Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 14.djvu/111

HOZABT. 83 IfOZABT. an invitation to composf an opera for ilunich. Zaidc was never linislied, Imt the result of the iJunieh invitation was the ojiera Idiiininco, which opened a new epcxh in his life, being his first masterpiece in the grand style. During a visit to Vienna in 1781, ilozart terminated once for all his relations with the boorish llieronymus, who had grossly insulted him. He took up his residence with the W'ebers, who were now in Vienna. His father stronf,'ly objected to this, and he moved his lodgings, liul he had fallen in love with Constanza, and in August, 1782, they were married. Notwitlistanding the grinding )ioverty of their lot, tlieir marriage was a happy one, for their mutual love atoned for the hardships which constantly confronted them. His marriage took place shortly after the production in Vienna of his opera Bclmonte und Vonstanza, oder Die Entfuhrunn aus dem i^erail. The Italian musi- cians of Vienna, headed by Salieri, used all means in their power to have the production fail, but it was triumphantly successful. Gluck attended one of the performances and was en- thusiastic in his approval of it. Nevertheless, from this time on ilozart was constantly met by the hostile machinations of the Salieri party, which greatly imbittered his career. The success of the opera led the Emperor to order a new opera bufTa of Mozart, who, in connection with its composition, was brought together with Lorenzo da Ponte. The result wis Le nozze di Figaro. Beaumarchais's work on which the libretto is based had been forbidden in Vienna on the ground of its immorality, ilo- zart, however, went to work on the score, and when part of it had been composed, Da Ponte found opportunity to have the Emperor hear it, with the result that he ordered its completion and performance. Besides this he gave the composer an order for a musical comedy, Der Schaiispicldirector, for a garden fete at Schon- brunn. Throughout the preparations for the production of Figaro Salieri and his adherents were active in opposition, and the first perform- ance, in Jlay, 1780, came near being a failure. In .January. 1787. however, it was received with immense enthusiasm at Prague, where Mozart be- came a popular idol. The concerts which he gave there were immensely successful, and he was engaged to write another opera. Da Ponte sug- gested DoH Giovanni to him. and in April placed the libretto of the work in his hands. By Sep- tember ]lozart and his wife and Da Ponte were in Prague, rehearsals were taken in hand, and late in October Don Giovanni was produced, and was even more successful than Figaro had been. During a tour undertaken in 1789 w'ith Prince Carl Lichnowski, the destination being Berlin, Mozart stopped en route at Leipzig, where he played in the Thomaskirche and was deeply im- pressed with Bach's iiintets. In Berlin his suc- cess was such that Freileriek William II. ofTered him a position as kapellmeister with a salary of .3000 thalers. But a few words of reassurance from the Austrian Emperor, accompanied with an order for a new opera, coupled with his own strong feeling of loyalty, unfortunately induced liim to decline the King's offer, the best he had had. The opera was Cosl fan tufte, which was produced in Vienna in .Tanuary. 1790. After a visit to Frankfort to attend the coronation of the new Emperor, I..eopold II.. he returned to Vienna. Meanwhile his old acquaintance Schikaneder was managing a theatre in Vienna. The alfairs of the hou^•e being precarious, he thought to better liiem by producing an opera by Mozart, and so applied to him in the spring of 1791 to write a 'fairy' opera — "a piece that would at- tract.' Schikaneder himself furnished for Mozart the libretto to the Zaubcr/lote [The Magic Flule). The work was interrupted by an order to compose an opera for the coronation of Leo- pold as King of Bohemia at Prague, in 1791. It was La clcnicnza di Tito, written in a few weeks by a man already much overworked. It did not make much impression. The Magic Flule was brought out in September, 1791, under the com- poser's own direction, and with distinguished success. But Mozart's constant struggle with intrigue and pecuniary necessities, and the strain to which he had subjected himself in order to meet these by constant work, had begun to tell upon him, and when, even before he had finished TIte Magic Flute, he received a mysterious commission to compose a requiem, he felt that he was writing his own swan song. It is now known that the commission came from a Count Walsegg, whose intention was to have the work performed as his own, and who therefore kept his identity from Mozart. So fixed became Mozart's idea that he must complete his Requiem before death overtook him that even when his wife drove out with him, so that he might be in the open air, he insisted on taking his portfolio of music paper along. It was on one of these drives that his melancholy led him to express the belief that he had been poisoned at the instigation of his Italian rivals, a suspicion which does not, however, seem to have been borne out. Feeling that he would not live long enough to finish the Requiem himself, he sketched (mt the principal features of the un- completed part, leaving them for his pupil Siiss- mayer to fill out. The night before his death he gathered some of his favorite singers about him, had the score of the Requiem brought to his bed. and the w-ork was sung until the "Laerimosa" was reached, when Mozart burst into tears and closed the score. His death came at one o'clock in the morning of December 5th, and an eye- witness says that his last motion was an en- deavor to imitate the kettledrums in the Requiem. Although much of Mozart's music has been forgotten, he remains to the public one of the most fascinating figures in musical history. His buoyant nature, which seemed to override mis- fortune and intrigue and lo laugh at poverty, has made him a type of the musical bohcmian. Mozart is of gieatest importance as an operatic composer, and as such he still ranks among the masters of music. His admirable handling of the human voice and his keen appreciation of dramatic effect have kejit Figaro, Don Giovanni. and The Magic Flute in the repertory from the day they were produced. His vocal numbers not only ai-e fine as music, but, being written with a knowledge of the voice, can be sung with tell- ing effect by accomplished singers. With (lluck, Mozart lies at the foundation of German opera. He also was a prodigious worker in other de- partments of music. He produced no less than forty-one symphonies, the best known of which are those in F flat Major (the first symphony to employ clarinets), the .lupiter and the (7 Minor, ehurch music, many works of chamber nnisie, pianoforte compositions, and songs.