Page:Pratt - The history of music (1907).djvu/383



his character lacked poise and firmness in all practical matters, and to this lack is due the tragic contrast between his transcendent genius and his utter failure to win a place suitable to his powers.

At Mozart's death his widow was left with two sons, the younger only four months old. After serious struggles against want, which involved the sale of her husband's manuscripts and the giving of various concerts, in 1809 she was married to G. N. van Nissen (d. 1826), a Danish official. She died in 1842. Of the two sons, Karl (d. 1859), though somewhat trained in music, first engaged in business and later was in the Austrian civil service at Milan; while Wolfgang Amadeus (d. 1844), after study with Neukomm, Albrechtsberger and others, appeared as a pianist in 1805, from 1814 was conductor at Lemberg, and later worked at Vienna.

157. His Style in General.—Mozart's creative power was first shown in published works in his seventh year (1763), and from 1766 he poured forth an incessant stream of works, of which, however, only a small part were published during his life. These works belong to every class of writing then cultivated, and many of those for orchestra, the stage or the church were extended and elaborate. The total number was over a thousand. Spontaneity and versatility were obvious traits of his musical mind. He composed with rapidity and usually with absolute certainty, and the freshness of his invention continued unimpaired to the end. His intuition as to style and method was phenomenal, and he adapted himself to so many forms that it is not easy to say which supplied the norm of his style. Historically his influence has been greatest in the orchestral and the operatic fields.

The standard edition of his works (1876-86) includes about 35 songs, 20 vocal canons, over 30 concert-arias, several part-songs, much church music, including 15 masses, many motets and several cantatas, a considerable amount of piano music, including 17 sonatas for two hands, 5 for four hands, etc., 17 organ-sonatas, much chamber music, including 42 violin-sonatas, 26 quartets, 10 quintets, etc., many concertos for piano, violin, flute, horn, bassoon, etc., manifold works for orchestra, including 49 symphonies, about 30 divertimenti, etc., and nearly 20 operas and similar works. His fame as an epoch-making genius rests mainly upon certain of the concertos, the later of the symphonies (see sec. 148), and the chief of the operas, beginning with Idomeneo in 1781 (see below).

Mozart was first of all a melodist. He resembled Haydn in the clarity and symmetry of his themes, but his conception and expression tended always toward more expansion of feeling, a much greater flexibility and a more glowing beauty. His idioms, instead of resting upon the artlessness and naïveté of