Scene: a café in Berlin. The year is
1786; Boccherini is 43, Mozart just 30. The two speak Italian; Mozart
speaks it poorly but with gusto, while Boccherini’s native tongue
now has a pronounced Spanish accent.
NOTE TO THE READER: some of the events mentioned here are fictional,
notably Boccherini’s visit to Berlin (long hypothesized but now
disproven).
LUIGI. Signor Mozart, I presume? A pleasure.
WOLFGANG. Indeed, indeed. Do you take coffee?
LUIGI. On occasion; please, allow me.
(He signals a waiter as the two settle at a corner table).
—Two coffees, please.
WOLFGANG. If I may ask, Signor Boccherini, what brings you so far from
your home in Spain?
LUIGI. Well, for some years now I’ve had a contract with the King
of Prussia, to compose chamber music for his exclusive use. He invited
me to come and perform in some of the quintets I had provided him.
WOLFGANG. How interesting. I’ll be frank—I’ve been
hoping for something similar from him, and that’s what brings me
here from Vienna. May I ask how your contract came about?
LUIGI. I think it came about because the King is an amateur cellist.
He favors fine, fancy cello parts….
WOLFGANG. I know that you are in a fine position to provide them; when
I was a boy in Milan, I heard some of your trios, and not long ago I
heard two of your quintets performed at a Vienna house-party.
LUIGI. Might I ask what you thought? I study and perform the works of
Haydn that are brought to Spain, and have encountered some of yours as
well; but Madrid is quite isolated. Sometimes I think that what I compose
may have become completely peculiar as a result.
WOLFGANG. Well, your music is peculiar, Signor, but I say this in a spirit
of praise. You are, Signor, a master of the Adagio. The melodies are
ravishing, and I have never heard such mastery of the tone color of stringed
instruments. A plain D Major chord becomes, on occasion, a thing of magic,
just from the way you combine the instruments involved. There is an exquisite
sensitivity in such moments; as if time itself were suspended.
LUIGI. Thank you; you do me great honor. But it is also peculiar, to
your Viennese ears?
WOLFGANG. I’ll be frank with you, if you will be frank with me
afterward.
LUIGI. By all means.
WOLFGANG. Well, there is something of the antique French manner in such
luxuriant sensitivities; we find it a trifle indulgent. We are fond of
a certain sense of development, we derive much of our pleasure from the
manner in which ideas follow one from the other…to succeed in
Vienna, a composer must constantly prove his capacity for invention and
novelty in this vein. |
LUIGI. Such as I have found in
the symphonies of Haydn, perhaps? His capacity for invention is astonishing;
he can, it seems, derive a whole movement from a single short idea.
WOLFGANG. Haydn is the master among us, to be certain. But now it is your
turn to be frank with me. How does the Viennese taste sit with Spanish
ears?
LUIGI. Oh, very well; Viennese music is all the rage among the educated
class in Madrid.
WOLFGANG. And with you personally?
LUIGI. You must forgive me if I speak only of those of your works that
have come to Madrid: not the most recent, I fear, and none of your operas….
WOLFGANG. No matter.
LUIGI. Well then, I have found much to admire in certain symphonies. If
as you say, “invention and novelty” are the keys to success
in Vienna, I would imagine you are successful indeed.
WOLFGANG. (sighing) One week, yes, I am; then the next, who knows!
LUIGI. Your works are full of riches: such elegant ideas, so clearly expressed,
and with such ingenuity in their working out. —And then a little
surprise, from time to time—a wrenching harmony, a heartbeat skipped
in the rhythm—as if to remind us that true art must always exceed
our capacity to express it…
WOLFGANG. You are eloquent, and I am gratified. But come now: the peculiarities?
LUIGI. Truly, I find little I do not admire. Perhaps, perhaps…the
pressure for novelty leads you at times to a certain excess, to piling
ideas one atop the other. I find with some of your works that it takes
me several listenings to understand them.
WOLFGANG. That is increasingly the fashion in Vienna—the educated
listeners want to hear a work more than just once.
LUIGI. Do they indeed? How interesting.
WOLFGANG. Sometimes it is exhausting, I will admit.
LUIGI. I see that it is a quarter to four, and I fear I must be going soon;
the King has commanded me to come play duets with him this evening.
WOLFGANG. Very well. It has been a great pleasure to meet you, Signor Boccherini.
LUIGI. Likewise for me, to meet you. I wish you well in your endeavors.
WOLFGANG. If the opportunity arises, put in a word for me with the King.
LUIGI. I shall do so. Meanwhile, compose fancy cello parts! That is sure
to win his favor.
(The two musicians part in front of the coffee house).
Mozart’s last three string quartets, written
in 1789-90, are thought to have been composed for Friedrich Wilhelm,
King of Prussia. They have exceptionally prominent, difficult cello
parts.
—Elisabeth
Le Guin, Providence, January 2005 |
