Mozart: A Life in Letters: A Life in Letters (77 page)

1.
‘Man proposes, God disposes.’

2.
Pressburg, modern Bratislava, was at that time the capital of Hungary.

3.
The river March (Morava in Czech) enters the Danube about 5 km west of Bratislava.

4.
Field Marshal Leopold Josef von Daun (1705-66) was Austria’s most successful general in the Seven Years’ War (1756-63).

5.
In the event, the Mozarts did arrive back in Salzburg on this date.

6.
Ferdinand Joseph Mayr (1733-92), Father Confessor to the archbishop of Salzburg.

7.
The Robinig family, Salzburg friends of the Mozarts, included Georg Joseph Robinig von Rottenfeld (1710-60) and his wife Maria Viktoria Aniser (1716-83); they had three daughters (one of whom is the Fräulein Joseph a referred to here) and a son, Georg Siegmund (1760-1823). Mozart’s divertimento K334 (1779 or 1780) may have been written for Siegmund on completion of his legal studies at Salzburg.

1.
The elector of Bavaria’s summer residence, to the west of the city.

2.
Friedrich Michael von Birkenfeld-Zweibrücken-Rappolstein, Count Palatine (1724-67).

3.
Elector Maximilian III Joseph of Bavaria (1727-77).

4.
The country seat built for Elector Maximilian II Emanuel (1662-1726) between 1718 and 1721.

5.
Clemens Franz de Paula (1722-70) of Bavaria, cousin of the elector.

6.
Luigi Tomasini (1741-1808), violinist and pupil of Leopold Mozart.

7.
Probably either Wenzel Hebelt or Wenzel Sadlo, both Salzburg court violinists.

8.
See Note on Currencies, p. xx.

9.
Meaning obscure.

10.
Engelbert König, a prominent businessman from Hamburg; Johann Heinrich Stürzer (1699-1768) was the owner of the Golden Deer inn in Munich, where the Mozarts were staying.

11.
Friedrich Karl, Baron von Bose (1751-?) and Georg Wilhelm von Hopfgarten (1740–after 1806) were both councillors to the court of Saxony at Dresden.

12.
Karl Theodor (1724-99), Elector of the Palatinate from 1742 (and of Bavaria from 1778), whose court was at Mannheim.

1.
Here Leopold refers to the deep-rooted and long-standing social tensions between Lutherans and Catholics in Augsburg, which was a free (i.e. self-governing) city within the Holy Roman Empire; as a native of Augsburg and a Catholic with many Lutheran friends, it was a situation to which he was acutely attuned.

2.
Karl II Eugen, Duke of Württemberg (1728-93).

3.
Nicoloò Jommelli (1714-74), Italian-born composer, Kapellmeister to the duke of Württemberg 1753-68.

4.
Anton Willibald, Count Waldburg zu Wolfegg und Waldersee (1729-1821), canon of Salzburg cathedral from 1762 and president of the exchequer to Archbishop Colloredo.

5.
At this time, royalty and noble patrons across Europe normally rewarded visiting musicians to their court with gifts of money or valuable objects such as watches and snuffboxes.

6.
‘Laugh, friends!’

7.
Fop or dandy.

8.
Pietro Nardini (1722-93), Italian composer and accomplished violinist.

9.
Ignaz Joseph Heinrich Wotschitka (b. 1732), violoncellist.

10.
Joseph Nikolaus Meissner (
c
. 1724–95), bass singer in Salzburg.

1.
A giant wine cask, first mentioned in the sixteenth century, still stands inside Heidelberg castle.

2.
Louis XIV of France invaded the Palatinate in 1688-9, during the War of the League of Augsburg (1688-97), when his armies caused widespread destruction. Although Leopold describes the wars as ‘recent’ here, later in this letter he calls them ‘the old French wars’.

3.
This was in 1709.

4.
The imperial council known as the Diet of Worms was summoned by the Emperor Charles V to hear charges of heresy against Martin Luther (1483-1546) in 1521.

5.
‘The ancients say all manner of things that are more or less believable.’

6.
Hugo Damian, Count Schönborn (1738–1817) had married Maria Anna, Countess Stadion und Thannhausen (1746–1817) earlier that year.

1.
Jeanne Antoinette Poisson, Marquise de Pompadour (1721–64), mistress of King Louis XV (1710–74), was famed for her beauty, grace and wit. Maria Theresia Freysauff von Neudegg (1712–57) was the wife of a Salzburg businessman. The empress is Maria Theresa.

2.
Adrienne-Catherine, Comtesse de Tessé (1741–1814) was lady-in-waiting to the dauphine.

3.
Here Leopold refers to the Seven Years’ War (1756–63) between France, Spain and Britain.

4.
Archbishop Siegmund von Schrattenbach of Salzburg, see List.

1.
Wooden marionettes were a speciality of the town of Berchtesgaden in southern Bavaria.

2.
Both letters, as well as Hagenauer’s enclosures, are lost.

3.
An independent office in the French court administration.

4.
Maria Josepha of Saxony (1731–67), second wife of the dauphin and mother of Louis XVI (1754–93).

5.
Maria Leszczynska (1703–68), wife of Louis XV and daughter of the deposed King Stanislas I Leszczynski of Poland (1677–1766).

6.
Dauphin Louis Ferdinand (1729–65) and Princesse Adélaïde (1732–1800), eldest son and daughter of Louis XV.

7.
Friedrich Christian, Elector of Saxony (1722–63).

8.
Hired carriages.

9.
Presumably black suits were needed because the court was in mourning.

10.
Leopold seemingly expected his visit to Versailles to cost something over 200 florins, approximately his annual salary in Salzburg. However, for his appearances he eventually received a purse filled with 50 louis d’or, about 400 florins; see Note on Currencies.

11.
A type of lacquer, the speciality of the frères Martin.

12.
Maxglan was then a village outside the city; today it is a suburb of Salzburg.

13.
Tax farmers; private individuals to whom the French crown had contracted out the collection of taxes.

14.
See letter 6 and n. 1.

15.
Today the Elys´e palace.

16.
Harpsichord.

17.
Johann Schobert (
c
. 1735–67), composer resident in Paris from
c
. 1760; in 1767, Mozart adapted the first movement of his sonata op. 17 no. 2 as the second movement of the keyboard concerto K39. Johann Gottfried Eckard (1735–1809) was a German keyboard player and composer active in Paris from 1758; Leontzi Honauer (1737–90), keyboard; Johann Baptist Hochbrucker (1732–1812), harpist.

18.
The sonatas K6–7, published in Paris in early 1764, were dedicated to Louise-Marie-Thérèse (1733–99), Madame Victoire, the second daughter of Louis XV; K8–9, published at the same time, were dedicated to the Comtesse de Tessé.

19.
Although this movement is identified in
Briefe
v. 103 as the second movement of K7, the tempo marking there is adagio; it is more likely to be the unusual andante of K9.

20.
Countess van Eyck, wife of the Bavarian ambassador in Paris, was a member of the Arco family of Salzburg, see List; the Mozarts were staying at her house.

21.
Count Georg Anton Felix von Arco and his wife, Maria Josepha Viktoria, see List.

22.
Maria Anna Rosalia Walburga Joly (1726–88) was a Mozart family friend.

23.
Christophe de Beaumont, archbishop of Paris, had published
Apologies des Jésuites
, the work that caused so much offence, in 1763.

24.
Anton Cajetan Adlgasser, court and cathedral organist at Salzburg, see List; Franz Anton Spitzeder (1735–96), tenor active at the Salzburg court.

1.
Leopold seems to have travelled with his own supply of medicaments.

2.
The pilgrimage church of Maria Plain, near Salzburg, was built by Giovanni Antonio Dario in 1671–4. In 1774, Mozart played at celebrations for the church’s centenary. The Loreto church stands in what is now the Paris-Lodron-Strasse in Salzburg.

3.
Opus 1, K6–7; opus 2, K8–9; Mozart’s dedication to the Comtesse de Tessé is reproduced in Deutsch,
Documentary Biography
, 29.

4.
Administrator.

5.
Foot-Warmers.

1.
24 kreuzer.

2.
Prince Dmitri Alekseevich Galitzin, Russian ambassador in Paris 1763–8.

3.
King George III (1728–1820, succeeded 1760) had bought Buckingham House (later Buckingham Palace) on his marriage to Princess Charlotte Sophia of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (1744–1818) in 1761.

4.
Leopold’s letter to Archbishop Schrattenbach is apparently lost.

5.
The church of St Francis of Paula on the north slope of the Mönchsberg in Salzburg was abandoned in 1801. St John of Nepomuk and St Anthony are side altars in the Franciscan church in the street of that name, which was the Mozarts’ parish church.

6.
Tourton & Baur were bankers in the Place des Victoires, Paris.

7.
Georg Christoph Wagenseil (1715–77), keyboard instructor to the imperial court at Vienna; Johann Christian Bach (1735–82), youngest son of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750), composer and music master to Queen Charlotte from 1764; Carl Friedrich Abel (1723–87), German composer active in London; George Frideric Handel (1685–1759), German-born composer resident in England from 1710.

8.
‘at sight’.

9.
Joachim Kolb, an amateur violinist, was a member of a prominent Salzburg business family; Franz Anton Mathias Ränftl was also an amateur player.

1.
Vauxhall Gardens, on the south bank of the River Thames, became a fashionable resort for the court of Charles II in the seventeenth century and was remodelled as a pleasure garden by Jonathan Tyers in 1732. Ranelagh Gardens, on the north bank in Chelsea, was founded as a rival attraction in 1741 and for a time outdid Vauxhall in popularity.

2.
Lying-in hospital.

3.
‘for the public good’.

4.
Broderie perse
, or Persian embroidery, an appliqué technique popular in the eighteenth century.

5.
Joseph Zugseisen (
c
. 1728–92) was a tenor in the Salzburg court music establishment.

6.
It is odd, perhaps, that Leopold’s English acquaintances described the lightning rod as a Chinese invention. Benjamin Franklin had first experimented with lightning rods in 1752 and his discoveries were hotly debated in England during his time there – particularly among theologians. The first church lightning rod erected in London was at St Bride’s in 1762, some two years before the Mozart family’s arrival; a lightning rod was installed at St Paul’s in 1768.

1.
Prince Willem V of Orange (1748–1806) succeeded in 1751. He obtained his majority in March 1766 (see next letter).

2.
Horace Mann (1744–1814), nephew of Sir Horace Mann (1701–86), British minister at Florence, whom Mozart would later meet during his stay in Florence in 1770.

3.
Princess Caroline of Nassau-Weilburg (1743–87).

4.
Louise-Francçoise-Pauline, Duchesse de Montmorency-Luxembourg (1734–?); Emanuel, Prince de Croy, Meurs et Solre (1718–84), commander in Picardy, Calais and Boulogne.

5.
The recently signed Treaty of Paris between Britain, France and Spain had ended the Seven Years’ War (1756–63).

6.
The statesmen leading the peace negotiations: Étienne-François, Duc de Choiseul (1719–85) for the French; John Russell, 4th Duke of Bedford (1710–71) for the British.