An Evening of MOZART from DUNEDIN

Radio Record, Volume IV, Issue 17, 7 November 1930, Page 3

An Evening of MOZART from DUNEDIN

should tune-in 4YA on Friday, November 14, when a programme consisting entirely of selected vocal and instrumental numbers by the great German composer will he broadcast. During the evening Mr. Max Scherek, president of the Otago Society of Musicians, will have something to say about the life of Mozart, whj:h, in comparison with the lives ‘ther noted musicians, is not particwilarly interesting. We do not find with him, as with Beethoven, Berlioz and Wagner, that the biography: throws light on the music and enriches it. He Was pure composer: he "lisped in numbers for the numbers came." Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (he had, by the way, a son of the same name who was a talented composer and lived into the eighteen-forties) was born at Salzburg in 1756. His father, Leopold, was a violinist in the service of the local archbishop. Beethoven’s father also was a menial German musician; but the difference was that Beethoven’s father, a drunkard, exploited his son ‘(thereby intensifying his fierceness), whereas Mozart’s doted on his genius of a son and proudly exhibited him. | of the works of Mozart M ozART, like Pope ‘and Cowley, is a final refutation of the easy theory that "infant prodigies" never develop; the truth being that they may very: well develop if they are properly handled. He learned the. harpsichord at three; he composed at four, he gave his first public performance at five. At six he toured: the German courts with his father. (who before long was unable ‘to play the works that the child composed), and at Vienna won the hearts of the Emperor Francis I. and the Archduchess

Marie Antoinette, later Queen of Frang’. The boy slipped on a polished floor, and Marie Antoinette, mange and the scaffold still below the horizon, picked him up. The little*Mozart said to her, "You are very kind; when I grow up I shall marry you." At seven he could sing, and play on the harpsichord, the organ and the violin. At eight he was living in London-first in Cecil Court, St. Martin’s Lane, then in Frith Street, Soho, which was also, I believe, the home of the last ambassador from the Venetian Republic. He played before King George III. and Queen Charlotte. Whatever the King mentioned, the child played; he was petted and caressed, and wrote an anthem for four voices for the British Museum, which still possesses the manuscript. At ten he wrote an oratorio and astonished the Dutch by playing the organ at Haarlem, which was ., then the largest in the world. Then ‘he returned to Vienna and wrote this first opera; at thirteen his father took him to Italy. ‘The programme of a concert at Mantua, January 16, 1770, exhibits Mozart’s versatility at the age of 14. A symphony of his own composition; a clavichord-concerto, which will be handed to him, and which he will immediately play prima vista; a sonata handed him in like manner, which he will provide with variations, and afterwards

repeat in another key; an aria, the words for which will be handed ‘to him, and which he will immediately set to music and sing himself, accompanying himself on the clavichord; a sonata for clavichord on a_ subject given him by the leader of the violins; a strict fugue on a theme to be selected, which he will improvise on the clavichord (harpsichord) ; a trio, in which he will execute a violin part; and finally, the latest symphony composed by himself. HE story is almost unbelievable. At Milan the boy was commissioned to write an opera; at Rome he heard Allegri’s ‘"Miserere," and, returning hime, set it down note for note.. This prodigious musical memory was his throughout life. "Don Giovanni" was produced at: Prague on October 29, 1787; the: night before not a note of the over~ ture had been written; Mozart got his wife to read to him, to keep him’ iwake, and wrote down in a night what was in his head. Mozart fell in love with a first cousin of the composer Weber-and she would have nothing to do with him. He then married her sister, who was feckless and thriftless, like Mozart. When Mozart died, at thirty-five, he was buried in a pauper’s grave. These two facts have led to a great deal of sentimentalism, but sentimentalism is thrown away on Mozart. It was a great pity that he should die so young; but, dying, he would hardly bother about his grave. As for his wife, she was really just the wife that suited him. He lived for music, and she was content that he should. He kept on beginning works dedicated to’ her, and never finished any of them; the fact throws light on both of them; but they were

not unhappy. Mozart all his lite was poor. He was one of those gay sprits to whom ten pounds seems like a fortune; so long as the daily bread was forthcoming, large offers of salary meant very little to him. Composers, in those days, could make very little unless they obtained court posts, Their works were published, but then publications were sold in very small numbers; and modern notions about copyright did not exist. There was a small salary from the Archbishop of Salzburg; there were occasional fees for producing operas to order; one way and another the wolf was kept from the door, and Mozart managed to remain in his small, dark room and compose as vast and varied an array of works as any musician of his age has ever produced. There are all the operas-"Don Giovanni," "Tl Seraglio," "Cosi Fan Tutti," "Figaro," with others; the total number is twenty-three -mostly seldom or never performed. There are twenty masses, including the great "Requiem," which was left, unfinished and piously completed by a friend, and which contains what he thought the best tune he ever invented. There are forty-nine symphonies, twentyseven. pianoforte concertos; there are hundreds of songs, organ sonatas,.violin sonatas, quartets, piano sonatas, and pieces composed

for all sorts of strange combinations of instruments — and even ‘strange instruments — by this man who was as curious as he was sensible, His mastery over music’ was complete; his emotional faculty was allembracing. He was the greatest: of all comedy-opera writers, and he: might, given time and a suitable librettist, have been the greatest of all the composers of tragedy-opera, . The tragic was not dominant: in him. The typical Mozart air is light and pellncid, with a touch of tenderness: and a, touch of sadness, northern -.sorrow only just. impinging upon. -southern gaiety, yet in places-as in the tremendous entry of the statue in "Don Gio-vanni"’-we feel that he had a great dramatic and tragic power in reserve; and in some of the symphonies. (notably the "Jupiter"’) we feel that he is saying all that Beethoven has to say, and saying it more reticently.

Mozart is one of the brightest starts in th2 musical firmament. His music breathes the warm-hearted, laughterloving artist, living in and for art, whose genial nature all’ the slings and arrows vf outrageous fortune might’ wound, but. could not embitter. Joy is the keynote of his compositions; the rare note of tragedy or mourning is but a brief minor episode. From an instinctive repugnance to demonstrative excess of feeling, flowed plastic serenity of form;-¢in his heartfelt melody German. depth of emotion is expressed with Italian frankness, mak~ ing his great dramatic works perennially fresh. That his piano works are less so is due chiefly to a centyr of progress in technical means of expression ; yet his D major concerto of 1788 (for example) still charms by suave euphony, like many lesser pieces. Among his symphonies the "Jupiter" in ©, and those in G minor (1789) and B flat, are prominent. In finish of form,

Cherubini and Mendelssohn are most akin to Mozart; in soulful melody, Schubert is his lineal suceessor. Like Schubert and Mendelssohn, his productivity was astounding and. embraced .all-departments of musical composition. «