After this triumph, and after a concert-tour through many Italian cities, Wolfgang returned with his father to Salzburg, in March 1771, with large commissions for a dramatic serenata for the approaching marriage of the archduke Ferdinand, and an opera for La Scala, to be performed in 1773. The wedding took place at Milan on Oct. 2 1 , and the serenata, Ascanio in Alba, was produced with an effect which eclipsed Hasse's new opera, Rug giero, composed for the same occasion. The good Hasse prophe sied: "This boy will cause us all to be forgotten." During the absence of Wolfgang and his father the good archbishop of Salz burg died; and in 1772 a successor was elected for whom nobody but the electors had a good word then or since. For his installa tion Wolfgang composed an opera, Il Sogno di Scipione, but the new prelate's interests were not intellectual ; and before five years were past he made Salzburg a miserable place for musicians. The new opera for Milan, Lucio Silla, was produced at La Scala at Christmas, with a success equal to that of Mitridate, and it had a still longer run. Wolfgang was developing rapidly and beginning to create styles and forms that changed the nature of music. His opera buffa, La Finta giardiniera, produced Jan. 13, 1775, at Munich, tackles the action of an absurdly complicated play with unmistakable foreshadowings of the technique of Figaro. In March he set Metastasio's dramatic cantata, Il re Pastore. Con certos, masses, symphonies and sonatas poured forth with a steady increase of power and resource. The Missa brevis in F (see MASS) is the last word in Neapolitan Church music, and the style of the symphonies and string-quartets of these years is full of wit and of terse formal devices. But these achievements did not earn money, and in 1777 Leopold Mozart asked the archbishop for leave of absence for a concert tour. The archbishop dis approved of "that system of begging." Wolfgang thereupon re signed his honorary appointment after furious protests from the archbishop; and on Sept. 23 started with his mother for Munich. Manhood.—The results were not encouraging. Leopold dis covered with surprise that a young musician of 2 I could not make as much impression in palaces as an infant prodigy. Moreover, at Mannheim, where Stamitz (q.v.) had created a new standard of playing, Wolfgang not only imitated the Mannheim musicians but fell in love with Aloysia Weber, the daughter of the poorly paid prompter of the theatre. (Carl Maria von Weber, born 11 years later, was her cousin.) Leopold, dreading an improvident marriage, ordered his wife and son to start instantly for Paris, where they arrived on March 23, 1778. But in spite of the success of his Paris symphony (with its diplomatic initial coup d'archet and the unexpected pianissimo opening of the finale, which evoked an interruption of several minutes for applause), he found himself neglected by the aristocracy; and his mother fell seriously ill and died on July 3. After this catastrophe he left Paris in September and found Aloysia Weber cruelly changed towards him when he stopped at Mannheim. In June 1779 he returned to Salzburg and succeeded in inducing the archbishop to attach a salary of Soo florins to his "concertmeister's" appointment, with leave of ab sence in case he should be asked to write an opera elsewhere. Two years later he was engaged to compose an opera for Munich for the carnival of 1781. The libretto was furnished by the abbate Varesco, the archbishop's court chaplain. On Jan. 29, 1 7 8 1 , the work was produced under the title of Idomeneo, re di Creta and made a great impression. It reveals Mozart's full powers of orchestration, vocal and choral style, accompanied recitative and nobly pathetic melody. In these respects it was incontestably the finest opera that had ever yet been placed upon the stage. Dramatically, it is not mature. Mozart, though pro foundly influenced by Gluck in the accompanied recitative of the oracle-scene in the temple of Neptune, could as yet resist the temptations neither of coloratura singing nor of symmetrical form. And he had not yet learnt the art (and duty) of bullying his librettist. And now the archbishop realized that Mozart was an adornment to his servant's hall. On hearing of the success of Idomeneo he instantly summoned the composer to Vienna, where he was spending the season. Mozart soon found his position in tolerable. Musicians of his standing were already becoming restive at being made to dine with flunkeys, but the archbishop's flunkeys copied their master's insolence. Mozart's salary was reduced from 500 to 400 florins, he had to pay his own travelling expenses, and he was forbidden to give concerts on his own account or to play anywhere but the archiepiscopal palace. Archbishop Hieronymus found himself omitted from the list of the emperor's summer guests and he quitted Vienna in disgust, sending his household to Salzburg, but leaving Mozart to find lodgings at his own expense.
Thereupon Mozart resigned. The archbishop's language thereat was unprintable, but Mozart remained in Vienna in a house rented by his old friends, the Webers, vainly hoping for pupils in the dead season. One good thing we owe to the archbishop. Michael Haydn was also in his service and had been commissioned by him to write six duets for violin and viola. He fell ill after writing four and the archbishop refused to pay him unless all six were forthcoming. Mozart came to the rescue with two duets in his richest style; and Michael Haydn sent them in with his own. The archbishop showed no suspicion.
The emperor protected Mozart and commissioned him to write a German opera, Die Entfiihrung aus dem Serail, which, on July 16, 1782, had great success in Vienna and afterwards at Prague.
This great work was the first imperishable monument of the Ger man Singspiel (or opera with spoken dialogues) as Idomeneo was the last living monument of the old Italian opera seria. Mozart had now mastered the art of bullying his librettist, whose chief char acters he idealized to heroic proportions, while he himself ex ercised an extraordinary facility of comic rhyme and created the gigantic buffo character of Osmin.
On Aug. 16 Mozart married Constanze, the younger sister of Aloysia Weber, and the namesake of the heroine of Die Ent fiihrung. Much sour wisdom has been poured forth on this im provident marriage by biographers, who, accepting uncritically Mozart's steadfast creed of "Next after God, papa," are shocked by the fact that Constanze was not a good manager, and are disposed to see serious infidelity in the freedom of Mozart's manners with singers and actresses.
From the day of his marriage to that of his death Mozart was always in difficulties for lack of money. The happiness of Mozart's most private affairs is revealed to us by the exquisite quality of the works which he wrote especially for his wife ; but of course these were the only works he could afford to leave unfinished ! Life in the Mozart home could never have been comfortable, nor could its irregular hours have been good for children, such as Mozart's own, and his pupil, J. N. Hummel, who lived in his home, and who used sometimes to be roused at midnight to sing or play his master's latest piece while Frau Mozart gave him a glass of wine. But his children were devoted to his memory; and his widow afterwards married one Nissen, who spent untold efforts in collect ing material for his biography and for a catalogue and canon of his works.
The court and nobility were kind, though not munificent, and Mozart had many friends. "Papa Haydn" told Papa Mozart that Wolfgang was the greatest musician he had ever seen or heard of ; and that all the crowned heads of Europe would compete for his services if they could only be made to see his worth. But he had enemies also. His ability was terrifying and he was naively unconscious of the devastating sharpness of his criticisms. Salieri hated him, and laid up terrible odium for himself after Mozart's death, by having openly shown his dislike and baulking Mozart of a good appointment. Rumour accused him even of poisoning Mozart, and the slander is perpetuated in Rimsky-Korsakov's opera, Mozart and Salieri. Let us set against this the affection Beethoven and Schubert had for the poor old man, who sent for Moscheles in 1825 to make a death-bed statement in these words: "I did not poison Mozart." Closing Years.—On Feb. 7, 1786, Mozart produced at Schon brunn an exquisite little Singspiel in one act, Der Schausptel direktor, and in less than three months followed it by Le Nozze di Figaro. The emperor was afraid of Beaumarchais' subversive satire, but Mozart was able to assure his majesty that the abbe Da Ponte had made the libretto quite harmless. After an enthusiastic recep tion of Figaro, Mozart's enemies succeeded in so far spoiling his success that he declared he would never produce an opera in Vienna again. Fortunately, Figaro, like Die Ent fiihrung, was repeated with brilliant success at Prague, and Mozart there re ceived a commission to write an opera for the next season, with a fee of loo ducats. Da Ponte furnished a libretto, founded, not on Moliere's Festin de Pierre, but directly on Tirso de Molina's Burlador de Sevilla and entitled 11 Don Giovanni. By Oct. 28, 1787, the whole was ready, except the overture, not a note of which was written. Yet the overture is the most elaborate Mozart had yet composed, and it was all written the night before the per formance, while his wife kept him awake with coffee and amus ing tales as he tossed page after page of the score to the copyists. The opera was produced on Oct. 29 with extraordinary effect, and the overture, though played without rehearsal, was as success ful as the rest of the music. Michael Kelly, in his Reminiscences, has left a delightful account of the circumstances. Yet, when reproduced in Vienna, Don Giovanni was soon withdrawn in favour of Salieri's Tarare.