Leopold was not blind to the fact that Italy was the home of great
composers and illustrious singers; that its atmosphere was stimulating
to musical thought; that its very name was synonymous with music. Under
pretext of a short visit to Vienna, he made his excuses to the Archbishop
and started, in September, 1767, with his family on a longer journey. In
Vienna, the children were seized with small-pox, and it was not until
January, 1768, that they were able to enter into the musical life of the
town. They heard Gluck's "Alceste," and Leopold preferred to it Hasse's
"Partenope." Joseph II., a man of frugal mind, demanded of Wolfgang
an opera for his theatre, and the boy wrote "La Finta Simplice," an
opera-buffa in three acts. It won the unqualified praise of the singers
and such composers as Hasse, but the cabal against Wolfgang was too
strong, and the opera was not given. "Bastien und Bastienne," an opera in
one act, was written immediately after, and produced with great applause
in the house of a Vienna doctor. (The pastoral theme of the instrumental
introduction, the intrada, anticipates in a singular manner the opening of
Beethoven's Third Symphony.) Wolfgang's first mass was given in public,
and he himself directed. The Archbishop of Salzburg sent word to Leopold
that his pay would continue only while he was actually in Salzburg, and so
the family returned home. But the Italian journey was still in Leopold's
head, and hoping to pay the expenses of the trip by giving concerts, he
started out with Wolfgang in December, 1769. At Roveredo and Verona, the
enthusiasm of the people was unbounded; at Milan they met the generous Von
Firmian, who was the means of procuring a contract for Wolfgang to write
an opera for the Christmas holidays; at Bologna they became acquainted
with Father Martini and Farinelli; at Florence, Wolfgang met his friend
Manzuoli and Thomas Linley, the English violinist of his own age; and in
Holy Week they were at Rome, and they heard the Allegri _Miserere_. The
story of the boy memorizing this famous composition at a hearing, writing
it out, and correcting it after a second hearing, is familiar to all.
The feat provoked the wildest curiosity to see him, and he was looked
at superstitiously, just as, soon after, at Naples his virtuosoship was
attributed to a ring worn upon a finger of the left hand. The concerts
in these towns refilled the drained purse; in 1770, the pope ennobled
the boy, giving him the cross of the Golden Spur; and he was received
into the famous _accademia filarmonica_ of Bologna. Meanwhile Wolfgang
was considering the opera promised for Milan, and the 26th of December,
1770, "Mitridate, re di Ponto" was produced and received with unbounded
enthusiasm. It was given twenty times, and the impresario hastened to make
a new contract with the _cavaliere filarmonico_, as the Milanese called
him. Father and son then visited Turin and Venice, and about this time
Wolfgang probably wrote the oratorio "Betulia liberata." In the spring
of 1771 they returned to Salzburg, where they found a letter from Count
Firmian asking for a pastorale to celebrate the wedding of the Archduke
Ferdinand with the Princess Beatrice of Modena. And now the boy fell in
love with a woman ten years his elder. She was betrothed to another, and
her marriage and Wolfgang's return to Milan in August ended the affair.
Although in the house where he lodged, violinists, a singing teacher, and
an oboe player plied assiduously their business, Wolfgang finished the
promised composition, "Ascanio in Alba" in twelve days. It was first heard
October 17. Its success was so great that Hasse's opera "Ruggiero" was
neglected; and the kindly veteran simply said, "This young rascal will
cause us all to be forgotten."
[Illustration: HOUSE IN SALZBURG WHERE MOZART WAS BORN.