[See Page Image] No such songs are known to belong to the years immediately following, but in 1775 we find several composed at Salzburg, probably for performance by foreign vocalists visiting the city. Two tenor airs belong to May, 1775. In one of them, described as "Aria buffa" (210 K.) the singer is supposed to be flattering some one to his face with the greatest fluency, while he makes all sorts of rude remarks aside:-- Con ossequio, con rispetto Io m' inchio e mi profondo A un sapiente si perfetto, Che l' egual non v' è nel mondo, E l' eguale non verrà-- Per l' orgoglio e l' ignoranza e la gran bestialità. The orchestra maintains a single theme (Allegro assai) without intermission, and the voice is almost throughout _parlando_ in rapid vivacity; the union of a certain amount of dignity with burlesque fluency of tongue is very comical, the whole song being simply conceived and easily and consistently worked out. This song could only have been meant for performance on the stage, and the second (209 K.), "Si mostra la sorte propizia all' amante," is scarcely of importance enough for a concert-room. It is the complaint of a bashful lover, but has so little pathos as to be only {SONGS.} (232) suitable for opera buffa. It is simple both in design and execution, and may have been inserted to suit the powers of some singer in the place of another song. It was no doubt also for insertion in an opera buffa that an air for Dorina (217 K.), "Voi avete un cor fidele," was composed (October 26, 1775); it is in the style of a soubrette, superior to those of its kind in the "Finta Giardiniera," and equal to Despina's songs in "Cosi fan tutti." An Andantino grazioso and an Allegro, the latter considerably elaborated, are both repeated, then a few bars of the Andantino recur, and the whole is wound up by rather a long Coda in allegro. The exact repetition of both movements makes the effect of the whole somewhat stiff, but the details are fresh, animated, and very characteristic. The tone of melting tenderness at the beginning, the mocking _parlando_ of the questions, and finally the fervency of the words, "Ah! non credo," are so strikingly expressed, and the whole effect is so cheerful and even droll, that we cannot fail to recognise the hand of a master of his art. The subjects and the passages in the allegro are neat and graceful, and the orchestral parts are lively and appropriate. A tenor song (256 K.), "Clarice cara mia sposa," composed for Signor Palmini, September, 1776, is a true theatrical buffo air, and bears lively testimony to Mozart's comic talent. A Capitano prates nonsensically, with much swagger, of how he will have his own way in spite of everybody; a Don Timoteo seeks in vain to interrupt the flow of his talk, which seems to run over in an unintermittent succession of triplets falling like heavy rain, and, as it were, drenching the hearer in an instant.