And now came a time of struggling for Mozart.  His small salary was cut off and he had but one pupil.  He had numerous friends, however, and soon his fortunes began to mend.  He was lodging with his old friends the Webers.  Aloysia, his former beloved, had married; Madame Weber and her two unmarried daughters were now in Vienna and in reduced circumstances.  Mozart’s latest opera, “The Elopement,” had brought him fame both in Vienna and Prague, and he had the patronage of many distinguished persons, as well as that of Emperor Josef.

Mozart had now decided to make a home for himself, and chose as his bride Constanza Weber, a younger sister of Aloysia, his first love.  In spite of Leopold Mozart’s remonstrance, the young people were married August 16, 1782.

Constanza, though a devoted wife, was inexperienced in home keeping.  The young couple were soon involved in many financial troubles from which there seemed no way out, except by means of some Court appointment.  This the Emperor in spite of his sincere interest in the composer, seemed disinclined to give.

Mozart now thought seriously of a journey to London and Paris, but his father’s urgent appeal that he would wait and exercise patience, delayed him.  Meanwhile he carried out an ardent desire to pay a visit to his father and sister in Salzburg, to present to them his bride.  It was a very happy visit, and later on, when Mozart and his wife were again settled in Vienna, they welcomed the father on a return visit.  Leopold found his son immersed in work, and it gladdened his heart to see the appreciation in which his playing and compositions were held.  One happy evening they spent with Josef Haydn who, after hearing some of Mozart’s quartets played, took the father aside, saying:  “I declare before God, as a man of honor, that your son is the greatest composer I know, either personally or by reputation.  He has taste, but more than that the most consummate knowledge of the art of composition.”

This happy time was to be the last meeting between father and son.  Soon after Leopold’s return to Salzburg, he was stricken with illness, and passed away May 28, 1787.  The news reached the composer shortly after he had achieved one of the greatest successes of his life.  The performances of his latest opera, “The Marriage of Figaro,” had been hailed with delight by enthusiastic crowds in Vienna and Prague; its songs were heard at every street corner, and village ale house.  “Never was anything more complete than the triumph of Mozart and his ’Nozze di Figaro,’” wrote a singer and friend.—­“And for Mozart himself, I shall never forget his face when lighted up with the glowing rays of genius; it is as impossible to describe as to paint sunbeams.”

Despite the success of Figaro, Mozart was still a poor man, and must earn his bread by giving music lessons.  Finally the Emperor, hoping to keep him in Germany, appointed him Chamber-composer at a salary of about eighty pounds a year.  It must have seemed to Mozart and his friends a beggarly sum for the value his Majesty professed to set upon the composer’s services to art.  “Too much for the little I am asked to produce, too little for what I could produce,” were the bitter words he penned on the official return stating the amount of his salary.