‘Too many notes …’

Summary

‘Too many notes, dear Mozart, too many notes’ is what Emperor Joseph II supposedly said after the first performance of the Entfuhrung aus dem Serail in Vienna's old Burgtheater. Mozart's reply was: ‘Just as many as necessary, Your Majesty.’ This episode has served to condemn the poor Emperor as musically illiterate, but in fact the opposite was true. He was a decent cellist and every week in his Schönbrunn Palace he either listened to the latest chamber music or played it himself, all under the guidance of his court composers Gassmann, Salieri and Gluck.

Joseph actually could have gone down in history as one of the greatest theatre intendants, had his main job not been as Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. While still the co-regent of his mother, the Empress Maria Theresia, he had founded the Burgtheater, which has remained to this day the premier German-language theatre. He systematically promoted the German Singspiel, the genre of comic opera whose most glorious fruit was Mozart's Entfuhrung. The best contemporary composers wrote works for his Italian-language Court Opera under the direction of Antonio Salieri, and these works went on to enjoy huge success all over Europe. Besides Mozart, these composers included names such as Gluck, Haydn, Paisiello, Martin y Soler, Cimarosa and Salieri, who all wrote operas that are still performed today. And Lorenzo Da Ponte was just one of many librettists who were engaged to write for the opera – among the others were men as famous as Giambattista Casti, Goldoni and Beaumarchais. Not to forget Emanuel Schikaneder, who had originally come to Vienna with his theatrical troupe at the specific request of the Emperor himself, long before he wrote The Magic Flute with Mozart, and long before he built the Theater an der Wien and rose up to become the uncrowned king of theatre in the imperial capital. Many extant documents also prove that the Emperor busied himself with the details too.