hodder & stoughton - days with the great composers - vol.3 (mozart, schumann, tchaikovsky)

[...]... flute And so, in the great G major and G minor symphonies, he had, as Wagner says, "breathed into his instruments to his the passionate fervour of the which him, his genius human voice, to with all-pervading love inclined as if in restless anxiety to impart to by way of compensation for its the melody, exposition by instruments feeling of the human only, the depth of voice Thus he raised the capacity... why ! A DAY WITH MOZART not show me yourself performed ? " how Example this piece will be should be better than The precept great virtuoso changed places with her at the clavier Merely to see his slim, hands gliding over the keyboard, to the eye but the exquisitely as Haydn had said, sympathetic playing which, "went straight to the heart, " was wasted on shapely little was a pleasure : the frivolous... mental and financial They have the "first fine careless rapture" of the early world Whilst outwardly, it would seem, he envisaged splendid lord and lady treading stately steps together, "with woven paces and with waving arms," inwardly he "sang of the : ! daedal stars, sang of the dancing earth", like Pan in Shelley's poem, and felt, like a new A DAY WITH MOZART Orpheus or Amphion, the whole world dancing... many other men, another mem- ber of the same family, of vastly inferior calibre Mozart, however, made the best of his stupid, good-natured Constanze "Is not the pleasure of a fleeting, fickle passion," he wrote, "as far removed from the bliss which a reasonable love procures, He Earth is from Heaven ?" her to cultivate her second-rate of singing and playing, and took as encouraged abilities A DAY WITH. .. Constanze's frequent illnesses, or the collapse of some hoped-for financial assistance, or the ill success of a composition Mozart was a very human little man " nothing "upon stilts" or "high-falutin' about him few moments' natural homely inter: A course over the coffee-cups and he was the old Mozart once more, quick, restless, gay, the marvel, who "whilst busy with the most serious things of his art,... encouraging details to the composer, regarding the for triumphal progress of Die Zauberflote ; Mozart had not conducted his work since the This opera is not so familiar first two nights A DAY WITH MOZART to the average music-lover as are Figaro and Don Giovanni and : its and fantastic, libretto its tedious, involved, is music less adapted to "tickle the ear of the groundlings." theless, with this Mozart... speaking as regards the music, it was on a totally different plane from either the light-hearted unmoral intriguery of Figaro, or the comedy of Don brilliant Giovanni, that "expression of a universal genius which could reproduce human in music every emotion great and small, with " Die Zauberflote, in the truth to nature equal mind of its composer, was a work of the loftiest of the heart, and most mystical... Vienna These duties, to Constanze, were not the easiest of tasks for she was but a poor domestic manager, and an inefficient, though devoted, mother and wife household, : As the slight, undersized fro, dressing, man moved to and with rapid, graceful gestures, paying a great deal of attention to the powdering and peruking of his profuse brown hair, and decking out his person with nearly all 2051153 the. .. in the land : A DAY WITH MOZART Mozart is a very much over-rated man We have heard that all his pupils are gradually falling off." The over-rated man, meanwhile, had re- sumed work on his Requiem, upon which he was lavishing the whole wealth of his resources, when a fresh interruption occurred, in the of Schickaneder, his impresario Schickashape neder was one upon whom, at birth, had been bestowed the. .. room with it, singing the birdcatcher's song from Die Zauberflote; in short, he carried away by his delight : : gave way to the wildest extravagances of his over-brimming vivacity But a more serious " The words of succeeded mood said he, my "are finding their fulfilment father," For he MINUET AND TRIO IN E FLAT Whilst outwardly he envisaged splendid lord and lady treading stately steps together, "with . hd" alt="" DAYS WITH THE GREAT COMPOSERS MOZART SCHUMANN TSCHA1KOVSKY HODDER & STOUGHTON *