After Italy, Salzburg felt smaller than before. I started to suspect that the city was less a place to live and more a never-ending rehearsal I could not escape. This was not Salzburg’s fault. It had not changed. I had. I was taller, older, vaguely wiser. I was no longer the little maestro Wunderkind, and not quite a master either.
I was appointed Konzertmeister to the court of Archbishop Colloredo[i], my first permanent position, and one that sounded impressive and came with the reassuring promise of regular employment. Unlike before, this position came without the honorary title, which meant writing music on demand, rehearsing other people’s mistakes before sunrise, and learning the delicate art of obedience. I soon discovered that the Archbishop was a strict and impatient leader, with little tolerance for improvisation. He preferred music that behaved itself, stayed within its allotted time, and did not draw unnecessary attention. None of these were my strongest qualities.
I often heard whole operas in my head, literally, because above and below us lived violinists, next door a singing teacher giving private lessons and across practiced an oboe player. It was a composer’s paradise with ideas arriving as if sent from heaven. I worked feverishly, scribbling down music until my fingers ached from writing that much. Between church duties and court performances I began to develop a new style of writing: symphonies. Quick, lively pieces infused with Italian energy, Viennese humor, and British extravagance. These works sparkled with wit, glowed with optimism, contained playful disobedience, and no doubt confused everyone who had heard me complain about Salzburg for months.
[i] Hieronymus Joseph Franz de Paula Graf Colloredo von Wallsee und Melz was Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg from 1772 until 1803, when the prince-archbishopric was secularized. After secularization, Colloredo fled to Vienna and remained the non-resident archbishop of Salzburg, bereft of temporal power, until his death in 1812. He is most famously known as a patron and employer for Mozart.