cessor. Any familiarity with Mozart's
works will convince us of the gratitude we owe him for his original
harmonies, for the stimulating contrapuntal texture and for the
perfect finish and care for detail found therein. Could we be forever
content with "abstract music"--that which justifies itself by a
fulfilment of its own inherent laws--Mozart's music would remain the
acme of the art. His fame to-day rests upon his string quartets, his
three principal symphonies, and--above all--the operas, of which Don
Giovanni and the Marriage of Figaro are noted examples. For consummate
character-drawing (so that, as Rubinstein remarks, "Each acting
personage has become an immortal type"), for interest sustained by
unflagging musical vitality, for a combination of humor and
seriousness and for ingenious and characteristic handling of the
orchestral forces, these works were unequalled until the advent of
Wagner and even to-day in their own field remain unsurpassed. The real
charm of Mozart--that sunny radiance, at times shot through with a
haunting pathos--eludes verbal description. As well attempt to put
into words the fragrance and charm of a violet. Hazlitt's fine phrase,
apropos of performance, says much in a few words. "Mozart's music
seems to come from the air and should return to it," and the ecstatic
eulogy of Goethe, to whom genius meant Mozart, should be familiar to
all. "What else is genius than that productive power through which
deeds arise, worthy of standing in the presence of God and of Nature,
and which, for this reason, bear results and are lasting? All the
creations of Mozart are of this class; within them there is a
generative force which is transplanted from age to age, and is not
likely soon to be exhausted or devoured."

[Footnote 122: For extended comment, see the _Oxford History of
Music_, Vol. V, p. 246, _seq._]

In studying Mozart's works the special points to be noticed are these:
the wider sweep and freer rhythmic variety of the melodic curve; the
more organic fusion of the different portions of a movement--Mozart's
lines of demarcation being perfectly clear but not so rigid as in
Haydn; the much greater richness of the whole musical fabric, due to
Mozart's marvellous skill in polyphony. The time had not yet come when
the composer could pique the fancy of the hearer by unexpected
structural devices or even lead him off on a false trail as was so
often done by Beethoven. Both Haydn and Mozart are homoph