After nearly a year passed at home in unremitting musical instruction, and practice of various instruments as well as composition, the father once more set off with all his family to Vienna,—­on this occasion with a view to Wolfgang paving the way to Italy by the composition of an opera, (Italy, at that time, being the Eldorado of music.) He succeeded in procuring the scrittura of an opera buffa, “La Finta semplice;” but, when finished, although the Emperor himself had intrusted the composition to the boy, the cabals of envious singers effectually prevented its being performed.  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.  The father, too, had some compensation by the Emperor commissioning his son to compose a solemn mass for the consecration of the new Waisenhaus church, which Wolfgang himself directed with the conductor’s baton, in presence of the Imperial Family, on the 7th December, 1768.

Immediately on their return home, the young virtuoso was appointed archiepiscopal Concertmeister.  He passed almost the whole of the year 1769 in Salzburg, chiefly engaged in the composition of masses.  We also see him at that time eagerly occupied in improving his knowledge of Latin, although two years previously he had composed a comedy in that language,—­“Apollo et Hyacinthus.”  From this study proceeds the first letter which is still extant from his hand:—­

1.

Salzburg, 1769.

My dear young lady,—­

I beg you will pardon the liberty I take in plaguing you with these few lines, but as you said yesterday that there was nothing you could not understand in Latin, and I might write what I chose in that language, I could not resist the bold impulse to write you a few Latin lines.  When you have deciphered these, be so good as to send me the answer by one of Hagenauer’s servants, for my messenger cannot wait; remember, you must answer this by a letter.

[Footnote:  By a messenger of the Hagenauer family, in whose house, opposite the inn of “Den drei Allurten,” Mozart was born, and with whom his family were on the most intimate terms.]

“Cuperem scire, de qua causa, a quam plurimis adolescentibus ottium usque adeo oestimetur, ut ipsi se nec verbis, nec verberibus ad hoc sinant abduci.”

[Footnote:  “I should like to know the reason why indolence is so highly prized by very many young men, that neither by words nor blows will they suffer themselves to be roused from it.”]

Wolfgang Mozart.

The father’s plan to go to Italy, there to lay the foundation of a European reputation for his son, was realized in the beginning of December, 1769, and during the journey, the boy, who was at that time just entering his fifteenth year, subjoined to his father’s reports scraps of his own writing, in which, in true boyish fashion, he had recourse to all kinds of languages and witticisms, but always exhibiting in his opinions on music the closest observation, the gravest thought, and the most acute judgment.