Mozart: The Man and the Artist, as Revealed in His Own Words Part 7

(Vienna, May 12, 1781.)

135. "To please you, best of fathers, I would sacrifice my happiness, my health and my life; but my honor is my own, and ought to be above all else to you. Let Count Arco and all Salzburg read this letter."

(Vienna, May 19, 1781. It was Count Arco who had dismissed Mozart with a kick. The father was thrown into consternation at the maltreatment of his son and sought to persuade Mozart to return to Salzburg. Mozart replied: "Best, dearest father, ask of me anything you please but not that; the very thought makes me tremble with rage.")

136. "You did not think when you wrote this that such a back-step would stamp me as one of the most contemptible fellows in the world. All Vienna knows that I have left the Archbishop, knows why, knows that it is because of my injured honor, of an injury inflicted three times,--and I am to make a public denial, proclaim myself a cur and the Archbishop a n.o.ble prince? No man could do the former, least of all I, and the second can only be done by G.o.d if He should choose to enlighten him."

(Vienna, May 19, 1781, to his father, who had asked him to return to the service of the Archbishop.)

137. "If it be happiness to be rid of a prince who never pays one, but torments him to death, then I am happy. For if I had to work from morning till night I would do it gladly rather than live off the bounty of such a,--I do not dare to call him by the name he deserves,--I was forced to take the step I did and I can not swerve a hair's breadth from it; impossible."

(Vienna, May 19, 1781.)

138. "Salzburg is nothing now to me except it offer an opportunity to give the Count a kick...even if it were in the public street. I desire no satisfaction from the Archbishop, for he is not in a position to offer me the kind that I want and must have. Within a day or two I shall write to the Count telling him what he can confidently expect to receive from me the first time I meet him, be it where it may, except a place that commands my respect."

(Vienna, June 13, 1781, to his father. Count Arco's offence has been mentioned. On June 16 Mozart wrote: "The hungry a.s.s shall not escape my chastis.e.m.e.nt if I have to wait twenty years; for as soon as I see him he shall come in contact with my foot, unless I should be so unfortunate as to see him in the sanctuary." [The reader will probably guess that the translator is resorting to euphemisms in rendering Mozart's language. H.E.K.])

139. "It is the heart that confers the patent of n.o.bility on man; and although I am no count I probably have more honor within me than many a count. Menial or count, whoever insults me is a cur.

I shall begin by representing to him, with complete gravity, how badly he did his business, but at the end I shall have to a.s.sure him in writing that he is to expect a kick...and a box on the ear from me; for if a man insults me I have got to be revenged, and if I give him no more than he gave me, it is mere retaliation and not punishment. Besides I should thus put myself on a level with him, and I am too proud to compare myself with such a stupid gelding."

(Vienna, June 20, 1781, to his father. These expressions, called out by the insulting treatment received from the Archbishop and Count Arco, are in striking contrast to Mozart's habitual amiability.)

140. "I can easily believe that the court parasites will look askance at you, but why need you disturb yourself about such a miserable pack? The more inimical such persons are to you the greater the pride and contempt with which you should look down upon them."

(Vienna, June 20, 1778, to his father, who fears that some of the consequences of his son's step may be visited upon him.)

141. "I do not ask of you that you make a disturbance or enter the least complaint, but the Archbishop and the whole pack must fear to speak to you about this matter, for you (if compelled) can without the slightest alarm say frankly that you would be ashamed to have reared a son who would have accepted abuse from such an infamous cur as Arco; and you may a.s.sure all that if I had the good luck to meet him today I should treat him as he deserves, and that he would have occasion to remember me the rest of his life. All that I want is that everybody shall see in your bearing that you have nothing to fear. Keep quiet; but if necessary, speak, and then to some purpose."

(Vienna, July 4, 1781, to his father.)

142. "I may say that because of Vogler, Winter was always my greatest enemy. But because he is a beast in his mode of life, and in all other matters a child, I would be ashamed to set down a single word on his account; he deserves the contempt of all honorable men. I will, therefore, not tell infamous truths rather than infamous lies about him."

(Vienna, December 22, 1781, to his father, to whose ears Peter Winter, a composer, had brought slanderous reports concerning Mozart and his Constanze. Winter was a pupil of Abbe Vogler. See No. 66.)

143. "He is a nice fellow and a good friend of mine; I might often dine with him, but it is a custom with me never to take pay for my favors; nor would a dish of soup pay them. Yet such people have wonderful notions of what they accomplish with one....I am fond of doing favors for people but they must not plague me. She (the daughter) is not satisfied if I spend two hours every day with her, but wants me to loll about the whole day; yet she tries to play the well behaved one."

(Vienna, August 22, 1781, to his father. Mozart is writing about a landlord and his daughter concerning whom favorable reports had reached the ears of the father. Mozart explains matters and soon thereafter announces a change of lodgings.)

144. "I beg of you that when you write to me about something in my conduct which is displeasing to you, and I in turn give you my views, let it always be a matter between father and son, and therefore a secret not to be divulged to others. Let our letters suffice and do not address yourself to others, for, by heaven, I will not give a finger's length of accounting concerning my doings or omissions to others, not even to the Emperor himself. I have cares and anxieties of my own and have no use for petulant letters."

(Vienna, September 5, 1781, to his father, who lent a willing ear to gossips and was never chary of his reproaches. Mozart was already twenty-five years old.)

145. "If I were Wiedmer I would demand the following satisfaction from the Emperor: he should endure 50 strokes at the same place in my presence and then he should pay me 6,000 ducats. If I could not obtain this satisfaction I should take none, but thrust a dagger through his heart at the first opportunity. N.B. He has already had an offer of 3,000 ducats on condition that he does not come to Vienna, but permits the matter to drop. The people of Innsbruck say of Wiedmer: he who was scourged for our sake will also redeem us."

(Vienna, August 8, 1781, to his father. Herr von Wiedmer was a n.o.bleman and theatre director, who, without cause, had been sentenced to a whipping by the president, Count Wolkenstein, on the complaint of another n.o.bleman. [Mozart's bloodthirstiness was probably due to memories of Arco's kick still rankling in his heart. It was only after long solicitation from his father that he abandoned his plan to send Arco the threatened letter.

H.E.K.])

146. "You perhaps already know that the musico Marquesi-- Marquesius di Milano--was poisoned in Naples; but how! He was in love with a d.u.c.h.ess and her real amant grew jealous and sent three or four bravos to Marquesi and left him the choice of drinking poison or being ma.s.sacred. He chose the poison. Being a timid Italian he died alone and left his gentlemen murderers to live in rest and peace. Had they come into my room, I would have taken a few of them with me into the other world, as long as some one had to die. Pity for so excellent a singer!"

(Munich, December 30, 1780, to his father. Mozart, on the whole, was one of the most peaceable men on earth, but he was not wanting in personal courage, and he could fly into transports of rage.)

147. "If you were to write also to Prince Zeil I should be glad.

But short and good. Do not by any means crawl! That I can not endure."

(Mannheim, December 10, 1777, to his father. Count Ferdinand von Zeil was Prince Bishop of Chimsee and favorably disposed towards Mozart, who was hoping for an appointment in Munich. "If he wants to do something he can; all Munich told me that." Nothing came of it.)

148. "Whoever judges me by such bagatelles is also a scamp!"

(Mozart wrote many occasional pieces for his friends,--fitting them to the players' capacities. Mozart said that the publisher who bought some of these "bagatelles" and printed them without applying to him was a scamp (Lump), but took no proceedings against him.)

149. "Very well; then I shall earn nothing more, go hungry and the devil a bit will I care!"

(Mozart's answer to Hofmeister, the Leipsic publisher, who had said: "Write in a more popular style or I can neither print nor pay for anything of yours.")

STRIVINGS AND LABORS

150. "We live in this world only that we may go onward without ceasing, a peculiar help in this direction being that one enlightens the other by communicating his ideas; in the sciences and fine arts there is always more to learn."

(Salzburg, September 7, 1776, to Padre Martini of Bologna, whose opinion he asks concerning a motet which the Archbishop of Salzburg had faulted.)

151. "I am just now reading 'Telemachus;' I am in the second part."

(Bologna, September 8, 1770, to his mother and sister.)

152. "Because you said yesterday that you could understand anything, and that I might write what I please in Latin, curiosity has led me to try you with some Latin lines. Have the kindness when you have solved the problem to send the result to me by the Hagenauer servant maid."

"Cuperem scire, de qua causa, a quam plurimis adolescentibus ottium usque adeo aestimetur, ut ipsi se nec verbis, nec verberibus ab hoc sinant abduci."

(The Archiepiscopal concertmaster, aged 13, writes thus to a girl friend.)

153. "Since then I have exercised myself daily in the French language, and already taken three lessons in English. In three months I hope to be able to read and understand the English books fairly well."

(Vienna, August 17, 1782, to his father. Mozart had given it out that he intended to go to Paris or London. Prince Kaunitz had said to Archduke Maximilian that men like Mozart lived but once in a hundred years, and should not be driven out of Germany.

Mozart, however, writes to his father: "But I do not want to wait on charity; I find that, even if it were the Emperor, I am not dependent on his bounty.")

154. "I place my confidence in three friends, and they are strong and invincible friends, viz: G.o.d, your head and my head. True our heads differ, but each is very good, serviceable, and useful in its genre, and in time I hope that my head will be as good as yours in the field in which now yours is superior."

(Mannheim, February 28, 1778, to his father.)

155. "Believe me, I do not love idleness, but work. True it was difficult in Salzburg and cost me an effort and I could scarcely persuade myself. Why? Because I was not happy there. You must admit that, for me at least, there was not a pennyworth of entertainment in Salzburg. I do not want to a.s.sociate with many and of the majority of the rest I am not fond. There is no encouragement for my talent! If I play, or one of my compositions is performed, the audience might as well consist of tables and chairs....In Salzburg I sigh for a hundred amus.e.m.e.nts, and here for not one; to live in Vienna is amus.e.m.e.nt enough."

(Vienna, May 26, 1781, to his father, who was concerned as to the progress making in Vienna.)

156. "I beg of you, best and dearest of fathers, do not write me any more letters of this kind,--I conjure you, for they serve no other purpose than to heat my head and disturb my heart and mood.

And I, who must compose continually, need a clear head and quiet mood."