



Produced by David Widger






LIFE OF MOZART

By Otto Jahn.

Translated from The German by Pauline D. Townsend.

With A Preface by George Grove, Esq., D.C.L.

In Three Volumes Vol. II.

London Novello, Ewer & Co.

1881.




CONTENTS:

XVIII.--French Opera.................. 1

XIX.--Paris, 1778.....................34

XX.--The Return Home.................. 71

XXI.--Court Service in Salzburg............84

XXII.--" Idomeneo ".....................126

XXIII.--Release.....................170

XXIV.--First Attempts in Vienna............186

XXV.--" Die Entpuehruno aus dbm Serail ".........216

XXVI.--Courtship.....................249

XXVII.--Married Life..................264

XXVIII.--Mozart's Family and Friends............312

XXIX.--Social Intercourse...............352

XXX.--Van Swieten and Classical Music.........374

XXXI.--Mozart and Freemasonry...............400

XXXII.--Mozart as an Artist...............410

XXXIII.--Mozart's Pianoforte Music............441





VOL. II.




CHAPTER XVIII. FRENCH OPERA.

MOZART and his mother left Mannheim on March 14, and arrived in Paris on
the 23rd, after a journey of nine days and a-half. "We thought we should
never get through it," writes Wolfgang (March 24, 1778),[1] "and I never
in my life was so tired. You can imagine what it was to leave Mannheim
and all our dear, good friends there, and to be obliged to exist for ten
days without a single soul even to speak to. God be praised, however,
we are now at our journey's end. I am in hopes that, with His help, all
will go well. To-day we mean to take a fiacre and go to call on Grimm
and Wendling. Early to-morrow I shall go to the Electoral Minister Herr
von Sickingen, who is a great connoisseur and lover of music, and to
whom I have letters of introduction from Herr von Gemmingen and Herr
Cannabich." L. Mozart was full of hope concerning this visit to Paris,
and believed that Wolfgang could not fail to gain fame and, as a
consequence, money in the French capital. He remembered the brilliant
reception which had been given to him and his children fourteen years
before, and he was convinced that a like support would be accorded to
the youth who had fulfilled his early promise to a degree that to an
intelligent observer must appear even more wonderful than his precocious
performances as a child. He counted upon the support and assistance
of many distinguished and influential persons, whose favour they had
already experienced, and more especially on the tried friendship of
Grimm, who had formerly given them the benefit of all his knowledge and
power, and with whom they had continued in connection ever since. Grimm
had lately passed through Salzburg with two


{FRENCH OPERA.}

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friends, and was pleased to hear his "Amadeo," as he called Wolfgang.
He chanced to arrive at Augsburg on the evening of Wolfgang's concert
there, and was present at it without making himself known, since he
was in haste, and had heard that Wolfgang was on his way to Paris.
L. Mozart, who placed great confidence in Grimm's friendship and
experience, had made no secret to him of his precarious position
in Salzburg, and of how greatly Wolfgang was in need of support; he
commended his son entirely to Grimm's favour (April 6, 1778):--

I recommend you most emphatically to endeavour by childlike confidence
to merit, or rather to preserve, the favour, love, and friendship of
the Baron von Grimm; to take counsel with him on every point, and to do
nothing hastily or from impulse; in all things be careful of your own
interests, which are those of us all. Life in Paris is very different
from life in Germany, and the French ways of expressing oneself
politely, of introducing oneself, of craving patronage, &c., are quite
peculiar; so much so, that Baron von Grimm used always to instruct me as
to what I should say, and how I should express myself. Be sure you tell
him, with my best compliments, that I have reminded you of this, and he
will tell you that I am right.

But, clever as he was, L. Mozart had miscalculated on several points.
He did not reflect that Grimm had grown older, more indolent, and more
stately, and that even formerly a tact and obsequiousness had been
required in order to turn the great man's friendship to account, which,
natural as they were to himself, his son never did and never would
acquire. He had not sufficiently realised that the attention of the
public is far more easily attracted by what is strange and wonderful,
than by the greatest intellectual and artistic endowments. This was
peculiarly the case in Paris, where interest in musical performances
only mounted to enthusiasm when some unusual circumstance accompanied
them. True, such enthusiasm was at its height at the time of Mozart's
visit, but his father could not see that this very fact was against
a young man who had so little of the art of ingratiating himself with
others. To us it must ever appear as an extraordinary coincidence that
Mozart, fresh from Mannheim, and the efforts there being made for the
establishment of a national German opera, should have come to Paris at

{LULLY, 1652-1687.}

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the very height of the struggle between Italian opera and the French
opera, as reformed by Gluck, a struggle which appeared to be on the
point of being fought out. In neither case did his strong feelings on
the subject tempt him to take an active part; he maintained the attitude
of a neutral observer, in preparation for the tasks to which he might be
appointed.

If we are clearly to apprehend the musical situation, we must remind
ourselves in order of the circumstances which had brought it about.

Jean Baptiste de Lully (1633-1687), a native of Florence, had gained
such distinction by his violin-playing and ballet music, that in 1652 he
was appointed kapellmeister by Louis XIV., and in 1672 he received full
power to establish and direct the Academie Royale de Musique. Not
only was he the founder of this still existing institution,* but he
established by its means the grand opera in France. Faithful to the
traditions of his birthplace, Florence, he kept in view the first
attempts which had been made in Italy to revive ancient tragedy in
opera (Vol. I., p. 154 et seq.). As in Italy, so in Paris, operatic
performances were originally designed for court festivals; Lully's
privilege consisted in his being allowed to give public representations
of operas, "even of those which had been produced at court" ("meme
celles qui auront ete representes devant Nous "). They were preceded by
ballets, in which the connection of the action was indicated by vocal
scenes; but the singing was quite subordinate to the long succession of
dances, in which the distinguished part of the audience, and even
the king himself, took part. Dances, therefore, became an essential
ingredient of the opera, and it was the task of the poet and the
composers to give them appropriate connection with the plot; to this
day, as is well known, the ballet is the special prerogative of
the Grand-Opera at Paris. It was not less important to maintain the
reputation of the most brilliant court in the


{FRENCH OPERA.}

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world by means of variety and magnificence of scenery, costumes,
machinery, &c.; in this respect, also, the Grand-Opera has kept true to
its traditions.[2]

But whilst in Italy the musical, and especially the vocal, element of
the opera had always the upper hand, in Paris the dramatic element held
its ground with good success. It was the easier for Lully to found
a national opera in Paris, since he found a poet ready to hand in
Quinault, who had the genius to clothe his mythological subjects in
the dramatic and poetical dress of his own day. To us, indeed, his
productions seem far apart from the spirit of ancient tragedy, and more
rhetorical and epigrammatic than poetical in their conception. But his
operas (or rather tragedies) expressed truly the spirit of the age, and
they became more distinctively national in proportion as the reign of
Louis XIV. came to be considered as the golden age of France. It was
Lully's task to give musical expression to the national spirit, and
in this he succeeded to the admiration of his contemporaries and of
posterity. His music is closely connected' with those first attempts
in Italy. We find none of the set forms of the later opera seria, no
regular arie, no duets, no ensembles. The words are for the most
part simply rendered in recitative. There is sometimes a figured bass
accompaniment; but even then it is not the free movement of Italian
recitative, but is much more precisely apportioned, and the harmonies
of the accompaniment change more frequently. When the sentiment
becomes rather more elevated, a sort of compromise is effected between
recitative and song. The words are rendered with a declamatory spoken
accent; and not only are they strictly in time, but the harmonies are
so arranged that a full orchestral chord is given to every note of the
song. The melodies are therefore limited in every respect; the phrases
are generally too small in compass to be well carried out, and hang
loosely together without any proper design; it was difficult to develop
an elaborate musical form out of such elements as these. Independent
songs occur seldom, and then only in the most precise of forms, tending
generally to dance melodies (airs). When several voices unite they
alternate with each other; or if they


{LULLY'S OPERAS.}

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sing together note follows note, with only exceptionally real ensemble
passages. The choruses are formed by a simple harmony in several
parts, the soprano not being always appointed to give the melody.
The orchestra, except in the dance music, has seldom any independent
significance, but simply gives the full harmony to every note of
the bass. Instrumental effect is seldom aimed at, and the different
instruments are only occasionally employed singly. Lully's merit chiefly
consists in his having accentuated his music in a manner which suited
the French language, and also in his having succeeded in throwing a
certain amount of characteristic pathos into some of his passages. It is
comprehensible that at first, musical cultivation being in its infancy,
this quality should be most readily felt and acknowledged