It is said that he set the celebrated _Reich mir die Hand_ to music five times for _Don Giovanni_. He made the singers rehearse to him separately. He danced the minuet for them himself; for, strange to say, he once told Kelly that his achievements in dancing were more remarkable than his achievements in music. Hence, the players were full of good will and enthusiasm, the consequence of which was, that the performance this time, also, was a very good one. It took place on the 29th of October, 1787. The house was full to overflowing, and Mozart was received with a flourish of trumpets, repeated three times, and applause which it seemed would never cease. Such was the reception accorded the opera itself, that the director of the theatre wrote to the composer of the libretto, who, in the meantime had returned to Vienna: “Long live Da Ponte! Long live Mozart! Praise them, all ye directors and all ye singers! So long as they live theatres cannot fail to do a thriving business.” As usual, Mozart himself speaks modestly of “the loudest kind of applause,” and remarks to his friend in Vienna, mentioned above: “I could wish that my friends were here a single evening to share my pleasure. But probably the opera will not be performed in Vienna. I wish so. People are doing all in their power to prevail upon me to remain here a few months and write another opera; but, flattering as the invitation is, I cannot accept it.” And now, as to the work itself. Schiller wrote to Goethe on the 29th of December, 1797, that he had always entertained the confidence that out of the opera as out of the choruses of the old feasts of Dionysos, tragedy would develop a nobler form. By the power of music, it attuned the heart to a finer susceptibility, and, in this way, it might happen that, at last, even the ideal might stealthily make its way to the stage. Goethe answered curtly: “You might have seen your hopes recently realized to a great extent in _Don Giovanni_. But in this respect, that piece stands entirely alone, and Mozart’s death has rendered all hope of anything like it, idle.” We owe it to _Figaro_ and _Don Giovanni_, more than to anything else, that we are able to-day, to assert the contrary, and that we witness the real dramatic art which was attained to by Italy in the revival of antiquity in a truly flourishing condition about us. What Gluck required should be the characteristic points of dramatic composition is here complied with to the fullest extent; to an extent which, in many particulars, has not been yet surpassed. This perfection Mozart owed to his more accurate acquaintance with the exigencies of the drama and his supreme command of all the capabilities of music. The separate and distinct pieces of music, indeed, with their pitiful, recurring cadences, remind us continually that it is with a musician we have to do, and one whose style was a development from the Italian school. But then such is the