Mozart was inclined to be somewhat extravagant in dress and household expenditure, also very generous to any one who needed assistance.  These trials, added to the fact that his wife was frequently in ill health, and not very economical, served to keep the family in continual straits.  Occasionally they were even without fire or food, though friends always assisted such dire distress.  Mozart’s father had declared procrastination was his son’s besetting sin.  Yet the son was a tireless worker, never idle.  In September, 1787, he was at Prague, writing the score of his greatest opera, “Don Giovanni”; the time was short, as the work was to be produced October 29.  On the evening of the 28th it was found he had not yet written the overture.  It only had to be written down, for this wonderful genius had the music quite complete in his head.  He set to work, while his wife read fairy tales aloud to keep him awake, and gave him strong punch at intervals.  By seven o’clock next morning the score was ready for the copyist.  It was played in the evening without rehearsal, with the ink scarcely dry on the paper.

Even the successes of “Don Giovanni,” which was received with thunders of applause, failed to remedy his desperate financial straits.  Shortly after this his pupil and patron, Prince Karl Lichnowsky, proposed he should accompany him to Berlin.  Mozart gladly consented, hoping for some betterment to his fortunes.  The King of Prussia received him with honor and respect and offered him the post of Capellmeister, at a salary equal to about three thousand dollars.  This sum would have liberated him from all his financial embarrassments, and he was strongly tempted to accept.  But loyalty to his good Emperor Josef caused him to decline the offer.

The month of July, 1791, found Mozart at home in Vienna at work on a magic opera to help his friend Salieri, who had taken a little theater in the suburb of Wieden.  One day he was visited by a stranger, a tall man, who said he came to commission Mozart to compose a Requiem.  He would neither give his own name nor that of the person who had sent him.

Mozart was somewhat depressed by this mysterious commission; however he set to work on the Requiem at once.  The composing of both this and the fairy opera was suddenly interrupted by a pressing request that he would write an opera for the coronation of Leopold II at Prague.  The ceremony was fixed for September 6, so no time was to be lost.  Mozart set out at once for Prague.  The traveling carriage was at the door.  As he was about to enter it, the mysterious stranger suddenly appeared and enquired for the Requiem.  The composer could only promise to finish on his return, when hastily entering his carriage, he drove away.

The new opera, “La Clemenza di Tito,” was finished in time and performed, but was received somewhat indifferently.  Mozart returned to Vienna with spirits depressed and body exhausted by overwork.  However, he braced himself anew, and on September 30th, the new fairy opera, the “Magic Flute,” was produced, and its success increased with each performance.