a high appreciation of the value of a secured worldly position, and as
he became gradually convinced that his son was not likely to attach the
same importance to this, he strove the more by his wisdom and experience
to help to secure it for him. This care for economical details has been
unjustly condemned. We may grant that a somewhat exaggerated anxiety
increased by the hypochondria of old age was the natural result of the
struggle with narrow circumstances which he had carried on all his
life; but this is far more than counterbalanced by the singular union of
general and of musical culture, of love and severity, of just judgment
and earnest devotion to duty, which Leopold Mozart developed in the
education of his son. Without them, Wolfgang would certainly not have
been the man he became by their help.
We have no detailed information of L. Mozart's youthful life. His
recollections of his position at Augsburg are bitter and sarcastic.
Even with his brothers and sisters, whom he accused of having turned
the weakness of their mother to his disadvantage, he had no close or
intimate connection, although they had never any scruples in applying
for his support.
"When I thought of your journey to Augsburg," he writes to Wolfgang
(October 18, 1777), "Wieland's 'Abderiten' always occurred to me. One
ought to have the opportunity of seeing in its naked reality that of
which one has formed an ideal conception."
After passing through school life in his native town, he went to
Salzburg to study jurisprudence. The monastery of St. Ulrich belonged
to the community of the Benedictines, which had founded and still partly
maintained the university of Salzburg;[1004] this connection may have
given Leopold a reason for going thither. But as he did not obtain
employment, he was constrained to enter the service of Count Thurn,
Canon of Salzburg. From his youth up, he had cultivated his musical
talent with assiduity, and was a
{CHILDHOOD.}
(8)
thoroughly practical and well-informed musician. He had chiefly
maintained himself in early youth by his singing, and afterwards by
giving lessons, and had gained considerable reputation as a violinist,
so much so that Archbishop Leopold took him into his service in the year
1743. He afterwards became court composer and leader of the orchestra,
and in 1762 was appointed Vice-Kapellmeister by Archbishop Sigismund.
The pay of the choir was scanty, though their duties were heavy. Leopold
Mozart submitted to these demands with his accustomed conscientiousness,
and Schubart points him out as the man whose exertions had placed music
in Salzburg on its then excellent footing.[1005] His official position
necessitated his appearing as a composer; in this respect, too, he was
indefatigable, and won for himself an honourable reputation.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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