Mozart: The Man and the Artist, as Revealed in His Own Words Part 13

253. "For a considerable time before we were married we went together to Holy Ma.s.s, 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 G.o.d, who ordains all things and consequently has ordained this, will not desert us. We both thank you obediently for your paternal blessing."

(Vienna, August 17, 1782.)

254. "I have made it a habit in all things to imagine the worst.

Inasmuch 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 G.o.d 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 28th of the following month. One of the few pa.s.sages 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.)

255. "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 can not tell. But you do not feel what 'Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi' 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 whither 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 Agnus Dei and received the sacrament, and at the moment of reception the music spoke in gentle joy from the hearts of the kneeling ones, 'Benedictus qui venit,' 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 Leipsic, 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." Rochlitz reports the utterance but does not vouch for its literalness.)