Mozart auf der Reise nach Prag

·1 hr 25 min·6 clips

The narrator describes the Stone Guest scene as tones 'falling from detached star circles, ice cold, cutting through marrow and soul' — Mozart performing Don Giovanni's descent into hell.

1. 'Mozart auf der Reise nach Prag' is a German-language audio drama adaptation of Eduard Mörike's novella, broadcast on the podcast 'Meine Liebe zu Hörspielen,' depicting a fictitious stopover on Mozart's journey to the 1787 Prague premiere of Don Giovanni. 2. The cast includes Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and his wife Constanze as the central couple, Count Schinsberg and his family as hosts, the bride Eugenie and her fiancé the Baron, Franziska (Eugenie's childhood friend), and Franziska's aunt. 3. The episode dramatizes a single day — 14 September 1787, about 30 hours' journey from Vienna — structured around an accidental visit that turns into an extended evening of music and intimate conversation. 4. The drama opens with Mozart and Constanze stopping at an inn near the Count's estate; Mozart, left alone, wanders into the castle garden and is drawn to an orange tree, triggering a memory of a childhood trip to Naples in 1770. 5. Lost in musical reverie — mentally working through a melody for the Zerlina–Masetto wedding duet in Don Giovanni — Mozart absentmindedly picks an orange and begins cutting it, not noticing the Count's gardener approach. 6. The 'crime' is immediately forgiven by the Count himself, who happens to arrive; recognizing Mozart, he invites the couple to stay for the day as honored guests. 7. At dinner, Mozart confesses his near-arrest and retells the 1770 Naples scene in full: Sicilian comedians performing a mock sea battle with oranges thrown between boats and 'girls,' culminating in a small boy with silver wings appearing on a mast — an image Mozart compares to a 'painted symphony.' 8. Mozart performs the Zerlina–Masetto wedding chorus from Don Giovanni at the fortepiano, singing the Italian text ('Giovinette, che fatte l'amore') for the assembled family. 9. The performance provokes a discussion between the Baron and Mozart about whether hearing a work for the first time, mediated by its creator, is better or worse than knowing it through long familiarity — Mozart suggests the question goes to the limits of what any composer can hear in his own work. 10. After dinner the company dances; Mozart jumps from the piano to dance with Franziska, the housemaid dances with Constanze, and the gallant lieutenant dances a minuet with the old aunt. 11. While the men play billiards, Constanze speaks frankly to the Countess about household finances: she manages all accounts, receives all creditors' demands alone, and sometimes has the 'water up to her throat.' 12. Constanze describes Mozart's periodic deep depressions as a state in which he sits 'inaccessible to any consolation,' mentally pursuing a 'single sorrowful thought about dying like an endless screw' for days. 13. Despite this, Constanze maintains hope that improved income — growing in proportion to her husband's rising reputation — would relieve the financial pressure and allow Mozart to work undivided. 14. Eugenie, the bride, listens to all of this in silence, and the narrator notes she alone grasped the full weight of what Constanze was describing. 15. Mozart is invited to share the 'hellfire he carries with him' — a preview of Don Giovanni's finale, still unfinished — and he agrees, explaining he will play it freely from memory. 16. Mozart recounts the compositional genesis of the Stone Guest scene: da Ponte's libretto arrived unexpectedly late at night before a planned journey; striking a D-minor chord, he felt he had 'knocked on the right door behind which the whole legion of horrors lay waiting.' 17. He describes the resulting passage — 'Adagio, D-minor, four bars only, then a second passage' — as intended to be played with the theater's strongest wind instruments doubling the vocal line. 18. The narrator describes the performance's effect in language of cosmic dread: tones 'falling from detached star circles, ice cold, cutting through marrow and soul,' the Stone Guest's voice moving up and down 'on the rungs of an air-woven ladder,' demanding short time for repentance. 19. The drama's tone is literary and measured, mixing spoken narration in elevated German prose with performed excerpts of Mozart's actual music; the production values are high and the pacing is novelistic rather than theatrical. 20. Listeners who respond to literary audio drama in German, Mozart biography, or the intersection of artistic genius and domestic difficulty will find this production deeply satisfying; those seeking documentary or conversational podcast content will find it inaccessible.

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