MOZART'S early and unexpected death, removing him from the eyes of the world at the moment when he might seem to have attained the height of his artistic greatness, had the effect of silencing the detractions and the envy of the few who were blinded by jealousy to his merits, and of exalting his works in the minds of those who felt his loss to be an irreparable one. Public feeling took the form of sympathy for his bereaved family, who were left in pressing need; and they found generous support, not in Vienna and Prague alone, but in many other places to which the widow made professional visits. When she was in Berlin, in 1796, Frederick William II. allowed her the use of the opera-house and the royal musicians for a benefit concert, at which she AT THE GRAVE. appeared as a vocalist (February 28). The King, as was stated in the programme (Niemetschek, p. 63), "took great pleasure in thus proving to the widow how highly he esteemed the talent of her late husband, and how much he regretted the unfortunate circumstances which had prevented his reaping the due reward of his labours." But such efforts as these could not assure her a livelihood for any length of time; nor would the manuscripts left by Mozart realise, as matters then stood, anything like a sum sufficient for her future needs. His compositions might be spread abroad, either in MS. or in print, without her consent or authorisation. Indeed, when reference was made to her, she considered it as a favour, 1 and was well pleased when, in 1799, AndrÉ purchased from her all the manuscripts in her possession for a sum of one thousand ducats.

Some of Mozart's manuscripts had been lost before his death, others have been made over to other people by AndrÉ himself, and the remainder are included in the "Thematic Catalogue of Mozart's Original Manuscripts in the Possession of Hofrath AndrÉ of Offenbach" (Offenbach, 1841). Unhappily, no public library has been able to obtain this most important collection, and its dispersion, owing to testamentary dispositions, must be a source of regret to all musicians.

Mozart's widow found a means of secure and untroubled existence in her second marriage. Georg Nic. Nissen (b. 1765) made her acquaintance, in 1797, at Vienna, where he was attached to the diplomatic service of Denmark, and rendered her great service in the arrangement of her affairs, as the numerous letters written by him in her name sufficiently show. He appears to have been a tiresome, but an upright and honourable man, and to have acted well towards Constanze and her children from the time of their marriage in 1809. After resigning his state service, in 1820, he lived with her in Salzburg, where also Mozart's sister resided (App. I.). He died in 1826, and was followed by his widow on COMMEMORATIONS. March 6, 1842, a few hours after the arrival of the model for Mozart's statue; after Nissen's death she had lived with her widowed sister, Sophie Haibl. 2

Karl, the elder of Mozart's two surviving sons, began life as a merchant, then tried music, 3 and finally embraced an official career. He was a good pianist, and conducted musical performances, first at the house of Colonel Casella, afterwards at his own; 4 he died in a subordinate official post at Milan in 1859. The younger son, Wolfgang, became a musician. He first appeared in public in 1805, 5 made repeated professional tours, and after 1814 lived as musical director, first at Lemberg, afterwards in Vienna; he died at Carlsbad in 1844. He was esteemed both as a pianist and composer, but the greatness of his name prevented his attaining to more. 6

Appreciation and honour had not been wanting to Mozart in his lifetime, but they had been far from unalloyed; after his death they were showered in fullest measure on his memory. 7 His loss was commemorated in many places by the performance of his own works or of specially composed funeral cantatas, 8 and the anniversaries of his birth and of his death are still kept, both in private musical circles 9 and publicly, by concerts. The hundredth anniversary of his birth, which in 1856 caused all Germany to ring with Mozart's name and Mozart's music, united every voice into a chorus of praise and honour, and gave a new impulse to the study of his works. 10

Mozart's personal appearance has become so familiar by means of well-known portraits that he may in this respect AT THE GRAVE. be compared to Frederick the Great or Luther; his music and his countenance have alike become common property (App. III.).

In the year 1799 the Duchess Amalie of Weimar placed a memorial of Mozart in the park of Siefurt; it is in terra cotta: a lyre on a pedestal, and leaning on it a tragic and a comic mask. 11 Bridi (Vol. II., p. 359), in the "Temple to Harmony" which he erected in his garden, has given to Mozart the first place among the seven musicians there represented, and has placed a monument dedicated to him in a melancholy grotto, with the inscription, "Herrscher der Seele durch melodische Denkkraft." 12 The same inscription is on the reverse of a medal by Guillemard together with a muse playing a lyre and a Cupid with a flute; the other side has a portrait of Mozart. A medallion by BÀrend has also a portrait in front, the reverse representing Orpheus and a captive lion, with the inscription, "Auditus saxis intellectusque ferarum sensibus." The design for a medallion by BÖhm, which was never struck, was shown to me by my friend Karajan. It consists of a refined and intellectual representation of Mozart's profile.

In 1835 the idea took shape of erecting a statue to Mozart in Salzburg. An appeal for subscriptions was made in September, 1836, 13 and the cast of the statue was completed on May 22, 1841. The ceremony of unveiling the figure took place on the Michaelsplatz, September 4, 1842. 14 Unhappily it cannot be said that Schwanthaler has succeeded in investing the accepted idea of Mozart as an artist and a man with any ideal force and dignity. He is represented clothed in the traditional toga, standing with his head turned sidewards and upwards, and in his hand a scroll with the inscription, "Tuba mirum." In bas-relief on the pedestal are allegorical representations of church, concert, and dramatic music, and an eagle flying heavenwards with MEMORIALS OP MOZART. a lyre. The simple inscription is "Mozart." 15 In 1856 the city of Vienna determined upon erecting a monument to Mozart in the churchyard of St. Mark's. It was designed by Hans Gasser, and solemnly unveiled December 5, 1859. A mourning muse reposes on a granite pillar, holding in her right hand the score of the Requiem, and resting her left, with a laurel wreath, on a pile of Mozart's works. On the pedestal are Mozart's portrait and the Vienna arms, with a short inscription. 16

Mozart's name has been more worthily honoured by the foundation of various institutions. The Salzburg Mozarteum, founded in 1842, not only preserves the most important family documents and interesting relics which were in the possession of Mozart's sons; it has the further aim of fostering and advancing music, and more especially church music, in Mozart's native town. 17 The Mozart Institution at Frankfort, founded in 1838, encourages talent by means of prizes and scholarships; 18 and a Mozart Society, founded in 1855, undertakes to assist needy musicians. 19

But after all that may be accomplished in honour of Mozart by the most enthusiastic of his admirers, his true and imperishable fame rests upon his works. A history of modern music will be concerned to show how his influence has worked upon his successors, displaying itself sometimes in conscious or slavish imitation, sometimes in the freer impulse it has given to closely allied natures; and it may truly be said that of all the composers who have lived and worked since Mozart there is not one who has not felt his inspiration, not one who has not learnt from him, not one who at some time or another has not encroached upon his domain. Like all great and original geniuses, he belongs to two ages which it was his mission to bring together; while quickening and transforming all that his own age can offer him as the AT THE GRAVE. inheritance of the past, he leaves to posterity the offspring of his individual mind to serve as a germ for new and more perfect life.

It would be presumptuous to attempt to summarise in a few phrases the result of a life of ceaseless mental activity, and of strongly marked individuality. In view of this difficulty many biographers take refuge in a comparison of the subject of their work with other great men, and thus emphasise the points of resemblance or divergence which exist in their natures. No such parallel appears to me more justifiable than one between Mozart and Raphael. 20 The majestic beauty which appears to absorb all the other conditions of art production, and to blend them into purest harmony, is so overpoweringly present in the works of both masters that there is no need to enforce the comparison by dwelling on the many points of resemblance in their career both as men and artists, and in their moral and intellectual natures. Such a comparison, however, is not profitable unless it can be shown how and under what conditions this beauty, so varied in its manifestations, so similar in its effects, is produced. 21 Although it will readily be acknowledged that Mozart is closely related to Shakespeare 22 in fertility, force, and reality of dramatic invention and in breadth of humour, and to Goethe 23 in simplicity and naturalness of human sentiment and in plastic clearness of idea, yet here again we are confronted with the distinguishing qualities of great artists in different provinces of art, and Mozart's individuality in his own art is as far as ever from explanation. The frequently attempted parallels with great CONCLUSION. musicians, with Haydn 24 or Beethoven, 25 bring out still more clearly the characteristics which distinguish him from all others; and it is to be feared that the more ingeniously these comparisons are carried out in detail the more the images are distorted and the judgment biassed.

With whatever feelings, and from whatever point of view, we regard Mozart, we are invariably met by the genuine purity of an artist's nature, with its irrepressible impulses, its inexhaustible power of production, its overflowing love; it is a nature which rejoices in nothing but in the manifestation of beauty which is inspired by the spirit of truth; it infuses all that it approaches with the breath of its own life, and, while conscientious in serious work, it never ceases to rejoice in the freedom of genius. All human emotions took a musical form for him, and were by him embodied in music; his quick mind grasped at once all that could fittingly be expressed in music, and made it his own according to the laws of his art. This universality, which is rightly prized as Mozart's distinguishing quality, is not confined to the external phenomena which he has successfully portrayed in every region of his art—in vocal and instrumental, in chamber and orchestral, in sacred and secular music. His fertility and many-sidedness, even from this outward point of view, can scarcely indeed be too highly extolled; but there is something higher to be sought in Mozart: that which makes music to him not a conquered territory but a native home, that which renders every form of musical expression the necessary outcome of his inner experience, that by means of which he touches every one of his conceptions with the torch of genius whose undying flame is visible to all who approach his works with the eyes AT THE GRAVE. of their imagination unbound. His universality has its limits only in the limits of human nature, and consequently of his own individual nature. It cannot be considered apart from the harmony of his artistic nature, which never allowed his will and his power, his intentions and his resources, to come into conflict with each other; the centre of his being was the point from which his compositions proceeded as by natural necessity. All that his mind perceived, or that his spirit felt, every experience of his inner life, was turned by him into music; from his inner life proceeded those works of imperishable truth and beauty, clothed in the forms and obedient to the laws of his art, just as the works of the Divine Spirit are manifested in the forms and the laws of nature and history. 26

And, while our gaze is lifted in reverence and admiration to the great musician, it may rest with equal sympathy and love upon the pure-hearted man. We can trace in his career, lying clear and open before us, the dispensation which led him to the goal of his desires; and, hard as he was pressed by life's needs and sorrows, the highest joy which is granted to mortals, the joy of successful attainment, was his in fullest measure.

"And he was one of us!" his countrymen may exclaim with just pride. 27 For, wherever the highest and best names of every art and every age are called for, there, among the first, will be the name of Wolfgang Amade Mozart.