The German composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) was not only a musical genius, but was also one of the pre-eminent geniuses of the Western world. He defined in his music a system of musical thought and an entire state of mind that were unlike any previously experienced. A true child prodigy, he began composing at age 5 and rapidly developed his unmistakable style; by 18 he was composing works capable of altering the mind-states of entire civilizations. Indeed, he and his predecessor Bach

The purpose and scope of this little book will be obvious to the reader from even a cursory glance at its contents. It is, in a way, an autobiography of Mozart written without conscious purpose, and for that reason peculiarly winning, illuminating and convincing. The outward things in Mozart's life are all but ignored in it, but there is a frank and full disclosure of the great musician's artistic, intellectual and moral character, made in his own words. The Editor has not only taken the trouble

Mozart! What a radiance streams from the name! Bright and pure as the light of the sun, Mozart's music greets us. We pronounce his name and behold! the youthful artist is before us,—the merry, light-hearted smile upon his features, which belongs only to true and naive genius. It is impossible to imagine an aged Mozart,—an embittered and saddened Mozart,—glowering gloomily at a wicked world which is doing its best to make his lot still more burdensome;—a Mozart whose music should reflect such pai

1. "If one has the talent it pushes for utterance and torments one; it will out; and then one is out with it without questioning. And, look you, there is nothing in this thing of learning out of books. Here, here and here (pointing to his ear, his head and his heart) is your school. If everything is right there, then take your pen and down with it; afterward ask the opinion of a man who knows his business." (To a musically talented boy who asked Mozart how one might learn to compose.) 2. "I can

When he was twenty-two years old Mozart wrote to his father, "I am strongly filled with the desire to write an opera." Often does he speak of this ambition. It was, in fact, his true and individual field as the symphony was that of Beethoven. He took counsel with his father by letter touching many details in his earlier operas, wherefore we are advised about their origin, and, what is more to the purpose, about Mozart's fine aesthetic judgment. His four operatic masterpieces are imperishable, an

50. "Herr Stein is completely daft on the subject of his daughter. She is eight years old and learns everything by heart. Something may come of her for she has talent, but not if she goes on as she is doing now; she will never acquire velocity because she purposely makes her hand heavy. She will never learn the most necessary, most difficult and principal thing in music, that is time, because from childhood she has designedly cultivated the habit of ignoring the beat." (Augsburg, October 23, 177

58. "Herr Stein sees and hears that I am more of a player than Beecke,—that without making grimaces of any kind I play so expressively that, according to his own confession, no one shows off his pianoforte as well as I. That I always remain strictly in time surprises every one; they can not understand that the left hand should not in the least be concerned in a tempo rubato. When they play the left hand always follows." (Augsburg, October 23, 1777, to his father. [We have here a suggestion of th

69. "We wish that it were in our power to introduce the German taste in minuets in Italy; minuets here last almost as long as whole symphonies." (Bologna, September 22, 1770, to his mother and sister. Mozart as a lad was making a tour through Italy with his father. [There might be a valuable hint here touching the proper tempo for the minuets in Mozart's symphonies. Of late years the conductors, of the Wagnerian school more particularly, have acted on the belief that the symphonic minuets of Moz

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 Sch

Mozart's Germanism is a matter of pride to the German people. To him "German" was no empty concept, as it was to the majority of his contemporaries. He is therefore honored as a champion of German character and German art, worthy as such to stand beside Richard Wagner. Properly to appreciate his patriotism it is necessary to hear in mind that in Mozart's day Germany was a figment of the imagination, the French language, French manners and Italian music being everywhere dominant. Wagner, on the c

Beethoven is said to have been the first musician who compelled respect for his craft,—he who, prouder than Goethe, associated with royalties, and said of himself, "I, too, am a king!" Mozart rose from a dependent position which brought him most grievous humiliations; he was looked upon as a servant of the Archbishop of Salzburg, and treated accordingly. At the time composers and musicians had no higher standing. Mozart feels the intolerableness of his position and protests against it on every o

150. "We live in this world only that we may go onward without ceasing, a peculiar help in this direction being that one enlightens the other by communicating his ideas; in the sciences and fine arts there is always more to learn." (Salzburg, September 7, 1776, to Padre Martini of Bologna, whose opinion he asks concerning a motet which the Archbishop of Salzburg had faulted.) 151. "I am just now reading 'Telemachus;' I am in the second part." (Bologna, September 8, 1770, to his mother and sister

163. "I assure you that without travel we (at least men of the arts and sciences) are miserable creatures. A man of mediocre talent will remain mediocre whether he travel or not; but a man of superior talent (which I can not deny I am, without doing wrong) deteriorates if he remains continually in one place." (Paris, September 11, 1778, to his father, who had secured an appointment for him at Salzburg which he was loath to accept. He asked that the Archbishop permit him to travel once in two yea

Mozart's love for his father made him dependent on the latter to the end of his days. He was a model son and must have loved his wife devotedly, since, for her sake, he once in his life disobeyed his father. The majority of his letters which have been preserved are addressed to his father, to whom he reported all his happenings and whose advice he is forever seeking. Similar were his relations with his sister Marianne (Nannerl), whom he loved with great tenderness. The letters to his wife are un

Mozart's father brought him up to be worldly wise. While journeying at a tender age through the world with his father the lad became an eye witness of the paternal business management with all its attention to detail; of the art of utilizing persons and conditions in order to achieve material results. As a youth he repeats the journeys accompanied by his mother whom he loses by death in Paris. Regularly from Salzburg his father sends him letters full of admonitions and advice, the subjects almos

It is as difficult to call up in the fancy a picture of a suffering Mozart as a merry Beethoven. The effect of melancholy hours is scarcely to be found in Mozart's music. When he composed,—i.e. according to his own expression "speculated" while walking up and down revolving musical ideas in his mind and forming them into orderly compositions, so that the subsequent transcription was a mechanical occupation which required but little effort,—he was transported to the realm of tones, far from the m

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 pr

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 Mo