“Papa” Haydn and Mozart—the Genius
FRANZ JOSEPH HAYDN
1732–1809
About the time in history when Franz Joseph Haydn was born, the world
was very much upset. No one knew what to think or how. It was a time of
battle and struggle as he was born in the midst of the Seven Years’ War
and lived during the French Revolution. Everyone except for a few great
persons felt bitter and discontented and doubt was everywhere. This
seems to be the way wars and conflicts affect all peoples and it is why
wars are so damaging.
Yet out of this mixture of feeling and thinking, the great classic
period of music was created by such men as Bach and Haydn and Mozart and
the finishing touches were put on it by Beethoven, the colossus.
Franz Joseph Haydn was born in Rohrau (1732), a little town in Austria
near Vienna. His father was a wheelwright and his mother was a very good
cook. Beethoven’s mother, too, was a professional cook.
These simple parents, his brothers and sisters, measuring not a baker’s,
but a wheelwright’s dozen, had an hour or two of music every evening
after the hard day’s work, and Mathias, the father, played the harp and
sang. It was during these evenings that little Joseph’s father noticed
that at the age of six he was passionately fond of music.
One time at a festival the drummer failed to appear and there was no one
who could play for the choristers who were to march through the town.
His teacher, Frankh, called Joseph and showed him how to make the drum
stroke and told him to practice it. When he was left by himself he found
a meal tub, over which he stretched a cloth, put it on a stool and
drummed with such vigor that the whole thing toppled over and he and his
drum were covered with meal! But he learned to drum! And the people
laughed when in this solemn church festival, the little six year old
Joseph was seen drumming the big drum carried by a hunchback in front of
him. The drums on which he played are still at Hainburg. But, we forget,
we have not brought him from Rohrau!
Not long before J. M. Frankh, a relative, came to visit the Haydns, and
it was decided that he should take Joseph to Hainburg to teach him. The
excitement, of course, was great and little Joseph felt very important
with all the hustle and bustle preparing for his departure. Little did
Saperle (his nickname) realize what a hard master he was getting in
Frankh, who only cared for the pay he received from Joseph’s father.
Nevertheless he learned much and showed great talent while at Hainburg
and one day a great thing happened. Reutter, the organist of St.
Stephen’s in Vienna, visited Frankh and as they talked of music the
conversation turned to the choir school which Reutter directed. Frankh
sent for Joseph, a slight, dark haired, dark eyed little boy, and
Reutter asked him to read a piece of music at sight. Joseph looked at it
and said: “How can I, when my teacher couldn’t?” Yet, Joseph did sing it
sweetly and he entered the choir school. Here his life was a misery, for
Reutter was harsh and unsympathetic, but soon Joseph’s hard life in the
choir school was over, for one very cold winter night, he felt a little
frisky, as many a healthy lad does, and pulled off the wig of a man in
the choir. Reutter, who had wanted an excuse to rid himself of Joseph,
because his voice had begun to break, threw him out into the cold. Poor
Saperle had no other place to go and wandered about all night, until he
met his acquaintance Spangler, a tenor who was very poor and so had
sympathy with Haydn. He took him home to live with him and his wife and
child in his attic,—one small room with no comfort and no privacy. All
this time young Haydn was forced to earn his daily bread by teaching as
much as he could, playing for weddings, baptisms, funerals, festivals,
dances and street serenadings. This street serenading was a sweet and
pretty custom of the time.
One night Haydn and some other youths serenaded Kurz, a prominent
comedian. Kurz, pleased by the music below his window, called to the
lads: “Whose music is that?” “Joseph Haydn’s,” called back Haydn. “Who
is he and where?” asked Kurz. “Down here, I am Haydn,” said Joseph. Kurz
invited him upstairs and Haydn, at the age of seventeen, received a
commission for a comic opera, which had two special performances.
All this time he mixed with the poor and laboring people, and their
songs became his songs, and his heart was full of their frolics and
their pains. He was of the people and was so filled with their humor
that later he was called the father of humor in music.
Soon, in order to be alone, and to work in peace, he took a room in
another attic, and bade good-bye to his very good friends. His room was
cold in winter and let in the rains and snows, but it did have a spinet
on which Haydn was allowed to play, and fortunately Metastasio the
librettist lived in this house. Here Haydn studied the works of Karl
Philip Emanuel Bach, Fuchs’ _Gradus ad Parnassum_ (Steps to Parnassus,
Parnassus meaning the mountain upon which the Greek Muses lived and so
comes to mean the home of learning). He practised too, during this time,
on any instrument he could find and learned so much that he became the
founder of the modern orchestra.
When Metastasio discovered that there was a hard working musician in his
house he met him and then introduced him to Porpora the greatest Italian
singing teacher in Vienna. Not long after meeting him, Porpora entrusted
to his care Marianne Van Martines, his ten year old pupil, the future
musical celebrity. At seventeen Marianne wrote a mass which was used at
St. Michael’s Church and she became the favorite singer and player of
Empress Maria Theresa. You see women even in those days composed and
performed!
So began Haydn’s successes. Porpora engaged him as accompanist, and
treated him half way between a valet and a musician, but Haydn’s sweet
nature carried him through all unpleasantnesses and he was so anxious to
learn and to earn his six ducats that he did not care if he did have to
eat with the servants.
In 1751–2, he wrote his first mass, his first string quartet, and his
first comic opera for Kurz, _The Crooked Devil_, the music of which has
been lost. Soon after he met Gluck at the concerts of the Prince of
Hildburghausen, where Haydn acted as accompanist; at the prince’s house
too, he met Ditter von Dittersdorf, the violinist. The princes and
nobles of these days did much for music for it was usually at their
homes and under their guidance that the composers received opportunities
to work.
Nevertheless, we see Haydn during these days slaving to make his daily
bread, but with the money he made he bought books on music theory and
held himself sternly down to hard work, morning, noon, and night.
In 1755 Baron von Fürnburg, a music amateur, who gave concerts at his
home, asked him to compose for him, and he wrote eighteen quartets, six
_scherzandi_ for wind instruments (the ancestors of his own symphonies),
four string quartets, to be played by the village priest, himself, the
steward, and the ’cellist Albrechtsberger.
All these pieces show how much happier he was since becoming part of the
Baron’s staff, for they are merry and jolly, and filled with that humor
which Haydn was the first to put into music.
Here, too, he met the cultivated Countess Thun, who was so interested in
his struggle for success, and in the youth himself that she became his
pupil. From this time on he began to earn more and to live more
comfortably.
Everything seemed to be clearing up for him now. The Countess introduced
him to Count Morzin, a Bohemian nobleman of great wealth, and in 1759 he
became his musical director. His orchestra had eighteen members and here
he wrote his first Symphony (the first of one hundred and twenty-five!)
All this time he kept up his teaching and very soon married the daughter
of a wig-maker, who did not understand him and with whom he was very
unhappy, but he lived with her like the good man he was until within a
few years of his death.
HAYDN AND THE ESTERHAZYS
Soon after Haydn’s marriage, Count Morzin had to cut down expenses and
dismissed his musical staff, but Prince Paul Anton Esterhazy engaged him
and he lived with him thirty years under salary with all his expenses
paid,—thus ended his struggles to make a living. He composed in comfort
and had a few able musicians to play whatever he wrote. He had quiet,
solitude and appreciation,—the need of all art workers.
From 1761 to 1790 in the Esterhazy home he wrote most of his immortal
works,—six of his best symphonies; the oratorio _The Seven Words from
the Cross_ (1785) which he himself thought was a masterpiece; six string
quartets.
His orchestra here had six violins and violas, one violoncello, one
double bass, one flute, two oboes, two bassoons and four
horns,—seventeen in all; later he had twenty-two to twenty-four
including trumpets, kettle-drums and from 1776–1778 the newest arrival,
the clarinet.
His duties were to rehearse the orchestra daily, give music lessons,
compose for the orchestra and instruct the singers engaged by the
prince. Oh, yes! he had to tune his own harpsichord, on which he played
when he led the orchestra.
Haydn led a beautiful life with the Esterhazy family. In the summer he
hunted and fished, and in the winter, went off to Vienna to hear the
orchestra and meet great personages attracted by the art, music and
court life. But he had to keep on composing for the Esterhazys, who were
constantly entertaining and there were many special occasions to be
celebrated with Haydn’s lovely music.
It seems hard for us to realize that one family could play the
compositions of one man continually, but we have rarely had so great a
man to listen to!
HAYDN IN ENGLAND
In 1790 Haydn’s fame had spread abroad, especially to England. Salomon,
a violinist and concert manager begged him to come to conduct twenty
concerts with a new composition for each concert, for which he was to
receive a fabulous sum. He gave his first concert February 25th, 1791.
He was now about sixty years old and his popularity was so great that
the Prince of Wales engaged him for twenty-six court concerts. He forgot
to pay him, but later Parliament sent him one hundred guineas (about
$500). Money at that time bought four or five times what it buys now, so
Haydn went back to Austria, rich and famous and with a degree from
Oxford. The English asked him many times to return and finally in 1794
he went again and was greeted with even more enthusiasm. Few composers
in all the world have lived to see such triumphs as did the jovial,
charming “Papa Haydn,” as his warm friend and pupil Mozart called him.
But withal, Haydn was modest and unassuming and never hesitated to give
his services in concerts for the poor or to give money to the sick.
Besides all the money he must have received, he had a generous pension
from his friends, the Esterhazys, who demanded very little of his time.
So now, with leisure, he could do his greatest works and at this period
he wrote two oratorios, _The Creation_ and _The Seasons_. They were more
than successful. Emil Naumann says this of _The Seasons_: “It is not
until we come to Haydn that we witness the joys and sorrows of men and
women of our own time and dwellers in our own land, the tiller of the
soil, the wine-presser and shepherd, or homely figures like Simon the
farmer, his daughter Anna and the peasant Lucas, in _The Seasons_.” Then
he says of _The Creation_: “We move with him through the German spinning
room, where the girls relate stories to the accompaniment of the musical
hum of the spinning wheel, or we rove through woods to follow the chase.
His whole heart is in nature. He loves to depict her in her many varying
aspects, and at all seasons, and all is touched with a light, tender
hand. His types are of home.... His delineation of nature is ever the
same, fresh and loving, whether we look at _The Seasons_ or at _The
Creation_.”
Haydn said of his English experience, “It is England which has made me
famous in Germany.”
In 1797 he wrote _God Preserve the Emperor_ which became the Austrian
National Hymn, and later put it in his quartet called the Kaiser
Quartet. From this time on, nearly every nation honored him,—Russia,
France, Sweden, England, Austria, Germany. And as Haydn was leaving for
England, when Mozart said to him, “Papa, you are scarcely fitted for
such an undertaking, mixing with the big world without the gift of
language,” he replied, “Aye, but _my_ language is understood by the
whole world.”
And this is the keynote of Haydn’s greatness, his music is and was
understood by the whole world, so true and simple and melodious is it.
A GALA PERFORMANCE
One year before his death when he was seventy-six years of age, he was
so feeble that he had to be carried to the concert hall where a great
performance of _The Creation_ was given in his honor under the direction
of Salieri, who later taught Beethoven. Princes and nobles and grand
ladies did him homage and the ladies threw their beautiful cloaks over
his couch to keep him warm, for it was a cold night in March, 1808. When
that part of the oratorio came where they sing, “And there was light,”
it is said that Haydn exclaimed, “Not I, but a power from above created
that.”
He died on May 30th, 1809, from shock, it is said, caused by the booming
of cannon near his house when the French besieged Vienna.
So passed this conscientious musician, whose belief is summed up in
these sentences: “I know that God appointed me a task. I acknowledge it
with thanks, and hope and believe I have done my duty and have been
useful to the world. May others do likewise.”
HAYDN’S GIFT TO MUSIC
1. He made over the orchestra, he discovered that muted strings made a
beautiful winning effect.
2. He and Mozart at about the same time, added the clarinet to the
orchestra.
3. He was the first composer who brought humor, that difficult thing
which is neither wit nor comicalness, to music, although others had
brought fun and boisterousness.
4. He was the first to use the individual tone color of each instrument,
so, rightly he has been called the father of the modern orchestra.
5. He developed sonata-form in the sonata itself, the quartet, concerto
and symphony. He was one of the first to establish two themes instead of
one in the movements of sonata-forms. This was a great innovation and
made the sonata a far more living thing and gave the composers who
followed him a richer field to carry out musical design and human
feeling.
6. He wrote about 1,407 works! 157 symphonies of which 18 are
masterpieces, 83 string quartets, 66 piano sonatas, 5 oratorios, 42
German and English songs, 336 Scotch songs, 40 canons, 13 part songs for
three and four voices, 5 German marionette operas written for the
Esterhazy theatre, 14 Italian operas, 163 pieces for the baryton (viola
da bordona), a favorite instrument of one of the Esterhazy princes, 47
divertimenti and trios, 15 concertos for different instruments, 15
masses, 5 other sacred works, 400 single minuets and waltzes. (Emil
Naumann.)
7. Among his larger vocal works with orchestra are: _Alcide_ (1762),
_Philemon and Baucis_, _entre acte_ music for King Lear and many others.
His symphonies are so numerous and so many in the same key that in order
to tell them apart some have been given such names as _Surprise
Symphony_, _The Farewell Symphony_, the _Military Symphony_, _Queen of
France_, _The Oxford_, the fascinating _Kinder Symphonie_ (children’s
symphony) and on and on!
MOZART AND HAYDN
Mozart was years younger than Haydn and died while still very young, but
they were the closest friends. Haydn was his teacher, but lived to think
of Mozart as his superior and didn’t hesitate to say so. This again
shows the great spirit of Haydn.
Although Haydn was an innovator and a master of form his rules were
never cast into molds he could not break through inspiration. A critic
once asked him about the introduction to the Mozart Quartet in C major
which had been much discussed on account of its complex harmonies,—a
work which today we look upon as one of the greatest examples of his
genius. Haydn replied in a decided tone, “If Mozart has written it, be
sure he had good reason for so doing.” Albrechtsberger, a strict
technician, questioned him about the use of consecutive fourths which
was breaking a good old-fashioned law of harmony. Haydn replied, “Art is
free and must not be fettered by handicraft rule. The cultivated ear
must decide, and I believe myself as capable as any one of making laws
in this respect.” Thus spoke the great musician and not just the teacher
and follower.
He loved his art so well that he welcomed the young Mozart to Vienna
generously, because of his genius. Haydn, when asked by a manager to
have one of his operas follow the night after one of Mozart’s refused,
saying: “It would be too much to venture, for next to the great Mozart
it would be difficult for anyone to stand. Could I force home to every
lover of music the grandeur and inimitableness of Mozart’s operas, ...
and display of genius, and were I able to impress all others with the
same feelings which excite me, the nations would contend for the
possession of so rare a gem. Let Prague strive to hold fast the
priceless man. But reward him adequately, for without this the history
of great men is truly sad and offers to posterity little inducement to
exertion, as indeed many a hopeful mind lies fallow for want of
encouragement. It angers me _only_ that Mozart has not yet been engaged
at some Imperial court. Pardon this digression but I love the man
dearly.” When he left Mozart he wrote to his friend Frau von Gennzinger,
“I am inconsolable at parting,” and then he tells with the simplicity of
a child “a happy dream” he had listening to a performance of Mozart’s
_Marriage of Figaro_. (Adapted from Naumann.)
And thus we see this cheerful-hearted man according honor and love even
to his rivals, his broad realistic humor showing itself, as well as
charm, dignity and beauty, in all his works whether in music or in life.
Papa Haydn was a good and truly religious man. He leaves us an example
of kindliness and thoughtfulness, for even the people who loaned him
money, which he repaid, were remembered in his will. A touching story is
told of him; that when he returned to his parent’s home, he kissed the
floor upon which his mother and father used to walk, so well had he
remembered them, yet so simple had he remained, he who played among and
played with and played for the greatest people who lived in his time.
WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART
1756–1791
Now we come to the greatest musical genius of all time. For, whereas
Bach, Handel, Haydn, Gluck, and Beethoven excelled in many things,
Mozart excelled in everything; living but thirty-five years, about half
the time of most of these, he outstripped them all in natural genius.
Wolfgang Amadeus, born in Salzburg on the 27th of January, 1756, was the
son of Leopold Mozart, under chapel master to the hated Archbishop of
Salzburg. His mother was the daughter of a minor official in
Hildenstein, and was not a cook as were the mothers of Haydn and of
Beethoven. However, Madam Mozart’s not having been of that profession
did not lessen her son’s genius!
One day when little Wolfgang was four years old, his father found the
boy busily writing. He warned his father not to disturb him, as he was
writing a concerto for the harpsichord. And, sure enough, when the
father looked over the boy’s shoulder he saw that he was not scribbling
as most children of four years do, but was actually composing a work for
harpsichord and orchestra, which he afterwards played to show how it
should go. In spite of the blots of ink, it could easily be read.
Mozart’s father was a wise and kindly man. He soon appreciated that the
boy was destined for a great career, and decided that he must be
properly trained.
Wolfgang was a sweet and loving child, very kind and easy to control,
although he and his sister “Nannerl” were “regular” children and loved
to play as other children. The father decided to take them both on a
concert tour through Europe, in order to meet the great musicians and to
earn money for their education.
In May, 1765, Wolfgang and his pretty little sister gave their first
concert in London “for the benefit” so the sign read, “of Miss Mozart
aged thirteen and Master Mozart eight years of age, prodigies of
nature ... a concert of music, with all the overtures of this little
boy’s composition.”
The people, tired of all the pomp and ceremony of fashion, were eager
for something different and were ready to listen to youthful prodigies,
so the hall was crowded, and everyone was amazed.
They were beautifully brought up, charming, merry and unspoiled by the
gifts showered upon them. Father Mozart gave the presents to them by
degrees, teaching them the value of all things, from jewels to flattery.
Because of this training, Mozart always remained modest, did everything
with gratitude to God and greatest love for his parents. He was
especially loving to Nannerl to whom he brought every new idea. In fact
Mozart radiated friendship and love.
THE CHILDREN TOUR EUROPE
On this concert tour (1765) in Paris, London, Holland and Switzerland,
Mozart was received with great enthusiasm everywhere. When they came
back, Mozart had no time to become conceited for he began a strict
course of study and at twelve he composed his first mass and his first
opera _Bastien et Bastienne_, which is still played and is charming. At
fourteen he was assistant concertmaster to the Archbishop of Salzburg,
and then began a series of woes, for the Archbishop was a mean character
and treated him most unjustly.
However, in 1777, we see him in Paris with his mother, where to his
great advantage he heard Gluck’s operas and met Gluck. Shortly after
that his mother died, and it made a very deep scar in his heart. Soon he
was absorbed in composing and finishing _Idomeneo_ and in this year
(1781) took up his residence in Vienna. In the next, he married
Constance Weber and wrote _Il Seraglio_ in which his heroine is called
Constance. They say he was teased for this, but he did not mind very
much. In 1786 he wrote the unexcelled _Marriage of Figaro_, which at
first was not appreciated, but soon came into its own.
Prague began to love Mozart and gave him ovations. To show his
appreciation he composed _Don Giovanni_ (1787) and so great was the
people’s delight in this masterpiece that Emperor Joseph made him court
composer at the salary of $400 a year! Too bad it was not more, for poor
Mozart was never free from the heart-breaking struggle to make enough
money to live. You will recall the letter of Haydn in the last section
where he wished some nation would adopt Mozart and free him from care,
so great was Haydn’s appreciation and love for Mozart, which Mozart
returned. When listening to a piece of Haydn’s, a critic once said: “I
wouldn’t have written it like that, would you?” “No,” replied Mozart,
“and do you know why? Because neither of us would have had the idea!”
Isn’t it refreshing to see men so great in wisdom and works that they
become greater because of their loyalties.
Yet this man, a genius almost divine, was so hated by petty musicians,
so badgered by unjust criticism, that when he was dying he believed that
someone had poisoned him!
In spite of his enemies, he was known for his gaiety and bubbling fun,
which ever overflowed into his music. No one seems to know why his
country did not free him of money worry.
APPRECIATION COMES LATE
As it so often happens with great men, after his death public
subscriptions were collected and statues erected as a tribute to his
memory. At Salzburg you can see a statue of him, and yearly festivals of
his works are held in his honor; and in Vienna, the opera house is
decorated with frescoes of scenes from the _Magic Flute_!
After his visit to Prague he was never well, and when he had finished
the inimitable _Magic Flute_ he started work on his last composition,
the great Requiem (a mass played for the dead) which influenced Catholic
Church music for years. He became very despondent, in great contrast to
his usual high spirits, and poor Constance did everything to cheer him.
One day, while writing the Requiem, Mozart began to weep and declared he
was writing it for himself, “I feel I am not going to last much longer,
some one has certainly given me poison, I cannot get rid of this idea.”
In November, being an ardent member of the Masonic brotherhood, as were
also Beethoven and Haydn, believing as they did in the freedom and
brotherhood of man, he wrote a cantata and led it himself at his lodge.
Ill and despondent, he continued work on the Requiem, finished while he
was dying. All during this time he longed to hear his _Magic Flute_
which was constantly given at the opera house, and like a child, he
would say: “I guess they have just reached this or that point,” and he
would hum the music as he thought it must be progressing at the opera.
The day before he died, Roser, his friend, played some of the opera on
the harpsichord to cheer him.
The afternoon before his death, after finishing the Requiem, he and some
of his friends sang it. At the _Lacrymosa_, Mozart wept. He said to
Sussmayer, his friend, “Did I not say I was writing the Requiem for
myself?” Later he asked his wife to tell Albrechtsberger of his
approaching end, so that he would be ready to take his post at St.
Stephen’s. During his last hours he was informed that he had been made
director of all the music at St. Stephen’s with a salary that for the
first time in his life would have enabled him to live in comfort, but it
was too late! At midnight, on December 5th, 1791, he lost consciousness
and fell into a slumber from which he did not awake. His wife was so
overcome with grief that she was too ill to attend his funeral. A few
faithful friends followed the coffin, but had to turn back as a furious
tempest was raging and they could not force their way through the
driving rain and sleet. Thus passed one of the rarest spirits that has
ever brought Music to earth, and he lies in a grave unknown and
unmarked. In 1859, the city of Vienna erected a monument to his memory
near the spot where he was probably buried.
Sad, sad end for so great a man! He and Raphael, Keats and Shelley and
Jesus, Himself, all died early in their careers and yet had time to
leave the world a finer and more lovely place for us.
MOZART PRINCE OF MUSICIANS
Why do we celebrate Mozart in what seems to be exaggerated terms?
Where Handel was a great epic composer, Bach a great religious composer,
Gluck, a dramatic writer, Haydn more versatile than many of the others
yet not dramatic, Beethoven lyric, free and hating all tyrannies, in
Mozart we have great opera, great masses, great epics, symphonies and
chamber music quartets and quintets.
The list of his works is gigantic! How he was able in the short span of
his life, to write down so much, to say nothing of composing them, is a
problem that cannot be solved!
With his usual tendency not to finish work until the last minute, he
wrote the overture to _Don Giovanni_ the night before the first
performance. He composed and scored it for orchestra in less time that
it took the copyists to copy the parts, and the audience was forced to
wait almost an hour until Mozart appeared at the conductor’s stand to
direct the unrehearsed overture. When the curtain rose on the first act
Mozart said, “The overture went off very well on the whole, although a
good many notes certainly fell under the desks!”
Mozart promised a group of country dances to a count, but failed to keep
his word. The count invited him, putting dinner time an hour ahead. When
Mozart arrived he was shown into a room, was given music paper, quills
and ink and was asked to compose, then and there, four country dances to
be performed the next evening. In a half hour’s time he wrote the entire
orchestra score and earned his dinner!
Mozart could be not only humorous, but tragic in the same work, making
his humor seem greater by contrast. _Don Giovanni_ and the _Magic Flute_
could be called tragic-comedies they are so rich in both moods.
In the _Marriage of Figaro_ he originated what Emil Naumann calls
conversational opera, although Rossini’s _Barber of Seville_, and
Donizetti’s _Daughter of the Regiment_ follow it in style they do not
reach it in real fun, melody and quality. When we say some of his operas
were humorous we do not mean that they were comic operas.
In _Don Giovanni_ he originated romantic opera, and although Weber in
_Oberon_ and other operas have their fine moments, none approach the
awe-inspiring, continuous beauty of Mozart’s.
He was the first to write a great fairy opera, _The Magic Flute_,
composed when he was writing the Requiem! Although the librettist wrote
it for money, Mozart wanted it idealistic and true to his beliefs.
_Cosi Fan Tutti_ (They’re All Alike) was really and truly comic opera,
and _Titus_ shows his mastery of the formal and severe style. So in all
these he left models for those who followed him. Had he done but this
one thing he would have been great indeed.
Coming into the world when he did, he was the connecting link between
the old Italian opera and Gluck, who idealized what the old Florentines
did, on the one hand, and the romantic and romantic comic opera of the
later masters of Germany and France, on the other.
In instrumental music he is the link between Haydn and Beethoven. Let us
see how! He furthered the work of Haydn in the quartets and quintets by
making them more human and more expressive of sorrow, pain, passionate
grief and the deeper things than Haydn. In his six quartets dedicated to
Haydn he says, “I labored over these.” This does not agree with the
usual statement, says Naumann, “that he shook his music out of his
sleeve.”
Out of his forty-nine symphonies nine rank, some think, with Beethoven’s
nine! In the finale of the Jupiter symphony he does so great a musical
feat that as yet no one has surpassed it. For in it he writes a fugue
along with the sonata form of the symphony, so spontaneous and so lovely
that even Bach himself could not have reached the freshness of it.
Mozart treated the fugue with the same limpid mirthfulness that he used
in less strict forms of music. This Beethoven never achieved for his
fugues were always a bit labored, but Mozart was perfectly at home in
contrapuntal writing.
Mozart also invented the art song! This is different from the regular
song for the music changes from verse to verse to make the meaning of
the poem or words more expressive. Thus he paved the way for Schubert,
Schumann, Brahms and other great song writers, as he did for the
symphonist Beethoven and those born later.
He opened the gate, not to a national art, but to an international art,
for he was a world figure.
So, we leave Mozart, the Genius, for Beethoven, the Colossus, who
deepened and glorified music and gave it a broader path along which to
travel.
[Illustration:
_After a “Portrait of a Young Man” (Mozart?) by Prud’hon, in the
Louvre, Paris._
_Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart._
]
[Illustration:
_From the head by Gourwitch._
_Ludwig van Beethoven._
]