Part 17 (1/2)

Alha and Queen, where they met with exceptional kindness and appreciation, and the London visit was an unqualified success, one brilliant perfor another in quick succession, until it see who e,in public

But while they were in England, in lodgings in Chelsea, which was then open country, Leopold Mozart was very ill for a time, so the children could not practise, and for awhile were obliged to run wild, and it would have been hard to iirl and the pretty boy, busy rottos and arbours out of stones and earth and leaves, at the rear of their lodgings, were the infant prodigies of the concert stage But even then, while he could not use the harpsichord, little Wolfgang was co, and when tired of out-of-door sports would sit doith his sister beside him and work on a symphony for the orchestra, and it was thus that his earliest symphonies were composed, which were all e of these co kept in practise, and was able to announce that at his next concerts all the instrumental numbers would be his own coreat iain they were invited to Court, but this ti's for harpsichord and violin, printed and dedicated to the Queen, so the visit was not the financial benefit to the Mozarts that the first one had been, and froreat returns than those of the previouswere seriously sick But they recovered and journeyed on to Holland, where Wolfgang was called to play before the Prince of Orange, and commanded to write six sonatas for the princess, also to write a variation for the harpsichord on the , played and whistled by everybody in Holland and is the real Dutch national hymn

The little composer was also called upon for various other pieces of musical work and in no way disappointed his critics or his audiences

Again the trio journeyed on, stopping wherever the father felt that his son's faht be increased by a concert

To Paris they went again, then through France to Switzerland, and finally journeyed ho in Novereat interest to their friends to find the children who had left hoirl, despite all their neorldly experience

Old and young came to bid them welcome, to hear the story of their adventures, and to see the numerous and costly presents, about which they had heard so ang, notwithstanding the severe illness he had recently had, looked normally well and happy, and was as childish in his interests as if he had not becolad was he to be at hoain, that he rode merrily around the room on his father's stick, as he had done three years before, and played with his favourite cat just as he used to do, the cat having been well cared for in the absence of the fa had created for hidom, which he called Rucken This country was to be inhabited entirely by children, and he was to be the king His idea of the place was so distinct that a friend had to draw hiave names, and his friends were completely fascinated to hear hi theic of his ain in their ho seriously in counterpoint, that he hly fitted for his life-work, and then as his precocious childhood begins to ably, working with fingers and with brain, every faculty alert, to conquer technique and achieve perfection in his art

In the summer of 1767, when Mozart was eleven, they started on a new tour, for which the little prodigy co on account of certain harmonic effects produced in the it, both Nannerl and Wolfgang were stricken with s lay blind for nine days, and convalescence was slow, and hard to bear Again they visited Vienna, but there they found things greatly changed, for while in fors, now the only pleasure seemed to be in balls, and there was absolutely no interest shown in Mozart, the child prodigy Also much jealousy was shoards the Mozarts by otherset to work on an opera, to be used with the text written for him by the Viennese dramatic poet of the day, and had already coes, it was said that Wolfgang had not written it at all, that it was his father's composition To contradict these statements, in the presence of several prominent critics, Leopold opened a volume of Metastatio, at the first aria, which he placed in front of Wolfgang, and before that assee of critical older men, the boy seized a pen and wrote without hesitation, music to the aria for several instruments, and with such incredible swiftness that the co him were durow brighter--all sorts of unpleasant incidents occurred to embitter the tourists, and at the end of a year the fa

At that time Italy was the Mecca of the musician, and to study and win his first laurels there was the ideal of everywas narrow and provincial, and Leopold Mozart wished Wolfgang to escape fro Mozart and his father journeying Southward to Italy where Wolfgang is studying,a more devoted to her home duties now, than to herpoured his s, sure that he would be understood

When he was in Ro of ”The Last Judg to the wonderful music of ”The Miserere,” which music is only performed in Holy Week by the Pope's choir, and no one has ever been allowed to have a copy of the music or even to see it But so accurate was little Mozart'sthe chapel, he not only wrote out theit perfectly, a feat which e!

For two years he worked and studied, and accos musically, then the Elector of Bavaria invited him to write a comic opera for the Carnival, which invitation the boy joyfully accepted, and at once set to work on the none too easy task He was now at hoerly to his themes, as bit by bit he elaborated them

In due time the opera was finished; it was called ”La Finta Giardiniera,”

and Wolfgang, accompanied by his father and pretty sister, set off for Munich, where the perforay just then, and where Nannerl and Wolfgang were sure to have much to amuse and interest them

Nannerl was taken to board by a ho lived in the old ed to take rooan, and the days wereand for Nannerl, into whose apartress

Up and down the street, hu bits of the opera or intent on so composer a dozen times a day, and he and Nannerl were perfectly sure that no performance ever was or ever could be so ht caown hours before the ti, as detained at the opera house until the last moment, had just time to jump into his fine new costume of satin and lace, with the flash of brilliants in his ruff and on his slippers; without a glance in theprince when he joined his father and sister, although the hand that he slipped through Nannerl's ar would hold of triumph or of failure? No wonder he trembled