4. As a boy, Mozart invented a fantasy world called the ‘Kingdom of Rücken’ with which Winter, as Mozart’s childhood valet, would have been familiar. It is possible that Mozart refers to it here; Rücken, which means ‘backs’, and Ricken are pronounced similarly.
5. The Mozarts had visited Donaueschingen in October 1766, see letter 13.
1. 14 November.
2. Mozart’s letter is lost.
3. Carl Thomas and Johann Thomas Leopold.
4. Nannerl’s stepdaughter.
5. Melodrama by Georg Benda (1722–95), first performed at Gotha on 27 January 1775, which Mozart had heard during his visit to Mannheim. In November 1778 he wrote of his plans to compose a similar work; nothing came of it, however. Leopold of course means von Berchtold zu Sonnenburg by ‘my son’ in this sentence.
6. Christoph Martin Wieland, poet and dramatist.
7. Nannerl’s step-son.
8. She lived until 1794.
9.Castore e Polluce by Georg Joseph Vogler was first performed at Munich on 12 January 1787.
1. The amateur composer and singer Gottfried von Jacquin (see List) was one of Mozart’s closest friends in Vienna.
2. Franz de Paula Hofer (1755–96), imperial court violinist, had travelled to Prague with Mozart. In 1788, he would marry Constanze’s sister Josepha.
3. Johann Joseph Anton, Count Thun-Hohenstein (1711–88); Mozart had composed the symphony K425 for him in Linz in 1783. He was the father-in-law of Maria Wilhelmine, Countess Thun-Hohenstein.
4. Joseph Emanuel, Count Canal of Malabayla (1745–1827), Freemason and builder of the Canalgarten in Prague, a famous botanical garden.
5. That is, without composing even a single line of music.
6. ‘in the room of charity’, i.e. placed at his disposal.
7. Mozart writes ‘das schöne Bandel Hammera’, which rhymes with ‘camera’ and is Viennese dialect for ‘und das schöne Bandl haben wir auch’ – presumably a reference to the trio K441, the so-called Bandel-Terzett, of which only a fragment survives.
8. Karl Raphael Ungar (1743–1807), director of the Clementium Library in Prague.
9. Opera (1786) by Giovanni Paisiello.
10. ‘as usual’.
11. The clarinettist Anton Paul Stadler, see List; Elisabeth Barbara Quallenberg, wife of the clarinettist Johann Michael Quallenberg (c. 1726–86); Maria Anna Antonia Crux (1772–?), singer, instrumentalist and niece of Johann Michael Quallenberg; Kaspar Ramlo, violinist; Franz Jakob Freystädtler (1761–1841), composer and pupil of Mozart’s.
12. It was at the concert on 19 January that Mozart performed the symphony K504 (‘Prague’) and three piano improvisations, including one on ‘Non più andrai’ from Le nozze di Figaro. The second concert apparently never took place.
13. His brother was the botanist Baron Joseph Franz von Jacquin (1766–1839); for his sister Franziska von Jacquin, see List.
14. January; Mozart conducted a performance on 22 January.
1. Ludovico Antonio Muratori (1672–1750), philosopher and writer who advocated an enlightened Catholic tolerance.
2. Apparently a violinist; no details are known.
3. A gambling card game.
4.In this context probably ‘lover’.
5. In this passage Leopold mentions a number of Mozart’s ‘English’ friends to whom he was very close at this time. For the Storace family, see List; O’Kelly is the Irish tenor Michael Kelly (1762–1826); the composer Thomas Attwood (1765–1838) was a student of Mozart’s.
6. Attwood.
7. Stephen Storace.
8. Heinrich Marchand.
1.This may have been Mozart’s last letter to his father.
2.The singer Ludwig Fischer and the apparently unrelated oboist Johann Christian Fischer (1733–1800). Ludwig gave a concert at the Burgtheater on 21 March 1787 that included a Mozart symphony and the scena Alcandro, lo confesso – Non soò d’onde viene K512. Mozart’s keyboard variations (K179) of late 1774 were composed on a minuet from Johann Christian Fischer’s first oboe concerto (1768).
3.Unidentified.
4.Johann Christian Fischer.
5.The sentiments expressed here echo those of the German Jewish philosopher Moses Mendelssohn (1729–86)in Phädon oder über die Unsterblichkeit der Seele (Phaedo or On the Immortality of the Soul, 1767), a copy of which, probably inherited from Leopold, was found among Mozart’s effects.
6.August Clemens Ludwig Maria, Count Hatzfeld (1754–87). Mozart had met him in 1786 and composed the violin part of K490, the scena ‘Non piuò, tutto ascoltai – Non temer, amato bene’, for him.
1. Franz d’Ippold had informed Mozart of Leopold’s death in a letter of 28 May 1787, now lost.
2. ‘testamentary disposition’. Wolfgang wanted d’Ippold to serve as executor of Leopold’s will, but because of a possible conflict of interest with Nannerl he declined.
1. Mozart had purchased a pet starling on 27 May 1784 and noted at the time that it was almost able to sing the theme of the third movement of his piano concerto K453.
1. After Leopold’s death, Mozart’s autograph scores still in Salzburg were sent to him in Vienna; copies of some works were sent to the monastery of the Holy Cross in Augsburg and others sold on the open market. The inventory of Leopold Mozart’s estate does not give specific details of the music that he owned.
1. Unidentified.
2. Possibly Giuseppe Antonio Bridi (1763–1836), who sang at the private performance of Idomeneo at Prince Auersperg’s in March 1786.
3. Marianne (Nanette) Natorp; Mozart dedicated the four-hand sonata K521 to Marianne and her sister Barbara (Babette).
4. Possibly the song Das Traumbild(‘Wo bist du, Bild, das vor mir stand’) K530, based on a text by the poet L. H. C. Hölty. Mozart dated the work Prague, 6 November 1787.
1.Abbreviation standing for Brother of the Order; Johann Michael Puchberg, see List, belonged to the same lodge as Mozart.
1.Presumably because Mozart rarely wrote to her. This is his last surviving letter to Nannerl, possibly the last he wrote her.
2.These works cannot be identified with certainty; Michael Haydn wrote more than 30 masses and 170 graduals.
3.Mozart’s most recent piano trios, both for keyboard, violin and violoncello, were K542 (22 June 1788) and K548 (14 July 1788); the piano quartet is possibly K493, composed in June 1786 but not published until 1787. Mozart’s earlier quartet, K478, was composed and published in 1785 and had presumably already been sent to Salzburg.
1.Major General Johann Joseph Philipp Pachta von Rayhofen (c. 1723–1822).
2. This opera commission from theatre impresario Domenico Guardasoni (c. 1731– 1806) was not realized.
3. Frederick William II of Prussia (1744–97) had succeeded his father Frederick the Great in 1786.
4. Karl Lichnowsky.
5. ‘love me and look after your health, which is so dear and precious to your husband.’ Constanze was frequently ill at this time, probably with complications arising from her numerous pregnancies.
1. Johann Gottlieb Naumann (1741-1801), music director to the elector of Saxony.
2. Friedrich August III, Elector of Saxony (1750-1827), whose court was at Dresden.
3. Where Mozart was lodging.
4. Anton Kraft (1749-1820), violoncellist in the service of Joseph Haydn’s employer, Prince Nikolaus Esterházy (1714-90); his son Nikolaus Kraft (1778-1853), also a violoncellist.
5. Presumably K563, for violin, viola and violoncello.
6. That is, Don Giovanni.
7.K537.
8. Alexander Michailovich, Prince Beloselski-Beloserki (1757-1809), Russian ambassador at Dresden from 1780 to 1790.
9. Johann Wilhelm Hässler (1747-1822).
10. Johann Georg Albrechtsberger (1736-1809), composer and organist at the Viennese court.
11. The opera was Le trame deluse ovvero I raggiri scoperti by Domenico Cimarosa (1749-1801); Manservisi had sung the role of Sandrina at the premier
e of La finta giardiniera (Munich 1775); Maddalena Allegranti (1754-after 1801), soprano; Adriana Ferrarese del Bene (1759-after 1803) later sang the role of Susanna in the Vienna revival of Le nozze di Figaro(1789) and created that of Fiordiligi in Così fan tutte(Vienna 1790).
12. It is uncertain what portrait Mozart refers to here.
1. Of Mozart’s letters, four have gone missing: those of 22 and 28 April and of 5 and 9 May; none of Constanze Mozart’s letters survives.
2. The Tiergarten in Berlin, formerly a royal hunting reserve, became a public park in the eighteenth century.
3. Friederike of Prussia (1751-1805).
4. The summer residence of the kings of Prussia, southwest of Berlin.
5. Mozart’s meaning is unclear here.
6. A German mile in the eighteenth century varied between 7 and 9 km; the distance from Leipzig to Berlin and back is about 290 km, so Mozart is approximately correct.
1. It is unclear whether these works were commissioned or whether Mozart merely intended to dedicate them to the king of Prussia and his daughter, Princess Friederike (1767-1820) – and thereby receive a royal gift. In the event, Mozart only wrote three more quartets (see letter 174, n. 1).
1. Constanze was then at Baden.
2. Medicaments of various kinds; ants’ eggs may refer to a preparation made from the dried pupae of red ants, though they may have been intended as food for a pet bird.
3. Le nozze di Figaro was revived at the Burgtheater on 29 August. For this production Mozart replaced Susanna’s aria ‘Deh vieni non tardar’ with the rondo ‘Al desio di chi t’adora’ K577 and additionally composed for her the aria ‘Un moto di gioia’ K579.
4. Unidentified. Names have been obliterated from several of the letters Mozart wrote at this time and made anonymous with the letters ‘N. N.’ It is unclear who made these changes, or when.
1. Presumably Johann Mattheson, Georg Friedrich Händels Lebensbeschreibung (Hamburg, 1761).
2. Mozart was hoping for a position as court Kapellmeister under the new emperor; see next letter.
1.. This is a draft. It is not known if Mozart sent such a letter to Archduke Franz (the future Emperor Francis II), or petitioned Leopold II directly for a position; if he did, it was to no avail.
2.. The draft breaks off here.
1.. Der Fallist noch weit seltener by Emanuel Schikaneder and Benedikt Schack (1758– 1826), tenor and composer, was a sequel to Una cosa rara by Vicente Martín y Soler (1754–1806), premiered at Vienna in 1786. Der Fall was first performed at the Freihaus-Theater on 10 May 1790.
2.. Der dumme Gärtner aus dem Gebirge oder Die zween Anton, a comic opera by Schikaneder, Schack and the bass singer and composer Franz Xaver Gerl. Mozart wrote variations on a song from Der dumme Gärtner, ‘Ein Weib ist das herrlichste Ding’ (K613) in March or April 1791.
3.. An eastern suburb of Vienna.
1.. Anton Stadler.
2.. Franz Anton Hoffmeister (1754–1812), composer and publisher; among other works, he published the first editions of Mozart’s piano quartet K478, the piano trio K496, the so-called ‘Hoffmeister ‘quartet K499, and the sonatas for keyboard with violin accompaniment K481 and K526. The draft referred to here is almost certainly a promissory note that Hoffmeister may have endorsed. The note, pre-signed by Mozart, was dated in Vienna on 1 October. It suggests that Mozart had pawned his furniture to pay for his journey to Frankfurt.
1.. Presumably these are the quartets Mozart had originally intended for Frederick William II of Prussia; see letter 168. Mozart had, in the meantime, written the quartets K575 (June 1789), 589 (May 1790) and 590 (June 1790); they were published by Artaria in 1791 without a dedication.
2.. Hoffmeister.
3.. Probably Sophie, Countess Hatzfeld, later Coudenhoven; Franz Maria Schweitzer, a dealer in silks and fashionable goods, and his wife Paula Maria.
4.. Unidentified.
1.. The programme for this concert included a symphony, two concertos (usually assumed to be K459 and K537), a scena sung by Ceccarelli, a duet and an improvisation. Owing to the length of the concert, the concluding symphony was not given. See Deutsch, Documentary Biography, 375.
2.. Nothing came of this plan.
1. The address on this letter reads: ‘Municipal Council! Humble request from Wolfgang Amadè Mozart Imperial and Royal Court Composer to be appointed assistant to the Kapellmeister of St Stephen’s Cathedral.’
2. Leopold Hofmann (1738–93), Kapellmeister at St Stephen’s, Vienna; the post was an important and remunerative one.
3. Mozart’s petition was granted, but Hofmann outlived him by fifteen months, until 17 March 1793.
1. ‘Curse my bad luck! – Mlle Kirchgässner is not giving her concert on Monday and so I could have possessed you all day Sunday – I’ll definitely be coming on Wednesday.’ Maria Anna (Marianne) Antonia Kirchgässner (1769–1808) was a blind virtuosa on the glass harmonica. The programme of her first concert in Vienna, on 10 June, is not known. At her second concert, on 19 August, she performed Mozart’s adagio and rondo K617 for glass harmonica, flute, oboe, viola and violoncello.
2. Mozart was on his way to hear the opera Kaspar der Fagottist oder Die Zauberzither(‘Kaspar the Bassoonist or the Magic Zither’) by Wenzel Müller (1759–1835). The text, by Joachim Perinet, was based on Christoph Martin Wieland’s Dschinnistan oder auserlesene Feen-und Geistermährchen, published between 1786 and 1789, which also served, in part, as the basis for Mozart and Schikaneder’s Die Zauberflöte.
3. Die Zauberflöte.
1. ‘on his word of honour’.
2. The nature of this affair is unknown.
3. Kaspar.
4. Franz Ludwig, Margrave Montecuculi had earlier been a subscriber to Mozart’s concerts.
5. See letter 146, n. 13.
1. Mozart probably means Constanze had not had morning sickness.
2. Mozart’s student and amanuensis, Franz Xaver Süssmayr, see List.
3.Of Die Zauberflöte.
4.Süssmayr had accompanied Constanze to Baden.
5. Presumably a joking reference to Süssmayr.
1. Mozart had sent Constanze 25 florins the previous day.
2. The French balloonist François Blanchard (1753–1809) had made two unsuccessful attempts, on 9 March and 29 April 1791, to ascend over Vienna in a hot air balloon; he was successful at his third attempt on 6 July. Mozart parodied his exploits in Die Zauberflöte, in the scene where the three boys descend in a balloon.
3. In this instance, probably Süssmayr.
1. Die Zauberflöte
2. ‘Das klinget so herrlich’
3. ‘Seid uns zum zweitenmal willkommen’
4. Presumably Joseph Deiner, a waiter at the inn ‘Zur silbernen Schlange’. He is thought to be the author of a memoir of Mozart’s last days, published in the Viennese Morgen-Post in 1856; see Deutsch, Documentary Biography, 563–6.
5. The finale of the clarinet concerto K622, composed for Anton Stadler.
6. Domenico Bedini, who sang the role of Sesto.
7. ‘Ah perdona al primo affetto’.
8. Maria Marchetti-Fantozzi (1767–1807) sang the role of Vitellia.
9. ‘Deh per questo istante solo’.
10. Anton Stadler, who played the demanding first clarinet part in the opera.
11. A number of deletions have been made in this and the following letter, possibly by Constanze Mozart’s second husband, Georg Nikolaus Nissen, when he prepared the correspondence for publication in the 1820s. The deletions are indicated by ellipses.
12. Possibly Süssmayr
1. Anton Stoll (1747–1805), music director at Baden; Mozart composed the motet Ave verum corpus K618 (17 June 1791) for him.
2. Mozart’s brother-in-law Franz Hofer.
3. His mother-in-law, Maria Cäcilia Weber.
4. The former Salzburg horn player Joseph Leutgeb; after moving to Vienna in 1777 he became a cheesemonger.
5. Franz Xaver Flamm (1739–1811), late
r an agent in connection with the taxes attached to Mozart’s estate
6. He was singing the role of Papageno
7. Mozart was making arrangements for his son Carl to attend the school run by the Piarist Fathers in the Josefstadt suburb of Vienna
8. Constanze’s younger sister
9. ‘farewell! – We’ll meet again’, sung by Tamino, Papageno and the Three Ladies in act 1, scene 8 of Die Zauberflöte.
1. Carl, then aged seven, was at a boarding school in Perchtoldsdorf bei Wien run by Wenzel Bernhard Heeger.
2. That is, Salieri and Cavalieri.
3. Deutsch, Documentary Biography, 524–5.
1. Sophie and her mother.
2. Albrechtsberger succeeded Mozart as assistant Kapellmeister at St Stephen’s, Vienna.
List of Letters
Mozart: A Life in Letters: A Life in Letters Page 69
