[...]... this ambition It was, in fact, his true and individual field as the symphony was that of Beethoven He took counsel with his father by touching many details in his earlier opwherefore we are advised about their origin, and, what is more to the purpose, about Mozart' s fine sesthetic judgment His four operatic masterpieces are imperishable, and a few words about them are in place, particularly since Mozart. .. to be said in music nothing a musician there is till Mannheim, November 8, 1777, in a letter of congratulation to his father who was born on November 14, 1719 Despite his assertion Mozart was an admirable dancer and [So says Herr Kerst passionately devoted to the sport obviously misconceiving Mozart' s words It is plain to me that the composer had the classic definition of the dance in mind when he... fugue was in G minor) I began in the major, with something jocose but in the same tempo; finally the theme again, but backwards Finally I wondered if I might not use the playful melody as a theme for a fugue I did not question long, but made it at once, and it went as accurately as if Daser had measured it for the purpose The dean was Augsburg, October a beside himself Daser was 23, 1777, to his father... said that he was no dancer The dance of which he was thinking was that described by Charles " dance in which every motion was a word, Kingsley and rest as eloquent as motion; in which every attitude A was a fresh motive for a sculptor of the purest 18 school, Mozart 14 and the highest physical activity was manifested, not as pantomime, in fantastic bounds and unnatural distortions, but in perpetual... while I was thinking It must come is first out the prelude Vienna, April 20, 1782, to his sister Marianne Here manner of composing; completely in his mind considerable time had which proceeding nothing could disturb him In the case before us while engaged in the more or less mechanical labor of transcription he thought out a new composition Concerning the fugue and its origin he continues to gossip in the... 31, 1778, to his father M Le Gros bought the Sinfonie concerthinks that he is the only one who has it; but that isn't so It is still fresh in my head, and as soon as I get home I'll write 7 tante of me it He down again Paris, October 3, 1778, to his father An evidence of the retentiveness of Mozart' s memory In this instance, however, he did not carry out his expressed intention Le Gros was director... serious operas, except as intermezzi, until they hit upon a third classification, which they called opera semiseria, in which a serious subject was enlivened with comic episodes Our dramatic tastes being grounded in Shakespeare, we should be inclined to " Don Giovanni " as a musical tragedy ; or, put down haunted by the Italian terminology, as opera semiseria; but Mozart calls it opera buffa, more in deference... in Mozart' s music, and the less willing we shall be to permit any opportunity to pass unimproved which offers us the crystal cup In the mind of Goethe genius was summed up in the name of Mozart In a prophetic ecstasy he spoke the significant words " What else is genius than that productive power through which deeds arise, worthy of standing in the presence of God and Nature, and which, for this reason,... here (pointing to his ear, his head and his heart) is your If everything is right there, then take school your pen and down with it; afterward ask the opinion of a man who knows his business To a musically talented boy who asked Mozart how one might learn to compose 2 I can not write poetically ; I am no poet I can not divide and subdivide my phrases so as to produce light and shade; I am no painter... the success was unexampled, and Mozart could write to his father " The people are daft over my opera." Here, at the very outset, Mozart' s humor, the golden one of all the gifts with which Mother : Nature had endowed him, was called into play With this work German comic opera took its 23 24 Mozart " beginning As has been remarked although it has been imitated, it has never been surpassed in its musically . they are the guiding spirits of a generation which has grown up in combat and is expecting an un- known world of combat beyond the morning mist of the new century. But we are in the case of the man in the fairy tale. no care but lies forever bathed in the sunshine of cloudless hap- piness, a world in which every loveliness of which fancy has dreamed has taken life and form. It is because of this that we make pil- grimages to. out our work in a room. A remark to his wife while driving through a beautiful bit of nature and humming all manner of ideas that came into his head. 12. I'd be willing to work forever and forever if