Mozart's life in Paris, where he lived with his mother in 1778 and
1779, was a disappointment, for he despised the French nation. His
deep, simple, German nature revolted from Parisian frivolity, in which
he found only sensuality and coarseness, disguised under a thin
veneering of social grace. He abhorred French music in these bitter
terms--"The French are and always will be downright donkeys. They
cannot sing, they scream." It was just at this time that Gluck and
Piccini were having their great art-duel. We get a glimpse of the
pious tendency of the young composer in his characterisation of
Voltaire--"The ungodly arch-villain, Voltaire, has just died like a
dog." Again he writes--"Friends who have no religion cannot long be my
friends.... I have such a sense of religion that I shall never do
anything that I would not do before the whole world."
With Mozart's return to Germany in 1779, being then twenty-three years
of age, comes the dawn of his classical period as a composer. The
greater number of his masses had already been written, and now he
settled himself in serious earnest to the cultivation of a true German
operatic school. This found its dawn in the production of "Idomeneo,"
his first really great work for the lyric stage.
The young composer had hard struggles with poverty in these days. His
letters to his father are full of revelations of his friction with the
little worries of life. Lack of money pinched him close, yet his
cheerful spirit was ever buoyant. "I have only one small room; it is
quite crammed with a piano, a table, a bed, and a chest of drawers,"
he writes.
Yet he would marry; for he was willing to face poverty in the
companionship of a loving woman who dared to face it with him. At
Mannheim he had met a beautiful young singer, Aloysia Weber, and he
went to Munich to offer her marriage. She, however, saw nothing
attractive in the thin, pale young man, with his long nose, great
eyes, and little head; for he was anything but prepossessing. A
younger sister, Constance, however, secretly loved Mozart, and he soon
transferred his repelled affections to this charming woman, whom he
married in 1782 at the house of Baroness Waldstetten. His _naïve_
reasons for marrying show Mozart's ingenuous nature. He had no one to
take care of his linen, he would not live dissolutely like other young
men, and he loved Constance Weber. His answer to his father, who
objected on account of his poverty, is worth quoting:--
"Constance is a well-conducted, good girl, of respectable parentage,
and I am in a position to earn at least _daily bread_ for her. We love
each other, and are resolved to marry. All that you have written or
may possibly write on the subject can be nothing but well-meant
advice, which, however good and sensible, can no longer apply to a man
who has gone so far with a girl."
Poor as Mozart was, he possessed such integrity and independence that
he refused a most liberal offer from the King of Prussia to become his
chapel-master, for some unexplained reason which involved his sense of
right and wrong. The first year of his marriage he wrote "Il
Seraglio," and made the acquaintance of the aged Gluck, who took a
deep interest in him and warmly praised his genius. Haydn, too,
recognised his brilliant powers. "I tell you, on the word of an honest
man," said the author of the "Creation" to Leopold Mozart, the father,
who asked his opinion, "that I consider your son the greatest composer
I have ever heard. He writes with taste, and possesses a thorough
knowledge of composition."
Poverty and increasing expense pricked Mozart into intense, restless
energy. His life had no lull in its creative industry. His splendid
genius, insatiable and tireless, broke down his body, like a sword
wearing out its scabbard. He poured out symphonies, operas, and
sonatas with such prodigality as to astonish us, even when
recollecting how fecund the musical mind has often been. Alike as
artist and composer, he never ceased his labours. Day after day and
night after night he hardly snatched an hour's rest. We can almost
fancy he foreboded how short his brilliant life was to be, and was
impelled to crowd into its brief compass its largest measure of
results.
Yet he was always pursued by the spectre of want. Oftentimes his sick
wife could not obtain needed medicines. He made more money than most
musicians, yet was always impoverished. But it was his glory that he
was never impoverished by sensual indulgence, extravagance, and
riotous living, but by his lavish generosity to those who in many
instances needed help less than himself. Like many other men of genius
and sensibility, he could not say "no" to even the pretence of
distress and suffering.