as it will be on the stage, the more effective I consider it, and it has pleased all those who have heard it on the piano.  Raaff alone maintains that it will not be successful.  He said to me confidentially, “There is no opportunity to expand the voice; it is too confined.”  As if in a quartet the words should not far rather be spoken, as it were, than sung!  He does not at all understand such things.  I only replied, “My dear friend, if I were aware of one single note in this quartet which ought to be altered, I would change it at once; but there is no single thing in my opera with which I am so pleased as with this quartet, and when you have once heard it sung in concert you will speak very differently.  I took every possible pains to conform to your taste in your two arias, and intend to do the same with the third, so I hope to be successful; but with regard to trios and quartets, they should be left to the composer’s own discretion.”  On which he said that he was quite satisfied.  The other day he was much annoyed by some words in his last aria—­rinvigorir and ringiovenir, and especially vienmi a rinvigorir—­five i’s!  It is true, this is very disagreeable at the close of an air.

137.

Munich, Dec. 30. 1780.

A happy New-Year!  Excuse my writing much, for I am over head and ears in my work.  I have not quite finished the third act; and as there is no extra ballet, but only an appropriate divertissement in the opera, I have the honor to write that music also, but I am glad of it, for now the music will be all by the same master.  The third act will prove at least as good as the two others,—­in fact, I believe, infinitely better, and that it might fairly be said, finis coronat opus.  The Elector was so pleased at the rehearsal that, as I already wrote to you, he praised it immensely next morning at his reception, and also in the evening at court.  I likewise know from good authority that, on the same evening after the final rehearsal, he spoke of my music to every one he conversed with, saying, “I was quite surprised; no music ever had such an effect on me; it is magnificent music.”  The day before yesterday we had a recitative rehearsal at Wendling’s, and tried over the quartet all together.  We repeated it six times, and now it goes well.  The stumbling-block was Del Prato; the wretch can literally do nothing.  His voice is not so bad, if he did not sing from the back of the throat; besides, he has no intonation, no method, no feeling.  He is only one of the best of the youths who sing in the hope of getting a place in the choir of the chapel.  Raaff was glad to find himself mistaken about the quartet, and no longer doubts its effect.  Now I am in a difficulty with regard to Raaff’s last air, and you must help me out of it.  He cannot digest the rinvigorir and ringiovenir, and these two words make the whole air hateful to him.  It is true that mostrami and vienmi are also not good, but the worst of all