Mozart: The Man and the Artist, as revealed in his own words | Page 9

the work is so ingenuous, so German in feeling, and above all so full of German humor that the success was unexampled, and Mozart could write to his father: "The people are daft over my opera." Here, at the very outset, Mozart's humor, the golden one of all the gifts with which Mother Nature had endowed him, was called into play. With this work German comic opera took its beginning. As has been remarked "although it has been imitated, it has never been surpassed in its musically comic effects." The delightfully Falstaffian figure of Osmin, most ingeniously characterized in the music, will create merriment for all time, and the opera acquires a new, personal and peculiarly amiable charm from the fact that we are privileged to see in the love-joy of "Belmont" and "Constanze" an image of that of the young composer and his "Stanzerl."
After "Die Entfuhrung" (1782) came "Le Nozze di Figaro" (1786), "Don Giovanni" (1787), and "Die Zauberflote" (1791). It would be a vain task to attempt to establish any internal relationship between these works. Mozart was not like Wagner, a strong personality capable of devoting a full sum of vital force to the carrying out of a chosen and approved principle. As is generally the case with geniuses, he was a child; a child led by momentary conditions; moreover, a child of the rococo period. There is, therefore, no cause of wonderment in the fact that Italian texts are again used in "Le Nozze di Figaro" and "Don Giovanni," and that another, but this time a complete German opera, does not appear until we reach "Die Zauberflote."
Nevertheless it is possible to note a development towards a climax in the four operas respecting Mozart's conception of the world. It has been denied that there is a single red thread in Mozart's life-work. Nevertheless our method of study will disclose to us an ever-growing view of human lift, and a deeper and deeper glimpse into the emotional and intellectual life of man, his aims and destiny. From the almost commonplace conditions of "Die Entfuhrung," where a rascal sings in the best of humor of first beheading and then hanging a man, we reach a plane in "The Marriage of Figaro," in which despite the refinement and mitigation of Beaumarchais's indictment we feel the revolutionary breeze freshly blowing. In "Don Giovanni" we see the individual set up in opposition to God and the world, in order that he fulfill his destiny, or live out his life, as the popular phrase goes today. Here the tremendous tragedy which lies in the story has received a musical expression quite without parallel, notwithstanding the moderation exercised in the employment of means. In "Die Zauberflote," finally, we observe the clarification which follows the fermentation. Here we breathe the pure, clear atmosphere of heaven, the atmosphere within which he can live who has freed himself from selfish desire, thus gaining internal peace, and who recognizes his ego only in the happiness and welfare of others.

22. "I have an unspeakable desire to compose another opera....In Italy one can acquire more honor and credit with an opera than with a hundred concerts in Germany, and I am the happier because I can compose, which, after all, is my one joy and passion....I am beside myself as soon as I hear anybody talk about an opera, sit in a theatre or hear singing."
(Munich, October 11, 1777, to his father, reporting an expectation of making a position for himself in Italy.)
23. "I beg of you do your best that we may go to Italy. You know my greatest longing--to write operas....Do not forget my wish to write operas! I am envious of every man who composes one; I could almost weep from chagrin whenever I hear or see an aria. But Italian, not German; seria not buffa."
(Mannheim, February 2, 1778, to his father. Mozart wanted to go with the Weber family (he was in love with Aloysia, his future sister-in-law) to Italy while his father was desirous that he should go to Paris.)
24. "I am strongly possessed by the desire to write an opera-- French rather than German, but Italian rather than either German or French. Wendling's associates are all of the opinion that my compositions would please extraordinarily in Paris. One thing is certain; I would not fear the test. As you know I am able to assimilate and imitate pretty much all styles of composition."
(Mannheim, February 7, 1778, to his father. Wendling was a flautist in Mannheim.)
25. "I assure you that if I get a commission to compose an opera I shall not be frightened. True the (French) language is of the devil's own making, and I fully appreciate all the difficulties that composers have encountered; but I feel myself as capable of overcoming them as any