Thus, briefly, ran the life course of one of the greatest and, without question, the most gifted of musicians the world has seen. Within the short space of thirty-six years he was able to produce an almost countless series of works, the best of which still beguile us after a century and a half into unqualified admiration. They have lost none of their freshness and vitality, and it is even safe to say that they are better appreciated now than in Mozart’s own day. The tender fragrant loveliness of his melodies, the caressing grace of his cadences will always remain irresistible; in sheer beauty, in pure musical essence, we shall not go beyond them. Much might be said of the eternal influence of Mozart on the latter-day disciples--we need only call to mind Weber, Brahms, Tschaikowsky, and Richard Strauss, whose own work is a frank and worthy tribute to his memory. It has been said that Mozart’s is the only music sufficient unto itself, requiring no elucidation, no ‘program’ whatever. Hence its appeal is the most immediate as well as the most general. It has that impersonal charm which contrives to ingratiate itself with personalities ever so remote, and to accommodate itself to every mood. Yet a profoundly human character lies at the bottom of it all. Mozart the simple, childlike, ingenuous, and generous; or Mozart the witty, full of abandon, of frank drollery and good humor. With what fortitude he bore poignant grief and incessant disappointment, how he submitted to indignities for the sake of others, is well known. But every attack upon his artistic integrity he met with stern reproof, and through trial and misery he held steadfast to his ideal as an artist. To Hoffmeister, the publisher, demanding more ‘salable’ music, he writes that he prefers to starve; Schikaneder, successful in making the master’s talent subserve his own ends, gets no concession to the low taste of his motley audience. Inspired with the divinity of his mission, he subordinates his own welfare to that one end, and he breathes his last in the feverish labor over his final great task, the _Requiem_, ‘his own requiem,’ as he predicted. V