Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians — Wolfgang Mozart, Part 2

* * * * * Toledo: Yes, just at the age when Mozart wrote and played his "Requiem," getting ready to die, I was going to school and incidentally falling in love.

I was thirty-four and shaved clean because there were gray hairs coming in my beard.

Love has its advantages, of course, and the benefits of passionate love consist in scarifying one's sensibilities until they are raw, thus making one able to sympathize with those who suffer.

Love sounds the feelings with a leaden plummet that sinks to the very depths of one's soul.

This once done the emotions can return with ease, and so this is why no singer can sing, or painter paint, or sculptor model, or writer write, until love or calamity, often the same thing, has sounded the depths of his soul.

Love makes us wise because it makes room inside the soul for thoughts and feelings to germinate; but passionate love as a lasting mood would be hell.

Henry Finck says that is why Nature has fixed a two-year limit on romantic or passionate love.

"War is hell," said General Sherman.

"All is fair in Love and War," says the old proverb.

Love and War are one, say I. Love is mad, raging unrest and a vain, hot, reaching out for nobody knows what.

Of course the kind which I am talking about is the Grand Passion, not the sort of sentiment that one entertains towards his grandmother.

"But it is good to fall in love, just as it is well to have the measles," to quote Schopenhauer.

Still, there is this difference: one only has the measles once, but the man who has loved is never immune, and no amount of pledges or resolves can ere avail.

Just here seems a good place to express a regret that the English language is such a crude affair that we use the same word to express a man's regard for roast-beef, his dog, child, wife and Deity.

There are those who speedily cry, "Hold!"

when one attempts to improve on the language, but I now give notice that on the first rainy day I am going to create some distinctions and differentiate for posterity along the line just mentioned.

* * * * * Elyria: As intimated in a former chapter, I was a successful farmer before I went to college.

I was also a manufacturer, and made a success in this business, too.

I made a fortune of a hundred thousand dollars before I was thirty, and should have it yet had I sat down and watched it.

If you go into a railroad-car and sit down by the side of your valise (or manuscript), in an hour your valuables will probably be there all right.

But if you leave the valise (or the manuscript) in a seat and go into another car, when you come back the goods may be there and they may not.

That is the only way to keep money--fasten your eye right on it.

If you leave it in the hands of others, and go away to delve in books, the probabilities are that, when you get back, certain obese attorneys have divided your substance among them.

However, there is good in every exigency of life, and to know that your fortune is gone is a great relief.

When the trial is ended and the prisoner has received his sentence, he feels a great relief, for it is only the unknown that fills our souls with apprehension.

* * * * * Cleveland: In all the realm of artistic history no record of such extremes can be found in one life as those seen in the life of Mozart.

The nearest approach to it is found in the career of Rembrandt, who won fame and fortune at thirty, and then holding the pennant high for ten years, his powers began to decline.

It took twenty-six years of steady down grade to ditch his destinies in a pauper's grave.

But Rembrandt, during his lifetime, was scarcely known out of Holland, whereas Mozart not only won the nod of nobility, and the favor of the highest in his own land, but he went into the enemy's country and captured Italy.

Mozart's art never languished: he held a firm grip on sublime verities right to the day of his death.

The high-water mark in Mozart's career was reached in those two years in Italy, when in his thirteenth and fourteenth years.

The arts all go hand in hand, for the reason that strong men inspire strong men, and each does what he can do best.

In painting, sculpture and music (not to mention Antonio Stradivari of Cremona) Italy has led the world.

A hundred years ago no musician could hope for the world's acclaim until Italy had placed its stamp of approval upon him.

Savants in Milan, Florence, Padua, Rome, Verona, Venice and Naples, tested the powers of young Mozart to their fullest; and although he had to overcome doubt and the prejudice arising from being "a barbaric German," yet the highest honors were at the last ungrudgingly paid him.

He was enrolled as an honorary member of numerous musical societies, old musicians gave their blessings, proud ladies craved the privilege of kissing his fair forehead, and the Pope conferred upon the gifted boy the Order of the Golden Spur, which gave him the right to have his mail come directed to "The Signor Cavaliere Mozarti."

At Naples the result of his marvelous playing was ascribed to enchantment, and this was thought to be centered in a diamond ring that had been presented to the lad by a fair lady in a mood of ecstasy.

To convince the Neapolitans of their error Mozart was obliged to accept their challenge and remove the ring.

He wrote home to his mother that he had no time to practise, as in every city where he went artists insisted on his sitting for his portrait.

The acme of attention and applause was reached at Milan, where he was commissioned to write an opera for the Christmas festivities.

The production of this opera at La Scala was the most glorious item in the life of Mozart.

A boy of fourteen conducting an opera of his own composition before enraptured multitudes is an event that stands to the credit of Mozart, and Mozart alone.

"Evviva the Little Master--Evviva the Little Master!"

cried the audience.

"It is music for the stars," and against all precedent aria after aria had to be repeated.

The boy, always rather small for his age, stood on a chair to wield his baton, and the flowers that were rained upon him nearly covered the lad from view.

* * * * * Ashtabula: The place of a man's birth does not honor him until after he is dead, and every man of genius has been distrusted by his intimate kinsmen.

If he is granted recognition by the outside world, those who have known him from childhood wink slyly and repeat Phineas T. Barnum's aphorism, a free paraphrase of which the Germans have used since the days of the Vandals.

Leopold Mozart returned home with his wonderful boy not much richer than when he went away.

He had left the management of finances to others, and was quite content to travel in a special carriage, stop at the best hotels, and have any "label" he might order, just for the asking.

Reports had reached Germany of the wonderful success of the youthful Mozart in Italy, but Vienna smiled and Salzburg sneezed.

* * * * * North East: It is not so very long ago that all the beautiful things of earth were supposed to belong to the Superior Class.

That is to say, all the toilers, all the workers in metals, all the bookmakers, authors, poets, painters, sculptors and musicians, did their work to please this noble or that.

All bands of singers were singers to His Lordship, and if a man wrote a book he dedicated it to His Royal Highness.

At first these thinkers and doers were veritable slaves, and no court was complete that did not have its wise man who wore the cap and bells, and made puns, epigrams and quoted wise saws and modern instances for his board and keep.

This man usually served as a clerk or overseer, during his odd hours, and only appeared to give a taste of his quality when he was sent for.

It was the same with the musicians and singers--they were cooks, waiters and valets, and when there were guests these performers were notified to be in readiness to "do something" if called upon.

It was the same with painters--every court had its own.

Rubens, as we know, was looked upon by the Duke of Mantua as his private property, and the artist had to run away, when the time was ripe, to save his soul alive.

Van Dyck was court painter to Charles the First, and married when he was told to do so.

There is no such office as "Poet Laureate of England"--the Laureate is poet to the King, and used to dine with the Master of the Hounds.

Later he was allowed to choose his domicile and live in his own house, like Saint Paul, the prisoner at Rome.

His yearly stipend is yet that tierce of Canary.

* * * * * Silver Creek: Leopold Mozart, and the son who caused his name to endure, were in the employ of the Archbishop of Salzburg.

The Archbishop was a veritable prince, with short breath and a double chin, and no shade of doubt ever came to him concerning the divinity of his succession.

He ruled by divine right, and everybody and everything were made to minister to the well-being of his person and estate.

The Mozarts were too poor to escape from the employ of the Archbishop, and he took pains to warn all interested persons not to harbor, encourage or entice his servants away on penalty of dire displeasure.

Mozart ate with the servants, and we have his letters written to his sister showing how his seat was next below that of the coachman.

When he was to play before invited guests he was made to wait in the entry until the footman called him, and there he often stood for hours, first on one foot, then on t' other.

It is easy to ask why a man of such sublime talent should endure such treatment, but the simple fact is Mozart was gentle, yielding, kind--immersed in his music--with no power to set his will against the tide of tendency that 'compassed him round.

The Archbishop forbade his playing at concerts or entertainments, and blocked the way to all advancement.

The Archbishop didn't have a diplomat like Rubens to cope with, or a fighter like Wagner, or a plotter like Liszt, or a stiletto-bearing man like Paganini, and so Mozart wrote his music on a table in one corner of a beer-garden, and waltzed with his wife, Constance, to keep warm when there was no fire and the weather was cold, and all the time danced attendance on the Archbishop of Salzburg.

All of his feeble, spasmodic efforts at freedom came to naught, because there was no persistency behind them.

Gladly would he have sold his services for three hundred gulden a year, but even this sum, equal to one hundred fifty dollars a year, was denied him.

He was always composing, always making plans, always seeing the silver tint in the clouds, but all of his music was taken by this one or that in whom he foolishly trusted, and only debt and humiliation followed him.

When at long intervals a sum would come his way from a generous admirer touched with pity, all the beggars in the neighborhood seemed to know it at once.

Then it was that music filled the air at the beer-garden, carking care and unkind fate were for the time forgot, and all went merry as a wedding-bell.

Finally the position of Court Musician to the Emperor of Austria fell vacant, and certain good friends of Mozart secured him the place.

But the Emperor was not like Frederick the Great, for he could not distinguish one tune from another, and did not consider it any special virtue so to do.

The result was that his musicians were looked after by his valet, and Mozart found that his position was really no better than it had been with the Archbishop of Salzburg.

And still his mind proved infirm of purpose, and he had not the courage to demand his right, for fear he might lose even the little that he had.

* * * * * Buffalo: Mozart was in his twentieth year when he met Aloysia Weber.

She was a gifted singer, surely, and was needlessly healthy.

She was of that peculiar, heartless type that finds digression in leading men a merry chase and then flaunting and flouting them.

Young Mozart, the impressionable, Mozart the delicate and sensitive, Mozart the Æolian harp, played upon by every passing breeze, loved this bouncing bundle of pink-and-white tyranny.

She encouraged the passion, and it gradually grew until it absorbed the boy and he grew oblivious to all else.

He lived in her smile, bathed in the sunshine of her presence, fed on her words, and as for her singing in opera it was not so much what her voice was now but what he was sure it would be.

His glowing imagination made good her every deficiency.

He thought he loved the girl.

It was not the girl at all he loved: he only loved the ideal that existed in his own heart.

His father opposed the mating and hastily transferred the youth from Vienna to Paris; but who ever heard of opposition and argument and forced separation curing love?

So matters ran on and letters and messages passed, and finally Mozart made his way back to Vienna and with breathless haste sought out the object of his whole heart's love.

She had recently met a man she liked better, and as she could not hold them both, treated Mozart as a stranger, and froze him to the marrow.

He was crushed, undone, and a fit of sickness followed.

In his illness, Constance, a younger sister of Aloysia, came to him in pity and nursed him as a child.

Very naturally, all the love he had felt for Aloysia was easily and readily transferred to Constance.

The tendrils of the heart ruthlessly uprooted cling to the first object that presents itself.

And so Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Constance Weber were married.

And they were happy ever afterward.

It would have been much better if they had quarreled, but Mozart's gentle, yielding character readily adapted itself to the weaker nature of his wife.

In his music she took a sort of blind and deaf delight and guessed its greatness because she loved the man.

But when two weak wills combine, the net result is increased weakness--never strength.

Constance was as beautiful a specimen of the slipshod housekeeper as ever piled away breakfast dishes unwashed, or swept dirt under a settee.

If they had money she bought things they did not need, and if there was no money she borrowed provisions and forgot to return the loan.

Irregularity of living, deprivation and hope deferred, made the woman ill and she became a chronic sufferer.

But she was ever tended with loving, patient care by the overburdened and underfed husband.

A biographer tells how Mozart would often arise early in the morning to set down some melody in music that he had dreamed out during the night.

On such occasions he would leave a little love-letter for his wife on the stand at the head of the bed, where she would find it on first awakening.

One such note, freely translated, runs as follows: "Good-morning, Dear Little Wife.

I hope you rested well and had sweet dreams.

You were sleeping so peacefully that I dare not kiss your cheek for fear of disturbing you.

It is a beautiful morning and a bird outside is singing a song that is in my heart.

I am going out to catch the strain and write it down as my own and yours.

I shall be back in an hour."

* * * * * East Aurora: Aloysia married the man of her choice--an actor by the name of Lange.

They quarreled right shortly, and soon he used to beat her.

This was endured for a year or more, then she left him.

For a while she lived with Wolfgang and Constance, and Mozart, true to his nature, gave her from his own scanty store and deprived himself for her benefit.

He stood godfather to one of her children and was a true friend to her to the last.

After Aloysia lived to be an old woman, and long after Mozart had passed out, and the world had begun to utter his praises, she said: "I never for a moment thought he was a genius--I always considered him just a nice little man."

Mozart's soul was filled with melody, and all of his music is faultless and complete.

He possessed the artistic conscience to a degree that is unique.

Careless and heedless in all else, if his mood was not right and the product was halting, he straightway destroyed the score.

He was always at work, always hearing sweet sounds, always weighing and balancing them in the delicate scales of his judgment.

So absorbed was he in his art that he fell an easy victim to the designing, and never stopped his work long enough to strike off the shackles that bound him to a vain, selfish and unappreciative court.

Worn by constant work, worried by his wife's continued illness, dogged by creditors, and unable to get justice from those who owed it to him, his nerves at the early age of thirty-five gave way.

His vitality rapidly declined and at last went out as a candle does when blown upon by a sudden gust from an open door.

It was a blustering winter day in December, Seventeen Hundred Ninety-one, when his burial occurred.

A little company of friends assembled, but no funeral-dirge was played for him, save the blast blown through the naked branches of the trees, as they hurried the plain pine coffin to its final resting-place.

At the gate of the cemetery the few friends turned back and left the lifeless clay to the old gravedigger, who never guessed the honor thus done him.

It was a pauper's grave that closed over the body of Mozart--coffin piled on coffin, and no one marked the spot.

All we know is, that somewhere in Saint Mark's Cemetery, Vienna, was buried in a trench the most accomplished composer and performer the world has ever known.

It was a hundred years afterward before the city made tardy amends by erecting a fitting monument to his memory.

His best monument is his work.

The melody that once filled his soul is yours and mine; for by his art he made us heirs to all that wealth of love that was never requited, and the dreams, that for him never came true, are our precious and priceless legacy.

[Illustration: JOHANNES BRAHMS]