The Letters, vol 1 | Page 3

zeal in our artists of the present day, both in youthful genius and in
laurel-crowned Maestri!--especially may they have the happiest
influence on those who devote themselves to that phase of Art in which
Mozart attained the highest renown!--may they impart that energetic
courage which is derived from the experience that incessant efforts for

the progress of Art and its appliances enlarge the limits of human
intellect, and can alone insure an immortal crown!
LUDWIG NOHL.
MUNICH, October 1, 1864.

FIRST PART ITALY, VIENNA, MUNICH. 1770 TO 1776.

PART I.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in Salzburg on the l7th January,
1756. His father, Leopold Mozart, belonged to a respectable
tradesman's family in the free city of Augsburg. Conscious of being
gifted with no small portion of intellectual endowments, he followed
the impulse that led him to aim at a higher position in life, and went to
the then celebrated University of Salzburg in order to study
jurisprudence. As he did not, however, at once succeed in procuring
employment in this profession, he was forced, from his straitened
means, to enter the service of Canon Count Thun as valet.
Subsequently, however, his talents, and that thorough knowledge of
music by which he had already (according to the custom of many
students) gained some part of his livelihood, obtained for him a better
position. In the year 1743 he was received into the band (Kapelle) of
the Salzburg cathedral by Archbishop Sigismund; and as his
capabilities and fame as a violinist increased, the same Prince shortly
afterwards promoted him to the situation of Hof-Componist (Court
Composer) and leader of the orchestra, and in 1762 he was appointed
Hof-Kapellmeister (conductor of the Court music).
In 1747 Leopold Mozart married Anna Maria Pertlin, a foster-child of
the Convent of St. Gilgen. The fruits of this marriage were seven
children, two of whom alone survived,--Maria Anna, (the fourth),
called Nannerl, born in 1751; and the youngest, Wolfgang Amadeus
Johannes Chrysostomus. The daughter at a very early age displayed a
most remarkable talent for music, and when her father began to give
her instructions in it, an inborn and passionate love of this art was soon
evident in her little brother of three years old, who at once gave tokens
of a degree of genius far surpassing all experience, and really bordering
on the marvellous. In his fourth year he could play all sorts of little

pieces on the piano. He only required half an hour to learn a minuet,
and one hour for a longer movement; and in his fifth year he actually
composed some pretty short pieces, several of which are still extant.
[Footnote: The Grand Duchess Helene Paulowna, a few weeks ago,
made a present to the Mozarteum of the music-book from which
Mozart learned music, and in which he wrote down his first
compositions.]
The wonderful acquirements of both these children, to which Wolfgang
soon added skilful playing on the violin and organ, induced their father
to travel with them. In January, 1702, when the boy was just six years
old, they went first to Munich, and in the autumn to Vienna, the
children everywhere on their journey exciting the greatest sensation,
and being handsomely remunerated. Leopold Mozart, therefore, soon
afterwards resolved to undertake a longer journey, accompanied by his
whole family. This lasted more than three years, extending from the
smaller towns in West Germany to Paris and London, while they
visited, on their way back, Holland, France, and Switzerland. The
careful musical instruction which the father perseveringly bestowed on
his son, went hand in hand with the most admirable education, and the
boy was soon as universally beloved for his amiable disposition and
natural simplicity and candor, as admired for his rare gifts and
acquirements.
After nearly a year passed at home in unremitting musical instruction,
and practice of various instruments as well as composition, the father
once more set off with all his family to Vienna,--on this occasion with a
view to Wolfgang paving the way to Italy by the composition of an
opera, (Italy, at that time, being the Eldorado of music.) He succeeded
in procuring the scrittura of an opera buffa, "La Finta semplice;" but,
when finished, although the Emperor himself had intrusted the
composition to the boy, the cabals of envious singers effectually
prevented its being performed. But a German operetta which the lad of
twelve also wrote at that time, "Bastien und Bastienne," was given in
private, at the summer residence of the Mesmer family, in the suburb
called Landstrasse. The father, too, had some compensation by the
Emperor commissioning his son to compose a solemn mass for the
consecration of the new Waisenhaus church, which Wolfgang himself
directed with the conductor's baton, in presence of the Imperial Family,

on the 7th December, 1768.