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Mozart was another musical genius who
was forced to accept as second
choice the sister of his first love,
though in his case the results
were not so disastrous as with Haydn. It was in Mannheim, on the way to
Paris, that Mozart made the acquaintance of the copyist Weber, and
succumbed to the charms of his daughter, Aloysia. But Leopold Mozart,
wisely playing the rôle of stern father, soon sped the
susceptible youth
on his way to the French capital. It is a French proverb that tells
us,—
"Nous revenons
toujours
À nos premiers
amours,"—
and a year later he returned. But
Aloysia, now famous by her singing,
soon made it plain that his affection was no longer returned. Mozart
seems to have borne the blow well, and soon after her marriage to the
actor Lange, who proved a jealous husband, he wrote home his decision
to
wed her younger sister, Constance. After much opposition from members
of
both families, he carried out his intention.
As in Haydn's case, the young couple
were forced to live on "bread and
cheese and kisses," with none too much of the first two articles.
Mozart, more than any other composer, met with undeserved hardships. On
every side his music was praised and his genius admired, but nobles and
princes, and even the emperor, would give him no material aid. He made
a
devoted husband, and much of the money that disappeared so readily from
his hands was probably used for the benefit of his wife, whose health
was not of the best. Their life (in Vienna at first) was a continual
effort to solve the old vexed problem of making both ends meet, and
Constance must be given high praise for the wonderful skill with which
she managed the small and uncertain income of her husband. Several
times
the young couple were brought face to face with the direst need, but
their patience and cheerfulness carried them through the crisis. On one
occasion, when there was no fuel on hand and no money to buy any, a
visitor found the pair busily engaged in waltzing about their bare room
in order to keep warm. At another time they were rescued from their
extremity only by the kindness of their friend, the Baroness
Waldstätten, who intervened just in time to save them from
beggary.
After three years, Leopold Mozart relented enough to visit his
daughter-in-law, whom he found far more deserving than he had expected;
but he himself was not well off, and could be of little financial help.
That Constance was of great aid to her
husband, in spite of an
easy-going nature, cannot be doubted. She possessed the faculty of
telling interesting stories and
novelettes, and with this apparently
inexhaustible fund of invention she would amuse him between his periods
of work. The description that we have of the composition of the great
"Don Giovanni" overture gives a pleasing illustration of this phase of
the family life. Owing to rehearsals and other work, the day before the
performance arrived with no overture yet written. In the evening,
according to his custom, Mozart began the task by sketching out the
themes and a general plan of construction for the work. Near him sat
his
wife, ready to entertain him with her pleasing tales when he looked up
from his work. For one or two hours he did indulge in actual repose;
but
all through the rest of the night he continued the work, relieving his
mental concentration by listening to the storiettes or occasionally
sipping a glass of his favourite punch. The manuscript was completed
and
ready for the copyist the next morning at seven o'clock, and along with
the other numbers scored a complete success in the evening.
Some blame has attached to Constance for
the lack of exact knowledge
about Mozart's grave. At the hour of his burial, in the public
cemetery,
a violent storm drove away all the mourners. There was a cholera scare
in Vienna at the time, which kept many people away from the graveyard.
Her own neglect of the matter may have
been caused by illness, but,
whatever the reason, the fact remains that when public interest was
aroused the exact location of Mozart's grave could no longer be defined.
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