Life of Mozart Volume 2 — CHAPTER XXXII. MOZART AS AN ARTIST. Part 1

CHAPTER XXXII. MOZART AS AN ARTIST.

OF those who realise the excitement and want of repose of Mozart's life in Vienna, and the variety of occupations and distractions which beset him, it must appear matter of wonder that he was able to produce so large a number of compositions, each bearing an individual character of maturity and finish.

The wonder increases as the conviction grows that not only was he ready as each occasion arose to prove, as Goethe says every artist should, that his art came at his command, but that he had the power of bringing forth at will his deepest, best conceptions, so that the external impulse appeared only as the momentum given to an artistic inspiration.

It must at the same time be remembered that Mozart was not fond of writing, and generally waited until the last moment to give shape to his ideas.

He was occasionally, therefore, late with his compositions, as with the sonata for Strinasacchi (Vol. II.

, p. 337), or had only time to write the parts without scoring them (Vol. II.

, pp. 318, 366), or scarcely allowed the copyist time to finish his work (Vol. II.

, p. 327); it is only necessary to look through his Thematic Catalogue to see that most of his compositions were written as short a time as possible before they were actually wanted.

His {DISTASTE TO WRITING.

} (413) father, who, as a man of business, considered the proper disposition of time as a matter of vital importance, often called his son's attention to this failing.

"If you will examine your conscience closely," he writes (December 11, 1777), "you will find that procrastination is your besetting sin and when Wolfgang was at work on "Idomeneo" in Munich, he warned him "not to procrastinate" (November 18, 1781).

After his stay in Vienna, convinced that his son was in this respect unchanged for the better, he writes to Marianne, on hearing from Wolfgang that he was over head and ears at work on the "Nozze di Figaro" (November 11, 1785), "He has procrastinated and thrown away his time after his usual habit, until now he is forced to set to work in earnest, in compliance with Count Rosenberg's commands."

It cannot be denied that Leopold Mozart was right, and that a judicious and methodical distribution of time is as desirable in an artist or a genius as in any one else; it is true also that perseverance and care may enable even an artist to overcome his inclination to procrastination.

But a glance at the extraordinary fertility of Mozart's genius, at the burning zeal and intensity with which he worked, will suffice to show the injustice of accusing him of idleness, or of never working unless he was actually driven to it.

He was perfectly justified in writing to his father from Vienna (May 26, 1781): "Believe me, I do not love idleness, but rather work."

The father's injustice was the result of a want of comprehension of the peculiar creative process of his son's genius.

He did not appreciate the activity and industry of his mind, because it made no show, and, indeed, often hid itself behind a careless demeanour;

he failed to perceive that the disinclination to write generally arose from the feeling that the workings of the mind were not yet in a shape to be expressed by the pen.

A conception of Mozart's work, almost equally mistaken, is that which takes as a measure of his genius his wonderfully rapid production, which often made his grasp of an artistic idea coincident with his embodiment of it in music.

The overture to "Don Giovanni" is most often quoted as an example of this extraordinary speed.

Niemetschek says (p. 84):-- {MOZART AS AN ARTIST.

} (414) Mozart wrote "Don Juan" at Prague in 1787; it was finished, rehearsed, and announced for performance in two days' time, before the overture was begun to be written.

The anxiety of his friends, increasing every hour, appeared to entertain him; the more apprehensive they became, the less he would consent to hurry himself.

It was not until the night before the performance, after spending the merriest evening imaginable, that he went to his room at near midnight, began to write, and completed the admirable masterpiece in a few hours.

This very credible account is corroborated by Mozart's wife:[1]-- The evening before the performance of "Don Juan" at Prague, the dress rehearsal having already taken place, he said to his wife that he would write the overture at night, if she would sit with him and make him some punch to keep his spirits up.

This she did, and told him tales about Aladdin's Lamp, Cinderella, &c. , which made him laugh till the tears came.

But the punch made him sleepy, so that he dozed when she left off, and only worked as long as she told tales.

At last, the excitement, the sleepiness, and the frequent efforts not to doze off, were too much for him, and his wife persuaded him to go to sleep on the sofa, promising to wake him in an hour.

But he slept so soundly that she could not find it in her heart to wake him until two hours had passed.

It was then five o'clock; at seven o'clock the overture was finished and in the hands of the copyist.

This musical myth has received a stronger colouring in the account of the elder Genast, then a young actor at Prague.

According to him, Mozart partook so freely of the hospitalities of a certain gentleman on the evening in question that Genast and a friend brought him home, laid him senseless on his bed, and themselves went to sleep on the sofa.

On awakening, they heard Mozart lustily singing, as he composed his overture, and "listened in reverential silence as the immortal ideas developed themselves."

[2] A good instance, this, of the way to manufacture an anecdote.

Niemetschek, who had previously remarked with justice that Mozart's work was always ready in his head before he sat down to his writing-table, was no doubt of the correct opinion that the overture was only written down in this haste, not composed.

Whether the wife believed this or not {CONSCIENTIOUS INDUSTRY.

} (415) is doubtful, since she adds ingenuously: "Some will recognise the dozings and rousings in the music of the overture."

An evident repetition of some one else's words, and a very ingenious idea.

One can only say with Hoffman: "Some people are fools!"

[3] An unprejudiced examination soon disposes of the not only foolish but detrimental idea[4] that rapidity of workmanship is a sign of true genius; but it is not by any means so easy a task to gain a clear and comprehensive insight into the workings of an artist's nature.

[5] Fortunately for our purpose, however, averse as Mozart was to talk much of himself or his compositions, he has left us characteristic traits and expressions sufficient to enable us to realise his individualities in this respect.

[6] It is a matter of universal experience that the great men of every art and science, who have left any enduring proofs of their genius, have worked the more zealously and the more earnestly in proportion as their genius surpassed that of other men.

That this holds true of Mozart no one who has studied his life and works will wish to deny.

In his youth, as long as he remained under the direct control of his father, his studies were regular and severe.

And as a man and a fully developed artist he had no ambition to be considered one who threw off his compositions with the carelessness of genius, or who was ashamed of his honest efforts and labours.

His dedication of his quartets to Haydn speaks of them as the fruit of long and painful labour, and in a conversation with the orchestral conductor Kucharz, at Prague, {MOZART AS AN ARTIST.

} (416) before the performance of "Don Giovanni," he expressed himself as follows: "I have spared neither labour nor pains to produce something worthy of the reputation of Prague.

It would be a great mistake to imagine that my art is an easy matter to me.

I assure you, my dear friend, no one has given more trouble to the study of composition than myself.

It would not be easy to find a celebrated musician whose works I have not often and laboriously studied."

And in point of fact, the narrator continues, even when he had attained to classical perfection, the works of great masters were always to be seen lying on his desk.

[7] We have already seen how eagerly and with what good result he studied Bach and Handel, when once Van Swieten had given him the impetus.

Rochlitz[8] declares that he was as familiar with the works of Handel as if he had been all his life director of the Ancient Concerts in London.

He had arrived in Leipzig just after arranging "Acis and Galatea" and the "Messiah" for Van Swieten, and the impressions of these works were fresh upon him.

"Handel," Rochlitz heard him say, "knows better than any of us what will make an effect; when he chooses he strikes like a thunderbolt."

[9] He admired not only Handel's choruses, but many of his arie and solos, which were not thought much of at that time.

"Although he is often prosy, after the fashion of his time," said he, "there is always something in his music."

[10] At Leipzig Mozart became acquainted with the vocal compositions of Sebastian Bach.

Doles made the St. Thomas choir sing him the wonderful eight-part motett, "Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied."

His surprise at the flow of melody, wave upon wave, passed all bounds; he listened with rapt attention, and exclaimed with delight: "That is indeed {METHOD OF WORKING.

} (417) something to take a lesson from!"

When he heard that the St. Thomas school possessed several other motetts by Bach, he begged to see them, and no score being accessible he surrounded himself with the parts, and was buried in study until he had worked them all out; then he asked for copies of the motetts.

[11] His interest in Benda's monodramas (Vol. II.

, p. 74) and his expressions on the importance of French opera, prove that he had profited by the study of living masters; all his works bear traces of the kind of influence which is exercised upon a genial and receptive nature by the great performances of others.

Of a different kind to these general preparatory studies, is that which may be properly be called the labour of production: such a technical skill and perfection as enables an artist to clothe his ideas in form.

It is impossible in any art (and more especially so in music) to separate absolutely form and substance, and to treat each as a self-sufficing element, and equally impossible to divide at any given point the creative, inventive force of an artistic production from its formative, executive force.

The process of production, whether physical or mental, is a mystery to mankind; whence and how the artist is inspired as by a lightning flash with an idea, he knows himself as little as he can trace in his completed work the actual momentum of its conception.

The characteristics of the gradual formation and perfection of artistic ideas vary greatly in different artists; even in great and highly organised natures the mental powers are variously endowed and developed.

Statements as to the easy or painful, rapid or deliberate, methods of working of different artists, vague and unsatisfactory in themselves, are for the most part the result of superficial observation and knowledge.

It is of little consequence whether an artist at his work is easily distracted by external impressions, or whether he pursues his train of thought undisturbed by what is going on around him.

It is of little consequence whether an artist feels necessitated or has made it his habit, to regulate his intellectual labours, and to give a written {MOZART AS AN ARTIST.

} (418) form to every creative impulse, or whether he renounces external aids, and shapes, proves, elaborates and connects his ideas in his own mind only.

That which is of consequence, that which no true artist is without, is the power to carry on a train of thought from its earliest germs to its full development, unhindered by interruptions and distractions; and the further power to realise the idea of the whole at every point, as the determining element of the details of conception and form.

It is difficult to know whether to admire more the steady flow of invention and form as it proceeds from some minds, or the gradual evolution of a unique self-contained whole out of an apparent waste of disconnected ideas which is characteristic of others.

Mozart displayed from every point of view an exceptionally happy organisation.

His copious and easily excited productive power was supported by a delicate sense of form, which was developed to such perfection by thorough and varied study that he employed the technicalities of musical form as if by a natural instinct.

In addition to this he possessed the gift of so detaching his mind from what was going on around him that he could work out his ideas even to the minutest detail; his wonderful memory enabling him to retain in its completeness whatever he had thus inwardly elaborated, and to reproduce it at any moment in a tangible form.

The impulse which drives an artist to production is seldom consciously felt by himself and is never capable of definition.

In most cases this signifies but little, for external impulse usually furnishes only the occasion for a work of art, and even when the impulse happens to be a visible one our attention is concentrated on the creation which it has called forth.

This is especially true of music, which draws its immediate inspiration neither from nature nor from the world of thought.

It would be of the highest interest to follow the process by means of which impressions made on the artist's mind produce well-defined musical ideas.

This, however, is impossible; the idea and its musical development are simultaneous efforts of the mind; the work of art thus called into being cannot be immediately referred to any impulse from without.

{METHOD OF WORKING.

) (419) Nor is it by any means essential that it should.

It is of far greater psychological interest to consider those characteristics of the artist which give a clearer insight into his disposition and ways of feeling, although it may not be possible to trace them in the details of his works.

Thus we are told that the sight of beautiful nature stirred Mozart's productive powers to activity.

Rochlitz writes on Con-stanze's authority:[12]-- When he was travelling with his wife through beautiful scenery, he used to gaze earnestly and in silence on the scene before him; his usually absent and thoughtful expression would brighten by degrees, and he would begin to sing, or rather to hum, finally breaking out with: "If I could only put the subject down on paper!"

And, when I sometimes said that he could do so if he pleased, he went on: "Yes, of course, all in proper form!

What a pity it is that one's work must all be hatched in one's own room!"

He always endeavoured to pass the summer in the country or where there was a garden; it is well known that it was chiefly in a garden that he wrote "Don Juan" in Prague and the "Zauberflöte" in Vienna; and in 1758, having taken a country residence for the summer, he wrote to Puchberg (June 27): "I have done more in the ten days that I have been here than I should have done in two months anywhere else."

This love of nature is not surprising in a man of Mozart's healthy tone of mind, who had been brought up amid the beautiful surroundings of Salzburg.

But he was by no means wedded to these, or to any other influences from without.

Wherever he was he was incessantly occupied with musical thoughts and labours.

"You know," he writes to his father (Vol. II.

, p. 43), "that I am, so to speak, steeped in music--that it is in my mind the whole day, and that I love to dream, to study, to reflect upon it."

Those who knew him well could not fail to be aware of this.

His sister-in-law Sophie describes him well:[13]-- He was always good-humoured, but thoughtful even in his best moods, looking one straight in the face, and always speaking with reflection, whether the talk was grave or gay; and yet he seemed always to be carrying on a deeper train of thought.

Even when he was washing his {MOZART AS AN ARTIST.

} (420) hands in the morning, he never stood still, but walked up and down the room humming, and buried in thought.

At table he would often twist up a corner of the table-cloth, and rub his upper lip with it, without appearing in the least to know what he was doing, and he sometimes made extraordinary grimaces with his mouth.

His hands and feet were in continual motion, and he was always strumming on something--his hat, his watch-fob, the table, the chairs, as if they were the clavier.

Karajan tells me that his barber used to relate in after-years how difficult it was to dress his hair, since he never would sit still;

every moment an idea would occur to him, and he would run to the clavier, the barber after him, hair-ribbon in hand.

We have already observed that musical ideas occupied him during all bodily exercises, such as riding, bowls, and billiard-playing; his timidity in riding may have arisen from the frequent distraction of his attention from the management of his horse.

General conversation, as Frau Haibl says, did not disturb his mental labours, and his brother-in-law Lange was particularly struck by the fact that when he was engaged on his most important works he took more than his usual share in any light or jesting talk that was going on; this resulted from an involuntary impulse to find a counterpoise for his intellectual activity.

Even when music was going on, provided it did not particularly interest him, he had the power of carrying on his own musical thoughts, and of ignoring the music he heard, as completely as any other disturbance.

His elder sister-in-law, Frau Hofer, told Neukomm that sometimes at the opera Mozart's friends could tell by the restless movements of his hands, by his look, and the way in which he moved his lips, as if singing or whistling, that he was entirely engrossed by his internal musical activity.

The abstraction and absorption of men of genius appears natural and comprehensible, and is respected even by those whose intellectual activity is not concentrated in the same way.

But few are able to enter into the workings of a mind which is ever conceiving and shaping ideas in its hidden recesses, without severing its connection with what is going on around; such a mind has a sort of double existence, and appears able to follow two paths leading in different {MENTAL LABOUR AND PREOCCUPATION.

} (421) directions at the same time.

If, as sometimes happens, the outer activity fails to keep pace with the inner, a superficial observer possesses himself of this fact, and makes it the basis of his judgments, leaving out of account the inner and true activity of which the outer is but a manifestation.

Even Mozart's father failed to comprehend his peculiar organisation, and refused to recognise any results of his labour but those which were written down, and which had thus, after a long and uninterrupted chain of intellectual exertions, received the seal of their artistic completion.

To Mozart himself, on the contrary, this part of his labour seemed unimportant and even burdensome, his productive powers having little share in it.

He postponed it as long as possible, not only because he wished to retain his power over the work which occupied him, until it was fully matured in his own mind, but also because he took far more pleasure in creating than in transcribing.

It cannot be denied that he sometimes postponed this least congenial part of his task too long.

To the methodical man of business this appears all the more blamable, since Mozart was always able at need to execute commissions accurately and punctually; to speak of idleness, or of forced industry, shows complete ignorance of the man.

It is true that Mozart laid himself open to the imputation by the speed at which he wrote when he actually set to work; those who observed this could not conceive why a man with such "gifts of Providence" did not "compose," as people say, from morning to night.

His wife said truly:[14] "The greater industry of his later years was merely apparent, because he wrote down more.

He was always working in his head, his mind was in constant motion, and one may say that he never ceased composing."

Although his wife was constantly called on by his admirers to urge him to work, she considered it her duty far oftener to restrain and moderate his activity.

The wonderful harmony of different artistic qualities in Mozart, which Rossini expressed so finely by saying that Mozart was the only musician who had as much genius as {MOZART AS AN ARTIST.

} (422) knowledge and as much knowledge as genius, may be traced in many particulars.

The more subordinate power of grasping the idea of a strange composition at a glance, and of executing it on the spot, he possessed as a matter of course.

His playing at sight has already been noted many times (Vol. I.

, pp. 37, log, 363, 365), and his criticism of Sterkel and Vogler show his own view of the matter (Vol. I.

, p. 387).

"It must be," Umlauf said, as Mozart writes to his father (October 6, 1782), "that Mozart has the devil in his head and his fingers--he played my opera, which is so badly written that even I cannot read it, as if he had composed it himself."

To this power of seeing at a glance the details and whole conception of a musical work was added a marvellous memory, capable of retaining all that was so seen.

As a boy he gave proof of this by his transcription of the Miserere (Vol. I.

, p. 119);

in later years he used to play his concertos by heart when he was travelling; not merely one or another that he had practised, but any or all; he was known to play a concerto from memory that he had not seen for long, because he had forgotten to bring the principal part.

[15] At Prague he wrote the trumpet and drum parts of the second finale in "Don Juan" without a score, brought them himself into the orchestra, and showed the performers a place where there would certainly be a mistake, only he could not say whether there would be four bars too much or too little; the mistake was found just as he had said.

[16] But this proves only the power of remembering what was finished and impressed on the mind.

A more remarkable instance of musical memory was his writing only the violin part of a sonata for piano and violin to perform with Strinasacchi (Vol. II.

, p. 337), and playing the piano part from his head without ever having heard the piece; or writing a composition at once in parts, without having scored it (Vol. II.

, p. 366).

This displays the astonishing clearness and precision with which he grasped and retained compositions he {MENTAL POWERS AND METHOD.

} (423) had once thought out, even in their minutest details, and we can now account for the rapidity of his transcription from the fact of its being mere transcription.

External distractions, so far from annoying him, served to divert his mind during the mechanical labour with his pen.

[17] He made Constanze tell him stories, or played bowls; his wife tells us herself how she was confined of her first child while he was composing the second of his quartets, dedicated to Haydn (421 K. ).

This was in the summer of 1783, and he sat at work in the same room where she lay;

indeed, he generally worked in her room during her frequent illnesses.

When she complained of pain, he would come to her to cheer and console, resuming his writing as soon as she was calm.

This is a striking proof how unshackled Mozart's musical activity was by external circumstances;

it is not given to many to remain so completely master of their ideas and powers during an event which would naturally appeal to the ten-derest feelings of the heart.

Still more striking is his expression to his sister when he sends her the prelude and fugue before mentioned (Vol. II.

, p. 321).

He apologises for the prelude being placed improperly after the fugue: "The reason was," he says, "that I had already composed the fugue, and wrote it down while I was thinking out the prelude."

Such mental powers as these reduced the mere writing to an almost mechanical operation; nevertheless, he did not rely so completely as he might have done on his memory, but made occasional notes for his better convenience and certainty.

Rochlitz tells us, no doubt on Constanze's authority:[18]-- Mozart, when in company with his wife or those who put no restraint on him, and especially during his frequent carriage journeys, used not only to exercise his fancy by the invention of new melodies, but occupied his intellect and feeling in arranging and elaborating such melodies, often humming or singing aloud, growing red in the face and suffering no interruption.

The briefest indications in black and white sufficed to preserve these studies in his memory; his easily kindled imagination, his complete mastery of the resources of his art, and his extraordinary {MOZART AS AN ARTIST.

} (424) musical memory needed little aid; he used to keep scraps of music paper at hand (when travelling, in the side-pocket of the carriage) for such fragmentary notes and reminders;[19] these scraps,carefully preserved in a case, were a sort of journal of his travels to him, and the whole proceeding had a sort of sacredness to his mind which made him very averse to any interference with it.

These notes, having served their purpose, seem to have been thought unworthy of preservation; the few that remain are interesting and suggestive.

The sketch which is given in facsimile of Denis's ode (Vol. II.

, p. 370) gives an outline of the whole work in writing so hasty as scarcely to be recognised for Mozart's. The voice part is written entire as well as the bass of the accompaniment, and the other parts have all their characteristics so clearly noted that there could be no doubt as to their further elaboration.

It is evident that the composition was finished in Mozart's brain when the sketch was written, so that it does not appear as one attempt among several to give shape to his conception, but as an aid to the memory when it should be necessary to write down the whole in detail.

Similar, but still slighter, is the sketch for one of the songs in "L' Oca del Cairo," which is given in facsimile in Jul.

André's edition in pianoforte score.

Here again the voice part is given from beginning to end, but the bass is not shown, and the accompaniment only here and there (once with the direction that the clarinets are to be used).

The piece was simple enough to require very slight reminders for its elaboration.

It would not be easy to decide whether such a sketch should be considered as the result of much previous reflection and study, or whether it was the immediate fruit of a moment of inspiration.

These two sketches never having been elaborated, so far as we are aware, we can make no comparison which will show how far such sketches were modified before the completion of the work.

There is considerable difference between the first hasty sketch of the terzet (5) from the "Sposo Deluso" (430 K. ), which Jul.

André has given in the {SKETCHES.

} (425) preface to his pianoforte edition, and the later elaboration of it.

Nothing remains but the first motif--[See Page Image] but so differently applied that this sketch cannot have been taken as the point of departure for the working-out, but must be considered as an earlier and rejected conception.

On the other hand, the sketches for a song from "Idomeneo" (Vol. II.

, p. 148) and for a tenor song (420 K. ) are almost identical in the voice part with the score as it stands.

Peculiar interest attaches to Sketch I. , given in facsimile.

The three first lines are noted for a clavier composition; then follows the sketch of a terzet (434 K. ) for two bass voices and a tenor, from an opera buffa, on which Mozart was apparently at work in 1783. A fair copy of the work is partially preserved, and gives an idea of the way in which Mozart arranged his scores.

The sketch contains only the voice parts, with slight hints for the accompaniment, showing how in one place the first idea was rejected and then again resumed.

It is evident from the way in which the space is employed that the notes were made very hastily.

The score, on the contrary, is a fair copy of the work accidentally left unfinished.

It has the proper number of parts for the voices and orchestra, with the corresponding title before each.

The ritornello is first given, which is long, because it serves as an introduction to the first scene of the opera.

It is formed of motifs which recur later, and it is plain that this independent introduction was written after the completion of the terzet, in which the motifs have each their special signification.

The principal parts (first violin and bass), are written in full, but only those parts of the wind instruments in which they have independent motifs; all that was intended to give colouring and shading to this simple outline is omitted.

The voice parts are all inserted in proper order, and the bass is given in full; but there are few hints for the accompaniment.

It is all written firmly and neatly, showing plainly enough that it was finished.

The deviations from the sketch are unimportant {MOZART AS AN ARTIST.

} (426) in the bass voice, more striking in the tenor, where the primary design of the melody remains, but the elaboration is modified and the conclusion lengthened.

Where the voices are together nothing has been altered, so far as we can discover.

The first sketch breaks off a few bars sooner than the score, which itself is a comparatively small fragment of the whole terzet.

It is evident, therefore, that the true artistic work was done before the first sketch was made, and that the elaboration of the latter into the score was no mere mechanical adoption of the motif (which seems to have been rejected upon critical revision and, so to speak, bom again), but the final reduction to form of what was already complete in conception.

This is still more the case in the elaboration of the accompaniment in detail; the well-defined outline which is given keeps it within certain limits without imposing on it any hampering restraint.

Further instances may be found in those works of which the plans of the scores, generally unelaborated, are preserved.

Particularly instructive are the unelaborated movements of the Mass in C minor (427 K. ) and of the "Requiem" (626 K. ) in André's edition; also the pianoforte score of the duet (384 K. ) from the "Entführung" and the unfinished opera "L' Oca del Cairo," edited by Jul.

André, are examples of similar sketches.

They possess peculiar interest to students, since they show those points which Mozart considered as containing the germ of the whole conception.

The different stages of the elaboration can be traced in most of Mozart's autograph scores.

The voices and bass are invariably written first, and enough of the accompaniment to show its characteristic points; this fact can be recognised, even in scores afterwards fully elaborated, by the differences in ink and handwriting, which is generally more hasty in the elaboration than in the earlier sketch.

When once this was made, the elaboration was often long deferred; the whole of the first act of "L' Oca del Cairo" was thus projected, and, the design of the opera being abandoned, was never elaborated; so, too, all the movements of the "Requiem," from the Dies irse to the Quam olim were written entire for the voices with a figured bass, while the {ALTERATIONS AND IMPROVEMENTS.

} (427) instrumentation was only suggested.

He waited for time and inclination to continue the work thus begun, and needed more urging to it than to any other, for once having fixed the outline of his design, it required a mere mechanical effort to reproduce it in his mind with details of form and colour.

A striking example is that mentioned on p. 360 (Vol. II.

), where, by the figuring of the bass, he supplied an aid to his memory of a peculiar harmonic succession which perhaps flashed across him at the moment of transcription in his compositions.