c pervaded every class--to
prince, and peer, and peasant alike, music was as natural a possession
as the very air they breathed. It was bound up with the people's
sentiments and passions, to which it afforded the truest expression,
and it was connected to an equal degree with their surroundings and
conditions of life. Consequently, every facility existed for the
development and encouragement of the art, whilst on every hand there
was a steady demand for the best that that art could produce. Thus, as
has been well said, there came to be formed in Italy 'a sort of
musical climate, in which artists found it easy to breathe.' More
than this, it became evident to musicians of other countries, as the
years went on, that he who aspired to do great things with his art,
and to establish a reputation for himself as singer, player, or
composer, must imbibe this atmosphere--for a time, at least--and put
the finishing touches to his education under the influence of the
Italian schools of composition and execution.

In respect to musical art Germany and Italy were rivals. The music of
Germany was to a very great extent independent; but the spirit of
creation in Germany was not so universally diffused as in Italy,
being, as a matter of fact, chiefly confined to the northern
Protestant portion of the country. Again, the operas performed at the
German Courts were Italian; the music to be heard in the German
Catholic churches was written by Italian composers; whilst both
singers and performers were either drawn from, or had been educated
in, Italy. The two countries, as we have said, were rivals, and every
succeeding year witnessed the growth of this spirit in Germany; but
for long Italy held the supremacy in instrumental as well as in every
other class of music, as the result of that inborn love of music which
pervaded every grade of society throughout the country.

And so in December, 1769, Mozart, who was now thirteen years of age,
came to Italy to listen to the brightly-clad peasants singing at their
work in the sunny fields; to watch them dancing on the vine-trellised
terraces that overlooked the deep blue waters of the lakes; to witness
the wonderful processions of the priests through the narrow streets of
the towns; and, above all, to hear the grand music in the cathedrals.

Mozart's bright, happy nature was never more in evidence than on the
occasion of this journey, which he seemed to regard as having been
planned solely for