Mozart: A Life in Letters: A Life in Letters (43 page)

[Mozart’s postscript]

I must now tell you something about our Raaff. You’ll no doubt remember that what I wrote to you about him from Mannheim was none too good and that I wasn’t satisfied with his singing, in a word, I simply didn’t like him. But the reason for this was that I really didn’t hear him properly in Mannheim. I first heard him at the rehearsal for Holzbauer’s
Günther
.
⁵
He was then in his ordinary clothes, with his hat on and a stick in his hand. Whenever he wasn’t singing, he stood there like a child having a shit. When he started to sing the first
recit
., it went quite well, but every so often he would let out a shout, which I didn’t like; he sang the arias in such a lazy way – and often put too much spirit into individual notes – it wasn’t at all to my liking. It’s a habit that he’s always had – perhaps it’s all part of the Bernacchi school, as he was a pupil of Bernacchi.
⁶
At court he always sang arias which in my own opinion didn’t suit him at all, so I didn’t like him at all. But, finally, when he made his début here at the Concert Spirituel, he sang Bach’s scena ‘Non so d’onde viene’,
⁷
which is in any case a favourite of mine, and this was the first time I really heard him sing – I liked it – in other words, his way of singing – although the style itself – the Bernacchi school – isn’t to my taste.
For me, he indulges in too much cantabile. I admit that when he was younger and in his prime, it must have been effective and will have surprised people – I like it, too, but it’s taken to excess and often strikes me as ridiculous. What I like about him is when he sings short pieces – andantinos, for example – just as he also has certain arias in which he has his own style. Each to his own kind. I imagine that his forte was bravura singing – which you can still tell, at least as far as his age permits; a well-developed chest and long breath, and then – these andantinos. His voice is beautiful and very pleasing. If I close my eyes when listening to him – he reminds me very much of Meissner, except that Raaff’s voice strikes me as being even more pleasing – I’m talking about now, as I’ve heard neither of them in their prime – so I can speak only of their style or method of singing, which singers always retain. As you know, Meissner has the bad habit of deliberately using vibrato, singing whole crotchets or even quavers on a sustained note – and I’ve never been able to bear this. It’s really appalling. It’s entirely unnatural. The human voice is naturally tremulous – but in its own way – and only to the extent that it is beautiful – this is in the nature of the voice. People imitate it not only on wind instruments but on string instruments too and even on the keyboard – but as soon as you overstep the limits, it’s no longer beautiful – because it’s contrary to nature. It then strikes me as being just like the organ when the bellows are blowing. – Well, Raaff isn’t like that, he can’t abide it either. But so far as a real cantabile is concerned, I prefer Meissner to Raaff (although I’m not entirely happy with Meissner, as he too can tend to excess). But as for bravura singing and passagework and roulades, there’s no one to touch Raaff – and then there’s his good, clear diction – that’s beautiful. And then, as I said earlier, there are his andantinos, or little canzonettas – he’s written four German songs
⁸
that are quite charming. He likes me a lot. We’re very good friends. He comes to see us nearly every day. I must have lunched at least 6 times with Count Sickingen, the Palatine ambassador, where we always stay from 1 till 10. But time passes so quickly with him that you simply don’t notice. He likes me a lot. But
I too enjoy spending time with him – he’s such a friendly and sensible person, with such sound common sense – and such a true insight into music; I was there again today with Raaff; I took him some of my own things as he’d asked me to do so a long time ago. Today I took with me the new symphony
⁹
that I’ve just finished and that will open the Concert Spirituel on Corpus Christi.
¹⁰
They both liked it very much. I too am very pleased with it. But I don’t know if others will like it – and to tell the truth, I don’t really care. For who won’t like it? – I can guarantee that the
few
intelligent French people who’ll be there will like it – and as for the stupid ones, I don’t consider it a great misfortune if they don’t like it – but I hope that even the asses will find something in it that they’ll like; and I didn’t omit the
premier coup d’archet
!
¹¹
– And that’s enough. The idiots here make a great fuss about this! – The devil take me if I can see any difference – they all begin together, just like everywhere else. It’s laughable. Raaff told me a story of Abaco’s
¹²
about this – in Munich or somewhere else he was asked by a Frenchman –
Monsieur, vous avez été à Paris? – oui; est-ce que vous étiez au Concert spirituel? – oui; que dites vous du premier coup d’archet? – avez-vous entendu le premier coup d’archet? – oui? j’ai entendu le premier et le dernier – comment le dernier? – que veut dire cela? – mais oui, le premier et le dernier – et le dernier même m’a donné plus de plaisir.
¹³
– I must close now. Best wishes to all our good friends, especially Herr Bullinger. I kiss your hands a thousand times and embrace my dear sister with all my heart. I am your most obedient son

Wolfgang Amadè Mozart

Monsieur
mon très cher Père!

I have some very disagreeable and sad news for you, which is also the reason why I have been unable until now to reply to your last letter of the 11th. –

My dear mother is very ill – she was bled, as usual, and very necessary it was, too; she felt very well afterwards – but a few days later she complained of shivering and feverishness – she had diarrhoea and a headache – at first we just used our home remedies, antispasmodic powder, we’d like to have used the black one too, but we didn’t have any and couldn’t get any here, it’s not known here even under the name of
Pulvis epilepticus
. – But when things started to get worse – she could hardly speak and lost her hearing so we had to shout – Baron
Grimm
sent his doctor – she’s very weak and is still feverish and delirious – I’m told to be hopeful, but I’m not – for long days and nights I’ve been hovering between fear and hope – but I’ve resigned myself to God’s will – and I hope that you and my dear sister will do the same; what other means is there to remain calm? – or, rather, calmer, as we can’t be entirely calm; – come what may, I feel comforted – because I know that God, who orders everything for the best, however contrary it may seem to us, wills it so; for I believe – and I won’t be persuaded otherwise – that no doctor, no individual, no misfortune and no accident can give a man his life or take it away, God alone can do that – these are only the instruments that He generally uses, although not always – after all, we can see people fainting, collapsing and dying – once our time comes, all remedies are useless, they hasten death rather than prevent it – we saw this in the case of our late friend Herr Heffner!
¹
– I’m not saying by this that my mother will and must die and that all hope is lost – she may yet be hale and hearty again, but only if God so wills it – after praying to my God with all my strength for health and life for
my dear mother, I like to think this and derive comfort from such thoughts, as I then feel heartened, calmer and consoled – and you’ll easily imagine that I need this! – Now for something different; let’s banish these sad thoughts. Let us hope, but not too much; let us put our trust in God and console ourselves with the thought that all is well if it accords with the will of the Almighty as He knows best what is most advantageous and beneficial to our temporal and eternal happiness and salvation –

I’ve had to write a symphony
²
to open the Concert Spirituel. It was performed to general acclaim on Corpus Christi; I also hear that there was a report on it in the
Courrier de l’Europe
.
³
– Without exception, people liked it. I was very afraid at the rehearsal as I’ve never in all my life heard anything worse; you can’t imagine how twice in succession they bungled and scraped their way through it. – I was really very afraid – I’d have liked to rehearse it again, but there are always so many things to rehearse and so there was no more time; and so I had to go to bed with a fearful heart and in a discontented and angry frame of mind. The next day I decided not to go to the concert at all; but in the evening the weather was fine and so I decided to go, determined that if it went as badly as it had done during the rehearsal, I’d go into the orchestra, take the fiddle from the hands of the first violin, Herr Lahoussaye,
⁴
and conduct myself. I prayed to
God
that it would go well because everything is to His greater glory and honour; and behold, the symphony started, Raaff was standing next to me, and in the middle of the opening allegro there was a passage that I knew very well people were bound to like, the whole audience was carried away by it – and there was loud applause – but as I knew when I wrote it what effect it would produce, I introduced it again at the end – now people wanted to have it encored. They liked the andante, too, but especially the final allegro – I’d heard that
all the final allegros and opening ones too begin here with all the instruments playing together and generally in unison, and so I began mine with 2 violins only, playing piano for 8 whole bars, followed at once by a forte – the audience, as I expected, went ‘shush’ at the piano – then came the forte – and as soon as they heard it, they started to clap – I was so happy that as soon as the symphony was over I went to the Palais Royal – had a large ice – said the rosary, as I’d promised – and went home – just as I’m always happiest at home and always will be – or with some good, true, honest German who, if he’s single, lives on his own as a good Christian or, if married, loves his wife and brings up his children well –

You probably already know that that godless arch-rogue Voltaire has died like a dog, like a beast – that’s his reward!
⁵
– As you say, we owe Tresel her wages for 5 quarters – you’ll have realized long ago that I don’t like it here – there are many reasons for this, but as I’m here, it would serve no useful purpose to go into them. It’s not my fault and never will be, I’ll do my very best – well, God will make all things right! – I’ve something in mind for which I pray to God every day – if it’s His divine will, it will happen, if not, then I’m also content – at least I’ll have done my part – when all is sorted out and if things work out as I want, you too must do your part or the whole business will be incomplete – I trust in your kindness to do so – but for the present you mustn’t waste time thinking about it, the only favour I wanted to beg of you now is not to ask me to reveal my thoughts until it’s time to do so.

As for the opera, it’s now like this. It’s very difficult to find a good libretto. The old ones are the best but they’re not suited to the modern style, and the new ones are all useless; poetry was the one thing of which the French could be proud but this is now getting worse by the day – and yet poetry is the one thing that must be good here as they don’t understand music – there are now 2 aria-based operas that I could write, one
en deux actes
, the other
en trois
. The one
en deux
is
Alexandre et Roxane
– but the poet who’s writing it is still out of town – the one
en trois
is a translation of
Demofoonte
by
Metastasio,
⁶
combined with choruses and dances and in general arranged for the French theatre. Of this I’ve not yet been able to see anything –

Let me know if you’ve got Schroeter’s concertos
⁷
in Salzburg. And Hüllmandel’s sonatas.
⁸
– I was thinking of buying them and sending them to you. Both sets of pieces are very fine – I never thought of going to Versailles – I asked Baron Grimm and some other good friends for their advice – they all thought like me.

It’s not much money, you have to spend 6 months languishing in a place where you can’t earn anything else and your talent lies buried. Anyone in the king’s service is forgotten in Paris. And then, to be an organist! – I’d like a decent appointment, but only as a Kapellmeister, and well paid.

Farewell for now – take care of your health, put your trust in God – it’s there that you must find consolation; my dear mother is in the hands of the Almighty – if He returns her to us, as I hope, we shall thank Him for this mercy, but if it is His will to take her to Him, our fears and cares and despair will be of no avail – let us rather resign ourselves steadfastly to His divine will, fully convinced that it will be for our own good, for He does nothing without good cause – farewell, dearest Papa, keep well for my sake; I kiss your hands 1000 times and embrace my sister with all my heart. I am your most obedient son

Wolfgang Amadè Mozart

Best of friends!

For you alone
.

Grieve with me, my friend! – This has been the saddest day of my life – I’m writing this at 2 in the morning – but I have to tell you that my mother, my dear mother has just passed away! – God has called her to Him – He wished to take her, I could see that clearly – and so I resigned myself to His will – He gave her to me, so He was able to take her away from me. But just imagine all my anxiety and the fears and cares that I’ve endured this last fortnight – she was unconscious when she died, her life snuffed out like a candle. She made her confession 3 days previously, partook of the sacrament and received extreme unction – – but for the last 3 days she was constantly delirious, her death pangs began today at 5.21, but she immediately lost all sensation and consciousness – I pressed her hand and spoke to her – but she couldn’t see me, couldn’t hear me and felt nothing – and so she lay there until she passed away 5 hours later at 10.21 in the evening – there was no one present except for me, a good friend of ours whom my father knows, Herr Heina and the nurse – I can’t possibly describe her whole illness to you today – but I’m convinced that she had to die – God willed it so. All I ask of you now is that as an act of friendship you prepare my poor father very gently for this sad news – I’ve written to him by this same post – but only to say that she’s gravely ill – I’m now waiting for a reply so that I can then decide what to do. May God give him strength and courage! – My friend! – I feel comforted, not just now but for some time past! – By God’s special mercy I have borne it all with fortitude and composure. When things became critical, I prayed to God for only 2 things, namely, that my mother should die happy and that I myself would find strength and courage – and God in His goodness has answered my prayer and granted me these 2 blessings in abundance.