Mozart: The Man and the Artist, as revealed in his own words | Page 5

made in his own words.
The Editor has not only taken the trouble to revise the work of the
German author and compiler, but, for reasons which seemed to him
imperative, has also made a new translation of all the excerpts. Most of
the translations of Mozart's letters which have found their way into the
books betray want of familiarity with the idioms and colloquialisms
employed by Mozart, as well as understanding of his careless,
contradictory and sprawling epistolary style. Some of the intimacy of
that style the new translation seeks to preserve, but the purpose has
chiefly been to make the meaning plain.
H.E.K.

New York, June 7, 1905

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF MOZART

Mozart! What a radiance streams from the name! Bright and pure as the
light of the sun, Mozart's music greets us. We pronounce his name and
behold! the youthful artist is before us,--the merry, light-hearted smile
upon his features, which belongs only to true and naive genius. It is
impossible to imagine an aged Mozart,--an embittered and saddened
Mozart,--glowering gloomily at a wicked world which is doing its best
to make his lot still more burdensome;--a Mozart whose music should
reflect such painful moods.
Mozart was a Child of the Sun. Filled with a humor truly divine, he
strolled unconstrainedly through a multitude of cares like Prince
Tamino through his fantastic trials. Music was his talisman, his magic
flute with which he could exorcise all the petty terrors that beset him.
Has such a man and artist--one who was completely resolved in his
works, and therefore still stands bodily before us with all his glorious
qualities after the lapse of a century--has Mozart still something to say
to us who have just stepped timidly into a new century separated by
another from that of the composer? Much; very much. Many prophets
have arisen since Mozart's death; two of them have moved us
profoundly with their evangel. One of them knew all the mysteries, and
Nature took away his hearing lest he proclaim too much. We followed
him into all the depths of the world of feeling. The other shook us
awake and placed us in the hurly-burly of national life and striving;
pointing to his own achievements, he said: "If you wish it, you have
now a German art!" The one was Beethoven,--the other Wagner.
Because their music demands of us that we share with it its experiences
and struggles, they are the guiding spirits of a generation which has
grown up in combat and is expecting an unknown world of combat
beyond the morning mist of the new century.
But we are in the case of the man in the fairy tale who could not forget

the merry tune of the forest bird which he had heard as a boy. We
gladly permit ourselves to be led, occasionally, out of the rude realities
that surround us, into a beautiful world that knows no care but lies
forever bathed in the sunshine of cloudless happiness,--a world in
which every loveliness of which fancy has dreamed has taken life and
form. It is because of this that we make pilgrimages to the masterpieces
of the plastic arts, that we give heed to the speech of Schiller, listen to
the music of Mozart. When wearied by the stress of life we gladly hie
to Mozart that he may tell us stories of that land of beauty, and
convince us that there are other and better occupations than the worries
and combats of the fleeting hour. This is what Mozart has to tell us
today. In spite of Wagner he has an individual mission to fulfill which
will keep him immortal. "That of which Lessing convinces us only with
expenditure of many words sounds clear and irresistible in 'The Magic
Flute':--the longing for light and day. Therefore there is something like
the glory of daybreak in the tones of Mozart's opera; it is wafted
towards us like the morning breeze which dispels the shadows and
invokes the sun."
Mozart remains ever young; one reason is because death laid hold of
him in the middle of his career. While all the world was still gazing
expectantly upon him, he vanished from the earth and left no hope
deceived. His was the enviable fate of a Raphael, Schiller and Korner.
As the German ('tis Schumann's utterance) thinks of Beethoven when
he speaks the word symphony, so the name of Mozart in his mind is
associated with the conception of things youthful, bright and sunny.
Schumann was fully conscious of a purpose when he called out, "Do
not put Beethoven in the hands of young people too early; refresh and
strengthen them with the fresh and lusty Mozart." Another time he
writes: "Does it not seem as if Mozart's works become fresher