You’ll have seen from my last letter that I had to play at another concert, namely, that of Mlle Teyber.3– The emperor was there too.– I played the first concerto from my concert4 – they wanted me to repeat the rondo – so I sat down again – but instead of repeating the rondo, I had the desk removed and played on my own. – You should have heard how delighted the audience was at this little surprise – they didn’t just clap but they also shouted bravo and bravissimo. – The emperor too stayed till the end – and as soon as I left the piano, he left his box. – So he was interested only in hearing me. –
If possible, could I also ask you to send me a report on my concert.5– I’m genuinely pleased that the little I was able to send you came in handy. – There’s so much I could still tell you but I’m afraid the post will ride off without me, it’s already a quarter to 8. – In the meantime farewell. My dear little wife and I kiss your hands 1000 times and embrace our dear sister with all our hearts. We are ever your most obedient children
W. C. Mozart
Best wishes to the whole of Salzburg. Adieu.
134. Mozart to Jean-Georges Sieber, 1 26 April 1783, Vienna
Monsieur,
It’s 2 years now since I’ve been living in Vienna; – you’ll presumably know of my pianoforte sonatas2 with violin accompaniment which I’ve had engraved here by Artaria & Co.; – but I’m not entirely happy with local engraving methods and even if I were, I’d still like my fellow countrymen in Paris to have something of mine, and so I’m now writing to inform you that I have completed 3 keyboard concertos3 that can be performed with full orchestra or with oboes and horns – and also merely ò quatro; – Artaria wants to engrave them. But I’d like you, my good friend, to have first refusal; – and in order to avoid any unnecessary delays, I’ll tell you the lowest price that I’ll accept; – if you’ll give me 30 louis d’or for them, I’ll consider the matter settled. – I’m also working on 6 quartets for 2 violins, viola and bass4 – if you want to engrave these, too, I’ll give them to you as well. – But I can’t let these go as cheaply – I can’t let you have these 6 quartets for under 50 louis d’or; – and so, if you’re able and willing to do business with me, I would ask you only to reply and I shall send you an address in Paris where you will receive my works in return for your payment.5 – Meanwhile I remain your most obedient servant
Wolfgang Amadè Mozart
135. Mozart to his father, 7 June 1783, Vienna
Mon très cher Pèr;e,
Praise and thanks be to God, I’m fully recovered! – But my illness has left me with a cold as a souvenir, which was very nice of it, I’m sure! – I’ve received my dear sister’s letter. My wife’s name day is neither in May nor March but on 16 February and is not to be found in any diary. – But my wife thanks both of you most cordially for your kind good wishes which are appropriate even without her name day. – She wanted to write to my sister herself, but in her present condition one should not hold it against her if she’s a little commode or if – in German – she’s taking it easy. – According to the midwife’s examination, she should have been brought to bed on the 4th of this month – but I don’t think anything will happen before the 15th or 16th. – She’d like it to be sooner rather than later, especially as she would then have the pleasure of embracing you and my dear sister all the sooner in Salzburg. – As I didn’t think that the matter would take so serious a turn so quickly, I’ve kept delaying going down on my knees, clasping my hands together and begging you most humbly, my dearest father, to be godfather! – But as there is still time, I am doing so now. – Meanwhile – in the confident hope that you’ll not refuse me my request and now that the midwife has undertaken the visum repertum– I’ve already seen to it that someone presents the child in your name, whether it be generis masculini or faeminini!1 –It will be called Leopold or Leopoldine. – I must now say a few words to my sister about Clementi’s sonatas;2 – that they have no value as compositions will be felt by everyone who plays or hears them; – they contain no remarkable or striking passages except those in 6ths and octaves – and I would ask my sister not to waste too much time on these otherwise she’ll spoil her relaxed and even touch and her hand will lose its natural lightness, flexibility and fluency at speed. – For what do you end up with? – Even if she plays the 6th and octaves with the utmost velocity – something that no one can do, not even Clementi himself – all she’ll produce is a frightful chopping sound and nothing more! – Clementi is a ciarlatano3 like all Italians. – He writes presto or even prestissimo and alla breve over a sonata – and still plays it as an allegro in 4/4 time; – I know, because I’ve heard him. – What he does really well are his passages in 3rds; – but he sweated over them day and night in London; – but apart from this, there’s nothing he can do – absolutely nothing – he doesn’t have the least idea how to perform a piece, he’s no taste, still less does he have feeling. –
Now for Herr von Aman; – Herr von Fichtl told me that Privy Councillor Aman is completely mad and has been locked up. – This came as no surprise as he always used to go around looking thoroughly morose. – I told Herr von Fichtl that study was probably not the cause, whereupon he laughed not a little. But I’m sorry for Basilius Aman; – and I’d certainly never have thought it of him; – I’d sooner have conceded that he’d become more sensible. – Well, perhaps he’ll take me into his service when I come to Salzburg?4 – I’ll certainly call on him. – If you were able to get hold of a German song of his own composition, I wonder if you’d be kind enough to send it to me so that I’ve something to laugh at. I’ll set it to music. – But no! – I know a fool here who’ll do it just as well. –
Have you still not heard from Varesco?5 – Please don’t forget; – while I’m in Salzburg6 we should be able to work together very well if we’ve come up with a plan by then. –
Farewell for now; my wife and I kiss your hands 1000 times and embrace our dear sister with all our hearts. We are ever your most obedient children
W. and C. Mozart
P.S.: I hope you’ve received the ornamented voice part for the aria ‘Non sò d’onde viene’?–
136. Mozart to his father, 18 June 1783, Vienna
Mon très cher Père,
Congratulations, you’re a grandfather! – Yesterday morning, the 17th, at half past 6 my dear wife was safely delivered of a big strong boy who’s as round as a ball; – she went into labour at half past 1 in the morning so that neither of us got any rest or sleep. – At 4 o’clock I sent for my mother-in-law – and then for the midwife; – at 6 she was placed in the delivery chair – and by half past 6 it was all over.– My mother-in-law has now made up for all the harm that she caused her daughter while she was single. – She remains with her all day. –
My dear wife, who kisses your hands and embraces my dear sister with all her heart, is as well as can be expected in the circumstances;–
I hope to God that by taking good care of herself she’ll make a full recovery. –
I’m worried about milk-fever! – Her breasts are quite swollen! – Against my will but with my agreement, the child has now got a foster-nurse! – It was always my firm resolve that, whether she was able to or not, my wife should never feed her child herself! – But nor would my child drink the milk of a stranger! – No, I meant to bring it up on water, like my sister and me. – But the midwife, my mother-in-law and most other people here have literally pleaded with me not to do so, simply because most of the children here don’t survive on water as the people here don’t know how to do it properly – it was this that made me relent as I don’t want to have to reproach myself. –
No w fo r you r godfathership !– Let me tell you what’s happened. – I immediately sent word to Baron Wetzlar1 – a good and true friend of mine – to let him know about my wife’s safe delivery; – he immediately came in person – and offered himself as godfather – I couldn’t refuse him – and I thought to myself, I can still call him Leopold – and as I was saying th
is – he said, beside himself with delight, Ah, now you have a little Raimund – and kissed the child – so what could I do? – I had the boy christened Raimund Leopold. – I can honestly say that if you’d not told me your views on this matter in one of your letters, I’d have been deeply embarrassed – and I can’t guarantee that I wouldn’t have refused him outright! – But your letter consoles me and makes me think that you won’t be unhappy with what I’ve done! – After all, he’s also called Leopold.– I must close now, – I and my newly confined wife kiss your hands 1000 times and we embrace our dear sister 1000 times. We are ever your most obedient children
W. A. C. Mozart
137. Mozart to his father, 12 July 1783, Vienna
Mon très cher Père,
Your letter of the 8th inst. has arrived safely, and I’m delighted to hear that, all praise and thanks be to God, you’re both well.
If you insist on regarding genuine obstacles as a ploy designed to pull the wool over your eyes, there’s nothing I can do to stop you; – anyone can give something the wrong name if it pleases him to do so – but whether it’s right to do so is another question. – Have I ever suggested that I’ve no wish or desire to see you? – Certainly not! – But you’ve no doubt noticed that I’ve no wish to see Salzburg or the archbishop; – if we were to meet on neutral ground, who then would have the wool pulled over his eyes? The archbishop and not you.– I hope I don’t need to say that I care very little for Salzburg and nothing whatsoever for the archb., and that I shit on both of them – and that it would never in my life enter my head to go there specially, if you and my sister weren’t there. – So the whole affair was due simply to the well-meaning care of my good friends, who do after all have a certain amount of sound common sense; – and I didn’t think I was acting unreasonably when I made enquiries with you in the matter with a view to following your advice; – my friends’ concern was due entirely to the fact that, as I haven’t been discharged, he might have me arrested. – – But they’ve now entirely reassured me – and we’re definitely coming in August – or September at the latest; – Herr von Bapius met me in the street and walked home with me; – he left today. – And if he’d not had a prior engagement yesterday, he’d have lunched with me; – dearest father! – You mustn’t think that because it’s summer, I’ve nothing to do. – – Not everyone is out of town. – I still have a few pupils to attend to; – I’ve now got one in composition – he’ll no doubt pull a curious face when I tell him about my journey. – I must close now as I still have lots to do. – In the meantime set up the bowling alley in the garden, as my wife is a very great lover of the game; – my wife is still a little concerned that you may not like her as she’s not pretty – but I console her as best I can by telling her that my dearest father thinks less of outward than of inner beauty. – Farewell for now. My wife and I kiss your hands 1000 times and embrace our dear sister with all our hearts. We are ever your most obedient children
W. A C. Mozart
In late July 1783, Mozart and Constanze finally set out to visit Leopold and Nannerl in Salzburg, leaving their son in the care of his foster-nurse. Little is known of their time there: Mozart apparently composed the violin and viola duos K423 and 424 for Michael Haydn, who was ill and unable to complete a commission for six such works, and on 26 October the unfinished C minor mass K427 was performed at St Peter’s, Constanze singing one of the soprano parts. On 19 August, Raimund Leopold, just two months old, died of ‘intestinal cramp’. Wolfgang and Constanze left Salzburg on 27 October; on the way to Vienna they stopped at Linz, where Mozart composed the symphony K425, which was performed on 4 November. They arrived home about mid-November.
138. Mozart to his father, 6 December 1783, Vienna
Mon très cher Père,–
I’d never expected you to write to me in Vienna until I’d told you about my arrival here, and so it was only today that I went to Peisser to ask about letters and found your letter of 21 November, which had already been lying there for 12 days. – I hope you’ll have received my letter from here. – There’s something I have to ask you. – You’ll remember that when you came to Munich and I was writing my grand opera,1 you complained about the debt of 12 louis d’or that I’d run up with Herr Scherz in Strasbourg, saying: What really annoys me is your lackof trust in me – but enough of this – I now have the honour of paying 12 louis d’or. – I travelled to Vienna; – you returned to Salzburg. – From what you said I was bound to think that I no longer needed to worry about this. – Moreover, I assumed that you’d have written to tell me if nothing had been done – or that you would have told me in person when I was with you. – So you can imagine my embarrassment and surprise when two days ago a clerk from the office of the banker Herr ö chser came to see me and brought with him a letter; – the letter was from Herr Haffner in Salzburg and contained an enclosure from Herr Scherz. – As it’s now 5 years ago, he’s also demanding interest, but I told him at once that there was nothing doing and added that legally I did not owe him a farthing as the bill was payable 6 weeks after the date and had therefore expired.– But in view of Herr Scherz’s friendship I agreed that I would pay the capital. – No interest was included, and so I’m not liable for any.– All I ask of you, dearest father, is that you will be kind enough to stand surety for me with Herr Haffner or rather Herr Triendl for just a month. – With your experience, you can easily imagine how inconvenient it would be for me to be short of cash right now. Herr ö chser’s clerk had to admit that I was right but said only that they’d inform Herr Haffner. – For me, the most disagreeable part of the whole affair is that Herr Scherz won’t have a very high opinion of me – proof that chance, coincidence, circumstances, misunderstanding and heaven knows what else can often – and quite innocently – deprive a man of his honour! – Why did Herr Scherz make no attempt to contact me all this time? – Surely my name isn’t all that obscure!– My opera – which was performed in Strasbourg – must at least have allowed him to surmise that I was in Vienna. – And then there was his correspondence with Haffner in Salzburg! – If he’d contacted me during the first year, I’d happily have paid him there and then; – I would also do so now – but I’m not in a position to do so at present; – or perhaps he thought he was dealing with a fool who’d pay what he didn’t owe. – In that case he can keep the title for himself. – Now for something else. – Only 3 arias are still missing, and then I’ll have finished the first act of my opera. – I can really say that I’m entirely satisfied with the buffa aria – the quartet – and the finale and that I’m really looking forward to them.2 – And so I’d be sorry if I’d written this music to no avail, in other words if what is indispensably necessary doesn’t happen. – Neither you nor Abbate Varesco nor I have given proper consideration to the thought that it’s very bad and may even cause the opera to fail if neither of the 2 main female characters appear on stage until the very last minute but have to keep pacing around in the fortress, either on the bastion or on the ramparts. – I’m confident that I can rely on audiences to remain patient for one act – but they can’t possibly hold out for the 2nd act, it’s out of the question. – This thought occurred to me only in Linz. – And so there’s nothing for it but to have some of the scenes in the 2nd act take place in the fortress.– Camera della fortezza. – The scene can bearranged in such a way that when Don Pippo orders the goose to be brought into the fortress, we see the room in the fortress where we discover Celidora and Lavina. – Pantea comes in with the goose. – Biondello slips out. – They hear Don Pippo coming. Biondello again becomes the goose. – At this point we could have a good quintet that would be all the funnier in that the goose could join in. – But I have to say that I raised no objections to this whole story about the goose only because it never occurred to 2 men of greater insight and understanding than I to complain about it. And these 2 men are you and Varesco. – But there’s still time to think of some alternative – Biondello once swore that he’d enter the tower; – how he set
s about this; whether he enters in the form of a goose or by some other stratagem is all the same. – I’d have thought that it would be far funnier and more natural if Biondello remained in human form. – For example, we could be told right at the start of the 2nd act that Biondello has thrown himself into the sea in his despair at not being able to enter the fortress. – He could then disguise himself as a Turk or whatever and introduce Pantea as a slave girl – a Mooress, of course. – Don Pippo is willing to buy the slave girl as a bride. – As a result the slave dealer and the Moorish girl can enter the fortress in order to be examined. – In this way Pantea has a chance to bully her husband and to be insolent to him in a thousand different ways. And she’d also have a better role, for the more comic an Italian opera the better. – Please make my views known to Abbate Varesco and tell him to get on with it. – I’ve already worked fast enough in this short space of time. – Indeed, I could have finished the whole of the first act if I didn’t need to have some of the words changed in a number of the arias; – but please don’t tell him this at present. – – My German opera Die Entführung aus dem Serail has been given in Prague and Leipzig – very well – and to great applause. – I know this from people who saw them there – I’ll make an effort to go and see Herr von Deglmann3and give him the cadenzas together with the concerto and the 4 ducats. – But please send me my Idomeneo as soon as possible – also the 2 violin duets – and Seb. Bach’s fugues4 – I need Idomeneo as I’ll be giving 6 subscription concerts this Lent in addition to my concert5 at the theatre. And I’d like to perform this opera then;–could you also ask Tomaselli to let us have the prescription for the ointment for rashes, which has done us sterling service: – you never know when you may need it again – or at least be able to help someone else with it. – It’s always better for me to have it than to wish I had it. – Adieu for now – my wife and I kiss your hands 1000 times and embrace our dear sister with all our hearts. We are ever your most obedient children
Mozart: A Life in Letters: A Life in Letters Page 51
