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10-13 Mahler:Layout 1 10/3/11 11:38 AM Page 32
distant Paris, with visits in Munich and Augsburg
and a lengthy stay in Mannheim along
the way. The composer’s father, Leopold, remained
at home; the family could not subsist
without the income he earned there. “The
purpose of the journey,” Leopold reminded
his son in a letter on November 27, “the sole
purpose, was, is, and must be to obtain a position
or earn some money.” Mozart failed to
accomplish the former, although he claimed
to have turned down a well-paying post as
an organist at Versailles. In any case, the
money he acquired from composing, performing,
and teaching during his months
away wouldn’t have been impressive even if
he had been paid as promised for his engagements,
which on numerous occasions
he was not. Tragedy struck on July 3, 1778,
when Mozart’s mother died as the result of a
sudden illness. The 22-year-old composer
(who had never before been without parental
supervision) was left to make burial arrangements,
break the news to his father and sister
back home, and struggle on in a foreign
country before making his way back to
Salzburg, where he arrived in January 1779,
dreading his return to the provincial routine
he had hoped to escape.
During the six months that Mozart had
spent in Paris he made serious efforts to
stake a place in that metropolis’s musical life.
Immediately after his arrival on March 23,
1778, he sought out an old family friend,
Baron von Grimm, who had opened numerous
Parisian doors when the Mozarts had
visited Paris in 1763. The Baron again
alerted his aristocratic circle, but the jobseeking
adult Mozart was a harder sell than
the seven-year-old prodigy had been, and he
was received into Parisian salons with less
excitement, if at all. Leopold, who in his barrage
of correspondence proved to be a veritable
Niagara of advice, reminded his son
32
New York Philharmonic
Mozart and the Flute
Mozart, 1789
Much has been made of the fact that Mozart once
spoke disparagingly of the flute. “I am quite inhibited
when I have to compose for an instrument which I
cannot endure,” he wrote to his father (from
Mannheim on February 14, 1778, while on his way to
Paris). It was the end of a litany of excuses
explaining why he had not yet fulfilled a commission
for some flute concertos (though he had found
plenty of time to spend with his then girlfriend).
This comment, clearly made in a snit, is often
cited as proof that Mozart truly loathed the flute. It is
weak evidence, especially since the composer never
repeated anything to that effect in his remaining
years, and since he would spotlight that instrument
sensitively in many of his symphonies and operas, in
addition to his two flute concertos (which he
eventually did finish) and his four flute quartets, as
well as the Flute and Harp Concerto. Would a
composer who detested the flute have permitted it
to serve as the “title character” of Die Zauberflöte
(The Magic Flute), where it is exalted as a repository
of mystical powers of salvation? In the end, the
music would seem to put this question to rest. If
Mozart really had misgivings about the instrument,
listening to the concerto that he himself wrote for it
would probably have converted him.
(on April 20) to “be guided by the French
taste” while in Paris (italics his). “If you only
win applause and get a decent sum of
money, let the devil take the rest.”