Evening star., 1932-07-30
THE LIBRARY TABLE
BY SARAH C.. BOFERM.4N.


! assistant conductor of orchestra at
SalZburg. would have started child well
/ fare workers into action had there been
! any at that time. Marcia Davenport
4 in her biography Mozart" speaks of
| the .aprodigious childhood' of Mozart
as the reason Why he lost his early
beauty and became an insignificant
looking. man. When he was 5aTely -,
| father was giving his older sister
lessons, and would reach up and dell
cately touch the keys. OF course, it
was inevitable that by the time he was
4 Leopold should have been giving him
| lessons. and after year of learning
/ the baby cared for nothing but music"
During that year the child composed
a concerto for the clavier. "one so difti-
cult that nobody can possibly play 1t,
his father said. When he was he
played second fiddle in trio. without
/ ever having had O lesson. He had tiny
violin as toy, and one afternoon
when some of his fathers friends came
to the Mozart apartment to practice
| trio he "noSed into the group and be-
gan begging to play second fiddle" His
/ father told him that he was nuisance
| and sent him away, but one OF the
| friends, moved by the childs tears.
with wink. urged that he be allowed
to play. The father consented, with
the injunction that the child was not
to play loud enough for any one to
hear" But in few moments every one
noticed that "the 5-year-old was carry
ing the whole second fiddle perfectly"
| When the practice was over, all the
musicians "swooped on the baby with
eXclamations and kisses, which so eX-
/ cited him that he insisted on trying
first violin, and carried it of. far from
| perfectly, but never breaking down
altogether
Leopold Mozart was not a man to al
low his wonderful child to remain
merely the prodigy of Salzburg. He
| himself was poor, not very successful,
and very ambitious for fame and money.
He was also a man of his age and must
not be judged according to the stand
| ards Of a later age. 'It must be re-
membered that children. as such, were
| not thought Of then in the complicated
| psychological terms Of today. Every
/ body had a great many children, usually
| one a year, few of whom (for which
! thanks were surreptitiously given) sur
vived. If those who lived were undis-
tinguished they were just more towns
people, and If they had any talents
! parents rushed to exploit them because
| they appeared so remarkable while chill
dren were small and the golden days
would be numbered" So the public life
Of the child Mozart began when he was
and his father never ceased to exploit
him until he was grown man. Just
before his sixth birthday he and his
older sister were taken by Leopold on
! tour to Munich, where they played be-
! fore the Elector Maximilian Joseph III
and at many fashionable houses. "The
remuneration for such performances was
whatever the noble patron chose to give"
and the thrifty Leopold regretted that
1t so often took the form of rings, snuff
boxes and other gew-gaws, instead of
ducats. The Munich trip was, however,
! so profitable that Leopold Immediately
undertook another to Vienna, with stops
| along the way. Here the little ''Wol-
| ferl' played for the Emperor Francis I
and sat in the lap Of the Empress Maria
| Theresa. There Is in the Mozart
| Museum at SalZburg a painting of the
| little boy, at the age of 6, in the court
costume given him by Maria Theresa.
He played games on the polished floor
of the music room with the 7-year-old
| Marie Antoinette, who was afterward.
as the frivolous, unfortunate wife of
Louis XVI, to end her life at the guillo-
tine. Generous gifts of money attended
| this trip but the boy contracted scarlet
| fever and emerged from it, pale and
weak, only to be dragged of by hiG
father to PreSSburg in Hungary. Then.
after brief rest in SalZburg, the whole
family set out for the master tour of
Leopolds planning-to Paris, with any
number of small courts on the way. The
| journey yielded enough trinkets TO start
shop. but not enough money to pay
hotel bills and poSt-horses." At Yer
sailles "Wolferl' was kissed by the
| o-i1 7 a,,I oft kaI
to kiss the pompadour after he had
| played for her, but was coldly pushed
away, whereupon he piped: who is
this that does not want to kiss me? The
| Empress kissed me-" From Paris they
| went to London, where the children
played repeatedly for George III and his
Queen and Leopold staged a benefit
| concert for his family. A stay in Hol-
| land and another visit to Paris followed,
and after an absence Of three and
half years the family returned to Salz-
| burg.
Wolfgang was by this time SO old
that he could no longer be considered
small, thin boy, with too large head.
he was taken 10 Italy, not this ZINE for
financial purposes, but because Italy
/
! world and Leopold wisely wished his
, son to have the benefit of training in
one Of the great Italian cities. This
training enabled him to write opera.
Other shorter trips then alternated
with more prolonged stays in Salzburg.
where Wolfgang had secured a minor
| musical position at court. The trips
were always under paternal supervision,
and with actual paternal chaperonage.
q for ne
establishment at some large court and
Paris was selected for the first attempt.
But Leopold was refused leave of alb
sence by his patron, the Bishop of
SalZburg, and could not afford to defy
the power of the purse. 1t was un-
thinkable that the son, now 81, should
go alone so Mother Mozart was ordered
to accompany him. She "grieved SO
over leaving home that she could hard
ly collect hersef and attend to her
packing" The home-loVing woman,
proud OF her son, but wearied by so
many trips, was never to see her SalZ-
burg home again. She died in Paris,
after living there unhappily in wretched
apartments for about a year. For the
first time in his life Wolfgang was then
free from constant parental restraint.
He was grown up, and was never again
to be completely dominated by his ia
ther, though that father continued as
long as he lived to issue long and de-
tailed orders on every subject to his
unusually obedient son. Marcia Daven-
port, in estimating the character of
Leopold, says: With his extraordinary
combination of love, conscience and
knowledge, Leopold had been instru-
mental in the development of a great
creative genius. Yet his false ambition,
his bigotry and his material greed did
their most to wreck it."
X
Some practical and inexpensive books
of travel for those contemplating Eu-
rope this Summer are The Call of
England" by H " Norton Here's
Ireland" by Harold Speakman; France
from Sea to Sea-" by Arthur Stanley