August 19, 2025 • 27 mins
Mozarts earthly journey was remarkably brief, yet it was rich with extraordinary achievements that left an indelible mark on the world. In this booklet, the author grapples with the challenge of capturing the essence of a life so densely packed with events—from early triumphs to profound tragedies. Rather than attempting a comprehensive evaluation of Mozarts immense creative legacy, the author offers a glimpse into the pivotal moments that shaped the master’s unforgettable story. - Summary by Authors Preface
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Part three of Wolfgang Amadale's Mozart by Herbert F. Piser.
This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Part three
Mozart's Break with Salzburg. Mozart had reason to suppose that
the work might gain him a permanent and rewarding position
(00:21):
once more. He was disappointed, and a short time after
the production he received a summons from Salzburg to join
the archbishop in Vienna, whither Coloredo had gone with a
part of his musical staff, Leopold, it should be added,
was left at home. Bofgang boiled inwardly at the prospect
of having the honor once more of sitting above the
(00:43):
cooks at table. His father begged him to be patient,
but to no avail in a way. He welcomed the
present call to Vienna and seemed to sense his impending liberation.
If without knowing exactly how it was to come, it
seems as if good fortune is about to welcome me here,
he wrote his parent not long afterwards from the capital,
(01:05):
and now I feel that I must stay. Indeed, I
felt when I left Munich that, without knowing why, I
looked forward most eagerly to Vienna. He was seeking an
opportunity to break forever with his detested chief, to whom
he alluded as an etz lumel arch booby. He soon
(01:26):
found his chance. The archbishop at first refused mozart permission
to appear at the ton kunstler Sozietet, about which he
wrathfully wrote to his father. Yet a PostScript added that
in the end he got it that his place at
table was between the valets and the cooks. Is Alfred
Einstein says, rightly shocking both to the composer and to us.
(01:50):
But Mozart's rank as court organist was actually that of
personal servant, and according to eighteenth century etiquette, which knew
nothing of special treaty eatment for genius, this seating at
table was formerly correct. In the end, the threatened explosion
did occur. Colorado ordered him back to Salzburg on a
(02:11):
certain day, alleging some important engagement in Vienna. He refused,
and when the archbishop told him he could go to
the devil, he applied for his dismissal from the cleric's service.
Three times he presented applications. Finally, when he made an
effort to enter Coloreedo's apartment to hand him the paper personally,
(02:31):
Count Arco, son of the court Chamberlain, kicked him out
of the room, but Mozart did get the discharge he
had demanded. The tale of the kick is familiar even
to people who have not the vaguest familiarity with eighteenth
century codes. We might be well advised, however, to suspend
our judgment till we know both sides of the celebrated story.
(02:55):
No more Salzburg for me, both, gang gaily wrote his father,
barring repeating journeys to different cities, Vienna was to be
his home for the rest of his days. He was
not to find the material rewards and the secure position
he had sought for so long, but he had that
freedom his spirit craved, and in Vienna he was to
(03:15):
absorb those creative impulses that Haydn had known before him,
and Beethoven was to know after him. In a mood
of elation, he begged his father to leave Salzburg and
join him in Vienna. But Leopold was no longer young,
and besides he was made of other clay marriage. Mozart
(03:36):
renewed his ties with the Webers once more alousso indeed
was now out of his reach. But there were three
other daughters, the youngest still a child, to be sure.
The oldest, Josepha, had a good voice, but she left
Wolfgang cold. He was more attracted to Alius's sister Constanza,
a fact that was not lost on the scheming mother Weber,
(04:00):
now a widow, content to rent rooms and take in boarders,
in May seventeen eighty one he settled in the Webra
house zum Algagottis, just off the Gramen. Needless to say,
Leopold was greatly upset, for he had as low an
opinion of the Webers as ever. But Bolfgang was no
longer disposed to let his father's taste sway him, and
(04:23):
when he felt that he really loved Costanza, he determined
to make her his wife, regardless of parental wishes. The
unscrupulous Madame Weber, pleased at the turn of affairs, took
care that gossip should spread, and people began to talk
about the probability of the marriage. Mozart, yielding to mother
Weber's advice, left the Algagottis in September seventeen eighty one,
(04:48):
though returning for daily visits, Constanza's mother played her cards cleverly,
so as to compromise her daughter, and enjoyed the satisfaction
of having Mozart ask his father for his approval. A
vapor for a daughter in law was the last thing
Leopold wanted. Finally, on August fourth, seventeen eighty two, the
(05:09):
couple married, the elder Mozart's reluctant consent, not arriving in
Vienna until August five. He never forgave his son, however,
for this step. No more did nan Earle, who had
quite as little use for her brother's wife. Later after
the composer's death, Schlichtegro's necrology said of Constanza Mozart found
(05:31):
in her a good mother for the two children she
bore him, who sought to restrain him from many follies
and dissipations, the rest of which passage Constanzo was subsequently
moved to make illegible be all of which as it may.
There is no use in pretending that Mozart was earlier
or later in the least indifferent to feminine allurements. Sometimes
(05:55):
it was the women who plagued him with attentions, a
capital instance of which was his pupil, the pianist Josephine Arnhammer,
a talented but exceedingly repulsive person of whom he left
us a gruesome picture in a letter dated August twenty two,
seventeen eighty one. She is as fat as a farm
(06:16):
Wench perspires so that you feel inclined to vomit, and
goes about so scantily clad that you really can read
as plain as print. Pray do look here. It was
for this same Arenhammer, none the less that he wrote
the adorable clavier Concerto K for fifty three. Alfred Einstein
(06:37):
maintains that Constanza owes her fame to the fact that
Volfgey Mammadeus Mozart loved her, and in so doing preserved
her name for eternity as a fly is preserved in amber.
But this does not mean that she deserved either his
love or the fame it brought her. Certainly she could
not follow his flights of genius. Neither was she always
(06:59):
above reproach in her private conduct. Before their marriage, her
honest and devoted lover was writing to point out her
thoughtless behavior in allowing some man to measure her leg
in a game of forfeits, and nearly a decade later
he was begging her to consider appearances, to be careful
of her honor, and to keep away from the baden casino,
(07:22):
because the company is you understand what I mean. Einstein
believed that the only woman of whom Constanza had a
right to be jealous was Nansi stories his first Susanna.
Between Mozart and her, there must have been a deep
and sympathetic understanding. She was beautiful, an artist and a
(07:43):
finished singer. The Infurum oustainsaaye. The composer was probably delighted
to have the chance to place on the stage a
character named Constanza, and in the summer and autumn of
seventeen eighty one he began in the music of his
next major opera, Belmont und Constanza or De Infurum Alstainzaai
(08:08):
The Abduction from the Serralio. This Singspiel, the book of
which was originally the work of Christian Friedrich Bretzner, had
been presented a year earlier in Germany with a score
by Johann Andre. Under Wolfgang's careful supervision, the three act
piece underwent dramatic and textual modifications by Christian gottlob Stefani.
(08:30):
The younger Mozart had written his father the book is good,
the subject is Turkish and is called The Abduction from
the Serralio. Rehearsals did not start till June seventeen eighty two,
and on July sixteenth of that year the work was
produced in Vienna with extraordinary success. The stimulus back of
(08:50):
Stefani's revisions was unquestionably the penetrating theatre sense of the
composer himself. Into the love songs of the tenor Belmonte,
Mozart poured all his tender feelings for Constanza Weber, whom
he was shortly to lead to the altar. The characterizations
throughout have a life, a diversity, and a psychological truth
(09:12):
that had not been met with in any previous Mozartian
operatic effort. The Emperor, though he recognized the genius in
the work, thought it necessary to warn Mozart that the
music seemed to him too good for the Viennese and
contained a powerful quantity of notes, whereupon the ready witted
(09:33):
Mozart retorted, just as many as are necessary, your majesty.
His older contemporary, Gluck, was himself stirred to enthusiasm by
the work in which he unquestionably detected the influence of
his own exotic les Pellerines de la mech and invited
the composer to dinner. The Furum, which Carl Maria von
(09:55):
Weber was to say, was such a work as Mozart
could have written only once in his lifetime, quickly spread
through most other theaters of Central Europe, where after close
to two hundred years it still leads a lusty existence.
The more amusing, therefore, is a notice that disgruntled Bretzner
inserted in a Leipzig newspaper, a certain person in Vienna
(10:17):
named Mozart has had the effrontery to misuse my drama
Belmonte und Gunstanza for and opera libretto. I herewith protest
most solemnly that I reserve the right to take further
steps against this outrage. On the surface, the newly married
couple were happy. Yet it might be inquiring too closely
(10:39):
to ask whether Wolfgang did not, as time passed, suffer
from that deep seated loneliness and lack of understanding that
are sooner or later the lot of a genius of
this caliber. Under today's conditions, we have reason to assume
that a triumph like d'ent furung and the numerous other
treasures he was giving the world would lift him above
(11:01):
material cares. Instead, financial troubles began to thicken about him
and grew continually more burdensome. They were, indeed, to beset
him to his end. For all the air it created,
the opera did not bring its composer the appointment he expected,
and money was becoming oppressing necessity. Constanza's pregnancies were frequent
(11:23):
during her married life, and though only two children survived
infancy to become it is ironic to reflect wretched but
fairly long lived mediocrities. Her various confinements and her slow
recovery from them did not help to further her housewifely qualities.
It is not wholly surprising that Mozart's religious convictions, which
(11:45):
had earlier been a sort of childlike faith, weakened little
by little. The more so because he was brought into
growing contact with men who were profound thinkers, and of
whom many belonged to the secret society of Freemasons. Freemasonry
had political implications and was frowned upon by the Church.
(12:05):
Frederick the Great had been a Freemason, Gerta was one. Likewise,
Joseph the Second Gluck and Joseph Heiden. Eventually, Mozart persuaded
his father to join the society Who shall say that
its principles and philosophies did not serve Wolfgeng as a
protective armor, enabling him the more bravely to endure his
(12:27):
social and material tribulations pupils and friends Heiden. Mozart took
his wife to Salzburg in the summer of seventeen eighty three.
He had made a vow the previous year that when
he married Constanza and presented her to his father, he
would bring along a newly composed Mass for presentation in
(12:49):
his native town. The superb one in C minor was
the outcome, but for some reason it remained unfinished. We
cannot speculate here on the reason for or its incompleteness.
The torso or shall we say, patchwork, was rehearsed in
Saint Peter's Church in Salzburg, and Constanza sang some of
(13:09):
the soprano solos. Despite its incompleteness, the C minor Mass
is a soaring master work, the music of which Mozart
later put to use in the oratorio Da Vida Penitente
The Relentless dislike of the webors that both Leopold and
Nneul continued to Harbor was not mollified by this visit,
(13:31):
which proved uncomfortable as long as it lasted. Wolfgang and
his wife were relieved when the troublesome duty call came
to its chilly end and they were back in Vienna
once more. There was no end of professional business for
Mozart to transact composition in flooding abundance, lessons to give concerts, academies,
(13:53):
to organize musical personages to cultivate. Just now, at least
there were no terminable travels, such as had filled Mozart's
boyhood years. His pupils were sometimes talented, sometimes the reverse.
A few striking names stand out, among them Johann Neppema, Hommo,
Xavier zeus Meyer, Tomasatwood. Of the composers and executants with
(14:18):
whom he came in contact, we must mention Clemente Salieri,
Paisie Lo Regini Haiden. With Clemente, he appeared as a
pianist in a contest before Joseph the Second and some
visiting Russian blue bloods. So evenly were the two players
matched that the competition was declared to draw. Paisiello, composer
(14:42):
of the Barber of Seville, was a lovable character for
whom Wolfgang developed a great liking. Salieri, a disciple of
Gluck and a teacher of Schubert, appears to have criticized
some of Mozart's works, and Viennese gossip did what it
could to make the matter worse. The result was that
Salieri lives on in history, largely because of a wild
(15:05):
slander that he had given Mozart a poison, causing the
latter's untimely death. The meeting with Joseph Heyden resulted in
one of the noblest and most rewarding friendships the records
of music afford. Artistically, their creations benefited inestminably from the
mutual influence of their works and personalities. Heiden says doctor
(15:28):
Carl Geyringer was fascinated by Mozart's quicksilver personality, while Mozart
enjoyed the sense of security that Heidn's steadfastness and warmth
of feeling gave him. It was as if the two
men kindled brighter sparks in each other's souls. They played
chamber music together whenever Heyden made a trip to Vienna,
(15:51):
and the younger man was quick to acknowledge that it
was from his older colleague he first really learned to
write string quartets. The six that he composed between seventeen
eighty two and seventeen eighty five and dedicated with moving
words to his beloved friend Heiden, are doubtless among the
finest he wrote. It was on a visit of Leopold
(16:12):
Mozart's to Vienna that Heiden made to him the oft
quoted remark, I tell you before God and as an
honest man, that your son is the greatest composer known
to me, either in person or by reputation. And later,
when some one questioned a detail in Don Giovanni and
asked Heyden's opinion, he replied, I cannot settle this dispute,
(16:35):
but this I know, Mozart is the greatest composer that
the world now possesses. It enrages me to think that
the unparalleled Mozart has not yet been engaged by some
imperial or royal court. Do forgive this outburst, but I
love the man too much. It is heart breaking that
Heyden was not able, as he would have loved to
(16:56):
be to secure a post for Mozart in England. Mozart
had another encounter of a different sort at this period
in Vienna acquaintance with the music of Johann Sebastian Bach.
Through the Baron of von Schveeten, he had opportunity to
know the scores of Bach and Handel, and later even
to write for certain Hendel oratorios additional accompaniments for use
(17:21):
in performances. Von Schveeten was in the habit of giving
on Sundays at the Imperial Library and in some private homes,
and the depth, the grandeur and the polyphony of these
masters he assimilated to the added greatness of his own
mature works Hofner Symphony, with his concerts, teaching, clavier playing
(17:45):
and miscellaneous composing. Mozart may well have felt, as he
remarked on one occasion, that people sometimes expected impossibilities of me.
The Hofner family in Salzburg, for instance, asked Leopold to
write a symphony for some family festivity to be ready
in something like a fortnight. Both Gang at that time,
(18:07):
up to his ears in a quantity of other schemes,
found the labor shifted to his own shoulders by his father,
who was otherwise busied. Somehow or other, he contrived to
turn out in a trifle over the appointed time. It
is true the work we now know as the Hoffner Symphony,
the excellent salzburg bergomaster Siegmund Hoffner, appears to have been
(18:29):
well pleased. The composer himself instantly forgot the work, and
was astonished and delighted when a considerable time afterwards his
father sent him the score. He worked at several operatic projects,
but nothing lasting came of them, not even of The
Goose of Cairo, which contains charming passages, and which now
(18:51):
and then people have attempted to revive. There was indeed
an amateur performance in Vienna of Idomeneo. But these and
several other schemes must all be dismissed as transient compared
with the masterpiece we now approach. Lenozza di Figaro The
Marriage of Figaro Lenozza di Figaro. Mozart had longed for
(19:16):
years to write a German opera. He boasted of himself
as a thoroughly patriotic German, and longed for the day
when we should dare to feel as Germans. And even
if I may say so, to sing in German. The
nearest he had come to composing a German Zingspiel was
when as a child he had produced his little song
(19:36):
play Vestier unt Vestiennes, and again when in seventeen eighty
two he turned out the inimitable The Infero hal Stemserai.
But his ambitions soared even higher, and he consumed no
end of time and energy perusing the countless opera books
sent to him without finding anything that suited his true
(19:58):
artistic and dramatic purposes. For a while, he had dreamed
of accomplishing something in his Monheim days, even listening with interest,
but nothing more to stuff like Holzbauer's Gunter von Schwasburg,
though he briefly thought of a Rudolph von Hobsburg. He
had no choice in the end but to return to
(20:19):
Italian models, now, however, with a difference. Soon after the
amateur presentation of Idomeneo in Vienna, he had the good
fortune to be brought together with Lorenzo da Ponte, whose
real name was Emmanuel Connegliano, and who belonged to a
Jewish family in Conjera, near Venice. The youth entered a
(20:40):
theological seminary and became an industrious student with a poetic bent,
which resulted in quantities of Italian and Latin verse, an
outspoken adventurer with countless amorous escapades a La Casanova to
his credit. He began his theatrical career in Dresden, went
to the v Vienna, where he was to enjoy the
(21:01):
favor of Joseph the Second, and in the process of time,
went to London and finally to America, where he became
a teacher of languages, a liquor merchant, a theater enthusiast,
and what not. He died in New York many years
after Mozart, but like him, was buried in a grave
of which all traces have been lost. Mozart suggested to
(21:24):
his picturesque collaborator, who cheerfully wrote opera books for Salieri, Martin,
Regnini and others, a libretto to be adapted from Pierre
Augustin Caron de Beaumache Le Noche de Figaro, of which
Paisiello had recently composed beau Marche's predecessor, Le Barbiere de Seville.
(21:46):
But Figuero had been prohibited in France because it reflected
on the morals of the aristocracy, and the same ban
had been in effect in Vienna da Ponte. Altering it
for Mozart's purposes. Adroitly he eliminated its barbed satire, and then, tactfully,
explaining his alterations to the Emperor, secured his permission for
(22:08):
the performance. The composer, who limited his teaching to the
afternoon in order to complete the score, had been as
touchy as gunpowder, and threatened to burn the opera if
it were not produced by a certain time. To Joseph
the Second's credit, it must be said that the music
delighted him as soon as Mozart played him a few samples.
(22:30):
Figaro was produced at the bergtiatur on May one, seventeen
eighty six. A lucky Star shone on its birth in
spite of intrigues set in motion against it. Its success
was tremendous and was abundantly foreshadowed during the rehearsals. The
Irish tenor Michael Kelly, italianized as Ocelli, left us in
(22:52):
his memoirs, a striking account of the delight with which
the singers and orchestra joined the listeners at the end
of the first act in acclaiming the composer I shall
never forget, he says, his little animated countenance. When lighted
up with the glowing rays of genius, it is as
impossible to describe as it would be to paint sunbeams.
(23:16):
Father Mozart wrote to Naneul that not only had almost
every number to be repeated, but that at the following
performances five were encord the letter duet having to be
sung three times. In the end, the emperor for bad repetitions.
That season, Figaro received nine hearings, and for the two
(23:37):
following years not a single one. Mozart's opponents after a
momentary check had conspired successfully once more Prague. Luckily, the
incorrigibly musical checks championed Mozart to the limit. With the
infurung he had won them heart and soul, and by
(23:59):
the time Figaro reached Prague, that city was on the
way to becoming the true Mozart capital of Europe. From
that moment, nothing seemed greatly to matter but that opera.
In the composer's own words, people would listen to nothing
else and talk of nothing else. Its melodies were worked
up into dance arrangements, players in beer gardens, and even
(24:21):
the wandering street. Musicians who begged for pennies on corners
had to sing or strum their known quill Andre and
the rest of the tunes if they wanted any passer
by to pay attention to them. Truly a great honor
for me, mused the composer. Prague, now a high altar
of mozart worship, was for some time to remain so.
(24:43):
The creator of Figaro had valued friends in Prague. Among
the dearest of these were the Ducheks, whom he had
known in Salzburg. Franz, a gifted pianist and composer, and
his wife Josefa, both older than Mozart. Josepha, an excellent musician,
became an exceptional singer, and for her Wolfgang was to
(25:04):
compose some superb, though difficult concert arias she was well
to do, and with the money an admirer lavished on her,
she bought herself an estate known as the bert Gromca,
still one of the show places of Prague. Despite the
vicissitudes of more than a century and a half. Here
Mozart was often an honored guest, and to this day
(25:26):
the villa and the hilly garden surrounding it seemed to
breathe his spirit. The permanent Italian company that supplied opera
to the people of Prague, though not large, was exceedingly capable.
At this time. It was managed by a certain Pascual Bondini.
Its two efficient conductors, both of them Bohemians, Joseph Strobach
(25:48):
and J. B. Gutchardt, were heart and soul devoted to Mozart.
The intensely music loving checks jammed Mozart's academies and could
not hear enough of his symphonies and clave year works.
Small wonder therefore, that Bondini resolved to take advantage of
the heaven sent opportunity of Mozart's presence to commission him
(26:09):
to write a new opera for the company's next season.
The fee was the usual sum of a hundred ducats
no more the opera Don Giovanni. Actually, much more could
be said of this Prague visit of Mozart's. At one
of his concerts, he presented for the first time the
D Major Symphony, which sent its hearers into such raptures
(26:32):
that the world has forever named it the Brague Symphony.
When he arrived from Vienna, it had been arranged that
he was to stay with the Ducheks, but Josepha being away,
Mozart accepted the hospitality of the aristocrat Count Tun and
sat as an honored guest among the great of the land.
He doubtless remembered how at Colorado's court his table companions
(26:55):
had been cooks and grooms. He was taken to the
sumptuous dwelling of still another local patrician, the Count Canal,
and so it continued from day to day. Yet he
found time to write a piece for a wandering harpist,
which the latter played everywhere, boasting that Mozart had specially
composed it for him. End of Part three
Part three of Wolfgang Amadale's Mozart by Herbert F. Piser.
This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Part three
Mozart's Break with Salzburg. Mozart had reason to suppose that
the work might gain him a permanent and rewarding position
(00:21):
once more. He was disappointed, and a short time after
the production he received a summons from Salzburg to join
the archbishop in Vienna, whither Coloredo had gone with a
part of his musical staff, Leopold, it should be added,
was left at home. Bofgang boiled inwardly at the prospect
of having the honor once more of sitting above the
(00:43):
cooks at table. His father begged him to be patient,
but to no avail in a way. He welcomed the
present call to Vienna and seemed to sense his impending liberation.
If without knowing exactly how it was to come, it
seems as if good fortune is about to welcome me here,
he wrote his parent not long afterwards from the capital,
(01:05):
and now I feel that I must stay. Indeed, I
felt when I left Munich that, without knowing why, I
looked forward most eagerly to Vienna. He was seeking an
opportunity to break forever with his detested chief, to whom
he alluded as an etz lumel arch booby. He soon
(01:26):
found his chance. The archbishop at first refused mozart permission
to appear at the ton kunstler Sozietet, about which he
wrathfully wrote to his father. Yet a PostScript added that
in the end he got it that his place at
table was between the valets and the cooks. Is Alfred
Einstein says, rightly shocking both to the composer and to us.
(01:50):
But Mozart's rank as court organist was actually that of
personal servant, and according to eighteenth century etiquette, which knew
nothing of special treaty eatment for genius, this seating at
table was formerly correct. In the end, the threatened explosion
did occur. Colorado ordered him back to Salzburg on a
(02:11):
certain day, alleging some important engagement in Vienna. He refused,
and when the archbishop told him he could go to
the devil, he applied for his dismissal from the cleric's service.
Three times he presented applications. Finally, when he made an
effort to enter Coloreedo's apartment to hand him the paper personally,
(02:31):
Count Arco, son of the court Chamberlain, kicked him out
of the room, but Mozart did get the discharge he
had demanded. The tale of the kick is familiar even
to people who have not the vaguest familiarity with eighteenth
century codes. We might be well advised, however, to suspend
our judgment till we know both sides of the celebrated story.
(02:55):
No more Salzburg for me, both, gang gaily wrote his father,
barring repeating journeys to different cities, Vienna was to be
his home for the rest of his days. He was
not to find the material rewards and the secure position
he had sought for so long, but he had that
freedom his spirit craved, and in Vienna he was to
(03:15):
absorb those creative impulses that Haydn had known before him,
and Beethoven was to know after him. In a mood
of elation, he begged his father to leave Salzburg and
join him in Vienna. But Leopold was no longer young,
and besides he was made of other clay marriage. Mozart
(03:36):
renewed his ties with the Webers once more alousso indeed
was now out of his reach. But there were three
other daughters, the youngest still a child, to be sure.
The oldest, Josepha, had a good voice, but she left
Wolfgang cold. He was more attracted to Alius's sister Constanza,
a fact that was not lost on the scheming mother Weber,
(04:00):
now a widow, content to rent rooms and take in boarders,
in May seventeen eighty one he settled in the Webra
house zum Algagottis, just off the Gramen. Needless to say,
Leopold was greatly upset, for he had as low an
opinion of the Webers as ever. But Bolfgang was no
longer disposed to let his father's taste sway him, and
(04:23):
when he felt that he really loved Costanza, he determined
to make her his wife, regardless of parental wishes. The
unscrupulous Madame Weber, pleased at the turn of affairs, took
care that gossip should spread, and people began to talk
about the probability of the marriage. Mozart, yielding to mother
Weber's advice, left the Algagottis in September seventeen eighty one,
(04:48):
though returning for daily visits, Constanza's mother played her cards cleverly,
so as to compromise her daughter, and enjoyed the satisfaction
of having Mozart ask his father for his approval. A
vapor for a daughter in law was the last thing
Leopold wanted. Finally, on August fourth, seventeen eighty two, the
(05:09):
couple married, the elder Mozart's reluctant consent, not arriving in
Vienna until August five. He never forgave his son, however,
for this step. No more did nan Earle, who had
quite as little use for her brother's wife. Later after
the composer's death, Schlichtegro's necrology said of Constanza Mozart found
(05:31):
in her a good mother for the two children she
bore him, who sought to restrain him from many follies
and dissipations, the rest of which passage Constanzo was subsequently
moved to make illegible be all of which as it may.
There is no use in pretending that Mozart was earlier
or later in the least indifferent to feminine allurements. Sometimes
(05:55):
it was the women who plagued him with attentions, a
capital instance of which was his pupil, the pianist Josephine Arnhammer,
a talented but exceedingly repulsive person of whom he left
us a gruesome picture in a letter dated August twenty two,
seventeen eighty one. She is as fat as a farm
(06:16):
Wench perspires so that you feel inclined to vomit, and
goes about so scantily clad that you really can read
as plain as print. Pray do look here. It was
for this same Arenhammer, none the less that he wrote
the adorable clavier Concerto K for fifty three. Alfred Einstein
(06:37):
maintains that Constanza owes her fame to the fact that
Volfgey Mammadeus Mozart loved her, and in so doing preserved
her name for eternity as a fly is preserved in amber.
But this does not mean that she deserved either his
love or the fame it brought her. Certainly she could
not follow his flights of genius. Neither was she always
(06:59):
above reproach in her private conduct. Before their marriage, her
honest and devoted lover was writing to point out her
thoughtless behavior in allowing some man to measure her leg
in a game of forfeits, and nearly a decade later
he was begging her to consider appearances, to be careful
of her honor, and to keep away from the baden casino,
(07:22):
because the company is you understand what I mean. Einstein
believed that the only woman of whom Constanza had a
right to be jealous was Nansi stories his first Susanna.
Between Mozart and her, there must have been a deep
and sympathetic understanding. She was beautiful, an artist and a
(07:43):
finished singer. The Infurum oustainsaaye. The composer was probably delighted
to have the chance to place on the stage a
character named Constanza, and in the summer and autumn of
seventeen eighty one he began in the music of his
next major opera, Belmont und Constanza or De Infurum Alstainzaai
(08:08):
The Abduction from the Serralio. This Singspiel, the book of
which was originally the work of Christian Friedrich Bretzner, had
been presented a year earlier in Germany with a score
by Johann Andre. Under Wolfgang's careful supervision, the three act
piece underwent dramatic and textual modifications by Christian gottlob Stefani.
(08:30):
The younger Mozart had written his father the book is good,
the subject is Turkish and is called The Abduction from
the Serralio. Rehearsals did not start till June seventeen eighty two,
and on July sixteenth of that year the work was
produced in Vienna with extraordinary success. The stimulus back of
(08:50):
Stefani's revisions was unquestionably the penetrating theatre sense of the
composer himself. Into the love songs of the tenor Belmonte,
Mozart poured all his tender feelings for Constanza Weber, whom
he was shortly to lead to the altar. The characterizations
throughout have a life, a diversity, and a psychological truth
(09:12):
that had not been met with in any previous Mozartian
operatic effort. The Emperor, though he recognized the genius in
the work, thought it necessary to warn Mozart that the
music seemed to him too good for the Viennese and
contained a powerful quantity of notes, whereupon the ready witted
(09:33):
Mozart retorted, just as many as are necessary, your majesty.
His older contemporary, Gluck, was himself stirred to enthusiasm by
the work in which he unquestionably detected the influence of
his own exotic les Pellerines de la mech and invited
the composer to dinner. The Furum, which Carl Maria von
(09:55):
Weber was to say, was such a work as Mozart
could have written only once in his lifetime, quickly spread
through most other theaters of Central Europe, where after close
to two hundred years it still leads a lusty existence.
The more amusing, therefore, is a notice that disgruntled Bretzner
inserted in a Leipzig newspaper, a certain person in Vienna
(10:17):
named Mozart has had the effrontery to misuse my drama
Belmonte und Gunstanza for and opera libretto. I herewith protest
most solemnly that I reserve the right to take further
steps against this outrage. On the surface, the newly married
couple were happy. Yet it might be inquiring too closely
(10:39):
to ask whether Wolfgang did not, as time passed, suffer
from that deep seated loneliness and lack of understanding that
are sooner or later the lot of a genius of
this caliber. Under today's conditions, we have reason to assume
that a triumph like d'ent furung and the numerous other
treasures he was giving the world would lift him above
(11:01):
material cares. Instead, financial troubles began to thicken about him
and grew continually more burdensome. They were, indeed, to beset
him to his end. For all the air it created,
the opera did not bring its composer the appointment he expected,
and money was becoming oppressing necessity. Constanza's pregnancies were frequent
(11:23):
during her married life, and though only two children survived
infancy to become it is ironic to reflect wretched but
fairly long lived mediocrities. Her various confinements and her slow
recovery from them did not help to further her housewifely qualities.
It is not wholly surprising that Mozart's religious convictions, which
(11:45):
had earlier been a sort of childlike faith, weakened little
by little. The more so because he was brought into
growing contact with men who were profound thinkers, and of
whom many belonged to the secret society of Freemasons. Freemasonry
had political implications and was frowned upon by the Church.
(12:05):
Frederick the Great had been a Freemason, Gerta was one. Likewise,
Joseph the Second Gluck and Joseph Heiden. Eventually, Mozart persuaded
his father to join the society Who shall say that
its principles and philosophies did not serve Wolfgeng as a
protective armor, enabling him the more bravely to endure his
(12:27):
social and material tribulations pupils and friends Heiden. Mozart took
his wife to Salzburg in the summer of seventeen eighty three.
He had made a vow the previous year that when
he married Constanza and presented her to his father, he
would bring along a newly composed Mass for presentation in
(12:49):
his native town. The superb one in C minor was
the outcome, but for some reason it remained unfinished. We
cannot speculate here on the reason for or its incompleteness.
The torso or shall we say, patchwork, was rehearsed in
Saint Peter's Church in Salzburg, and Constanza sang some of
(13:09):
the soprano solos. Despite its incompleteness, the C minor Mass
is a soaring master work, the music of which Mozart
later put to use in the oratorio Da Vida Penitente
The Relentless dislike of the webors that both Leopold and
Nneul continued to Harbor was not mollified by this visit,
(13:31):
which proved uncomfortable as long as it lasted. Wolfgang and
his wife were relieved when the troublesome duty call came
to its chilly end and they were back in Vienna
once more. There was no end of professional business for
Mozart to transact composition in flooding abundance, lessons to give concerts, academies,
(13:53):
to organize musical personages to cultivate. Just now, at least
there were no terminable travels, such as had filled Mozart's
boyhood years. His pupils were sometimes talented, sometimes the reverse.
A few striking names stand out, among them Johann Neppema, Hommo,
Xavier zeus Meyer, Tomasatwood. Of the composers and executants with
(14:18):
whom he came in contact, we must mention Clemente Salieri,
Paisie Lo Regini Haiden. With Clemente, he appeared as a
pianist in a contest before Joseph the Second and some
visiting Russian blue bloods. So evenly were the two players
matched that the competition was declared to draw. Paisiello, composer
(14:42):
of the Barber of Seville, was a lovable character for
whom Wolfgang developed a great liking. Salieri, a disciple of
Gluck and a teacher of Schubert, appears to have criticized
some of Mozart's works, and Viennese gossip did what it
could to make the matter worse. The result was that
Salieri lives on in history, largely because of a wild
(15:05):
slander that he had given Mozart a poison, causing the
latter's untimely death. The meeting with Joseph Heyden resulted in
one of the noblest and most rewarding friendships the records
of music afford. Artistically, their creations benefited inestminably from the
mutual influence of their works and personalities. Heiden says doctor
(15:28):
Carl Geyringer was fascinated by Mozart's quicksilver personality, while Mozart
enjoyed the sense of security that Heidn's steadfastness and warmth
of feeling gave him. It was as if the two
men kindled brighter sparks in each other's souls. They played
chamber music together whenever Heyden made a trip to Vienna,
(15:51):
and the younger man was quick to acknowledge that it
was from his older colleague he first really learned to
write string quartets. The six that he composed between seventeen
eighty two and seventeen eighty five and dedicated with moving
words to his beloved friend Heiden, are doubtless among the
finest he wrote. It was on a visit of Leopold
(16:12):
Mozart's to Vienna that Heiden made to him the oft
quoted remark, I tell you before God and as an
honest man, that your son is the greatest composer known
to me, either in person or by reputation. And later,
when some one questioned a detail in Don Giovanni and
asked Heyden's opinion, he replied, I cannot settle this dispute,
(16:35):
but this I know, Mozart is the greatest composer that
the world now possesses. It enrages me to think that
the unparalleled Mozart has not yet been engaged by some
imperial or royal court. Do forgive this outburst, but I
love the man too much. It is heart breaking that
Heyden was not able, as he would have loved to
(16:56):
be to secure a post for Mozart in England. Mozart
had another encounter of a different sort at this period
in Vienna acquaintance with the music of Johann Sebastian Bach.
Through the Baron of von Schveeten, he had opportunity to
know the scores of Bach and Handel, and later even
to write for certain Hendel oratorios additional accompaniments for use
(17:21):
in performances. Von Schveeten was in the habit of giving
on Sundays at the Imperial Library and in some private homes,
and the depth, the grandeur and the polyphony of these
masters he assimilated to the added greatness of his own
mature works Hofner Symphony, with his concerts, teaching, clavier playing
(17:45):
and miscellaneous composing. Mozart may well have felt, as he
remarked on one occasion, that people sometimes expected impossibilities of me.
The Hofner family in Salzburg, for instance, asked Leopold to
write a symphony for some family festivity to be ready
in something like a fortnight. Both Gang at that time,
(18:07):
up to his ears in a quantity of other schemes,
found the labor shifted to his own shoulders by his father,
who was otherwise busied. Somehow or other, he contrived to
turn out in a trifle over the appointed time. It
is true the work we now know as the Hoffner Symphony,
the excellent salzburg bergomaster Siegmund Hoffner, appears to have been
(18:29):
well pleased. The composer himself instantly forgot the work, and
was astonished and delighted when a considerable time afterwards his
father sent him the score. He worked at several operatic projects,
but nothing lasting came of them, not even of The
Goose of Cairo, which contains charming passages, and which now
(18:51):
and then people have attempted to revive. There was indeed
an amateur performance in Vienna of Idomeneo. But these and
several other schemes must all be dismissed as transient compared
with the masterpiece we now approach. Lenozza di Figaro The
Marriage of Figaro Lenozza di Figaro. Mozart had longed for
(19:16):
years to write a German opera. He boasted of himself
as a thoroughly patriotic German, and longed for the day
when we should dare to feel as Germans. And even
if I may say so, to sing in German. The
nearest he had come to composing a German Zingspiel was
when as a child he had produced his little song
(19:36):
play Vestier unt Vestiennes, and again when in seventeen eighty
two he turned out the inimitable The Infero hal Stemserai.
But his ambitions soared even higher, and he consumed no
end of time and energy perusing the countless opera books
sent to him without finding anything that suited his true
(19:58):
artistic and dramatic purposes. For a while, he had dreamed
of accomplishing something in his Monheim days, even listening with interest,
but nothing more to stuff like Holzbauer's Gunter von Schwasburg,
though he briefly thought of a Rudolph von Hobsburg. He
had no choice in the end but to return to
(20:19):
Italian models, now, however, with a difference. Soon after the
amateur presentation of Idomeneo in Vienna, he had the good
fortune to be brought together with Lorenzo da Ponte, whose
real name was Emmanuel Connegliano, and who belonged to a
Jewish family in Conjera, near Venice. The youth entered a
(20:40):
theological seminary and became an industrious student with a poetic bent,
which resulted in quantities of Italian and Latin verse, an
outspoken adventurer with countless amorous escapades a La Casanova to
his credit. He began his theatrical career in Dresden, went
to the v Vienna, where he was to enjoy the
(21:01):
favor of Joseph the Second, and in the process of time,
went to London and finally to America, where he became
a teacher of languages, a liquor merchant, a theater enthusiast,
and what not. He died in New York many years
after Mozart, but like him, was buried in a grave
of which all traces have been lost. Mozart suggested to
(21:24):
his picturesque collaborator, who cheerfully wrote opera books for Salieri, Martin,
Regnini and others, a libretto to be adapted from Pierre
Augustin Caron de Beaumache Le Noche de Figaro, of which
Paisiello had recently composed beau Marche's predecessor, Le Barbiere de Seville.
(21:46):
But Figuero had been prohibited in France because it reflected
on the morals of the aristocracy, and the same ban
had been in effect in Vienna da Ponte. Altering it
for Mozart's purposes. Adroitly he eliminated its barbed satire, and then, tactfully,
explaining his alterations to the Emperor, secured his permission for
(22:08):
the performance. The composer, who limited his teaching to the
afternoon in order to complete the score, had been as
touchy as gunpowder, and threatened to burn the opera if
it were not produced by a certain time. To Joseph
the Second's credit, it must be said that the music
delighted him as soon as Mozart played him a few samples.
(22:30):
Figaro was produced at the bergtiatur on May one, seventeen
eighty six. A lucky Star shone on its birth in
spite of intrigues set in motion against it. Its success
was tremendous and was abundantly foreshadowed during the rehearsals. The
Irish tenor Michael Kelly, italianized as Ocelli, left us in
(22:52):
his memoirs, a striking account of the delight with which
the singers and orchestra joined the listeners at the end
of the first act in acclaiming the composer I shall
never forget, he says, his little animated countenance. When lighted
up with the glowing rays of genius, it is as
impossible to describe as it would be to paint sunbeams.
(23:16):
Father Mozart wrote to Naneul that not only had almost
every number to be repeated, but that at the following
performances five were encord the letter duet having to be
sung three times. In the end, the emperor for bad repetitions.
That season, Figaro received nine hearings, and for the two
(23:37):
following years not a single one. Mozart's opponents after a
momentary check had conspired successfully once more Prague. Luckily, the
incorrigibly musical checks championed Mozart to the limit. With the
infurung he had won them heart and soul, and by
(23:59):
the time Figaro reached Prague, that city was on the
way to becoming the true Mozart capital of Europe. From
that moment, nothing seemed greatly to matter but that opera.
In the composer's own words, people would listen to nothing
else and talk of nothing else. Its melodies were worked
up into dance arrangements, players in beer gardens, and even
(24:21):
the wandering street. Musicians who begged for pennies on corners
had to sing or strum their known quill Andre and
the rest of the tunes if they wanted any passer
by to pay attention to them. Truly a great honor
for me, mused the composer. Prague, now a high altar
of mozart worship, was for some time to remain so.
(24:43):
The creator of Figaro had valued friends in Prague. Among
the dearest of these were the Ducheks, whom he had
known in Salzburg. Franz, a gifted pianist and composer, and
his wife Josefa, both older than Mozart. Josepha, an excellent musician,
became an exceptional singer, and for her Wolfgang was to
(25:04):
compose some superb, though difficult concert arias she was well
to do, and with the money an admirer lavished on her,
she bought herself an estate known as the bert Gromca,
still one of the show places of Prague. Despite the
vicissitudes of more than a century and a half. Here
Mozart was often an honored guest, and to this day
(25:26):
the villa and the hilly garden surrounding it seemed to
breathe his spirit. The permanent Italian company that supplied opera
to the people of Prague, though not large, was exceedingly capable.
At this time. It was managed by a certain Pascual Bondini.
Its two efficient conductors, both of them Bohemians, Joseph Strobach
(25:48):
and J. B. Gutchardt, were heart and soul devoted to Mozart.
The intensely music loving checks jammed Mozart's academies and could
not hear enough of his symphonies and clave year works.
Small wonder therefore, that Bondini resolved to take advantage of
the heaven sent opportunity of Mozart's presence to commission him
(26:09):
to write a new opera for the company's next season.
The fee was the usual sum of a hundred ducats
no more the opera Don Giovanni. Actually, much more could
be said of this Prague visit of Mozart's. At one
of his concerts, he presented for the first time the
D Major Symphony, which sent its hearers into such raptures
(26:32):
that the world has forever named it the Brague Symphony.
When he arrived from Vienna, it had been arranged that
he was to stay with the Ducheks, but Josepha being away,
Mozart accepted the hospitality of the aristocrat Count Tun and
sat as an honored guest among the great of the land.
He doubtless remembered how at Colorado's court his table companions
(26:55):
had been cooks and grooms. He was taken to the
sumptuous dwelling of still another local patrician, the Count Canal,
and so it continued from day to day. Yet he
found time to write a piece for a wandering harpist,
which the latter played everywhere, boasting that Mozart had specially
composed it for him. End of Part three
Popular Podcasts
NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal
Gregg Rosenthal and a rotating crew of elite NFL Media co-hosts, including Patrick Claybon, Colleen Wolfe, Steve Wyche, Nick Shook and Jourdan Rodrigue of The Athletic get you caught up daily on all the NFL news and analysis you need to be smarter and funnier than your friends.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com