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Updated: June 12, 2025
In 1791 he composed the score of the "Magic Flute" at the request of Schikaneder, a Viennese manager, who had written the text from a fairy tale, the fantastic elements of which are peculiarly German in their humor.
This will explain the singular sacrifice of principle which Mozart made in permitting a mountebank like Schikaneder to pass judgment on his music while he was composing it, to exact that one duet should be composed over five times before he would accept it, and even to suggest melodies for some of the numbers.
A story goes that Mozart had to write this duet three or five times before it would pass muster in the censorious eyes of Schikaneder. After the opera had made good its success, the duet as we have it to-day alternated at the performance with a more ornate version in all likelihood one of the earlier forms in which Mozart cast it.
At the end of the eighteenth century there was in Vienna a singular individual named Emmanuel Schikaneder, a Jack-of-all-trades so far as public amusements were concerned musician, singer, actor, playwright, and manager. There can be no doubt but that he was a sad scalawag and ribald rogue, with as few moral scruples as ever burdened a purveyor of popular amusements.
Casting about for an operatic subject which should appeal to the general liking for romanticism and buffoonery at once, Schikaneder hit upon a tale called "Lulu; oder, Die Zauberflote," written by Liebeskind, but published by Wieland in a volume of Orientalia entitled "Dschinnistan."
He had got pretty deep in his work when a rival manager brought out an adaptation of the same story, with music by Wenzel Muller. The farcical character of the piece is indicated by its title, which was "Kasper, der Fagottist; oder, Die Zauberzither"; but it made so striking a success that Schikaneder feared to enter the lists against it with an opera drawn from the same source.
I cannot write everything I wish. Raaff has just left me; he sends you his compliments, and so do the Cannabichs, and Wendlings, and Ramm. My sister must not be idle, but practise steadily, for every one is looking forward with pleasure to her coming here. Munich, Nov. 22, 1780. I SEND herewith, at last, the long-promised aria for Herr Schikaneder.
Baron von Braun took Schikaneder into his service and renewed the contract with Beethoven. This accomplished, the composer resumed his lodgings in the theatre and began energetically to work upon the opera. Let two facts be instanced here to show how energetically and how painstakingly he labored.
MOZART now remained stationary at Salzburg till the autumn of 1780, highly dissatisfied at being forced to waste his youthful days in inactivity, and in such an obscure place, but still as busy as ever. A succession of grand instrumental compositions were the fruits of this period: two masses, some vespers, the splendid music for "Konig Thamos," and the operetta "Zaide" for Schikaneder.
Certain it is that his pleasure in it was divided. Schikaneder had told him that he might occasionally consult the taste of connoisseurs, and he did so, finding profound satisfaction in the music written for Sarastro and the priests, and doubtless also in the fine ensembles; but the enthusiasm inspired by what he knew to be concessions to the vulgar only excited his hilarity.
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