Mozart: A Life in Letters: A Life in Letters (6 page)

Mozart

My wife is utterly enchanted by the countryside in Württemberg.

[
On the inside of the envelope
]

Tell Herr Wenzel that I have heard a certain Nardini
⁸
and that one cannot hear a finer player in terms of beauty, purity, evenness of tone and taste in cantabilitaà. But he plays rather lightly. Herr Wotschitka
⁹
is still in service in Stuttgart but is hardly to be commended for his childish behaviour: in Augsb. the choirmaster of St Moritz’s, Herr Schue, showed me a letter from Herr Meissner
¹⁰
in which he signs
himself
Capello Magister
. I explained to him that he was a Magister of singing in order to excuse his childishness.

[
On the outside of the envelope
]

We are now all well, thank God.

From Ludwigsburg the Mozart family travelled to Schwetzingen, the summer residence of Elector Karl Theodor of the Palatinate, and from there to Mannheim, Worms and Mainz.

Monsieur
,

You’ll no doubt have received my letters from
Ludwigsburg
and
Schwetzingen
. In the first I said that you should reply to Mannheim, but in the second I said you should reply to Frankfurt. We’d earlier driven from Schwetzingen to Heidelberg to see the castle and the great cask.
¹
Heidelberg is very like Salzburg, that is, in its situation: and the fallen-in doors and walls of the castle, which are an astonishing sight, show the sad fruits of the recent French wars.
²
In the church of the Holy Ghost, which is known to historians for the struggle between the Catholics and the Calvinists and which is the reason why the electors transferred their residence to Mannheim,
³
our Wolfgang played the organ so admirably that on the orders of the town dean
his name, with all the particulars, was inscribed on it in perpetual memory of the occasion.

From Schwetzingen, where we received a gift of 15 louis d’or, we travelled via Worms to Mainz. We spent 3 days in Mannheim, where we were freely shown everything worth seeing. We were also paid for at the Prince Frederick by a French colonel who has served all his life in India. If I were to tell you all the strange things that this colonel has brought back with him from these countries, it would fill whole sheets of paper. Amongst other things I’ve seen a dress made from paper, a dress made from wood and also one in stucco. But you can’t tell what it’s made from until you tear off a little piece. He gave Nannerl a little ring that may be worth slightly more than a louis d’or and to Wolfgang he presented a delightful toothpick case. The
city of Mannheim
is uncommonly attractive on account of its regularity; but the houses have only one storey and so it looked like a city in miniature. Conversely, the rooms immediately next to the entrance to the houses are uncommonly attractive, and one finds the most elegant lodgings even under the roof. At the end of each street you see 4 main roads intersecting, each completely identical to the other. And on both sides of the streets, between the carriageway in the middle and the gutters at the side, there are painted posts on which lanterns stand at dead of night. As you can well imagine, there is no more beautiful sight than a view lit in this way, especially in the 4 main streets, where you can see, for example, from the castle or residence as far as the Neckar Gate etc.

Worms
is an old-fashioned town much blighted by the old French wars. But the cathedral is remarkable for its old associations, and the Lutheran church even more so, for it was here that Luther appeared before the Council.
⁴
For our evening meal in Worms we dined with Baron Dalberg. This family is so old that it has on display a letter on some rolled-up material, like tree bark, on which a Herr Dalberg reports the news that a carpenter’s son who claimed to be the Messiah had been condemned to be crucified.
Credibile est veteres, latro ceu
praesul et hospes
,
⁵
says the Bible of the lowest form at grammar school. If you want to try a really bad road, you should drive from Worms to Oppenheim. In Oppenheim you’ll also see the saddest remains of the old French wars. From Oppenheim to Mainz it is utterly delightful: on one side you’re right next to the Rhine, and to your left are fields, villages, gardens and vineyards. The centre of
Mainz
is very built-up, the houses close together; it’s better in the so-called Bleiche and on the Tiermarkt.

NB: In Mainz I met Count Schönborn, who got married here,
⁶
also Count Ostein and his major-domo Krell, and Count Bassenheim, too. I was with them all. The Walderdorffs are in Koblenz.

From Mainz the Mozarts travelled to Frankfurt (where the children gave five concerts) and then on to Koblenz (where they gave a concert on 21 October), Cologne, Aachen and Brussels. Here they gave a concert on 7 November, attended by Prince Karl Alexander of Lorraine, governor general of the Netherlands and brother of Emperor Francis I. They arrived in Paris on 18 November and not long afterwards made a visit to the palace of Versailles.

You may read the present letter and prepare a summary of it, then seal this summary and hand it with my most humble respects and New Year greetings to our Father Confessor or else get him to seal it himself. Madame de Pompadour is still an attractive woman, she’s
very like the late Frau Stainer née Theresia Freysauff. Also something of the appearance of the Holy Roman Empress, especially in the eyes.
¹
She is very haughty and still in total command. – – Versailles is expensive: and we are extremely fortunate
that at present it is almost as warm as in summer
, otherwise we would be in difficulty as each log of wood costs 5 sous. Yesterday my boy received a gold snuffbox from Madame la Comtesse de Tessé,
²
and today my little girl got a small, transparent snuffbox inlaid with gold from Princess Carignan and Wolfg. a silver pocket writing case with silver pens to compose, it is so small and delightfully made that it is impossible to describe it. Almost everyone here is madly in love with my children: but the aftermath of the last war
³
can be seen and noticed wherever you look. It’s impossible to commit to paper everything I’d like to. Wish all my good friends a Happy New Year from us all. I’d like to write to everyone if only I had time and if every letter didn’t cost 20 or 30 sous; if I’d written a longer letter to His Grace
⁴
I’d certainly have had to pay 5 livres for it, for they charge according to weight and size or else according to shape. Did you reply to any of my letters? Perhaps I’ll find your answer when we get back to our hotel in Paris. Farewell,
à Dieu
!

Together with my wife and children, I send you our kind regards and wish you, your wife and all your family a happy New Year. We are all well, thank God. You should see Wolfg. in his black suit and French hat.

Madame!

One shouldn’t always write to men but should also remember the fair and devout sex. Whether the women in Paris are fair, I can’t say, and for good reason; for they are painted so unnaturally, like the dolls of Berchtesgaden,
¹
that thanks to this revolting affectation even a naturally beautiful woman becomes unbearable in the eyes of an honest German. As for devotion, I can assure you that it’s not difficult to fathom the miracles wrought by France’s female saints; the greatest miracles are those performed by women who are neither virgins nor wives nor widows; and these miracles all take place in their lifetime. We shall speak more fully on this matter in due course. Enough! It’s difficult to work out here who is the lady of the house. Everyone lives as he or she likes, and if God is not exceptionally merciful, the French state will suffer the same fate as the former Persian Empire.

Your husband’s two letters of 26 Dec. and 19 Jan. have arrived safely, together with their 3 enclosures.
²
The most important and, to you, no doubt the most pleasant piece of news that I can give you is
that, thankGod, we are all well
. By the same token I too always look forward eagerly to hearing that you are all well. I would assuredly have written to you since my last letter from Versailles if I had not kept hesitating while awaiting the outcome of our affair at Versailles and as a result being able to tell you about it. But here, even more than at other courts, everything proceeds at a snail’s pace, and since this matter has to be dealt with by the
Menu des plaisirs
,
³
we have to be patient. If the court’s liberality matches the pleasure that my children have given it, we should do very well. I should add that it is by no means the custom here to kiss their majesties’ hands or to trouble them with a petition or even to speak to them
au passage
, as
they call it, namely, when they are going to church through the gallery and royal apartments.

Nor is it usual to do homage to the king or to any other member of the royal family by a nod of the head or by bending the knee. Rather, you remain erect, without the slightest movement, and in such a position you are free to watch the king and his family pass right next to you. You can easily imagine, then, how impressed and amazed were these French people, who are so infatuated with the customs of their court, when the king’s daughters stopped stock still not only in their apartments but in the public gallery when they saw my children and approached them and not only let them kiss their hands but kissed them countless times in turn. The same thing happened with Madame Dauphine.
⁴
But the most extraordinary thing of all in the eyes of these French people was that at the grand
couvert
after nightfall on New Year’s Day, not only was it necessary to make room for us all to go up to high table, but my Herr Wolfgangus was privileged to stand next to the queen,
⁵
speaking to her constantly, entertaining her, repeatedly kissing her hands and consuming the dishes that she handed him from the table. The queen speaks German as well as we do, but as the king knows none, the queen translated everything our heroic Wolfg. said. I stood beside him: my wife and daughter stood on the other side of the king, where M. Dauphin and Mlle Adélaïde
⁶
were sitting. Now you must know that the king never dines in public, except on Sunday evenings when the whole royal family dines together. But not everyone is allowed in. However, if there’s a big festival like New Year’s Day, Easter, Whitsuntide, name days etc. it is called the great
couvert
, and all people of distinction are admitted: only there’s not much room, and so it soon fills up. We arrived late, so the Swiss Guards had to clear a passage for us, and we were taken through the hall into the room next to the royal table
– the room through which their majesties enter the hall. As they passed, they spoke to our Wolfg. and we then followed them to table.

You can’t possibly expect me to describe Versailles for you. I’ll say only this, that we arrived there on Christmas Eve and attended Matins and 3 Masses in the Chapel Royal. We were in the royal gallery when the king returned from seeing Madame Dauphine, whom he had just informed of the death of her brother, the elector of Saxony.
⁷
I heard good and bad music there. Everything that was intended to be sung by single voices and to resemble an aria was empty, cold and wretched – in a word, French, but the choruses are all good and even very good. So I have been to Mass in the Chapel Royal every day with my little man to hear the choir in the motet that is always performed there. The king’s Mass is at l o’clock. But if he goes hunting, his Mass is at 10 o’clock and the queen’s Mass at half past 12. More on all this in due course. Our 16 days in Versailles have cost us about 12 louis d’or. Perhaps you think this is too much and hard to understand? – – In Versailles there are no
carosses de remise
or fiacres
⁸
but only sedan chairs. Every journey costs 12 sous. You’ll soon see that some days the chairs cost us a laubthaler and more, as we always need 2, if not 3, chairs: and then the weather was always bad. If you add 4 new black suits,
⁹
you’ll not be surprised if our visit to Versailles comes to 26 or 27 louis d’or. Let’s see what we get from the court in return. Apart from what we hope to receive from the court, we’ve earned no more than 12 louis d’or in Versailles.
¹⁰
My Master Wolfgang has received a
gold snuffbox
from
Madame la Comtesse de Tessé
, together with a
gold watch
, which is valuable because it is so small and whose size I’m indicating here,