Similarly, the child-like goodness and lack of envy or spite in Mozart's character were qualities which Tchaikovsky himself aspired to, and it is not surprising that he was so interested in reading about Mozart's life, especially in Otto Jahn's famous biography, which, according to Laroche, never left Tchaikovsky's table.
In his music review articles during the 1870s, Tchaikovsky shared with readers his admiration for many works by Mozart, but the one which he invariably dwelt on most enthusiastically was Don Giovanni, "the greatest of all operas". Moreover, as Herman Laroche would later recall, Mozart was for Tchaikovsky "the ideal musician and artist in all aspects" [4] — in particular, he admired Mozart for his spontaneous creativity, which did not, however, exclude a professional attitude to work and allowed Mozart to write a lot of his music to commission, as Tchaikovsky also did. As he put it in an interview in 1892 with a reporter who expressed his surprise that Tchaikovsky could bring himself always to work six hours a day, no matter what: "Young people nowadays wait for inspiration to come to them, but I consider that to be utterly wrong. I mean, would Mozart, who died so young, have managed to write so many wondrous works if he had constantly been waiting for inspiration?" ( TH 325). Similarly, the child-like goodness and lack of envy or spite in Mozart's character were qualities which Tchaikovsky himself aspired to, and it is not surprising that he was so interested in reading about Mozart's life, especially in Otto Jahn's famous biography, which, according to Laroche, never left Tchaikovsky's table.