ever taught her differently. I said to her mother and her that if
I were her regular teacher, I would lock up all her music, cover
the keyboard with a handkerchief, and make her practice both
hands at first slowly on nothing but passages, trills, mordents,
etc., until the difficulty with the left hand was remedied; after
that I am sure I could make a real clavier player out of her. It
is a pity; she has so much genius, reads respectably, has a great
deal of natural fluency and plays with a great deal of feeling."

(Mannheim, November 16, 1777, to his father. The pupil was Rose
Cannabich, to whom the sonata referred to is dedicated. Her
father, whom Mozart admired greatly as an able conductor, was
Chapelmaster of the excellently trained orchestra at Mannheim. He
lived from 1731 to 1798. [The Andante from which trouble was
expected was that which Mozart wrote with the purpose that it
should reflect the character of Rose Cannabich, a lovely and
amiable girl, according to all accounts. H.E.K.])

53. "This E is very forced. One can see that it was written only
to go from one consonance to another in parallel motion,--just as
bad poets write nonsense for the sake of a rhyme."

(From the exercise book of the cousin of Abbe Stadler who took
lessons in thorough-bass from Mozart in 1784. It is preserved in
the Court Library in Vienna.)

54. "My good lad, you ask my advice and I will give it you
candidly; had you studied composition when you were at Naples,
and when your mind was not devoted to other pursuits, you would,
perhaps, have done wisely; but now that your profession of the