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Let Cherubino sing words of tenderness and passion, of audacity and shyness, to only one sort of music, to light and careless music; let the jackanapes be for ever before us, giggling and pirouetting in melody and rhythm; it will not be Cherubino, the whole Cherubino; it will be only a miserable fragmentary indication of him, but it will be the right indication; the psychological powers of music do not go far, but thus far they can go. Analysis of the nature of musical expression has shown us how much it may accomplish; the choice of the artist alone can tell us how much it should accomplish; the scientific investigation is at an end, the artistic judgment must begin. Chapelmaster Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, here are your means of musical expression, and here is the thing to be expressed; on careful examination it appears distinctly that the only way in which, with your melodies, rhythms, and harmonies, you can give us, not a copy, but a faint indicative sketch, something approaching the original as much as four lines traced in the alley sand of your Schloss Mirabell Gardens at Salzburg resemble the general aspect of the Mirabell Palace; that the only way in which you can give us such a distantly approximative….

Signor Maestro Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Vice-Chapelmaster of His Most Reverend Highness the Prince Archbishop of Salzburg, has meanwhile sat down at his table near his thin-legged spinet, with the bird-cage above and the half-emptied beer-glass at his side; and his pen is going scratch, scratch, scratch as loud as possible.

“The only way in which you can possibly give us such a distantly approximative copy of the page Cherubino as shown” … (Scratch, scratch, scratch goes the pen on the rough music paper), “as shown in the words of Beaumarchais and of your librettist D’Aponte, is to compose music of the degree of levity required to express the temper jackanapes.”

The Chapelmaster Mozart’s pen gives an additional triumphant creak as its point bends in the final flourish of the word finis ; Chapelmaster Mozart looks up–

“What was that you were saying about jackanapes? Oh, yes, to be sure, you were saying that literary folks who try to prescribe to musicians are jackanapes, weren’t you? Now, do me the favour, when you go out, just take this to the theatre copyist; they are waiting in a hurry for Cherubino’s song…. Yes, that was all very interesting about the jackanapes and all the things music can express…. Who would have thought that musical expression is all that? Lord, Lord, what a fine thing it is to have a reasoning head and know all about the fundamental moods of people’s characters! My dear sir, why don’t you print a treatise on the musical interpretation of the jackanapes and send it to the University of Vienna for a prize? that would be a treatise for you! Only do be a good creature and take this song at once to the copyist…. I assure you I consider you the finest musical philosopher in Christendom.”

The blotted, still half-wet sheet of note paper is handed across by Chapelmaster Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. It is the manuscript of “Voi che sapete.”

“But dearest Chapelmaster Mozart, the air which you have just written appears to be not in the least degree light–it is even extremely sentimental. How can you, with such phrases, express the Cherubino of Beaumarchais?”

“And who, my dear Mr. Music Philosopher, who the deuce told you that I wanted to express the Cherubino of Beaumarchais?”

Chapelmaster Mozart, rising from his table, walks up and down the room with his hands crossed beneath his snuff-coloured coat-tails, humming to himself–

Voi che sapete che cosa e amor,
Donne, vedete s’io l’ho nel cor,

and stops before the cage hanging in the window, and twitching the chickweed through the wires, says–

“Twee! twee! isn’t that a fine air we have just composed, little canary-bird, eh?”