Mozart auf der Reise nach Prag

Mozart auf der Reise nach Prag, a Novelle by E. Mörike which was published in Cotta's Morgenblatt für gebildete Leser and in book form in 1855 in time for the centenary of the birth of Mozart. The story describes a fictitious episode set against the background of Mozart's journey to Prague for the première of Don Giovanni. Travelling by coach with his wife Konstanze, Mozart halts in a village and, while resting in the park of Count von Schinzberg, absent-mindedly picks an orange and cuts it in two. The angry gardener reports this untrustworthy-looking stranger whose name, he understands, is ‘Moser’, to his master. As soon as the identity of Mozart is established he and his wife are invited to share in the festivities at the castle celebrating the engagement of Eugenie, a niece of the count, to a nobleman. The following morning the count presents Mozart with a coach, in which he resumes his journey to Prague.

The sophistication and playfulness of rococo, now nearing its end (it is 1787, two years before the French Revolution), form the essential background to Mörike's portrayal, penetrating with a fluid change of mood into the sphere of creative inspiration. Mozart's abundant fantasy and gaiety are focused in Susanna's aria in Le nozze di Figaro, which Eugenie sings, and in the rustic dance of Zerlina's ‘Giovinette, che fatte all' amore’; this Mozart had composed that day in the garden by the orange-tree which forms the central symbol of the Novelle. But in the composition of Don Giovanni's final supper Mozart apprehends supranatural daemonic forces, by which Mörike fuses the artistic and historical elements of his story. His short poem ‘ Denk' es, o Seele!’ concludes this Novelle.