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Show MOZART, COMPOSER, ' AND THE CHURCH Our Modern Music Is to Be Allowed When j It fulfills the Conditions of Excellence. Ex-cellence. i By the new instruction, on sacred music the Holy Father has. I suppose, signed the death warrant war-rant of Mozart and Haydn, with others of the tunefu choir. The compositions of these masters have been so often "executed" that, it is no wonder that they are now done away with. Only modern music is to be allowed when il fulfils the conditions of excellence, sobriety and gravity; when 'it contains con-tains .nothing profane, i.s free from reminiscences of motifs adopted in the theatres, and is not fashioned, fash-ioned, even in its' external form, after the manner of profane pieces. For, such music the Pope declares de-clares to be diametrically opposed to the plain song and to the polyphonic school, and therefore to the most important law of all good music So. by its intrinsic structure, rhythm ami conventionalism of style this kind of music is badly adapted to the requirements re-quirements of true liturgical song. I am sorry to part with Mozart and Haydn. I have known and loved them all my life, oday I delight in them and would willingly hear them everywhere, save in one place, and at all times, save at one. The church is not the place and the mass is not the time for such music. For many years I have felt that Calvary and an orchestra are ideas that do not sort together. to-gether. The music or worship is one thing, and the worship of music is another. Each has its plac the church or the concert room. It is for the same reason that I feel that the Polyphonic or Pales-trina Pales-trina school (to uae a convenient term) is open to the same disadvantage, he plain song, as the Pope says, is the song prtlper t othe Koman church; and to me it is the only music which is fitting as an accompaniment ac-companiment to the awful sacrifice of the new law. I do not see anything in itself particularly ecclesiastical eccle-siastical about the Palestrina school. Counterpoint Counter-point is a very human invention and very ingenious. inge-nious. But where is the spirituality of it alii It, is just: as- hard in many cases to make out the. words, say; in a Bencdictus of Palestrina as in ono of Mozart's masses. 'And then it should be remem-; remem-; bered that when Palestrina wrote th? contrapunta ' style was the style of-the day. Take one of his raotets and put it side by side with one of his madrigals, ma-drigals, and what is the difference? I can understand under-stand that when the principle of a real individualistic individual-istic melody asserted itself and religious or quarrel quar-rel igious emotions found a new means of expressing express-ing itself musically, the older school, whicfl clung to the intermingling in a well-ordered scheme of-" several subtle melodies each co-ordinate, should be looked upon as the proper thing. because it was the older, although, at oik; time itself it had been a novelty. Moreover, the Palestrina style, by its rigid conformity with rules, represented one principle; prin-ciple; while the new independent melodic music stood for another. I mean the principles of authority au-thority and personality. And with just that touch of inconsistency which redeems so many human things, it happened that thosewho were wont to exaggerate in other matters the principle of authority au-thority became among the 'most strenuous advo- i cates of musical individuality. Xow, before Mozart and his school go down into the outer darkness. I want to siy a word on their behalf; and as Mozart may be taken as the type. 1 have thought it worth while to look into hi relations with the church so as to sec what it was he was aiming at and how he tried to serve her. In judging o his church music, and of that of the Vienna school, it is well to remember that these : composers were essentially children of their age; and their age was that just before and just after the revolution. We must also take into account the religious spirit of the time, which was marked now a wave of Jansenism, now one of the reaction. re-action. From the severity of the one the world moved to the exuberant, spirits of the other. While between them both there was but. little of solid re-. re-. ligiou anywhere; and even this among the soberer portion of the community was associated 'rather I with ideas of restraint than of liberty, which : brings the sense of responsibility. I mut refuse t to judge Mozart by twentieth 'century ideals. He was a man of his age and can only be properly tin-i tin-i derstood when he is taken in his own setting. But. here and now, the main point is to set out a side of his life which is little known, viz.. h;s relations with the church. . ' . John-Chrysostom Wolfgang Theophilus Mo-zzart, Mo-zzart, known to the. world as Wolfgang, Amadee Mozart, was born Jan. 27. IT."), at Salzzburg. Avhere his father, Leopold Mozart, was- kapellmeister to Archbishop Sigisniund. Originally from Aug- burg. Leopold was a devout Catholic, and kept strictly to all his duties. Even as a, boy this had been his character, and the clergy of his native town wished him to become' a monk.. In his official connection with Salzburg cathedral. Leopold Mozart Mo-zart was naturally mixed up with clcrica Uifo; and so it is easily understood that his son would come under the same influence. The boy. bright, clever . and lovable as he was, made fast friends with the clergy and with the monks of the neighboring monasteries. mon-asteries. His extraordinary talent was soon recognized, recog-nized, and the child was much soughtNafter. The Benedictines of St. LTda rich's abbey at Augsburg had founded and managed the university at Salzburg; Salz-burg; and it was probably through them that the elder Mozart came to the archtepiscopal court. At any rate, the Black Monks of St. -Benedict and Wolfgang were great friends, and many are the . j charming stories told about their intercourse. f ' Shortly after his return to Paris the boy paid r i a visit to the Abbey of Seeon; and here he gave a i I proof of his wonderful and precocious gift. The J abbot hanpened to say that he was sorry that his ! choir had no fitting offertorium for the feast og St. Benedict. Wolfgang left the dinner table and went into ihe cloister, and there, leaning on the edge of ; the window opposite the door, wrote, or perhaps, rather, sketched, the offertorium "Sea tide Coeli I.i- mina," a motet which begins with a very graceful 3 soprano solo and ends with a four-part chorus accompanied ac-companied by strings, trumpets and drums. Ho was then about 8 years old. At the monastery one of the monks, Father .Jolm'was a special favorite. On the occasion of a .visit Wolfgang, who had always al-ways the most charming-and engaging winsome-ness, winsome-ness, jumped up to him with joy and put his Jittle arms round the mon's neck, stroking his cheek and hinging to a little caressing melody: "My Johnnie, dear Johnnnie, dear Johnnie." The community were much entertained, and used to teas Father John about the tune. But when his next ferst day came around his delight-was great when little Wolfgang made his a present of an oflFentorium on the words Inter jiatos mulicrumi, for chorus and orchestra; and as the singers came to the worda Joanne Baptista they all recognized the caressing little melody with which Wolfgang had greeted the monk. I have lately been reading the score and "flm delighted with the beautiful work. The "Johnnie" melody is constantly recurring in a most engaging and artistic manner, - In many of his journeys .the boy stayer at mon- asteries, where he was always at home. When, at Augsburg, in 1777, he often -visited the monastery of Holy Cross; and in one of his letters to his father he tells the following incident: "The deau is a good, jovial man; he is a cousin of Kberlin's, and is named Zeschinger; and remembers remem-bers you very well. In the evening at supper I played the tstrasburg Concerto. It went as smooth as oil. They all praised the beautiful, pure tone. Afterwards a little clavichord was brought in. I preluded and played a sonata and the Fischer va- nations. Then some one whispered to the dean that he should hear me play organ fashion. I said he might give me a theme, but he would not. So one of the monks did. I handled it quite licsurely, and all at once (the fugue was in G minor) I brought in a long movement in the major key, but in the I same tempo; and at the end the original subject, only reversed. At last it occurred to me that I might use the playful style for the theme of the fugue. Without much ado Itried it and it went as accurately as if it had been measured for by tailor tai-lor Daser.v The dean was in a state of great excitement. excite-ment. ' wouldn't have believed it,' said he; 'you are indeed a wonderful man. My abbot told me that he had never in his life heard any one play the organ in a more finished and splid style. The abbot ab-bot had heard me two or three days before when - ihe dean was not there. Finally some one brought me a fugal sonata to play, but I said: 'Gentlemen, this is too much; I must admit that I cannot play lliis sonata at sight.' 'I think so, too,' said the lean eagerly, for he was quite on my side. 'That is too much; it would be impossible for any one.' Still,' said I, "I will try it.' And all the time I played I heard the dean calling out behind me, 'O, you rogue! O, you young scamp'' I played until 11 o'clock. They bombarded me with themes for fugues and laid siege to me on all sides." j It was about this lime, when Waif gang was 21 I yours old, mid away from home with his mother, that his father wrote to his wife and questioned her about the youth's soul: "Let nte ask you if Wolr-gang Wolr-gang has not of late neglected to go to confession confes-sion ? God t-hould ever be first in our thoughts. To him alone must we look for earthly happiness, an dwe should ever keep eternity in view; young people, 1 know, are averse from hearing of these things. I was young myself once; but, God be thanked, I always came to myself after my youthful youth-ful follies, fled from all dangers to my sould and kept steadily in view God and my honor and the dangerous consequences of indulgence in sin." Hia wife reassured him. and said that both she and I Wolfgang went to their duties on the feast of the jiiiiiim uidif uuu nearu mass regujany n Sundays, though not always on week days. Wolfgang touches a deeper note in his reply: "One part of your letter foxed me a little, the question whether 1 had not somewhat neglected confession. 1 have nothing to reply tn this except to make you one request which i rlo think so ill cf me .igain. am fond of ..m; but be assured that I 'an be serious on occasion. Since I left Qnlzhurg (and even before) I have met with pcoA whose speech and actions 1 should have beeen 'ashamed to imitate, although they were ten, twenty or thirty years older than myself; so I beg you earnestly to iiavoa better opinion of me." "God first, papa next.' he used aftcn to quote ashis motto. Another extract. When he and his mother I were talking, in 1778, of visiting Paris, the father I had arranged that they should travel with friends. Wolfgang changed the plan and thus wrote to his father: . "Mamma and I have talked it over and agreed , - that the life which Wendling leads does not suit us. Wendling is a thoroughly honest, good man but he and all his household are totally without religion; re-ligion; his daughter's, relations with the-elector sufficiently prove this. Ranim is good at heart, but a libertine. I know myself, and know that I have so much religion that I should never commit an action that I eoujd not proclaim to the whole world: but the mere thought of traveling with people peo-ple whose way of thinking is so opposite to mine (and to that of all honorable men) frightens me. They may do as they please, but I have no wish to I accompany them. I should not have a happy hour. I should never know what I was saying, forin one word I have no confidence in them. Friendship without rcliffion is not. lasting" This, remember, from a young man in the first flower of his age, feted, the darling of the musical world, sought after on all sides, flattered, and by . temperament a Bohemian of Bohemia. His religious reli-gious instincts must have been solid and his goodness good-ness stanch to keep him safe amid the fires of an artists s life. His friends among the Benedictines, '' tllP Jesuit at Vienna, and his bosom friend i Ihe priest Bullmger, who was the confidant of all I his thoughts and wishes, saw with pleasure the young musician leading a life that was true and vti1!13?' b,tssinPr whkh the saintly Clement AI had given him in Rome hovered over his soul . and strengthened him to follow his father's counsels. coun-sels. m'A fnv-niorc lrai,s lo complete the picture Y hen his mother died in Paris (1778) Wolfgong wrote to Bullmger: "When the danger became imminent im-minent I asked Cod for only two things, a happy death for my mother and strength and courage for myself; and the good Gpd heard my praVer, and bestowed these two gifts fully on me." 'Writing I ,to ,hl?. &xh? wlfn the news came that Voltaire i iiau uieu wnnout the last sacraments, he says- "I must five you a piece of intelligence that you perhaps per-haps already know-namely, that the ungodly arch-villain oltaiie, has died miserably, like a Jog-just like a brute. This is his reward." And when he was engaged to Constance Weber, whom he married in 1 ,82, he writes to tell his father how 1hey both had been to confession and communion. 1 have now brought Mozart up to his twenty-seventh year as a good practical Catholic; and it is surely needless to say that he was also a consummate consum-mate artist with that intense reverence for his art which would not allow him to scamp his work or ' J i give forth anything unworthy of his genius. And yet this is the man whom controversialists ou that thorny object of church music have not hesitated, to accuse of contempt for the music he wrote for the church. Some, who really knew very little about ihe matter, say that his Masses are his weakest works. Thibaut says; "'Mozart thought little lit-tle of his Masses, and often when a Mass was I ' ordered he objected that he was only made for opera. But he was offered 100 louis dor for every Mass, and that he could not refuse; only he used t to say, laughing, that he would take whatever was good m his Masses and esc it in his next opera 1 here are many Thibauts today, who make the same - assertion without one word -of , proof,. Had they taken the trouble. fo; compare Mozart's Masses and his operas they would not find a single instance ' in which passages from olie were transferred into the-other. Moreover, as a mere historical fact -(these things are generally, forgotten in contr.o-. contr.o-. versy), almost all of Mbzarfs church music was written at Salzburg. In Vienna, where most of his operas were composed, he-wrote no Mass to order save the Requiem; and only composed one Mass on his own account, and even that also was not finished. fin-ished. In fact it may be said that his church music mu-sic represents one period of his life and his operas I another, and that the former was produced when he was a good practical Catholic. Moreover, we have his own statement as to his, views on church music, At Leipzig he declared that a Protestant could not possibly conceive the associations which the services of the church awoke in the mind of a devout Catholic, nor the powerful effect which they had on the genius of au artist. Li all his correspondence correspon-dence there is not the slightest sign of any contemptuous con-temptuous attitude to the "subject; rather the reverse, re-verse, for when he was applying for a post at the Imperial chapel he wrote; "The learned Kapellmeister Kapell-meister Salieri has never devoted himself to church music, while I have'made it my peculiar study from m.y youth up." " ' - ' Let us hear no more of this calumny. Mozart was too true an artist not to give of his best. We now may not consider his church music liturgical. ' 1 do not. But in his day there was no objection to it. The faults we see in it arc the faults of the age, not those of the man. After all,1 lie wrote for his day, not for ours. If in his operas he gained in depth and breadth, this is to be accounted for by the increase of experience; but it is folly to argue because these from an operatic point of view are supreme, that the others are not so in their own way. Moreover, it is well to mbcr that the Mass by which Mozart is generally kliown to the ordinary hearer is not his at all. I refer to the so-called "Twelfth Ms." This, if vou like, is J indeed weak and altogether unworthy of the master. mas-ter. Xo one who knows Mozart's scores will have any hesitation in saying that the composition is a manifest forgery from beginning to end. Mozart cou!4 not and would not write such pitiful twaddle as we find upon almost every page, both in the vocal and in the instrumental parts. Some years ago I made a critical examination of the Mass; axid I-think I-think it is possible to indicate a few passages and j themes which may be by the master. We know that he left behind him certain sketches and themes written oil scraps of paper. Some were; we knew, used by Sussmayer to complete the Requiem; and it is more than likely that some few found their way into the "Twelfth Mass." This is a tempting subject, but one I cannot now, follow. ' We have seen that, up to. his marriage in his twenty-seventh year Mozart remained a practising Catholic and now a darker page has to be written. writ-ten. Somehow or other he fell away almost as soon as he married. He was extravagant, took to drink-I drink-I ing, keeping bad company, and there are other serious seri-ous charges which it is difficult to speak of with certainty. But this seems clear, his love for his wife remained to the end. She, however, was a frequent invalid and often had to be away at Baden for long periods. And this may have exposed him to the dangers to which a man fond of having friends and some one to rely 'upon is liable-. But what I think was the cause of his neglect of his religion was the fact that in.l7S5 he became a Freemason. Free-mason. The craft was introduced into Vienna in 1781 and became the fashion. The lodge to which Mozart belonged contained , many rich and noble members, amateurs and patrons of music,, and seems to have been famous for its splendid banquets. ban-quets. This would appeal to MozazrtV love of so-ctety so-ctety and conviviality. Religion in the capital was at a very low ebb; and in societies as in individuals, individu-als, where supernatural religion is not a. real living liv-ing force, men are more' easily led awav by the specious claims of the so-called natural religion of benevolence, which pretends to satisfy the craving of the soul after good. Be this as it ma Vj Mozart shortly after his marriage, seems to have given up the practice of his religion altogether. I find no trace of it in hfs letters. Abandoning all restraint, he became dissipated,-debauched, and' at the mercy of an unscrupulous blackguard,' Schi-kander, Schi-kander, also a Mason, who became bis evil genius. Ihe end was not now far off. His brain, overtaxed by his work, found no help in a body exhausted and weakened. On the 15th of November he went out for the last time It was to,the lodge. The Requiem, which was half finished and was occupying all his, thoughts, may have, touched his heart when he had "the flavor of deafh on his tongue." His weeping wife by the deathbed quietly begged her sister for Gods sake to go to the priests at St. Peter's and ask one of them to call as if by chance. Evidently Mozart had not asked for the last sacraments of the Church, although he was quite conscious of his state. We knew not what was passing in his bouI, and whether human respect was holding him back. The clergy naturally hesitated to approach the deathbed of an excommunicated man who gave no signs of repentance. While I find no direct assertion asser-tion that Mozart died absolved, anointed and aneled, yet, as his sister-in-law says that she had great difficulty in persuading one of the priests to do what she wished, this joined to the fact that the luuerai service took place in fit. Stephen s and the burial in the churchyard of St. Mark's, there can be no reasonable doubt but that Wolfgang Araadee Mozart returned to the Heavenly Father in sorrow -and love, and died on Dec. 5, 1791, in union with the church to whom he had dedicated the choice and masterly fruits of his immortal genius. London, February, 1904. |