Abraham Mendelssohn used to say that, whereas he had once been famous as the son of his father, he was now celebrated as the father of his son. Leopold Mozart was most indisputably the father of his son. His juiceless compositions, his violin method, and the rest of his dreary talents and moral virtues have a kind of museum value only as they contributed to Wolfgang’s artistic upbringing and guidance. Alfred Einstein observes that “the first signs of musical talent in Wolfgang completely changed the direction of Leopold’s life and thought.” Unquestionably it was better so, and in the long run he was far more richly rewarded for cultivating the fruitful soil committed to his tillage.
Systematic piano instruction was the first thing on which he seems to have concentrated. Composition was a by-product. Wolfgang improvised unceasingly, which meant that numberless minuets and simple pieces of various types took shape under his fingers, the father writing down industriously what his son’s fancy dictated. Nannerl extemporized no less actively. Leopold spurred his children by acquainting them with short works by himself and recognized musicians to divert them after dry technical exercises. Each had a little study book of pieces. The one that Wolfgang received from his father on October 31, 1762, has come down to us complete and contains 135 examples for study. Among them Wolfgang tried his hand at brief works of his own. In the father’s writing we can read the following: “Di Wolfgango Mozart, May 11, 1762 und July 16, 1762.” Some of the masters given the boy to study were Wagenseil, Telemann, Hasse, and Philipp Emanuel Bach. Wolfgang’s compositions include an innocent minuet and trio with very simple basses and a little Allegro in three-part song form. In these and other childish efforts the improving hand of Leopold can be repeatedly detected. It was to be so for some time to come and when the father did not have a correcting finger in the pie we become aware of it. It is evident in a sketch book Wolfgang was given in London a year or two later when Leopold fell ill and, in order not to be disturbed by the sounds of practicing, asked the boy to write something and refrain from noise. The book is filled with a great variety of minuets, contradances, rondos, gigues, sicilianos, preludes, and even an unfinished sketch for a fugue. Here one sees indisputable genius in conflict with technical lapses and other evidences of inexperience that somewhat modify the notion that Wolfgang had acquired all his skill by instinct rather than by carefully disciplined study.