Chapter III: The Viennese Classics: Haydn and Mozart (2)

If he met the Mannheim musicians on an equal footing it followed that he could approach those of Paris with a certain satirical condescension. But, if his genius _was_ recognized, professional intrigue prevented his drawing any profit from it--he was reduced to teaching and catering to patronage in the most absurd ways, from writing a concerto for harp and flute (both of which he detested) to providing ballets for Noverre, the all-powerful dancer of the Paris opera. His adaptability to circumstances was extraordinary. But all to no avail; the total result of his endeavors was the commission to write a symphony for the _Concerts spirituels_ then conducted by Le Gros. Nowhere else has he shown his power of adaptability in the same measure as in this so-called ‘Paris Symphony.’ It is, as Mr. Hadow says, perhaps the only piece of ‘occasional’ music that is truly classic. The circumstances of its creation appear to us ridiculous but are indicative of the musical intelligence of Paris at this time. The _premier coup d’archet_, the first attack, was a point of pride with the Paris orchestra, hence the piece had to begin with all the instruments at once, which feat, as soon as accomplished, promptly elicited loud applause. ‘What a fuss they make about that,’ wrote Mozart. ‘In the devil’s name, I see no difference. They just begin all together as they do elsewhere. It is quite ludicrous.’ For the same reason the last movement of the Paris Symphony begins with a unison passage, _piano_, which was greeted with a hush. ‘But directly the _forte_ began they took to clapping.’ Referring to the passage in the first _Allegro_, the composer says, ‘I knew it would make an effect, so I brought it in again at the end, _da capo_.’ And, despite those prosaic calculations, the symphony ‘has not an unworthy bar in it,’ and it was one of the most successful works played at these famous concerts. Yet Paris held out no permanent hope to Mozart and he was forced to return to service in Salzburg, under slightly improved circumstances.[43]

It is nothing short of tragic to see how the young artist vainly resisted this dreaded renewal of tyranny, and finally yielded, out of love for his father. His liberation came with the order to write a new opera, _Idomeneo_, for Munich in 1781. This work constitutes the transition from adolescence to maturity. It is the last of his operas to follow absolutely the precedents of the Italian _opera seria_, and its success definitely determined the course of his artistic career. In the same year he severed his connection with the Salzburg court (but not until driven to desperation and humiliated beyond words), settled in Vienna, and secured in a measure the protection of the emperor. But for his livelihood he had for a long time to depend upon concerts, until a propitious circumstance opened a new avenue for the exercise of his talents. Meantime he had experienced a new revelation. His genius had been brought into contact with that of Joseph Haydn, whom he met personally at the imperial palace in 1781 during the festivities occasioned by the visit of Grand Duke Paul of Prussia.[44] This master’s works now became the subject of his profound study, which bore almost immediate results in his instrumental works.

The propitious circumstance alluded to above lay in another direction. Joseph II had made himself the protector of the German drama in Vienna and had given the theatre a national significance. His patriotic convictions induced him to adopt a similar course with the opera, though his own personal tastes lay clearly in the direction of Italy. At any rate, he abolished the costly spectacular ballet and Italian opera and instituted in their stead a ‘national vaudeville,’ as the German opera was called. The theatre was opened in February, 1778, with a little operetta, _Die Bergknappen_, by Umlauf, and this was followed by a number of operas partly translated from the Italian or French, including _Röschen und Colas_ by Monsigny, _Lucile_, _Silvain_, and _Der Hausfreund_ by Grétry; and _Anton und Antonette_ by Gossec. In 1781 the emperor commissioned Mozart to contribute to the repertoire a _singspiel_, and a suitable libretto was found in _Die Enführung aus dem Serail_. It had an extraordinary success. In the flush of his triumph Mozart married Constanze Weber, sister of the singer Aloysia Weber, the erstwhile sweetheart of Mannheim. This again complicated his financial circumstances; for his wife, loyal as she was, knew nothing of household economy. Not until 1787 did Mozart secure a permanent situation at the imperial court, and then with a salary of only eight hundred florins (four hundred dollars), ‘too much for what I do, too little for what I could do,’ as he wrote across his first receipt. His duties consisted in providing dance music for the court! Gluck died in the year of Mozart’s appointment, but his position with two thousand florins was not offered to Mozart. To the end of his days he had to endure pecuniary difficulties and even misery.

Intrigue of Italian colleagues, with Salieri, Gluck’s pupil, at their head, moreover placed constant difficulties in Mozart’s way, and when, in 1785, his ‘Marriage of Figaro’ was brought out in Vienna it came near being a total failure because of the purposely bad work of the Italian singers. But at Prague, shortly after, the opera aroused the greatest enthusiasm, and out of gratitude Mozart wrote his next opera, _Don Giovanni_, for that city (1787). In Vienna again it met with no success. In this same wonderful year he completed, within the course of six weeks, the three last and greatest of his symphonies.

In a large measure the composer’s own character--his simple, childlike and loyal nature--stood in the way of his material success. When, in 1789, he undertook a journey to Berlin with Prince Lichnowsky Frederick William II offered him the place of royal _kapellmeister_ with a salary of three thousand thalers. But his patriotism would not allow him to accept it in spite of his straitened circumstances; and when, after his return, he was induced to submit his resignation to the emperor, so that, like Haydn, he might seek his fortune abroad, he allowed his sentiment to get the better of him at the mere suggestion of imperial regret. The only reward for his loyalty was an order for another opera. This was _Così fan tutte_, performed in 1790.

During his Berlin journey Mozart had visited Leipzig and played upon the organ of St. Thomas’ Church. His masterly performance there so astonished the organist, Doles, that, as he said, he thought the spirit of his predecessor, Johann Sebastian Bach, had been reincarnated. It is significant how thus late in life Bach’s influence opened new vistas to Mozart--for he had probably known so far only the Leipzig master’s clavier compositions. It is related how, after a performance of a cantata in his honor, he was profoundly moved and, spreading the parts out on the organ bench, became immersed in deep study. The result is evident in his compositions of the last two years. During the last, 1791, he wrote _La clemenza di Tito_, another _opera seria_, for Prague, and his last and greatest German opera, _Die Zauberflöte_, for Vienna. The _Requiem_, by some considered the crowning work of his genius, was his last effort; he did not live to finish it. He died on December 5th, 1791, in abject misery, while the ‘Magic Flute’ was being played to crowded houses night after night on the outskirts of Vienna. The profits from the work meantime accrued to the benefit of the manager, Schikaneder, the ‘friend’ whom Mozart had helped out of difficulties by writing it. Mozart was buried in a common grave and the spot has remained unknown to this day.

* * * * *

Thus, briefly, ran the life course of one of the greatest and, without question, the most gifted of musicians the world has seen. Within the short space of thirty-six years he was able to produce an almost countless series of works, the best of which still beguile us after a century and a half into unqualified admiration. They have lost none of their freshness and vitality, and it is even safe to say that they are better appreciated now than in Mozart’s own day. The tender fragrant loveliness of his melodies, the caressing grace of his cadences will always remain irresistible; in sheer beauty, in pure musical essence, we shall not go beyond them. Much might be said of the eternal influence of Mozart on the latter-day disciples--we need only call to mind Weber, Brahms, Tschaikowsky, and Richard Strauss, whose own work is a frank and worthy tribute to his memory.

It has been said that Mozart’s is the only music sufficient unto itself, requiring no elucidation, no ‘program’ whatever. Hence its appeal is the most immediate as well as the most general. It has that impersonal charm which contrives to ingratiate itself with personalities ever so remote, and to accommodate itself to every mood. Yet a profoundly human character lies at the bottom of it all. Mozart the simple, childlike, ingenuous, and generous; or Mozart the witty, full of abandon, of frank drollery and good humor. With what fortitude he bore poignant grief and incessant disappointment, how he submitted to indignities for the sake of others, is well known. But every attack upon his artistic integrity he met with stern reproof, and through trial and misery he held steadfast to his ideal as an artist. To Hoffmeister, the publisher, demanding more ‘salable’ music, he writes that he prefers to starve; Schikaneder, successful in making the master’s talent subserve his own ends, gets no concession to the low taste of his motley audience. Inspired with the divinity of his mission, he subordinates his own welfare to that one end, and he breathes his last in the feverish labor over his final great task, the _Requiem_, ‘his own requiem,’ as he predicted.

V

We have endeavored to point out in our brief sketch of Mozart’s life the chief influences to which he was exposed. The extent to which he assimilated and developed the various elements thus absorbed must determine his place in musical history. ‘The history of every art,’ says Mr. W. H. Hadow, ‘shows a continuous interaction between form and content. The artist finds himself confronted with a double problem: what is the fittest to say, and what is the fittest manner of saying it.... As a rule, one generation is mainly occupied with questions of design, another takes up the scheme and brings new emotional force to bear upon it, and thus the old outlines stretch and waver, the old rules become inadequate, and the form itself, grown more flexible through a fuller vitality, once more asserts its claim and attains a fuller organization.’ The generation preceding Mozart and Haydn had settled for the time being the question of form. Haydn said, as it were, the last word in determining the design, applying it in the most diverse ways and pointing the road to further development. Mozart found it ‘sufficient to his needs and set himself to fill it with a most varied content of melodic invention.’ The analogy drawn by Mr. Hadow between the Greek drama and the classic forms of music is particularly apt: in both the ‘plot’ is constructed in advance and remains ever the same; the artist is left free to apply his genius to the poetic interpretation of situations, the delineation of character, the beauty of rhythm and verse. It was in these things that Mozart excelled. He brought nothing essentially new, but, by virtue of his consummate genius, he endowed the symphonic forms as he found them with a hitherto unequalled depth and force of expression, an individuality so indefinable that we can describe it only as ‘Mozartian.’ In no sense was Mozart a reformer. In opera, unlike Gluck, he did not find his limitations irksome, but knew how to achieve within these limitations an ideal of dramatic truth without detracting from the quality of his musical essence. His style is as independent of psychology as it is of formal interpretation, it is ‘sufficient unto itself,’ ineffable in its beauty, irresistible in its charm. This utter independence and self-sufficiency of style enabled him to use with equal success the vocal and instrumental idioms. And in his work we actually see an assimilation of the two styles and an interchange of their individual elements.

Mozart’s inspiration was primarily a melodic one and for that reason we see him purposely subordinating the harmonic substructure and often reducing it to its simplest terms. If he employs at times figures of accompaniment which are obvious and even trite, it is done with an evident purpose to throw into relief the individuality of his melodies, those rich broideries and graceful arabesques which Mozart knew how to weave about a simple ‘tonic and dominant.’ No composer ever achieved such variety within so limited a harmonic range. On the other hand, it has been truthfully said that Mozart was the greatest polyphonist between Bach and Brahms. He was able to make the most learned use of contrapuntal devices when occasion demanded, but never in the use of these devices did he descend to dry formalism. His _incidental_ use of counterpoint often produces the most telling effects; the accentuation of a motive by imitation, a caressing counter-melody to add poignancy to an expressive phrase, the reciprocal germination of musical ideas, all these he applies with consummate science and without ever sacrificing ingenuous spontaneity. Again in his harmonic texture there are moments of daring which perplexed his contemporaries and even to-day are open to dispute. The sudden injection of a dissonant note into an apparently tranquil harmonic relation, such as in the famous C-major Quartet, which aroused such violent discussion when first heard, or in the first Allegro theme of the _Don Giovanni_ overture, is his particularly favorite way of introducing ‘color.’

This chromaticism of Mozart’s is one of the striking differences between his music and Haydn’s. ‘Haydn makes his richest point of color by sheer abrupt modulation; Mozart by iridescent chromatic motion within the limits of a clearly defined harmonic sequence.’[45] In drawing a further comparison between the two Viennese masters we find in Haydn a greater simplicity and directness of expression, a more unadorned, unhesitating utterance, as against Mozart, to whom perfectly chiselled phrases, a polished, graceful manner of speech are second nature, whether his mood is gay or sad, his emotions careless or deep. The distinction is aptly illustrated by the juxtaposition of the following two themes quoted in Vol. IV of the ‘Oxford History of Music.’

But the difference is not so much in phraseology as in the broader aspects of invention and method. The fundamental division lies, of course, in the character of the two men. Haydn, the simple, ingenuous peasant, whose moods range from sturdy humor to solid dignity; Mozart, the keen, vivacious, witty cosmopolitan, whose humor always tends to satire, but whose exalted moments are moments of soulful, subjective contemplation. His music is accordingly more epigrammatic, on the one hand, and of a deeper, rounder sonority, on the other. Mozart and Haydn first became acquainted with each other in 1780, when both had behind them long careers full of creative activity. It is significant, however, that practically all the works which to-day constitute our knowledge of them were created after this meeting, and neither their music nor the fact of their admiration for each other leaves any doubt as to the power and depth of their mutual influence. Mozart profited probably more in matters of technique and structure; Haydn in matters of refinement and delicacy.

The complete list of Mozart’s works includes no less than twenty-one piano sonatas and fantasias (besides a number for four hands); forty-two violin sonatas; twenty-six string quartets; seven string quintets, several string duos and trios; forty-one symphonies; twenty-eight divertimenti, etc., for orchestra; twenty-five piano concertos; six violin concertos; and eighteen operas and other dramatic works, besides single movements for diverse instruments, chamber music for wind and for strings and wind, songs, arias, and ecclesiastical compositions of every form, including fifteen masses. But only a portion of these is of consequence to the music lover of our day; the portion which constitutes virtually the last decade of his activity. The rest, though full of grace and charm, has only historical significance.

His piano sonatas, we have seen, followed the model of Schobert and, in some measure, of Emanuel Bach, but the style of these works, available to the amateur and valuable as study material, is more individual than that of either of the earlier masters and their musical worth is far superior. The first of them were written about 1774 for Count von Dürnitz, of Munich, and represent his contribution to the light, elegant style of the period. In some later ones he strikes a more serious note; dashing or majestic allegros alternate with caressing cantabiles, graceful andantes or adagios of delicious beauty and romantic expressiveness. The violin sonatas, though supposed to have been written chiefly for the diversion of his lady pupils (the instrument was still considered most suitable for feminine amusement), are full of beauty, strength, and dramatic expression.

The string quartets, the first of which he wrote during his Italian journey of 1770, are in his early period slight and unpretentious but lucid and delicate compositions, in which we may trace influences of Sammartini and Boccherini. From 1773 on, however, the influence of Haydn’s genius is apparent. By 1781, when Mozart took up his residence in Vienna, quartet-playing had become one of the favorite pastimes of musical amateurs. Haydn was the acknowledged leader in this popular field and ‘whoever ventured on the same field was obliged to serve under his banner.’ During the period of 1782 to 1785 Mozart wrote a series of six quartets, which he dedicated to that master ‘as the fruit of long and painful study inspired by his example.’ After playing them over at Mozart’s house (on such occasions Haydn took the first violin part, Dittersdorf the second, Mozart the viola, and Vanhall the 'cello) Haydn turned to Leopold Mozart and said: ‘I assure you solemnly and as an honest man that I consider your son to be the greatest composer of whom I have ever heard.’ Like Haydn and Boccherini, Mozart was commissioned to write some quartets for the king of Prussia (William II), and, since his royal patron himself played the 'cello, he cleverly emphasized that instrument without, however, depriving the other instruments of their independent power of expression. Mozart’s partiality for quartet writing is evident from the many sketches in that form which have been preserved. They are among the masterpieces of chamber music, as are also his string duos, trios, and, especially, his four great string quintets. The celebrated one in G minor is, as Jahn says, a veritable ‘psychological revelation.’ Few pieces in instrumental music express a mood of passionate excitement with such energy.’

Mozart’s concertos for the piano and also those for the violin were written primarily for his own use. The best of them date from the period preceding his Paris journey, when he expected to make practical use of them, for he was a virtuoso of no mean powers on both instruments. There are six concertos for either instrument, every one full of pure beauty and a model of form. In them he substituted the classic sonata form for the variable pattern used in the earlier concertos, and hence he may be considered the creator of the classic concerto, his only definite contribution to the history of form. They are not merely brilliant pieces for technical display, but symphonic, both in proportion and import. In them are found some of the finest moments of his inspiration. ‘It is the Mozart of the early concerti to whom we owe the imperishable matter of the Viennese period,’ says Mr. Hadow, ‘and the influences which helped to mold successively the style of Haydn, Beethoven, and Schubert.’

Of Mozart’s symphonies and serenades, terms which in some cases are practically synonymous, there are about eleven that are of lasting value and at least three that are imperishable. With the exception of the Paris symphony, ‘a brilliant and charming _pièce d’occasion_,’ which was referred to above, all of them were written during the Vienna period, and the three great ones flowed from the composer’s pen within the brief space of six weeks in 1787, the year of _Don Giovanni_. In the matter of form again Mozart followed in the tracks of the Mannheim school. The usual three movements remain, but, like Haydn, he usually adds the minuet after the slow movement. The ‘developed ternary form’ is applied in the first and more and more frequently also in other movements, especially the last, where it takes the place of the lighter rondo. But the musical material is richer and its handling far more ingenious than that of his predecessors, just as the spiritual import is much deeper. The movements are more closely knit, they have a unity of emotion which clearly points in the direction of Beethoven’s later works. There is, if not an _idée fixe_, at any rate a _sentiment fixe_. It is manifested in a multiplicity of ways: more consistent use of the principal thematic material in the ‘working-out,’ reassertion of themes after the ‘transition’ (the section leading from the exposition to the development), introductions which are, as it were, improvisations on the mood of the piece, and codas ‘summing up’ the subjective matter. This same unity exists between the different movements; a note of grief or passion sounded in the first movement is either reiterated in the last or else we feel that the composer has emerged from the struggle in triumph or noble joy. Only the minuet, an almost constant quantity with Mozart, brings a momentary relief or abandon to a lighter vein, if it is not itself, as in the G minor symphony, nobly dignified and touched with sadness.

In the use of orchestral instruments, too, Mozart emulated the practice of the Mannheim composers. Their works were usually scored for eight parts, that is, two oboes _or_ flutes and two horns, besides the usual string body. Clarinets were still rare at that time, and parts provided for them were for that reason arranged for optional use, being interchangeable with the oboe parts. Mozart, although he had heard them as early as 1778 at Mannheim, used them only in his later works,[46] and even then did not often employ that part of their range which reaches below the oboe’s compass (still thinking of them as alternates for that instrument). But in the manner of writing for instruments Mozart’s works show a real novelty. In the Mannheim symphonies the wood wind instruments usually doubled the string parts, but occasionally they were given long, sustained notes and the brass even went beyond mere ‘accent notes’ (_di rinforza_) to the extent of an occasional sustained note or any individual motive. Haydn and Mozart at first confirmed this practice, but in their later works they introduced a wholly new method, which Dr. Riemann calls ‘filigree work’ and which formed the basis of Beethoven’s orchestral style. ‘The idea to conceive the orchestra as a multiplicity of units, each of which may, upon proper occasion, interpose an essential word, without, however, protruding itself in the manner of a solo and thus disturbing in any way the true character of the symphonic ensemble, was foreign to the older orchestral music.’[47] A mere dialogue between individual instruments or bodies of instruments was, of course, nothing new, but the cutting up of a single melodic thread and having different instruments take it up alternately, as Haydn did, was an innovation, and immediately led to another step, viz., the interweaving of individual melodic sections, dove-tail fashion, thus:

and this in turn brought, with Mozart, the coöperation of _groups of instruments_ in such dove-tail formations, and led finally to the more sophisticated disposition of instrumental color, as in the second theme of the great G minor symphony:

This sort of figure has nothing in common with the old polyphony, in which there is always one predominating theme, shifting from one voice to another. The equal and independent participation of several differently colored voices in the polyphonic web is the characteristic feature of modern orchestral polyphony, the style of Beethoven and his successors down to Strauss.

To Mozart Dr. Riemann gives the credit for the first impulses to this free disposition of orchestral parts. It is evident, however, only in his last works, and notably the three great symphonies--the mighty ‘Jupiter’ (in C) with the great double fugue in the last movement, the radiantly cheerful E-flat, and the more deeply shaded, romantic G-minor, ‘the greatest orchestral composition of the eighteenth century,’ works which alone would have assured their creator’s immortality. It would be futile to attempt a description of these monumental creations, but we cannot forego a few general remarks about them. They preach the gospel of classicism in its highest perfection. Beauty of design was never more potent in art. It is Praxitelean purity of form warmed with delicate yet rich color. The expositions are as perfect in form as they are rich in content; the developments a world of iridescent color, of playful suggestions and sweet reminders. The clean-cut individuality of his themes, as eloquent as Wagner’s leit-motifs, so lend themselves to transmutation that a single motive of three notes, revealed in a thousand new aspects, suffices as thematic material for an entire development section. We refer to the opening theme of the G minor:

A fascinating character displayed in every conceivable circumstance and situation would be the literary equivalent of this. But often the characters are two or three, and sometimes strange faces appear and complicate the story.

Mozart is the master of subtle variants, of unexpected yet not unnatural turns in melody. His recapitulations therefore are rarely literal. The essence remains the same, but it is deliciously intensified by almost imperceptible means. Compare the second theme of the last movement of the G minor in its original form with its metamorphosis:

What infinite variety there is within the limits of these three symphonies! The allegros, now majestic, noble; now rhythmically alert, scintillant, joyous; now full of suggestions of destiny; the andantes sometimes grave or sad, sometimes a caressing supplication followed by radiant bliss; the finales triumphant or careless, a furious presto or a mighty fugue--it is a riot of beauty and a maze of delicate dreams. But nowhere is Mozart more himself than in his minuets. The minuet was his cradle song. The first one he wrote--at four--would have set the feet of gay salons to dancing, but later they took real meaning, became alive with more than rhythm. Whether they go carelessly romping through flowery fields, full of the effervescence of youth, as in the Jupiter symphony, whether they sway languidly in sensuous rhythms or race ahead in fretful flight, with themes flitting in and out in breathless pursuit, they are always irresistible. And what balmy consolation, what sweet reassurance there lies in his ‘trios.’ Haydn gave life to the minuet; Mozart gave it beauty.

The outstanding feature, however, not only of Mozart’s symphonies, but of all his instrumental music, is its peculiarly melodic quality, the constant sensuous grace of melody regardless of rhythm or speed. Other composers had achieved a cantabile quality in slow movements, but rarely in the allegros and prestos. Pergolesi, perhaps, came nearest to Mozart in this respect and there is no doubt that that side of Mozart’s inspiration was rooted in the vocal style of the Italians. Here, then, is the point of contact between symphony and opera. Mozart is the ‘conclusion, the final result of the strong influence which operatic song had exerted upon instrumental music since the beginning of the eighteenth century.’[48] On the other hand, Mozart brought symphonic elements into the opera, in which, so far, it had been lacking; and it is safe to say that only an ‘instrumental’ composer could have accomplished what Mozart accomplished in dramatic music.

_After an unfinished portrait by Josef Lange_

VI

Great as were Mozart’s achievements in the field of symphonic music, his services to opera were at least as important. Recent critics, such as Kretzschmar,[49] are wont to exalt the dramatic side of his genius above any other. It is certain, at any rate, that his strongest predilection lay in that direction. Already, in 1764, his father writes from London how the eight-year-old composer ‘has his head filled’ with an idea to write a little opera for the young people of Salzburg to perform. After the return home his dramatic imagination makes him personify the parts of his counterpoint exercises as _Il signor d’alto_, _Il marchese tenore_, _Il duco basso_, etc. Time and again he utters ‘his dearest wish’ to write an opera. Once it is ‘rather French than German, and rather Italian than French’; another time ‘not a _buffa_ but a _seria_.’ Curious enough, neither in _seria_ nor in the purely Italian style did he attain his highest level.

But his suggestions, and much of his inspiration, came from Italy. In serious opera, Hasse, Jommelli, Paesillo, Majo, Traetto, and even minor men served him for models, and, of course, his friend Christian Bach; and Mozart never rose above their level. Lacking the qualities of a reformer he followed the models as closely as he did in other fields, but here was a form that was not adequate to his genius--too worn out and lifeless. Gluck might have helped him, but he came too late. And so it happened that _Mitridate_ (1770), _Ascanio in Albo_ (a ‘serenata,’ 1771), _Il sogno di Scipione_ and _Lucio Silla_ (1772), _Il rè pastore_ (dramatic cantata, 1775), _Idomeneo_ (1781), and even _La Clemenza di Tito_, written in his very last year, are as dead to-day as the worst of their contemporaries. But with _opera buffa_ it was otherwise. Various influences came into play here: Piccini’s _La buona figluola_ and (though we have no record of Mozart’s hearing it) its glorious ancestor, Pergolesi’s _Serva padrona_; the successes of the _opéra comique_, Duni, Monsigny, Grétry, even Rousseau--all these reëchoed in his imagination. And then the flexibility of the form--the thing was unlimited, capable of infinite expansion. What if it had become trite and silly--a Mozart could turn dross to gold, he could deepen a puddle into a well! This was his great achievement; what Gluck did for the _opera seria_ he did for the _buffa_. He took it into realms beyond the ken of man, where its absurdities became golden dreams, its figures flesh and blood, its buffoonery divine abandon. The serious side of the story, too, became less and less parody and more and more reality, till in _Don Giovanni_ we do not know where the point of gravity lies. He calls it a _dramma giocosa_, but the joke is all too real. Death, even of a profligate, has its sting.

But what a music, what a halo of sound Mozart has cast about it all. What are words of the text, after all, especially when we do not understand them? These melodies carry their own message, they _cannot_ be sung without expression, they are expression themselves. Is there in all music a more soul-stirring beauty than that of _Deh vieni non tardar_ (Figaro, Act II), or _In diesen teuren Hallen_ (Magic Flute,