Mozart: The Man and the Artist, as Revealed in his own Words
F >>
Friedrich Kerst and Henry Edward Krehbiel >> Mozart: The Man and the Artist, as Revealed in his own Words
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 | 7 |
8
216. "The edifying things which the Archbishop said to me in the
three audiences, particularly in the last, and what I have again
been told by this glorious man of God, had so admirable a
physical effect on me that I had to leave the opera in the
evening in the middle of the first act, go home, and to bed. I
was in a fever, my whole body trembled, and I reeled like a
drunken man in the street. The next day, yesterday, I remained at
home and all forenoon in bed because I had taken the tamarind
water." (Vienna, May 12, 1781, to his father. The catastrophe
between Mozart and the archbishop is approaching.)
217. "Twice the Archbishop gave me the grossest impertinences and
I answered not a word; more, I played for him with the same zeal
as if nothing had happened. Instead of recognizing the honesty of
my service and my desire to please him at the moment when I was
expecting something very different, he begins a third tirade in
the most despicable manner in the world."
(Vienna, June 13, 1781, to his father. See the chapter "Self-
Respect and Honor.")
218. "All the world asserts that by my braggadocio and criticisms
I have made enemies of the professional musicians! Which world?
Presumably that of Salzburg, for anybody living in Vienna sees
and hears differently; there is my answer."
(Vienna, July 31, to his father, who had sent Mozart what the
latter called "so indifferent and cold a letter," when informed
by his son of the great success of his opera, "Die Entfuhrung aus
dem Serail." As on previous occasions Salzburg talebearers had
been busying themselves.)
219. "I rejoice like a child at the prospect of being with you
again. I should have to be ashamed of myself if people could look
into my heart; so far as I am concerned it is cold,--cold as ice.
Yes, if you were with me I might find greater pleasure in the
courteous treatment which I receive from the people; but as it
is, it is all empty. Adieu!--Love!"
(Frankfort, September 30, 1790, to his wife. Mozart had made the
journey to Frankfort to give concerts amidst the festivities
accompanying the coronation of Leopold II, hoping that he could
better his financial condition. Not having been sent at the cost
of the Emperor, like other Court musicians, he pawned his silver,
bought a carriage and took with him his brother-in-law, a
violinist named Hofer. "It took us only six days to make the
journey." He was disappointed in his expectations. "I have now
decided to do as well as I can here and look joyfully towards a
meeting with you. What a glorious life we shall lead; I shall
work--work!")
220. "Dreams give me no concern, for there is no mortal man on
earth who does not sometimes dream. But merry dreams! quiet,
refreshing, sweet dreams! Those are the thing! Dreams which, if
they were realities, would make tolerable my life which has more
of sadness in it than merriment."
(Munich, December 31, 1778, to his father. During Mozart's
sojourn in Paris the love of Aloysia Weber had grown cold, and
Mozart was in the dolors.)
221. "Happy man! Now see,--I have got to give still another
lesson in order to earn some money."
(1786, to Gyrowetz, on the latter's departure for Italy.)
222. "You can not doubt my honesty, for you know me too well for
that. Nor can you be suspicious of my words, my conduct or my
mode of life, because you know my conduct and mode of life.
Therefore,--forgive my confidence in you,--I am still very
unhappy,--always between fear and hope."
(Vienna, July 17, 1788, to his faithful friend, Puchberg, whom he
has asked for money on account of the severe illness of his
wife.)
223. "You know my circumstances;--to be brief, since I can not
find a true friend, I am obliged to borrow money from usurers.
But as it takes time to hunt among these un-Christian persons for
those who are the most Christian and to find them, I am so
stripped that I must beg you, dear friend, for God's sake to help
me out with what you can spare."
(One of many requests for help sent to Puchberg. It was sent in
1790 and the original bears an endorsement: "May 17, sent 180
florins.")
224. "If you, worthy brother, do not help me out of my present
predicament I shall lose my credit and honor, the only things
which I care now to preserve."
(Vienna, June 27, 1788, to Puchberg, who had sent him 200 florins
ten days before. Puchberg was a brother Mason.)
225. "How I felt then! How I felt then! Such things will never
return. Now we are sunk in the emptiness of everyday life."
(Remarked on remembering that at the age of fourteen he had
composed a "Requiem" at the command of Empress Maria Theresa and
had conducted it as chapelmaster of the imperial orchestra.)
226. "Did I not tell you that I was composing this "Requiem" for
myself?"
(Said on the day of his death while still working on the
"Requiem" for which he had received so mysterious a commission.
The work had been ordered by a Count Walsegg, who made
pretensions to musical composition, and who wished to palm it off
as a work of his own, written in memory of his wife. Mozart never
knew him.)
227. "I shall not last much longer. I am sure that I have been
poisoned! I can not rid myself of this thought."
(Mozart believed that he had been poisoned by one of his Italian
rivals, his suspicion falling most strongly on Salieri. ["As
regards Mozart, Salieri cannot escape censure, for though the
accusation of having been the cause of his death has been long
ago disproved, it is more than possible that he was not
displeased at the removal of so formidable a rival. At any rate,
though he had it in his power to influence the Emperor in
Mozart's favor, he not only neglected to do so, but even
intrigued against him as Mozart himself relates in a letter to
his friend Puchberg. After his death, however, Salieri befriended
his son, and gave him a testimonial which secured him his first
appointment." C. F. Pohl, in "Grove's Dictionary of Music and
Musicians."])
228. "Stay with me to-night; you must see me die. I have long had
the taste of death on my tongue, I smell death, and who will
stand by my Constanze, if you do not stay?"
(Reported by his sister-in-law, Sophie, sister of Constanze.)
229. "And now I must go just as it had become possible for me to
live quietly. Now I must leave my art just as I had freed myself
from the slavery of fashion, had broken the bonds of speculators,
and won the privilege of following my own feelings and compose
freely and independently whatever my heart prompted! I must away
from my family, from my poor children in the moment when I should
have been able better to care for their welfare!"
(Uttered on his death-bed.)
MORALS
As regards his manner of life and morals Mozart long stood in a
bad light before the world. The slanderous stories all came from
his enemies in Vienna, and a long time passed before their true
character was recognized. A great contribution to this end was
made by the publication of his letters, which disclose an
extraordinarily strong moral sense. The tale of an alleged
liaison with a certain Frau Hofdamel, as a result of which the
deceived husband was said to have committed suicide, has been
proved to be wholly untrue and without warrant.
It may be said, indeed, that Mozart was an exception among the
men of his period. The immorality of the Viennese was proverbial.
Karoline Pichler, a contemporary, writes as follows in her book
of recollections of the eighth decade of the eighteenth century:
"In Vienna at the time there reigned a spirit of appreciation for
merriment and a susceptibility for every form of beauty and
sensuous pleasure. There was the greatest freedom of thought and
opinion; anything could be written and printed which was not, in
the strictest sense of the words, contrary to religion and the
state. Little thought was bestowed on good morals. There was
considerable license in the current plays and novels. Kotzebue
created a tremendous sensation. His plays ... and a multitude of
romances and tales (Meissner's sketches among other things) were
all based on meretricious relations. All the world and every
young girl read them without suspicion or offence. More than once
had I read and seen these things; 'Oberon' was well known to me;
so was Meissner's 'Alcibiades.' No mother hesitated to acquaint
her daughter with such works and before our eyes there were so
many living exemplars whose irregular conduct was notorious, that
no mother could have kept her daughter in ignorance had she
tried."
Mozart was a passionate jester and his jokes were coarse enough;
of that there is no doubt. But these things were innocent at the
time. The letters of the lad to his little cousin in Augsburg
contain many passages that would be called of questionable
propriety now; but the little cousin does not seem to have even
blushed. The best witness to the morality of Mozart's life is his
wife, who, after his death, wrote to the publishing firm of
Breitkopf and Hartel: "His letters are beyond doubt the best
criterion for his mode of thought, his peculiarities and his
education. Admirably characteristic is his extraordinary love for
me, which breathes through all his letters. Those of his last
year on earth are just as tender as those which he must have
written in the first year of our married life;--is it not so? I
beg as a particular favor that special attention be called to
this fact for the sake of his honor."
He was a Freemason with all his heart, and gave expression to his
humanitarian feeling in his opera "The Magic Flute." Without
suspicion himself, he thought everybody else good, which led to
painful experiences with some of his friends.
230. "Parents strive to place their children in a position which
shall enable them to earn their own living; and this they owe to
their children and the state. The greater the talents with which
the children have been endowed by God, the more are they bound to
make use of those talents to improve the conditions of themselves
and their parents, to aid their parents and to care for their own
present and future welfare. We are taught thus to trade with our
talents in the Gospels. I owe it, therefore, to God and my
conscience to pay the highest gratitude to my father, who
tirelessly devoted all his hours to my education, and to lighten
his burdens."
(From his request for dismissal from service in August, 1777. He
wished to undertake an artistic tour with his father. He received
his dismissal from the Archbishop of Salzburg, who granted it
right unwillingly, however.)
231. "Only one thing vexed me a trifle,--the question whether I
had forgotten confession. I have no complaint to make, but I do
ask one favor, and that is that you do not think so ill of me! I
am fond of merriment, but, believe me, I can also be serious.
Since I left Salzburg (and while still in Salzburg) I have met
persons whose conduct was such that I would have been ashamed to
talk and act as they did though they were ten, twenty or thirty
years older than I! Again I humbly beg of you to have a better
opinion of me."
(Mannheim, December 30, 1777, to his father, in answer to a
letter of reproaches.)
232. "With all my heart I do wish Herr von Schiedenhofen joy. It
is another marriage for money and nothing else. I should not like
to marry thus; I want to make my wife happy,--not have her make
my fortune. For that reason I shall not marry but enjoy my golden
freedom until I am so situated that I can support wife and
children. It was necessary that Herr Sch. should marry a rich
woman; that's the consequence of being a nobleman. The nobility
must never marry from inclination or love, but only from
considerations of interest, and all manner of side
considerations. Nor would it be becoming in such persons if they
were still to love their wives after the latter had done their
duty and brought forth a plump heir."
(Mannheim, February 7, 1778, to his father.)
233. "In my opinion there is nothing more shameful than to
deceive an honest girl."
(Paris, July 18, 1778, to his father.)
I am unconscious of any guilt for which I might fear your
reproaches. I have committed no error (meaning by error any act
unbecoming to a Christian and an honest man). I am anticipating
the pleasantest and happiest days, but only in company with you
and my dearest sister. I swear to you on my honor that I can not
endure Salzburg and its citizens (I speak of the natives). Their
speech and mode of life are utterly intolerable."
(Munich, January 8, 1779, to his father, who was urging his
return from Paris to take the post of chapelmaster in Salzburg.
The musicians of Salzburg were notorious because of their loose
lives.)
235. "From the way in which my last letter was received I observe
to my sorrow that (just as if I were an arch scoundrel or an ass,
or both at once) you trust the tittle-tattle and scribblings of
other people more than you do me. But I assure you that this does
not give me the least concern. The people may write the eyes out
of their heads, and you may applaud them as much as you please,
it will not cause me to change a hair's breadth; I shall remain
the same honest fellow that I have always been."
(Vienna, September 5, 1781, to his father, who was still
listening to the slander mongers. Mozart could not lightly forget
the fact that it was due to these gentlemen that he had been
forced to leave the house of the widow Weber with whose daughter
Constanze he was in love.)
236. "You have been deceived in your son if you could believe him
capable of doing a mean thing....You know that I could not have
acted otherwise without outraging my conscience and my honor....I
beg pardon for my too hasty trust in your paternal love. Through
this frank confession you have a new proof of my love of truth
and detestation of a lie."
(Vienna, August 7, 1782, to his father, whose consent to his
son's marriage did not arrive till the day after.)
237. Dearest and best of fathers:--I beg of you, for the sake of
all that is good in the world, give your consent to my marriage
with my dear Constanze. Do not think that it is alone because of
my desire to get married; I could well wait. But I see that it is
absolutely essential to my honor, the honor of my sweetheart, to
my health and frame of mind. My heart is ill at ease, my mind
disturbed;--then how shall I do any sensible thinking or work?
Why is this? Most people think we are already married; this
enrages the mother and the poor girl and I are tormented almost
to death. All this can be easily relieved. Believe me it is
possible to live as cheaply in expensive Vienna as anywhere else;
it all depends on the housekeeping and the orderliness which is
never to be found in a young man especially if he be in love.
Whoever gets a wife such as I am going to have can count himself
fortunate. We shall live simply and quietly, and yet be happy. Do
not worry; for should I (which God forefend!) get ill today,
especially if I were married, I wager that the first of the
nobility would come to my help....I await your consent with
longing, best of fathers, I await it with confidence, my honor
and fame depend upon it."
(Vienna, July 27, 1782.)
238. "Meanwhile my striving is to secure a small certainty; then
with the help of the contingencies, it will be easy to live here;
and then to marry. I beg of you, dearest and best of fathers,
listen to me! I have preferred my request, now listen to my
reasons. The calls of nature are as strong in me, perhaps
stronger, than in many a hulking fellow. I can not possibly live
like the majority of our young men. In the first place I have too
much religion, in the second too much love for my fellow man and
too great a sense of honor ever to betray a girl...."
(Vienna, December 18, 1781. [The whole of this letter deserves to
be read by those who, misled by the reports, still deemed
trustworthy when Jahn published the first edition of his great
biography, believed that Mozart was a man of bad morals.
Unfortunately Mozart's candor in presenting his case to his
father can scarcely be adjusted to the requirements of a book
designed for general circulation. Let it suffice that in his
confession to his father Mozart puts himself on the ground of the
loftiest sexual purity, and stakes life and death on the
truthfulness of his statements. H.E.K.])
239. "You surely can not be angry because I want to get married?
I think and believe that you will recognize best my piety and
honorable intentions in the circumstance. 0h could easily write a
long answer to your last letter, and offer many objections; but
my maxim is that it is not worth while to discuss matters that do
not affect me. I can't help it,--it's my nature. I am really
ashamed to defend myself when I find myself falsely accused; I
always think, the truth will out some day."
(Vienna, January 9, 1782, to his father. In the same letter he
continues: "I can not be happy and contented without my dear
Constanze, and without your satisfied acquiescence, I could only
be half happy. Therefore, make me wholly happy.")
240. "As I have thought and said a thousand times I would gladly
leave everything in your hands with the greatest pleasure, but
since, so to speak, it is useless to you but to my advantage, I
deem it my duty to remember my wife and children."
(June 16, 1787, to his sister, concerning his inheritance from
his father who had died on May 28.)
241. "Isn't it true that you are daily becoming more convinced of
the truth of my corrective sermons? Is not the amusement of a
fickle and capricious love far as the heavens from the
blessedness which true, sensible love brings with it? Do you not
often thank me in your heart for my instruction? You will soon
make me vain! But joking aside, you do owe me a modicum of
gratitude if you have made yourself worthy of Fraulein N., for I
certainly did not play the smallest role at your conversion."
(Prague, November 4, 1787, to a wealthy young friend, name
unknown.)
242. "Pray believe anything you please about me but nothing ill.
There are persons who believe it is impossible to love a poor
girl without harboring wicked intentions; and the beautiful word
mistress is so lovely!--I am a Mozart, but a young and well
meaning Mozart. Among many faults I have this that I think that
the friends who know me, know me. Hence many words are not
necessary. If they do not know me where shall I find words
enough? It is bad enough that words and letters are necessary."
(Mannheim, February 22, 1778, to his father, who had rebuked him
for falling in love with Aloysia Weber, who afterward became his
sister-in-law.)
RELIGION
Mozart was of a deeply religious nature, reared in Salzburg where
his father was a member of the archiepiscopal chapel. Throughout
his life he remained a faithful son of the church, for whose
servants, however, he had little sympathy.
The one man whom Mozart hated from the bottom of his soul was
Archbishop Hieronymus of Salzburg who sought to put all possible
obstacles in the way of the youthful genius, and finally by the
most infamous of acts covered himself everlastingly with infamy.
Though Mozart frequently speaks angrily and bitterly of the
priests he always differentiates between religion, the church and
their servants. Like Beethoven, Mozart stood toward God in the
relationship of a child full of trust in his father.
His reliance on Providence was so utter that his words sometimes
sound almost fatalistic. His father harbored some rationalistic
ideas which were even more pronounced in Mozart, so that he
formed his own opinion concerning ecclesiastical ceremonies and
occasionally disregarded them. His cheery temperament made it
impossible that his religious life should be as profound as that
of Beethoven.
243. "I hope that with the help of God, Miss Martha will get well
again. If not, you should not grieve too deeply, for God's will
is always the best. God will know whether it is better to be in
this world or the other."
(Bologna, September 29, 1770, to his mother and sister in
Salzburg. The young woman died soon after.)
244. "Tell papa to put aside his fears; I live, with God ever
before me. I recognize His omnipotence, I fear His anger; I
acknowledge His love, too, His compassion and mercy towards all
His creatures, He will never desert those who serve Him. If
matters go according to His will they go according to mine;
consequently nothing can go wrong,--I must be satisfied and
happy."
(Augsburg, October 25, 1777, to his father, who was showering him
with exhortations on the tour which he made with his mother
through South Germany.)
245. "Let come what will, nothing can go ill so long as it is the
will of God; and that it may so go is my daily prayer."
(Mannheim, December 6, 1777, to his father. Mozart was waiting
with some impatience to learn if he was to receive an appointment
from Elector Karl Theodore. It did not come.)
246. "I know myself;--I know that I have so much religion that I
shall never be able to do a thing which I would not be willing
openly to do before the whole world; only the thought of meeting
persons on my journeys whose ideas are radically different from
mine (and those of all honest people) frightens me. Aside from
that they may do what they please. I haven't the heart to travel
with them, I would not have a single pleasant hour, I would not
know what to say to them; in a word I do not trust them. Friends
who have no religion are not stable."
(Mannheim, February 2, 1778, to his father. For the reasons
mentioned in the letter Mozart gave up his plan to travel to
Paris with the musicians Wendling and Ramen. In truth, perhaps,
his love affair with Aloysia Weber may have had something to do
with his resolve.)
247. "I prayed to God for His mercy that all might go well, to
His greater glory, and the symphony began....Immediately after
the symphony full of joy I went into the Palais Royal, ate an
iced cream, prayed the rosary as I had promised to do, and went
home. I am always best contented at home and always will be, or
with a good, true, honest German."
(Paris, July 3, 1778, to his father. The symphony in question is
no longer in existence, although Mozart wanted to write it down
again at a later date.)
248. "I must tell you my mother, my dear mother, is no more.--God
has called her to Himself; He wanted her, I see that clearly, and
I must submit to God's will. He gave her to me, and it was His to
take her away. My friend, I am comforted, not but now, but long
ago. By a singular grace of God I endured all with steadfastness
and composure. When her illness grew dangerous I prayed God for
two things only,--a happy hour of death for my mother, and
strength and courage for myself. God heard me in His loving
kindness, heard my prayer and bestowed the two mercies in largest
measure."
(Paris, July 3, 1778, to his good friend Bullinger, in Salzburg,
who was commissioned gently to bear the intelligence to Mozart's
father. At the same time Mozart, with considerate deception,
wrote to his father about his mother's illness without mentioning
her death.)
249. "I believe, and nothing shall ever persuade me differently,
that no doctor, no man, no accident, can either give life to man
or take it away; it rests with God alone. Those are only the
instruments which He generally uses, though not always; we see
men sink down and fall over dead. When the time is come no
remedies can avail,--they accelerate death rather than retard
it....I do not say, therefore, that my mother will and must die,
that all hope is gone; she may recover and again be well and
sound,--but only if it is God's will."
(Paris, July 3, 1778, to his father, from whom he is concealing
the fact that his mother is dead. He is seeking to prepare him
for the intelligence which he has already commissioned Bullinger
to convey to the family.)
250. "Under those melancholy circumstances I comforted myself
with three things, viz.: my complete and trustful submission to
the will of God, then the realization of her easy and beautiful
death, combined with the thought of the happiness which was to
come to her in a moment,--how much happier she now is than we, so
that we might even have wished to make the journey with her. Out
of this wish and desire there was developed my third comfort,
namely, that she is not lost to us forever, that we shall see her
again, that we shall be together more joyous and happy than ever
we were in this world. It is only the time that is unknown, and
that fact does not frighten me. When it is God's will, it shall
be mine. Only the divine, the most sacred will be done; let us
then pray a devout "Our Father" for her soul and proceed to other
matters; everything has its time."
(Paris, July 9, 1778, to his father, informing him of his
mother's death.)
251. "Be without concern touching my soul's welfare, best of
fathers! I am an erring young man, like so many others, but I can
say to my own comfort, that I wish all were as little erring as
I. You, perhaps, believe things about me which are not true. My
chief fault is that I do not always appear to act as I ought. It
is not true that I boasted that I eat fish every fast-day; but I
did say that I was indifferent on the subject and did not
consider it a sin, for in my case fasting means breaking off,
eating less than usual. I hear mass every Sunday and holy day,
and when it is possible on week days also,--you know that, my
father."
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 | 7 |
8