Mozart believed, always, in beauty and in harmony and would not sacrifice either, no matter how dark his themes. He wrote this out in a famous 1781 letter to Leopold that is now taken as an articulation of his musical philosophy and a foundational statement of Viennese classicism: “Passions, violent or not, must never be expressed to the point of disgust, and Music must never offend the ear, even in the most horrendous situations, but must always be pleasing, in other words, always remain Music.”
