Luckily, the incorrigibly musical Czechs championed Mozart to the limit!
With _Die Entführung_ he had won them heart and soul, and by 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 the wandering
street musicians who begged for pennies on corners had to sing or strum
their _Non piu andrai_ 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.
The creator of _Figaro_ had valued friends in Prague. Among the dearest
of these were the Duscheks, whom he had known in Salzburg—Franz, a
gifted pianist and composer, and his wife, Josefa, both older than
Mozart. Josefa, an excellent musician, became an exceptional singer, and
for her Wolfgang was to 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 _Bertramka_—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 the villa and the hilly gardens surrounding it seem 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 Pasquale Bondini. Its two efficient conductors
(both of them Bohemians), Josef Strobach and J. B. Kucharz, were heart
and soul devoted to Mozart. The intensely music-loving Czechs jammed
Mozart’s academies and could not hear enough of his symphonies and
clavier works. Small wonder, therefore, that Bondini resolved to take
advantage of the heaven-sent opportunity of Mozart’s presence to
commission him to write a new opera for the company next season. The fee
was the usual sum of 100 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 that the world has forever
named it the “Prague” Symphony. When he arrived from Vienna it had been
arranged that he was to stay with the Duscheks, but, Josefa being away,
Mozart accepted the hospitality of the aristocrat, Count Thun, and sat
as an honored guest among the great of the land. He doubtless remembered
how at Colloredo’s court his table companions 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.