Mozart: A Life in Letters: A Life in Letters

by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

  In 1780 Mozart was commissioned to write Idomeneo for the court theatre at Munich; the opera was first performed there, under his direction, in January 1781. Archbishop Colloredo – who was making a visit to Vienna – summoned Mozart to join his musical retinue there but he, no doubt encouraged by the success of his opera and his own high opinion of himself, argued furiously with his employer and was dismissed from court service. Leopold was horrified and tried to persuade Mozart to make amends with the archbishop but Wolfgang stood firm, justifying himself to his father both on grounds of his honour and the opportunities that Vienna offered him.

  As it happened, Wolfgang was right. Joseph II, sole ruler of Austria since the death of his mother Maria Theresa in 1780, instituted numerous ‘enlightened’ reforms that directly or indirectly favoured men of talent; these included not only a loosening of censorship and freedom of the press, but also an attempt to foster German culture, both theatrical and operatic. It was thanks to Joseph’s German National Theatre (founded in 1776) that Mozart was commissioned to write his first ‘international’ success, the German opera Die Entfiihrung aus dem Serai! (‘The Abduction from the Seraglio’), a work described in at least one early obituary of him as ‘the pedestal upon which his fame was erected.’ 2 And Mozart took advantage of that success, as well as his position as Vienna’s foremost keyboard player, to promote himself in a series of subscription concerts that were wildly successful: in a letter to his father of 20 March 1784, he named more than 170 subscribers to his concerts. At the same time he was in demand for performances at private salons, he wrote works for the local Tonkünstler-Sozietat (a benevolent society aiding musicians’ widows and orphans), he had several piano students from among the nobility and well-to-do middle class, and he joined the Freemasons, which in Vienna was an a-political and a-religious society of intellectuals. By 1786, Mozart was recognized as both the pre-eminent performer in Vienna and, along with Joseph Haydn, the pre-eminent composer. His chief works included fifteen piano concertos (between K413 and K503), the six string quartets dedicated to Haydn (K387, 421, 428, 458, 464 and 465), the piano and wind quintet K452, and several arias and piano sonatas, among other works.

  Mozart had another reason for wanting to stay in Vienna, one he was less forthcoming about with his father. In 1780, Aloysia Weber had moved to Vienna with her family; after a stint as a singer in Munich, she had been appointed to the Habsburg court. Aloysia, now married to the actor Joseph Lange, was beyond reach for Mozart but that hardly mattered (or it mattered only a little): he had, in the meantime, fallen in love with Aloysia’s younger sister, Constanze. Leopold was against the match but Mozart went ahead none the less, marrying on 4 August 1782. And in this choice, too, he seems to have been right. Although, like all marriages, theirs habits ups and downs, there is every reason to believe it was a happy one. Wolfgang and Constanze had six children, only two of whom survived to adulthood: Carl Thomas (1784–1858) and Franz Xaver Wolfgang (1791–1844).

  For reasons that are not entirely clear, Mozart gave fewer public concerts in Vienna after 1786. Possibly this was a result of his increasing occupation with opera: Le nozze di Figaro (‘The Marriage of Figaro’) was premieredin 1786 and successfully performed at Prague in early 1787; its success there lento the commission for Don Giovanni, first given in Prague in October 1787 and revised for Vienna in 1788. Così fan tutte (‘Women are all the same’) was composed in 1789 and premiered in Vienna in January 1790, but its run was interrupted by the death of Emperor Joseph II on 20 February – or possibly it was due to a general decline in Viennese cultural life at the time, usually blamed on the Austrian-Turkish war of 1788–90; with attention and resources diverted elsewhere, both the court and the nobility were less inclined to support public music-making. Whatever the reason, Mozart rarely appeared in concert, he composed fewer significant works in 1788 and 1789 (notable exceptions are the three last symphonies, K543, the G minor K550 and the ‘Jupiter’ K551), and he ran into financial difficulties; between 1788 and 1790 Mozart wrote several begging letters to his Masonic brother and friend, Michael Puchberg. Perhaps in an attempt to alleviate his financial problems, or perhaps just to get away from Vienna for a while, he undertook a concert tour to Dresden, Leipzig, Potsdam and Berlin in the spring of 1789. But although it was artistically a success, financially it was a failure. Mozart took another journey in the late summer of 1790 to attend the coronation in Frankfurt of Leopold II, Joseph’s successor, as Holy Roman Emperor. This, too, brought no financial rewards.

  The year 1791 – and a return to political stability in Vienna – saw a remarkable upswing in Mozart’s fortunes. In March he performed at a concert by the clarinettist Josef Bähr, he had commissions from patrons in Hungary and in Amsterdam, Viennese publishers produced at least half a dozen editions of his works and he was commissioned (albeit as second choice) to compose the Prague coronation opera La clemenza di Tito (‘The Clemency of Titus’). And even before he had begun this, he had agreed to compose Die Zauberftote (‘The Magic Flute’) for his long-time friend, the impresario Emanuel Schikaneder. La clemenza di Tito was first given at Prague on 6 September. When Die Zauberftöte premieredin Vienna on 30 September it was universally praised, if not for its text then for its music, and quickly established itself as the most popular of all German operas.

  During the autumn of 1791, Mozart was engaged with another work, the Requiem, which served ultimately to cement his reputation as a composer of both human and metaphysical importance. The wife of Count Franz Walsegg-Stuppach had died on 14 February 1791, and in July the count approached Mozart to write a Requiem to be performed on the first anniversary of her death. Although numerous stories swirl around the Requiem, Mozart probably knew Walsegg’s identity and the occasion for which it was intended. By the same token, there is no compelling evidence that Mozart believed he was writing the Requiem for himself, nor reason to think he was poisoned by the composer Antonio Salieri, jealous of Mozart’s superior talent, or by anyone else. Mozart had been ill in Prague in September but seems to have recovered, and his letters of October and November – when he also completed the clarinet concerto K622 – are full of high spirits. If he had not fallen ill again, this time fatally, no mystery would surround the Requiem’s composition. His premature death, on 5 December, probably of rheumatic inflammatory fever, was an unfortunate accident, though no less compelling for that. He was not buried– as the stories would have it – in a pauper’s grave, but was given a simple funeral according to Viennese customs of the time.

  The letters

  The texts of the letters given here, newly translated by Stewart Spencer, are based on those of the standard, critical complete edition: Wilhelm A. Bauer, Otto Erich Deutsch and Joseph Heinz Eibl, eds., Mozart: Briefe undAufzeichnungen (eight volumes, Kassel, 1962–2005); this was not the first complete edition of Mozart’s letters but it is certainly the best. Among English-language selections from the letters, the edition by Emily Anderson (London, 1935) takes pride of place. What distinguishes Anderson in particular is its inclusion of every single word written by Mozart – indeed, that was explicitly its purpose – but by omitting significant stretches of Leopold’s letters, it does not give a balanced picture of the events it recounts – by even a rough accounting, letters by Leopold Mozart account for two-thirds of the family correspondence. There is an implied presumption, not only that Mozart’s words speak for themselves but also, perhaps, that they are the only authentic source of information about the composer. By this reckoning, not even Leopold, who is often the villain in many later accounts of Mozart’s life, is considered a reliable witness.

  In this respect, the most interesting edition of the letters may be one that was never intended as such: Georg Nikolaus Nissen’s Biographie W. A. Mozarts (Leipzig, 1828). Nissen, a Danish diplomat and Constanze Mozart’s second husband (they married in 1809), decided in the 1820s to write Mozart’s biography based largely on the family correspondence still in her possession. Although he died before it w
as finished, Constanze arranged for its completion band it appeared in print two years later. What is remarkable about this work, at least for its time, is its attempt to tell Mozart’s story through ‘authentic’ documents, through the family letters, which are generously extracted and which until then had been otherwise unpublished and unavailable. It is, in effect, an ‘epistolary biography’, not so far in spirit from the then-popular ‘epistolary novel’. The comparison is an apt one, for even a cursory reading of the letters shows that it is not just the record of a life, but also the record of a very specific relationship, that between Mozart and his father. Both show their good sides and their bedsides, both cajole and argue with the other, both strive for the upper hand, for independence or for peace of mind.

  It seemed to me important, then, to treat these letters differently here than they have been previously, to allow them to tell their story without editorial intervention, without omitting Leopold’s letters and without censoring the material. Accordingly, I have included only complete letters, including long letters from Leopold that go into considerable detail about what they saw and whom they met on their travels, his concerns with contemporary politics and church affairs, his interest in medical remedies and his attention to Wolfgang’s welfare. For it is only in the context of complete letters – letters that show both Wolfgang and his father to the fullest, as real human beings rather than historically predetermined constructions – that a story emerges.

  By and large the translation preserves the linguistic style and informal character of the originals. (This extends even to the scatological letters: it is important to bear in mind that all four of the Mozarts indulged themselves – Mozart’s scatological letters are typical not only of the Mozart family’s sense of humour, but of eighteenth-century Salzburg humour generally.) I have not, however, retained the original orthography of places and names, which is variable throughout the letters, sometimes phonetic, sometimes correct and sometimes just wrong; nor have I reproduced the addresses or layout of the letters in every respect: this edition strives for readability rather than literal transcription. However, some things, such as the liberal use of dashes (especially Leopold’s), abbreviations of place names and writing of numbers, have been retained to give a flavour of the original. Where appropriate, I have also included selections from contemporary documents describing the events referred to in the letters. My sources for these are Otto Erich Deutsch’s Mozart: A Documentary Biography (1966) and Cliff Eisen, New Mozart Documents (1991); for contemporary pictures of Mozart, his family and acquaintances and the places he visited, the best source is Otto Erich Deutsch, Mozart und seine Welt in zeitgenössichen Bildern (1961).

  The number of people mentioned in the correspondence is enormous. Wherever possible, they are identified in the footnotes on first mention, or the reader is directed to the List of Important People before the Life in Letters; if there is no note, either the person named remains unidentifiable, or what is known of him or her does not contribute to our understanding of the correspondence. For many figures who recur throughout the letters, or whose presence is not always explicit but constantly hovering in the background, readers can always consult this list. I have been greatly helped in the matter of identification by the commentary volumes to the complete German-language edition of the letters, by Heinz Schuler’s Mozarts Salzburger Freunde und Bekannte: Biographien und Kommentare (Wilhelmshaven, 2004) and by Peter Clive’s Mozart and his Circle (1993).

  A Note on Currencies

  Currency conversions – whether among local currencies during the eighteenth century or between eighteenth- and twenty-first century currencies – are problematic at best. The principal unit of currency circulating in Habsburg lands at the time was the florin or gulden, which was divided into 60 kreuzer; the ducat was a gold coin worth about 4½ florins while 2 florins were equivalent to a common thaler. These values were not, however, absolutely consistent between different regions of Austria and thalers could be either Reichsthalers (1½ florins) or Konventionsthalers (2 florins). Currency conventions in Salzburg were slightly different – 1 Viennese florin was worth about 1 florin 12 kreuzer – and international conventions more complex still. The English pound was approximately 8 or 9 Viennese florins, the French louis d’or was about 7½ florins and the Venetian zecchino about 5 florins. Other currencies are mentioned in the Mozart family letters as well, including the Bavarian max d’or (similar to the French louis d’or) and the Salzburg half-batzen, a small silver coin whose value cannot now be exactly determined. It is useful, when dealing with currencies, to bear in mind that during the 1760s Leopold Mozart’s basic annual salary in Salzburg was 300 florins and that when Mozart was reappointed to the Salzburg court music in 1779 his and his father’s joint salary was 1,000 florins, including a subsistence allowance. When Mozart was appointed imperial chamber musician in 1787 he received 800 florins salary; and the normal fee for composing an opera for the imperial theatres was 450 florins. To put these figures in perspective, Johann Pezzl, writing in Vienna in 1786, calculated that a single person could live ‘quite comfortably’ on 500 or 550 gulden. 3 It is likely, then, that Mozart and his family could have managed reasonably well, if they were not extravagant and remained healthy, on his income. The cost of living in Salzburg was less.

  I am grateful to Penguin Books for their help and advice in preparing this edition and in particular to Susan Kennedy, who copyedited the text and notes and made innumerable good suggestions for their improvement. I am also grateful to Stewart Spencer, who translated the text and pointed out numerous interesting details to me as well as answering all my questions and setting me straight on a number of matters. He also compiled the index. Finally, my wife, Katy, gave me invaluable advice, as always, and for that I am grateful.

  Further Reading

  Braunbehrens, Volkmar, Mozart in Vienna (New York, 1990)

  Clive, Peter, Mozart and his Circle (New Haven, CT, 1993)

  Einstein, Alfred, Mozart: His Character, His Work (New York, 1945)

  Eisen, Cliff, New Mozart Documents (London, 1991)

  Eisen, Cliff and Stanley Sadie, eds., The New Grove Mozart (London, 2002)

  Eisen, Cliff and Simon P. Keefe, eds., The Cambridge Mozart Encyclopedia (Cambridge, 2005)

  Halliwell, Ruth, The Mozart Family: Four Lives in a Social Context (Oxford, 1998)

  Keefe, Simon P., ed., The Cambridge Companion to Mozart (Cambridge, 2003)

  Küster, Konrad, Mozart: A Musical Biography (Oxford, 1996)

  Landon, H. C. Robbins, Mozart’s Last Year (London, 1988)

  Schroder, David, Mozart in Revolt (London, 1999)

  List of Important People

  ADLGASSER, ANTON CAJETAN (1729—77) Court and cathedral organist in Salzburg from 1750 until his death, and a close friend of the Mozart family; Leopold was a witness at all three of his weddings. He was chiefly a composer of sacred music, and collaborated with Michael Haydn and Mozart on the oratorio Die Schuldig-keit des ersten Gebots. Adlgasser died after suffering a stroke while playing the organ; Leopold describedthe event in a letter of 22 December 1777. Mozart succeeded him as court and cathedral organist in 1779.

  ARCO FAMILY Head of one of Salzburg’s most illustrious noble families, Georg Anton Felix, Count von Arco (1705—92), chief stewardin Salzburg from 1786, and his wife Maria Josepha Viktoria (née von Hardegg, 1710—75) were among the Mozarts’ greatest supporters at the archbishop’s court. Their son Joseph Adam (1733—1802), bishop of Koniggratz in Bohemia, helped secure Mozart’s appointment as organist at Salzburg in 1779. Another son, Karl Joseph Maria Felix (1743—1830), was a member of Archbishop Colloredo’s household and figured prominently in Mozart’s second departure from Colloredo’s service in 1781. Their daughter Maria Anna Felicitas (1741—64) was married to the Bavarian ambassador at Paris, Count Maximilian van Eyck; she died while the Mozarts were staying at her house during their visit to Paris in 1763—4. Another daughter, Antonia Maria, was married to Count Lodron (see below).
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  AUERNHAMMER, JOSEPHA BARBARA (1758 —1820) A Student of Mozart’s in Vienna in the early 1780s and a fine pianist, judging by contemporary accounts; the Viennese musician Benedikt Schwarz described her as ‘a great dilettante on the pianoforte’, while Mozart admiredher ‘enchanting’ playing but noted that ‘in cantabile playing she has not got the real delicate singing style’. Mozart and Auernhammer are known to have performed together on a number of occasions. He dedicated the accompanied sonatas K296 and K376–380 to her. Auernhammer fell in love with Mozart in 1781, but he did not reciprocate.

  BULLINGER, FRANZ JOSEPH JOHANN NEPOMUK (1744–1810) Tutor to the Arco family, he settled in Salzburg between 1774 and 1776 and became the intimate friend and confidant of Leopold Mozart, loaning him a substantial sum of money when Mozart resigned court service in 1777 and set out on his travels with his mother. Wolfgang turned to Bullinger for help when he had to tell Leopold of Maria Anna Mozart’s death in Paris in July 1778.