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Updated: May 5, 2025
In 1768 he was again in Vienna, where he produced his little operetta, "Bastien und Bastienne," and in the same year the Archbishop of Salzburg made him his concertmeister. The next year he went to Italy, where he both studied and composed, and was received with extraordinary honors. In 1771 he brought out his opera, "Mitridate, Rè di Ponto," at Milan, with great success.
They had forced their way to the very gates, and had built a huge fire against the door of the tower, whence the defenders had fled in terror, when Bastienne seized a keg of powder, and dropped it fairly into the midst of the fire, round which the soldiers stood waiting till the great oaken doors should be burned away.
But a German operetta which the lad of twelve also wrote at that time, "Bastien und Bastienne," was given in private, at the summer residence of the Mesmer family, in the suburb called Landstrasse.
A little before the appointed hour that evening, having taken old Bastienne into their confidence, they secretly left the house, and made their way to the place of rendezvous, which, as has been said, was but a short distance away.
She foresaw that nothing but unhappiness for herself could result from meeting him again, and yet she could not restrain a throb of the heart when his stalwart form and handsome features rose before her. The two girls stood in silence, their eyes fixed on the fast-receding shore. Old Bastienne, beside them, was dissolved in tears.
He saw that it was killing the two women, and the sharp pains in his own breast warned him that the bitter, piercing winds had done their work, and that unless relief came soon, he must succumb. Old Bastienne was the greatest sufferer. Age was beginning to tell upon her; and she, who had been as strong as a horse, now became weak as a child. She went stumbling about her daily tasks.
The stones at the top were loose and freshly disturbed, and the low shrubs which fringed the rock were crushed and broken. Hastily drawing Marguerite back, and bidding her return at once to the hut and warn Bastienne to get restoratives and blankets in readiness, he hurried round to the base of the cliff. The tide was rapidly rising, and the distance was considerable.
When within forty feet of the shore his chilled limbs relaxed, his eyes closed, and he disappeared beneath the surface of the water. But Bastienne had all her wits about her. In her young days she had plunged into the Somme as joyously as the bravest Picard lads, and old as she was her limbs were still strong and sturdy.
As the vision rose before him he cried aloud in the bitterness of his heart, "O God! Thou art too cruel, too cruel!" It was a sad duty that Bastienne and Marguerite had to perform when they made Marie's poor broken body ready for burial.
Nor has it been my luck to be present during the production of "Lysistrata," by Aristophanes, or "Bastien et Bastienne," by W. A. Mozart, or "Orpheus," by Monteverde, or "Maestro di Capella," by Pergolese, or "Timon of Athens," by Purcell. Nor have I been present when an eminent technician has rendered Florent Schmitt's "Palais Hanté," or Arnold Schoenberg's "Pierrot Lunaire."
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