 CHAPTER XVII. As regards his manner of life and morals, Mozart long stood in a bad light before the world. The slanderous stories all came from his enemies in Vienna, and a long time passed before their true character was recognized. A great contribution to this end was made by the publication of his letters, which disclosed an extraordinarily strong moral sense. The tale of an alleged liaison with a certain Frau Hoffdammel, as a result of which the deceived husband was said to have committed suicide, has been proved to be wholly untrue and without warrant. It may be said indeed that Mozart was an exception even among the men of his period. The immorality of the Viennese was proverbial. Caroline Pitchler, a contemporary, writes as follows in her book of recollections of the eighth decade of the eighteenth century, in Vienna at the time there reigned a spirit of appreciation for merriment and a susceptibility for every form of beauty and sensuous pleasure. There was the greatest freedom of thought and opinion—anything could be written and printed which was not, in the strictest sense of the words, contrary to religion and the state. Little thought was bestowed on good morals. There was considerable license in the current plays and novels. Kotzbüh created a tremendous sensation. His plays, and a multitude of romances and tales, Meisner's sketches, among other things, were all based on matricious relations. All the world and every young girl read them without suspicion or offense. More than once I had read and seen these things. Oberon was well known to me. So was Meisner's alcibiades. No mother hesitated to acquaint her daughter with such works, and before our eyes there were so many living exemplars whose irregular conduct was notorious that no mother could have kept her daughter in ignorance had she tried. Mozart was a passionate jester and his jokes were coarse enough. Like that there is no doubt. But these things were innocent at the time. The letters of the lad to his little cousin in Augsburg contain many passages that would be called of questionable propriety now, but the little cousin does not seem to have even blushed. The best witness to the morality of Mozart's life is his wife, who after his death wrote to the publishing firm of Breitkopf and Hartl. His letters are beyond doubt the best criterion for his mode of thought, his peculiarities and his education. Only characteristic is his extraordinary love for me, which breathes through all his letters. Those of his last year on earth are just as tender as those which he must have written in the first year of our married life. Is it not so? I beg, as a particular favour, that special attention be called to this fact for the sake of his honour. He was a free mason with all his heart, and gave expression to his humanitarian feeling in his opera The Magic Flute. Without suspicion himself, he thought everybody else good, which led to painful experiences with some of his friends. Parents strive to place their children in a position which shall enable them to earn their own living, and this they owe to their children and the state. The greater the talents with which the children have been endowed by God, the more they are bound to make use of those talents to improve the conditions of themselves and their parents, to aid their parents and care for their own present and future welfare. We are taught thus to trade with our talents in the Gospels. I owe it therefore to God and my conscience to pay the highest gratitude to my father, who tirelessly devoted all his hours to my education and to lighten his burdens. From his request for dismissal from service in August 1777 he wished to undertake an artistic tour with his father. He received his dismissal from the Archbishop of Salzburg, who granted it right unwillingly, however. To one thing vexed me a trifle, the question whether I had forgotten confession. I have no complaint to make, but I do ask one favour, and that is that you do not think so ill of me. I am fond of merriment, but believe me I can also be serious. Since I left Salzburg, and while still in Salzburg, I have met persons whose conduct was such that I would have been ashamed to talk and act as they did, though they were ten, twenty or thirty years older than I. And I humbly beg of you to have a better opinion of me. Mannheim, December 30th, 1777, to his father, in answer to a letter of approaches. With all my heart I do wish Herr von Scheidenhoff enjoy. It is another marriage for money and nothing else. I should not like to marry thus. I want to make my wife happy, not have her make my fortune. For that reason I shall not marry, but enjoy my golden freedom, until I am so situated that I can support wife and children. It was necessary that Herr should marry a rich woman, that's the consequence of being a nobleman. The nobility must never marry from inclination or love, but only from considerations of interest and all manner of side considerations. Nor would it be becoming in such persons if they were still to love their wives after the latter had done their duty and brought forth a plump air. Mannheim, February 7th, 1778, to his father. In my opinion there is nothing more shameful than to deceive an honest girl. Paris, July 18th, 1778, to his father. I am unconscious of any guilt for which I might fear your reproaches. I have committed no error, meaning by error any act unbecoming to a Christian and an honest man. I am anticipating the pleasantest and happiest days, but only in company with you and my dearest sister. I swear to you on my honour that I cannot endure Salzburg and its citizens. I speak of the natives. Their speech and mode of life are utterly intolerable. Munich, January 8th, 1777, to his father, who was urging his return from Paris to take the post of Chapelmaster in Salzburg. The musicians of Salzburg were notorious because of their loose lies. From the way in which my last letter was received I observed to my sorrow that, just as if I were an arch-scoundrel or an ass or both at once, you trust the tittle-tattle and scribblings of other people more than you do me. But I assure you that this does not give me the least concern. The people may write the eyes out of their heads, and you may applaud them as much as you please. It will not cause me to change a hair's breadth. I shall remain the same honest fellow that I have always been. Vienna, September 5th, 1781, to his father, who was still listening to the slander-mongers. Mozart could not lightly forget the fact that it was due to these gentlemen that he had been forced to leave the house of the widow Weber with whose daughter Constance he was in love. You have been deceived in your son if you could believe him capable of doing a mean thing. You know that I could not have acted otherwise without outraging my conscience and my honour. I beg pardon for my too hasty trust in your paternal love. Through this frank confession you have a new proof of my love of truth and detestation of a lie. Vienna, August 7th, 1782, to his father, whose consent to his son's marriage did not arrive till the day after. Dearest and best of fathers, I beg of you for the sake of all that is good in the world, give your consent to my marriage with my dear Constance. Do not think that it is alone because of my desire to get married. I could well wait. But I see that it is absolutely essential to my honour. The honour of my sweetheart, to my health and frame of mind. My heart is ill at ease, my mind disturbed. Then how shall I do any sensible thinking or work? Why is this? Most people think we are already married. This enrages the mother and the poor girl and I are tormented almost to death. All this can be easily relieved. Believe me, it is possible to live as cheaply in expensive Vienna as anywhere else. It all depends on the housekeeping and the orderliness which is never to be found in a young man, especially if he be in love. Whoever gets a wife such as I am going to have can count himself fortunate. We shall live simply and quietly and yet be happy. Do not worry, for should I, which God for a friend get ill today, especially if I were married, I wager that the first of the nobility would come to my help. I await your consent with longing, best of fathers. I await it with confidence. My honour and fame depend upon it. Vienna, July 27, 1782. Meanwhile my striving is to secure a small certainty. Then with the help of the contingencies it will be easy to live here and then to marry. I beg of you, dearest and best of fathers, listen to me. I have preferred my request. Now listen to my reasons. The calls of nature are as strong in me, perhaps stronger, than in many a hulking fellow. I cannot possibly live like the majority of our young men. In the first place I have too much religion, in the second too much love for my fellow man, and too great a sense of honour ever to betray a girl. Vienna, December 18, 1781. The whole of this letter deserves to be read by those who, misled by the reports, still deemed trustworthy when Jean published the first edition of his great biography, believed that Mozart was a man of bad morals. Unfortunately Mozart's candor in presenting his case to his father can scarcely be adjusted to the requirements of a book designed for general circulation. Let it suffice that in his confession to his father, Mozart puts himself on the ground of the loftiest sexual purity and stakes life and death on the truthfulness of his statements, H.E.K. You surely cannot be angry because I want to get married. I think and believe that you will recognise best my piety and my honourable intentions in the circumstance. Oh, I could easily write a long answer to your last letter and offer many objections, but my maxim is that it is not worthwhile to discuss matters that do not affect me. I can't help it. It's my nature. I am really ashamed to defend myself when I find myself falsely accused. I always think the truth will out some day. Vienna, January 9, 1782, to his father. In the same letter he continues, I cannot be happy and contented without my dear Constance, and without your satisfied acquiescence I could only be half-happy. Therefore make me wholly happy. As I have thought and said a thousand times I would gladly leave everything in your hands with the greatest pleasure, but since, so to speak, it is useless to you, but to my advantage I deem it my duty to remember my wife and children. June 16, 1787, to his sister, concerning his inheritance from his father who had died on May 28. Isn't it true that you are daily becoming more convinced of the truth of my corrective sermons? Is not the amusement of a fickle and capricious love far as the heavens from the blessedness which true, sensible love brings with it? Do you not often thank me in your heart for my instruction? You will soon make me vain. But joking aside, you do owe me a modicum of gratitude if you have made yourself worthy of Fraulein N., for I certainly did not play the smallest role at your conversion. Prague, November 4, 1787, to a wealthy young friend, name unknown. Pray believe anything you please about me, but nothing ill. There are persons who believe it is impossible to love a poor girl without harboring wicked intentions, and the beautiful word mistress is so lovely. I am a Mozart, but a young and well-meaning Mozart. Among many faults I have this that I think the friends who know me know me. Hence many words are not necessary. If they do not know me, where shall I find words enough? It is bad enough that words and letters are necessary. Mannheim, February 22, 1778, to his father, who had rebuked him for falling in love with Aloysa Weber, who afterwards became his sister-in-law. CHAPTER XVIII. Of Mozart, the man and the artist, as revealed in his own words. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Mozart, the man and the artist, as revealed in his own words by Friedrich Kerst. Translated by Henry Krebel. CHAPTER XVIII. RELIGION. Mozart was of a deeply religious nature, reared in Salzburg where his father was a member of the Arch-Opiscopal Chapel. Throughout his life he remained a faithful son of the church, for whose servants, however, he had little sympathy. The one man who Mozart hated from the bottom of his soul was Archbishop Heronimus of Salzburg, who sought to put all possible obstacles in the way of the youthful genius, and, finally, by the most infamous of acts covered himself everlastingly with infamy. Though Mozart frequently speaks angrily and bitterly of the priest, he always differentiates between religion, the church, and their servants. Like Beethoven, Mozart stood toward God in the relationship of a child full of trust in his father. His reliance on providence was so utter that his words sometimes sound almost fatalistic. His father harbored some rationalistic ideas which were even more pronounced in Mozart, so that he formed his own opinion concerning ecclesiastical ceremonies and occasionally disregarded them. His cheery temperament made it impossible that his religious life should be as profound as that of Beethoven. I hope that with the help of God Miss Martha will get well again. If not, you should not grieve too deeply, for God's will is always the best. God will know whether it is better to be in this world or the other. Bologna, September 29, 1770, to his mother and sister in Salzburg. The young woman died soon after. Tell Papat to put aside his fears. I live with God ever before me. I recognize his omnipotence. I fear his anger. I acknowledge his love too. His compassion and mercy towards all his creatures. He will never desert those who serve him. If matters go according to his will, they go according to mine. Consequently, nothing can go wrong. I must be satisfied and happy. Augsburg, October 25, 1777, to his father, who was showering him with exhortations on the tour which he had made with his mother through South Germany. Let come what will. Nothing can go ill so long as it is the will of God, and that it may so go is my daily prayer. From December 6, 1777, to his father, Mozart was waiting with some impatience to learn if he was to receive an appointment from Elector Karl Theodor. It did not come. I know myself. I know that I have so much religion that I shall never be able to do a thing which I would not be willing openly to do before the whole world. Only the thought of meeting persons on my journey whose ideas are radically different from mine and those of all honest people frightens me. But from that they may do what they please. I have at the heart to travel with them. I would not have a single pleasant hour. I would not know what to say to them. In a word I do not trust them. Friends who have no religion are not stable. Mannheim, February 2, 1778, to his father. For the reasons mentioned in the letter Mozart gave up his plan to travel to Paris with the musicians Wendling and Rahman. In truth, perhaps, his love affair with Aloysa Weber may have had something to do with his resolve. I prayed to God for his mercy that all might go well to his greater glory and the symphony began. Immediately after the symphony, full of joy, I went to the Palais Royale, ate an iced cream, prayed the rosary as I had promised to do, and went home. I am always best contented at home and always will be, or with a good true, honest German. Paris, July 3, 1778, to his father. The symphony in question is no longer in existence, although Mozart wanted to write it down again at a later date. I must tell you, my mother, my dear mother is no more. God has called her to himself. He wanted her. I see that clearly, and I must submit to God's will. He gave her to me, and it was his to take her away. My friend, I am comforted. Not but now, but long ago. By a singular grace of God I endured all with steadfastness and composure. When her illness grew dangerous I prayed God for two things only, a happy hour of death for my mother, and strength and courage for myself. God heard me in his loving kindness, heard my prayer, and bestowed the two mercies in largest measure. Paris, July 3, 1778, to his good friend Bollinger in Salzburg, who was commissioned gently to bear the intelligence to Mozart's father. At the same time Mozart, with considerate deception, wrote to his father about his mother's illness without mentioning her death. I believe, and nothing shall ever persuade me differently, that no doctor, no man, no accident, can either give life to man or take it away. It rests with God alone. Those are only the instruments which he generally uses, though not always. We see men sink down and fall over dead. When the time has come no remedies can avail. They accelerate death rather than retard it. I do not say, therefore, that my mother will and must die, that all hope is gone. She may recover and again be well in sound, but only if it is God's will. Paris, July 3, 1778, to his father, from whom he is concealing the fact that his mother is dead. He is seeking to prepare him for the intelligence which he has already commissioned Bollinger to convey to the family. Under those melancholy circumstances I comforted myself with three things. One is, my complete and trustful submission to the will of God. Then the realization of her easy and beautiful death, combined with the thought of happiness, which was to come to her in a moment. How much happier she is now than we, so that we might even have wished to make the journey with her. Out of this wish and desire there was developed my third comfort, namely, that she is not lost to us forever, that we shall see her again, that we shall be together more joyous and happy than ever we were in this world. It is only the time that is unknown, and that fact does not frighten me. When it is God's will it shall be mine. Only the Divine, the most sacred will be done. Let us then pray a devout our Father for her soul, and proceed to other matters. Everything has its time. Paris, July 9, 1778, to his father, informing him of his mother's death. Be without concern touching my soul's welfare, best of matters. I am an airing young man, like so many others, but I can say to my own comfort, that I wish all were as little airing as I. You perhaps believe things about me which are not true. My chief fault is that I do not always appear to act as I ought. It is not true that I boasted that I eat fish every fast day, but I did say that I was indifferent on the subject and did not consider it a sin, for in my case fasting means breaking off, eating less than usual. I hear mass every Sunday and holy day, and when it is possible on weekdays also. You know that, my father. Vienna, June 13, 1781. Another attempt at justification against slander. Moreover, take the assurance that I certainly am religious, and if I should ever have the misfortune which God will forfen to go astray, I shall acquit you best of fathers from all blame. I alone would be the scoundrel, to you I owe all my spiritual and temporal welfare and salvation. Vienna, June 13, 1781. For a considerable time before we were married we went together to holy mass, to confession and to communion, and I found that I never prayed so fervently, confessed and communicated so devoutly as when I was at her side, and her experience was the same. In a word we were made for each other, and God who ordains all things and consequently has ordained this will not desert us. You both thank you obediently for your paternal blessing. Vienna, August 17, 1782. I have made it a habit in all things to imagine the worst. In as much as strictly speaking death is the real aim of our life, I have for the past few years made myself acquainted with this true, best friend of mankind, so that the vision not only has no terror for me, but much that is quieting and comforting. And I thank my God that He gave me the happiness and the opportunity, you understand me, to learn to know Him as the key to true blessedness. Vienna, April 4, 1787, to his father, who died on the twenty-eighth of the following month. One of the few passages in Mozart's letters in which there are suggestions of the teachings of Freemasonry. In 1785 he had persuaded his father to join the order, with the result that new warmth was restored to the relationship which had cooled somewhat after Mozart's marriage. To me that again is art twaddle. There may be something true in it for you enlightened Protestants, as you call yourselves, when you have your religion in your heads. I cannot tell. But you do not feel what Agnes Day, Ketullis, Pekatamundi, and such things mean. But when one, like I, has been initiated from earliest childhood in the mystical sanctuary of our religion, when there one does not know whether to go with all the vague but urgent feelings, but waits with a heart full of devotion for the Divine Service without really knowing what to expect, yet rises lightened and uplifted without knowing what one has received. When one deemed those fortunate who knelt under the touching strains of the Agnes Day and received the sacrament, and at the moment of reception the music spoke in gentle joy from the hearts of the kneeling ones, benedictus, Kyvenet, etc., then it is a different matter. True, it is lost in the hurly-burly of life, but at least it is so in my case, when you take up the words which you have heard a thousand times for the purpose of setting them to music, everything comes back and you feel your soul moved again. Spoken in Leipzig, in 1789, when somebody expressed pity for those capable musicians who were obliged to employ their powers on ecclesiastical subjects, which were mostly not only unfruitful but intellectually killing. This reports the utterance but does not vouch for its literalness. End of CHAPTER XVIII. End of Mozart, The Man and the Artist, as revealed in his own words by Friedrich Kerrst. Translated by Henry Krebel.