Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 8.djvu/158

 906 ARTISTS AND AUTHORS L' MOZART By C. E. Bourne (1756-1791) eopold Mozart was a violinist in the band of Arch- bishop Sigismund, the reigning Prince of Salzburg, and it was probably in compliment to his master that he bestowed on the youngest of his seven children the name of Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Sigis- mundus. Born on January 27, 1756, this child was des- tined to make the name of Mozart famous wherever music is known ; and surely no more beautiful life — beautiful in itself and in the works of immortal beauty which in its short course were produced — has ever been lived by anyone of those to whom the crown of inspired singers and an enduring monument in the temple of art has been given. " Look around," was the epitaph on a great architect. " Listen," is the most fitting tribute to the wonderful genius of a Mozart. Infant prodigies very often turn out to be nobodies in after-life. But Mozart was an exception ; and though he might well have been called " the marvellous boy," his latest works — and he died at the early age of thirty-five — were undoubtedly his grandest and most perfect. He be- gan very early to compose. One of these first attempts was a concerto so difficult that no one could play it ; but the child undauntedly said, " Why, that's the verv reason why is called a concerto ; people must practise it before they can play it perfectly." Wolfgang and his sister, Nannerl, as he used to call her, had been taken by their father, in 1762, to Vienna, where the children played the piano before the Empress Maria Theresa and her husband. Little Wolfgang was here, as every- where, perfectly at his ease, with a simplicity and childish grace that won every heart When he had been playing for some time, he jumped without ceremony on the lap of the empress, and kissed her heartily for being so good to him. Little Marie Antoinette, her daughter, afterward the ill-fated wife of Louis XVI., and then about the same age as Wolfgang, he treated in almost the same way. He had slipped on the polished floor, to which he was unaccustomed, and the little princess had hurried forward to raise him up, on which he promptly said, "You are good; I will marry you." The empress asked why he wished this, to which he answered, " Out of gratitude ; she was kind, while her sister took no notice of me " (she had not come forward to help him). After return- it