance of it sounds like an ant hill looks,-- that is as if the devil had been turned loose in it."

(In a letter written in 1789 to a n.o.bleman who was a composer and had submitted a symphony to Mozart for criticism.)

78. "So far as melody is concerned, yes; for dramatic effect, no.

Moreover the scores which you may see here, outside those of Gretry, are by Gluck, Piccini and Salieri, and there is nothing French about them except the words."

(A remark made to Joseph Frank, whom Mozart frequently found occupied with French scores, and who had asked whether the study of Italian scores were not preferable.)

79. "The ode is elevated, beautiful, everything you wish, but too exaggerated and bombastic for my ears. But what would you? The golden mean, the truth, is no longer recognized or valued. To win applause one must write stuff so simple that a coachman might sing it after you, or so incomprehensible that it pleases simply because no sensible man can comprehend it. But it is not this that I wanted to discuss with you, but another matter. I have a strong desire to write a book, a little work on musical criticism with ill.u.s.trative examples. N.B., not under my name."

(Vienna, December 28, 1782, to his father. "I was working on a very difficult task--a Bardic song by Denis on Gibraltar. It is a secret, for a Hungarian lady wants thus to honor Denis." When Gibraltar was gallantly defended against the Spaniards, Mozart's father wrote to him calling his attention to the victory. Mozart replied: "Yes, I have heard of England's triumph, and, indeed, with great joy (for you know well that I am an arch-Englishman)."

The little book of criticism never appeared.)

80. "The orchestra in Berlin contains the greatest aggregation of virtuosi in the world; I never heard such quartet playing as here; but when all the gentlemen are together they might do better."

(To King Frederick William II, in 1789, when asked for an opinion on the orchestra in Berlin. The king asked Mozart to transfer his services to the Court at Berlin; Mozart replied: "Shall I forsake my good Emperor?")

OPINIONS CONCERNING OTHERS

81. "Holzbauer's music is very beautiful; the poetry is not worthy of it. What amazes me most is that so old a man as Holzbauer should have so much spirit,--it is incredible, the amount of fire in his music."

(Mannheim, November 14, 1777, to his father. Ignaz Holzbauer was born in Vienna, in 1711, and died as chapelmaster in Mannheim, on April 7, 1793. During the last years of his life he was totally deaf. The music referred to was the setting of the first great German Singspiel, "Gunther von Schwarzburg.")

82. "There is much that is pretty in many of Martini's things, but in ten years n.o.body will notice them."

(Reported by Nissen. Martini lived in Bologna from 1706 to 1784; there Mozart learned to know and admire him. In 1776 he wrote a letter to him in which he said that of all people in the world he "loved, honored and valued" him most.)

83. "For those who seek only light entertainment in music n.o.body better can be recommended than Paisiello."

(Reported by Nissen. Paisiello was born in Taranto in 1741, composed over a hundred operas which, like his church music, won much applause. He died in Naples in 1816. Mozart considered his music "transparent.")

84. "Jomelli has his genre in which he s.h.i.+nes, and we must abandon the thought of supplanting him in that field in the judgment of the knowing. But he ought not to have abandoned his field to compose church music in the old style, for instance."

(Reported by Nissen. Jomelli was born in 1714 near Naples, where he died in 1774. He was greatly admired as a composer of operas and church music. He was Court Chapelmaster in Stuttgart from 1753 to 1769.)

85. "Wait till you know how many of his works we have in Vienna!

When I get back home I shall diligently study his church music, and I hope to learn a great deal from it."

(A remark made in Leipsic when somebody spoke slightingly of the music of Ga.s.smann, an Imperial Court Chapelmaster in Vienna, and much respected by Maria Theresa and Joseph.)

86. "The fact that Gatti, the a.s.s, begged the Archbishop for permission to compose a serenade shows his worthiness to wear the t.i.tle, which I make no doubt he deserves also for his musical learning."

(Vienna, October 12, 1782, to his father. Gatti was Cathedral Chapelmaster in Salzburg.)

87. "What we should like to have, dear father, is some of your best church pieces; for we love to entertain ourselves with all manner of masters, ancient and modern. Therefore I beg of you send us something of yours as soon as possible."

(Vienna, March 29, 1783, to his father, Leopold Mozart in Salzburg, himself a capable composer.)

88. "In a sense Vogler is nothing but a wizard. As soon as he attempts to play something majestic he becomes dry, and you are glad that he, too, feels bored and makes a quick ending. But what follows?--unintelligible slip-slop. I listened to him from a distance. Afterward he began a fugue with six notes on the same tone, and Presto! Then I went up to him. As a matter of fact I would rather watch him than hear him."

(Mannheim, December 18, 1777, to his father. Abbe Vogler was trying the new organ in the Lutheran church at Mannheim. Vogler lived from 1749 to 1814, and was the teacher of Karl Maria von Weber (who esteemed him highly) and Meyerbeer. Mozart's criticism seems unduly severe.)

89. "I was at ma.s.s, a brand new composition by Vogler. I had already been at the rehearsal day before yesterday afternoon, but went away after the Kyrie. In all my life I have heard nothing like this. Frequently everything is out of tune. He goes from key to key as if he wanted to drag one along by the hair of the head, not in an interesting manner which might be worth while, but bluntly and rudely. As to the manner in which he develops his ideas I shall say nothing; but this I will say that it is impossible for a ma.s.s by Vogler to please any composer worthy of the name. Briefly, I hear a theme which is not bad; does it long remain not bad think you? will it not soon become beautiful? Heaven forefend! It grows worse and worse in a two-fold or three-fold manner; for instance scarcely is it begun before something else enters and spoils it; or he makes so unnatural a close that it can not remain good; or it is misplaced; or, finally, it is ruined by the orchestration. That's Vogler's music."

(Mannheim, November 20, 1777, to his father.)

90. "Clementi plays well so far as execution with the right hand is concerned; his forte is pa.s.sages in thirds. Aside from this he hasn't a pennyworth of feeling or taste; in a word he is a mere mechanician."

(Vienna, January 12, 1782, to his father. Four days later Mozart expressed the same opinion of Muzio Clementi, who is still in good repute, after having met him in compet.i.tion before the emperor. "Clementi preluded and played a sonata; then the Emperor said to me, 'Allons, go ahead.' I preluded and played some variations.")

91. "Now I must say a few words to my sister about the Clementi sonatas. Every one who plays or hears them will feel for himself that as compositions they do not signify. There are in them no remarkable or striking pa.s.sages, with the exception of those in sixths and octaves, and I beg my sister not to devote too much time to these lest she spoil her quiet and steady hand and make it lose its natural lightness, suppleness and fluent rapidity.

What, after all, is the use? She is expected to play the sixths and octaves with the greatest velocity (which no man will accomplish, not even Clementi), and if she tries she will produce a frightful zig-zag, and nothing more. Clementi is a Ciarlatano like all Italians. He writes upon a sonata Presto, or even Prestissimo and alla breve, and plays it Allegro in 4-4 time. I know it because I have heard him! What he does well is his pa.s.sages in thirds; but he perspired over these day and night in London. Aside from this he has nothing,--absolutely nothing; not excellence in reading, nor taste, nor sentiment."

(Vienna, June 7, 1783, to his father and sister.)