[Illustration: ALOYSIA WEBER, sister to Mozart's wife, and her husband JOS. LANGE, actor and painter.
From the first volume of "Die Ephemeriden der Litteratur und des Theaters." Berlin, 1785. Drawn by Lange himself. We owe to him the last portrait of Mozart.]
It was summer, the nobility had gone to their country seats, and there were few lessons and few concerts. Mozart worked at pianoforte sonatas and dreamed of an opera. Josephine Aurnhammer, remarkably fat, ugly, and an excellent pianist, fell in love with him, and he was therefore obliged to gradually break off his acquaintance with the "sentimental mastodon." In December Clementi came to Vienna, and he and Mozart played before the Emperor. Mozart was proclaimed victor, and the Emperor gave him fifty ducats and saw in him the man to assist him in founding the lyric German drama. Stephanie, the inspector of the opera, had provided the text of "Die Entführung aus dem Serail" (The Escape from the Seraglio) and Mozart had already written much of the music before Clementi's visit. In a letter to his father he describes the work of a day. "At six o'clock my hair-dresser awakes me; by seven I am shaven, curled, and dressed; I compose until nine, and then give lessons until one; I then dine alone, unless I am invited to some great house, in which case my dinner is put off until two or three; then I work again about five or six, unless I go to a concert, in which case I work after my return until one in the morning." In July (the 13th or the 16th, for there is a dispute concerning the date), 1782, "The Escape from the Seraglio" was given. The house was crammed, there was no end to the applause and cheering, and performances followed one another in quick succession. The German opera was established; but the Emperor Joseph only said, "Too fine for our ears, and too many notes." Mozart replied, "Just as many notes as are necessary, your Majesty." It was in this opera, according to Carl Maria von Weber, that Mozart arrived at the full maturity of his genius.
Constanze Weber. From a woodcut by A. Neumann, after a photograph from an aquarelle painting on ivory, in the Mozarteum, in Salzburg.]