accompaniment and the
melody itself with perfect correctness, and repeated it ten times,
altering the character of the accompaniment for each. On a melody
being dictated to him, he supplied the bass and the parts without using
the clavier at all; he showed himself in all ways so accomplished that
his father was convinced he would obtain service at court on his return
home. Leopold Mozart now thought the time was come for introducing the
boy as a composer, and he printed four sonatas for the piano and
violin, rejoicing at the idea of the noise which they would make in the
world, appearing with the announcement on the title-page that they were
the work of a child of seven years old. He thought well of these
sonatas, independently of their childish authorship; one andante
especially "shows remarkable taste." When it happened that, in the
last trio of Opus 2, a mistake of the young master, which his father
had corrected (consisting of three consecutive fifths for the violin),
was printed, he consoled himself by reflecting that "they can serve as
a proof that Wolfgangerlf wrote the sonatas himself, which, naturally,
not everyone would believe."

[Illustration: Mozart at the Organ. From painting by Carl Herpfer.]

Less than thirty years had passed since these triumphant days in the
life of the child Mozart, when there came the end of that wonderful
career. In the summer of Mozart's last year,--1791,--he was at work on
the concluding portions of "The Magic Flute," when one day he received
a visit from a stranger. This man, tall, gaunt, and solemn in manner,
clad all in gray, handed the composer an anonymous letter, sealed in
black, requesting him to write a "Requiem" as quickly as possible, and
asking the price. Mozart agreed to do the work and received from the
messenger fifty (some say a hundred) ducats, with a promise of more
upon completion of the piece, he agreeing to make no effort to discover
who his patron was. The unknown messenger then went away, saying, "I
shall return when it is time."

It is known now that this mysterious go-between was Leutgeb, the
steward of Count Franz von Walsegg of Stuppach, who often obtained
musical compositions in this way, copied them, and had them performed
as his own. The count desired the "Requiem" for his wife, who had died
in the preceding February, and it was sung as his own production and
under his direction on the 15th of December, 1793.

But Mozart knew nothing of p