It must not be supposed, however, that Mozart's life was one of actual want in the ordinary sense. He had immense powers, both of work and enjoyment; joked, laughed, told stories, talked, traveled, played, sang, rhymed, danced, masqueraded, acted and played billiards well enough to delight in them all; and he had the charm of a child at 30 just as he had the seriousness of a man at five. ... Far from finding [Mozart's] contemporaries listening with half-closed eyes to his delicious strains of melody ... you are stunned and amazed by complaints of the horrible noisiness of his instrumentation, of having to climb an arid mountain of discord to pluck a single flower of melody ... of "[too many notes,"] of assaults to the human ear ... What has become of all this disturbing power?
