Adventures with Beethoven

Scene Two

The Mozarts - Wolfgang and Nannerl

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart 

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was a child prodigy who performed throughout Europe. As an adult, he became a well-known master of the symphonic and theatrical stage before his death at a tragically young 35. Mozart was born in Salzburg, Austria (then part of the Holy Roman Empire) on January 27, 1756. He was baptized the day after at St. Rupert’s Cathedral and given the name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, though in adulthood he chose to go by Wolfgang Amadè Mozart (Amadè is the French form of Amadeus). 

Mozart’s father, Leopold, was a composer, music teacher, and violinist in the service of Count Leopold Anton von Firmian, the Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg. Later Leopold became the deputy Kapellmeister. He published a well-known violin textbook in 1756. Mozart’s older sister, Maria Anna, known as Nannerl, or Marianne, began piano lessons with her father at the age of seven, while her three-year-old brother watched. Soon young Wolfgang was picking out a few notes at the piano. At age four he began learning a few simple pieces, which he could soon play perfectly. Soon thereafter, he wrote his first few compositions, at either age four or five. Leopold served as his children’s primary teacher, not only for music, but for all their academic subjects as well. When Leopold realized how talented his children were, he gave up his compositional career to devote his time to their careers. 

Leopold arranged for the family to tour Europe with his two child prodigies taking center stage, performing for royalty and nobility throughout the continent. Their first trip began at the court in Munich then went on to the Imperial courts in Vienna and Prague. The family was on the road for the next three and a half years visiting Mannheim, Paris, London, Amsterdam, Zurich and many other cities. During these travels, Wolfgang met many musicians and heard music by other composers. While in London in 1764 and 1765, Mozart met Johann Christian Bach, one of the sons of the great Johann Sebastian. Johann Christian Bach became an important early influence on Mozart, who shortly thereafter wrote his first symphony. 

Travel in the mid-1700s was not an easy undertaking; trips would have been made in carriages that traveled over questionable roads. Trips of just a few miles could take all day. The family could not just show up at a noble court and perform, formal invitations had to be extended and then the family would have to wait to be paid for the performances. All the members of the family suffered near-fatal illnesses while traveling, most of them received the sacrament of last rites at least once. After three years of nonstop travel and performance, the family spent a year in Vienna and then a year in Salzburg before Leopold organized another tour, this time with only Wolfgang traveling. The pair departed for Italy in December 1769, returning home in March 1771. While in Italy, Mozart met other composers and famously transcribed the Miserere, a setting of Psalm 51 composed by Gregorio Allegri in the 1630s. The work was exclusively performed in the Sistine Chapel during Holy Week and the manuscript had never been released. After hearing the work twice, Mozart wrote the entire work down, producing the first copy outside of the Vatican. 

While in Milan in 1770, Mozart wrote his first opera, Mitridate, re di Ponto (Mithridates, King of Pontus) which became a success, leading to further commissions for new operas. Mozart completed two other operas in the next two years, Ascanio in Alba (1771) and Lucio Silla (1772). Leopold hoped that these successes would lead to a job for Wolfgang. Archduke Ferdinand, the ruler of Milan, thought about hiring Mozart, however his mother, Empress Maria Theresa, ruler of the Holy Roman Empire, did not like to employ “useless people” so Ferdinand never offered Mozart a job. 

In 1773 the Mozarts returned to Salzburg and Wolfgang finally got his first real job. He was employed as a court musician by the ruler of the city, Prince-Archbishop Hieronymus Colloredo. Although employed by the archbishop, Mozart had many admirers in Salzburg who were interested in his compositions, allowing Mozart to write a wide variety of works to be performed throughout the city. He completed symphonies, string quartets, sonatas, and some small operas. In 1775, Mozart became interested in violin concertos, and wrote five that year, the only violin concertos that he ever wrote. The next year, he became interested in piano concertos. 

Although Mozart was writing a lot of music that was being successfully performed, he was not content with his situation and tried to find a job somewhere else. Mozart felt he was being underpaid; his yearly salary was only 150 florins a year (about $21,000 in today’s dollars). Mozart really wanted to compose opera. Opera was rarely performed in Salzburg and when the court theater closed in 1775, there was even less of an opportunity. Mozart went on two long trips during his employment to try and find a new job, first to Vienna from July to September 1773 and then to Munich from December 1774 to March 1775. Neither visit led to a job offer, but Mozart was able to premiere a new opera in Munich. 

Mozart quit his job in Salzburg in August 1777 and left in September on another tour hoping to find a new job, spending time in Augsburg, Mannheim, Paris, and Munich. The court in Mannheim had the best orchestra in Europe at the time. During his time there, Mozart got to know many of the musicians, especially the Weber (Vay-burr) family. He fell in love with Aloysia Weber, but since he couldn’t find a job, he was forced to move on, leaving Aloysia behind. Mozart headed to Paris and in letters home, he mentioned the possibility of a job as an organist at the palace of Versailles. This job, like the others, never actually appeared. Mozart was running out of money and had to pawn some of his possessions. While he was away, his mother became ill. She died in July 1778, likely because a doctor wasn’t called early enough because of the family’s financial difficulties. 

Leopold, meanwhile, was trying to secure a new job for Mozart back home in Salzburg. Eventually, with the support of the local noble families, Mozart was offered the job of court organist and concertmaster with a salary of 450 florins per year (about $63,000 in today’s dollars). Although this was much better than his previous job, Mozart wasn’t sure he wanted to stay in Salzburg. He took his time returning, stopping in Strasbourg, Munich, and Mannheim on his way home. While in Mannheim, he saw Aloysia again. During their time apart, her career as a singer had taken off and she was no longer interested in Mozart. In January 1779 Mozart finally returned to Salzburg and began his new job, but he was still unhappy because he longed to be somewhere else. 

Mozart continued to compose while fulfilling his new duties for the archbishop. In January 1781 his opera Idomeneo was premiered in Munich to high praise. In March Mozart was summoned to Vienna where Archbishop Colloredo was staying to attend the celebrations for the coronation of Joseph II as the new Holy Roman Emperor. Musicians at the time were usually treated as part of the household staff; Mozart dined with the valets and cooks. Colloredo wanted the servants of his household together and expected Mozart to come and fulfill his duties for the household. Mozart saw his time in Vienna as an opportunity to find a better job, while he fulfilled the requirements of his current one. He wrote to his father that his “…main goal right now is to meet the emperor in some agreeable fashion, I am absolutely determined he should get to know me.” Mozart planned to appear as the soloist in a series of charity concerts, perhaps as a way to draw the emperor’s attention. However, he had to get Colloredo’s permission to perform and the archbishop did not want Mozart to perform outside of the household. It took the influence of other members of the Viennese nobility to persuade Colloredo to let Mozart perform. Although he was allowed to perform in the charity concerts, Colloredo did not allow Mozart to perform in other venues, including a concert, with the Emperor in attendance, where Mozart’s fee would have been equal to half his yearly salary. 

By May the relationship between Mozart and Colloredo had deteriorated greatly. Mozart attempted to quit his job, but the archbishop refused to accept Mozart’s resignation. The next month Mozart was allowed to resign, but in a very insulting way. Mozart was dismissed from service with a literal “kick in the arse” out the door by the archbishop’s steward, Count Arco. Mozart not only lost his job, but had family difficulties to deal with as well. In the argument with the archbishop, Mozart’s father agreed with the archbishop and wrote many letters to Mozart to try and convince him to keep his job. Mozart’s decided to stay in Vienna and pursue a freelance career, separating himself from his father for the first time in his life. 

Mozart’s independent life in Vienna began well. He performed often as a pianist, including in a competition with composer Muzio Clementi with the Emperor in attendance. He also was completing new works to be performed, including the opera Die Entführung aus dem Serail (The Abduction from the Seraglio) in 1782. The opera was soon performed throughout the empire, helping to establish Mozart as a serious composer. 

After leaving the archbishop’s service, Mozart had to find a new place to live. His friends from Mannheim, the Weber family, had moved to Vienna. After the death of Mr. Weber, the family was forced to take in lodgers to pay the bills. Mozart moved in with the family and soon began a relationship with Constanze, Aloysia’s younger sister. Mozart’s relationship with Constanze was rocky at times, the couple briefly separated, but eventually the pair agreed to marry. Leopold opposed the match and Mozart had to work hard to gain his father’s permission. The couple were married on August 4, 1782, the day before Leopold finally sent his consent to the union. The family later had six children, only two of whom, Karl Thomas, born 1784, and Franz Xaver Wolfgang, born 1791, survived to adulthood. 

Mozart became acquainted with Gottfried van Swieten, an imperial official and amateur musician. Van Swieten owned manuscripts by Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel which he shared with Mozart. After studying these works, Mozart adopted some of the ideas of the Baroque masters in his works, including in passages from Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute) and Symphony No. 41. Van Swieten also served as an important patron, not only for Mozart, but for Haydn and Beethoven as well. 

Between 1782-1785 Mozart performed often, presenting three to four piano concertos each year with himself as the soloist. Often he couldn’t find dates in traditional theaters so he performed in ballrooms, in restaurants, and apartment buildings. The concerti were very popular and are still a part of the standard piano repertoire today. In 1784 Mozart met Haydn and the two became friends, occasionally playing string quartets together. Mozart dedicated a series of six string quartets to Haydn. Haydn praised Mozart to his father saying, “I tell you before God, and as an honest man, your son is the greatest composer known to me by person and repute…” 

Things were going well for the Mozart family financially and they adopted an extravagant lifestyle. Their new apartment cost 460 florins a year, more than his previous salary in Salzburg. They also bought an expensive fortepiano and billiard table, sent their son to an exclusive boarding school, and employed household servants. This lifestyle was not sustainable long-term, since they were spending their entire income and could not put any money away into savings. 

Although Mozart loved the operatic stage, he took a four year break after Die Entführung aus dem Serail before completing another full opera, although he did write a one-act opera during this time. His new opera was The Marriage of Figaro which began Mozart’s collaboration with the librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte. Following The Marriage of Figaro, which premiered in 1786, the two worked on their next opera, Don Giovanni, which opened in 1788. Both operas were enthusiastically received. The new works were more complicated musically which did cause some confusion both for the audience and the performers. The two works are still popular today and are some of the most commonly performed operas. During this highpoint of Mozart’s artistic career, his father, Leopold, died in May 1787. Although they had a strained and complicated relationship at times, Leopold recognized and nurtured Wolfgang’s talent and helped start his son on his path as a well-respected musician. 

In December 1787 Mozart finally received an imperial post when he was named “chamber composer” for Emperor Joseph II following the death of Christoph Willibald Gluck. It was only a part-time position with a modest salary, 800 florins per year (about $112,000 in today’s dollars) and only required Mozart to write music for the Emperor’s annual balls. Most likely the appointment was an effort by Emperor Joseph to keep Mozart from leaving Vienna to find other employment. This new appointment coincided with Beethoven’s first trip to Vienna. Beethoven really wanted to meet Mozart and to study with him, however, there are no records to indicate whether or not the two composers ever met. 

The income from his imperial job became very important to the Mozart family. The Austro-Turkish war began in 1788 causing financial hardship for many families and allowing fewer noble families to act as patrons for musicians. Mozart, like many other musicians in Vienna, was performing less in public, greatly reducing the family’s income. By the middle of the year, Mozart and his family had moved from central Vienna to a suburb, most likely to save money, unfortunately, the move did not really reduce their expenses. Mozart began borrowing money, quite often from his fellow Masons. Whether it was the constant financial worries or a bout of depression, Mozart’s compositional output dropped dramatically; he completed three symphonies in 1788 and one final opera with Da Ponte, Così fan tutte (The School for Lovers) in 1790. Mozart spent some time traveling, visiting Leipzig, Berlin, and Dresden in 1789 and Frankfurt and Mannheim the next year, hoping to find other employment to improve his financial standing. 

The family’s financial situation improved in 1791, possibly as a result of new patrons from Amsterdam and Hungary and from the sale of some dance music, possibly written in his role for the imperial court. These windfalls allowed Mozart to stop borrowing money and actually start paying off some of his debts. Mozart began writing again, completing some of his most famous works, including The Magic Flute, the Clarinet Concerto, the vocal piece Ave verum corpus, and his Requiem mass. While in Prague for the premiere of his opera La clemenza di Tito (The Clemency of Titus) in early September, 1791, Mozart fell ill. Although suffering from his illness, he continued to work as long as he could, conducting the premiere of The Magic Flute later that month. By the end of November, his illness had progressed and Mozart was confined to his bed. His wife and her youngest sister helped care for Mozart during his final days. Up until the end of his life, he tried to work, hoping to finish his Requiem mass. There are many stories that he dictated passages from his bed to his student Franz Xaver Süssmayr, but there is no actual evidence as to whether or not this happened. 

Mozart died at home on December 5, 1791 at the age of 35. As was the custom, Mozart was buried in a “common grave” at St. Marx Cemetery. While this sounds like he was simply dumped in a grave with a lot of other people, this was not the connotation at the time. A common grave was simply a grave for a commoner, not a member of the aristocracy. According to custom, a common grave could be reused after ten years, while the grave of a noble person would not be disturbed. Another common legend is that there were no mourners at Mozart’s funeral. This was also customary at the time for there not to be people present at the gravesite. However, an article written by Otto Jahn states that Antonio Salieri, Franz Süssmayr, Gottfried van Swieten, and two other musicians were there when Mozart was buried. As with the cause of Beethoven’s hearing loss, there is rampant speculation as to the cause of Mozart’s death. The official cause was listed as “severe miliary fever” a rash, common at the time, that resembled millet seeds, a small grain. Over the years more than one hundred different causes of death have been suggested, but there is no way to confirm what actually killed Mozart. 

Although there may not have been a huge crowd at his funeral, there were several public memorial services and concerts for Mozart in Vienna and Prague, all of which were well attended. After his death, there was a great popularity for his music, publishers printed complete editions of his works, biographies were written, and he was more popular than ever. 

Although there is no evidence that Beethoven was ever able to meet Mozart, his influence on Beethoven’s music is clear. Beethoven first heard Mozart’s music as a teenager. Several of Beethoven’s later compositions pay homage to Mozart’s work. In the third movement of Symphony No. 5 there is a theme based on Mozart’s music. Beethoven wrote four sets of variations on themes from Mozart’s works and in the Diabelli Variations, one of Beethoven’s last works, variation twenty-two uses a theme from Don Giovanni. We can only imagine what a meeting of these two magnificent musicians would have been like. 

Mozart’s Elder Sister Nannerl 

Maria Anna Walburga Ignatia Mozart, known as Marianne and Nannerl, was Mozart’s older sister. She was born in Salzburg on July 30, 1751 and was the first child prodigy in the Mozart household. Leopold began teaching Nannerl harpsichord lesson at the age of seven. In their first few tours, Nannerl received top billing as the more talented of the two siblings. She was a fine harpsichordist and played the fortepiano as well. Quickly, however, Wolfgang became the focus of the family. Although they were probably equal in talent, Nannerl was not allowed to continue pursuing a musical career because she was a girl. Her parents, as well as society at large, did not expect, nor approve of, music as a career for a woman. By the age of eighteen she was no longer allowed to travel to perform nor to even show any of her artistic talents outside of the family.  Most likely Nannerl not only performed but composed as well. In letters from Wolfgang to his sister, he praised her works; however, these works are never mentioned in letters with Leopold and none of her compositions survive. 

Unlike Wolfgang’s relationship with Leopold, which was filled with arguments and difficulties, Nannerl was obedient to her father for her entire life. She fell in love with Franz d’Ippold, a private tutor, but her father opposed the match and she turned down his marriage proposal. Wolfgang encouraged Nannerl to stand up for what she wanted, but she did not. Eventually she married a local magistrate, Johann Baptist Franz von Berchtold zu Sonnenburg and made a home with him in St. Gilgen, a village about eighteen miles from Salzburg. Her new husband had been widowed twice and had five children from his previous marriages. Nannerl stepped in to help raise these children; the couple later had three children of their own, one who died as an infant, a daughter who lived for sixteen years, and a son who survived to adulthood. 

Nannerl’s son, Leopold Alois Pantaleon, was born in July 1785. She had traveled to Salzburg to give birth to the baby there. After the baby was born, Nannerl returned home to St. Gilgen, leaving the infant Leopold in the care of her father and his servants. Although Leopold Sr. was only supposed to care for his grandson for the first few months, the situation continued indefinitely, with the doting grandfather delighting in the young Leopold’s progress and even beginning very early musical training. Nannerl saw her young son occasionally, but did not care for him herself until the death of her father in May 1787 ended the situation. Different reasons have been suggested for this strange arrangement. There is some indication that young Leopold was ill as an infant and needed more care than could be obtained in St. Gilgen, necessitating him being in Salzburg. Others claim that Nannerl was in ill health and that taking care of a newborn as well as her stepchildren would have been too much for her. While others guess that Leopold was hoping to create one more child prodigy in the Mozart family. 

Wolfgang and Nannerl had a very close relationship as children. Watching Nannerl at the keyboard was what drew Wolfgang to the instrument as well. They played games together and even invented a secret language for their invented “Kingdom of Back” where they were the king and queen. Several of Mozart’s early keyboard works were intended for Nannerl to perform. Up until 1785, he sent copies of all his piano concertos to Nannerl in St. Gilgen. Their relationship as adults is more complex and there are various theories about it. Some scholars believe that the two remained close their entire lives; others believe they had very little to do with each other. Maynard Solomon, one of the best-known biographers of Mozart, states that Wolfgang and Nannerl never saw each other again after 1783, when Mozart brought his new wife home to Salzburg to meet his family. They never met each other’s children and their correspondence ended in 1788. It is difficult to understand how such a close relationship, from most accounts, became so distant. However, unlike today when we have a multitude of ways to connect, letters would have been the primary form of communication and with busy lives, it is understandable if letters became less frequent. Also the distance from St. Gilgen to Vienna is 177 miles, a trip of several days. These reasons do make the change in their relationship understandable, but it is sad that such a close connection changed so drastically. 

After the death of her husband in 1801 Nannerl moved back to Salzburg with her two children and four of her stepchildren. She worked as a music teacher to help support her family. In 1820 Nannerl met with Constanze, Wolfgang’s widow, and her new husband, Georg Nikolaus von Nissen. The meeting apparently went well since later on Nannerl gave Constanze a collection of family letters to facilitate the writing of a biography of Wolfgang. The next year, Nannerl met her nephew, Franz Xaver who had come to Salzburg to conduct a performance of the Requiem in honor of his recently deceased stepfather. Nannerl suffered from ill health in the last years of her life, losing her sight in 1825. She had lived a very frugal life and left behind a fortune of 7,837 gulden (about $1,097,180 in today’s dollars) when she died at age 78 in 1829. 

There seem to be no records about whom Nannerl might have met during her lifetime. While traveling and performing as a young girl, she doubtlessly met the same composers that her brother did. She was an amazing performer; in a diary entry in 1764, Count Karl von Zinzendorf wrote, “The little child from Salzburg and his sister played the harpsichord. The poor little fellow plays marvelously. He is a child of spirit, lively, charming. His sister’s playing is masterly, and he applauded her.” Most likely she transcribed her brother’s first compositions. It makes us wonder what her musical legacy would have been if she had been allowed to continue performing and composing after the age of eighteen.