CHAPTER XXI
MOZART AND THE EXALTATION OF MELODY
156. Mozart's Unique Position.—Mozart was born almost a
quarter-century after Haydn, and lived less than half as long,
so that he died before Haydn had reached the acme of his
power. Yet he developed so rapidly and phenomenally as
to outrun Haydn and to force him to new efforts. Thus, in
spite of the difference in age, the two wrought side by side, and,
as regards the establishment of the homophonic sonata and
symphony, the period is rightly known as that of Haydn and
Mozart.
But Mozart's genius was many-sided, much more so than Haydn's. In particular, it included, even from early years, an intense interest in the musical drama, with a ready sensitiveness to the most progressive tendencies of the age in this field. Mozart's strongest period followed immediately upon Gluck's triumph, and, since he was personally in touch with the whole controversy, both at Vienna and at Paris, he was bound to share in the new views and ambitions. Like Gluck, he had already had a wide cosmopolitan experience and was at home in all the leading operatic styles, Italian, Austrian and French. He was not specially a student or philosophical analyst, but he had keen intuition and quick versatility. Hence it is not strange that from about 1780 he stepped into a real companionship with Gluck (more than forty years his senior) and that, as regards the renovation of the opera, the period is further called that of Gluck and Mozart. This is the more fitting because Mozart excelled Gluck in both the variety and the absolute musical value of his methods.
Again, Mozart had been trained as a virtuoso on both the violin and the clavier. He was quick to perceive the latent capacities of the developing pianoforte. While the number of his larger and abler works for the latter is not large, it is only fair to recognize his kinship in a limited sense with the new
