Mozart: A Life in Letters: A Life in Letters (79 page)

5.
Johann Georg Keyssler’s
Reisen durch Teutschland, Böhmen, Ungarn, die Schweiz, Italien und Lothringen
(‘Travels through Germany, Bohemia, Hungary, Switzerland, Italy and Lorraine’), Hanover, 1751.

6.
Michelangelo Locatelli and Francesco Maria Ragazzoni were local businessmen.

7.
Pietro Lugiati (1724–88) was a financial administrator in Milan. The portrait, possibly by Saverio dalla Rosa (1745–1821), who was related through his grandmother to Lugiati, contains the only known source for the keyboard piece K72a, which is clearly visible on the music stand of the instrument at which Wolfgang is seated; the portrait is reproduced in Deutsch,
Bildern
, 11.

8.
Bernhard Christoph Breitkopf (1695–1777) or his son Johann Gottlob Immanuel Breitkopf (1719–94), publishers in Leipzig; the books are Leopold Mozart’s
Gründliche Violinschule
. Rudolf Gräffer (1734–1817), publisher in Vienna, published Mozart’s early songs K52 and 53 in 1768.

9.
Joseph Wolff was a book dealer in Augsburg; in 1747 he opened a branch of his shop in Innsbruck. Mayr’s was Salzburg’s leading bookshop.

1.
Court official in Milan.

2.
A cousin of the Salzburg Arcos.

3.
Sartoretti’s poem reads, in part: ‘See how his fingers move,/Hear with what art/He makes the keys respond/In ev’ry part;/How he to you imparts/All his accomplished arts./Europe has witnessed him,/Where, as a child,/Her ev’ry region/He newly beguiled./Woe! If to them he’s near,/Let not the Sirens hear.’ It is reproduced in Deutsch,
Documentary Biography
, 108–9.

4.
Gaetano Bettinelli (1729–94), mathematician.

5.
The article from the
Gazzetta di Mantova
for 19 January 1770 reads, in part: ‘Last Tuesday evening… the public Philharmonic Academy… was given before its time, in order opportunely to catch the incomparable boy Sig. Wolfango [
sic
] Amadeo Mozart, who is passing through here, with the express aim of letting this town admire the amazing talent and extraordinary mastery which he already possesses in music at the age of 13. To write at a desk (as the best masters do) in as many parts as you wish, concertato or obbligato, vocal and instrumental, is so easy for him that he can do it just as well at the harpsichord, even extempore. On the evening here mentioned, apart from opening and closing symphonies of his composition, he performed… concertos and sonatas for harpsichord, extemporized with most judicious variations, and with the repetition of a sonata in another key. He sang a whole aria extempore, on new words never before seen by him, adding the proper accompaniments. He improvised two sonatas on two themes successively given him on the violin by the leader of the orchestra, elegantly linking them both together the second time. He accompanied a whole symphony with all the parts from a single violin part submitted to him on the spot. And what is most to be esteemed, he composed and at the same time extemporaneously performed a fugue on a simple theme given him, which he brought to such a masterly harmonic interweaving of all the parts and so bold a resolution as to leave the hearers astounded; and all these performances were on the harpsichord. Finally he also played marvellously well the violin part in a Trio by a famous composer.’ See Deutsch,
Documentary Biography
, 107.

6.
Maria Theresa; Lombardy, which included Milan and Mantua, was ruled by Austria.

7.
‘half-board’.

8.
Karl Joseph, Count Firmian, governor general of Lombardy and a member of the Firmian family of Salzburg, see List.

9.
Either Ercole III Rainaldo d’Este (1727–1803), or his father Francesco III (1698–1780).

10.
In the event, they did not visit Turin until January 1771.

1.
Probably Joseph von Mölk (1756–1827), son of the court chancellor Franz Felix Anton von Mölk (1715–76), whose daughter Anna Barbara (1752–1823) was a close friend of Nannerl’s. Mozart appears to be teasing his sister about the boy’s adolescent crush on her.

2.
Christian Fürchtegott Gellert (1715–69) was one of Leopold’s favourite poets. Wolfgang’s pun on his name – he writes Gellert as Gelehrt, that is, ‘learned’ – may be good-natured or it may be an adolescent dismissal of parental authority.

3.
‘You are not unhappy: you can explain your sadness; and if you do not awaken love, you at least find pity. I am truly sad that I love in secret toils, I have no hope and I say nothing, and my beloved does not know,’ from act 1, scene 4 of Hasse’s setting of
Demetrio
, which Mozart heard in Mantua. Mozart’s setting, K73A, is lost.

4.
There is a gap in Mozart’s letter here.

5.
Comic acrobat.

6.
Francesco Diana (1717–?), known as Spagnoletto.

7.
By the Neapolitan composer Michelangelo Valentini (
c
. 1720–after 1768) to a text by Metastasio (see
Briefe
v. 227–8). Mozart set Metastasio’s text, in a version by Caterino Mazzolà, in 1791 (K621).

8.
Giuseppe Cicognani later sang the role of Farnace at the first performance of Mozart’s
Mitridate, re di Ponto
in Milan in December 1770.

9.
‘I don’t know’.

10.
Giuseppe Aprile (1731–1813), castrato; Clementine Piccinelli (active in Paris 1761–6 and in Italy thereafter) had performed at Mozart’s concert in Paris on 9 April 1764; Carlo de Picq (1749–1806) later danced in the ballet performed with Mozart’s
Lucio Silla
at Milan in December 1772.

11.
Two new productions of the opera were mounted in Italy in 1770, by Niccolö Piccinni at Rome on 8 January, and by Giacomo Insanguine (1728–95) at Naples, but it is likely that the Milanese
Didone
was a revival of an earlier setting, of which there were many.

12.
Mozart has made up this title for himself.

1.
The concert was held on 12 March 1770 at the Palazzo Melzi and probably included some or all of
Misero tu non sei
K73A (see letter 22),
Misero me! – Misero pargoletto
K77 and
Fra cento affanni
K88.

2.
Duke of Modena, see letter 21, n. 9; Maria Beatrice Ricciarda d’Este (1750–1829); Archbishop Pozzonbonelli (1696–1783).

3.
Mitridate, re di Ponto
, premiered at the Teatro Regio Ducal, Milan, on 26 December 1770.

4.
Loreto, near Ancona in the Marche, was a popular place of pilgrimage.

5.
One such letter, written on 14 March 1770 to Count Giovanni Luca Pallavicini at Bologna, stated: ‘Your Excellency, seeing that Sig. Leopoldo Mozart, Chapel Master in the service of the Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg, and with him his son, is making his way to your city, I take the liberty of recommending them warmly to Your Excellency, moved by the assurance I have of your well-known generosity and kindness, and by the thought that perhaps you will not be displeased to find in young Mozart one of those musical talents but rarely produced by nature, inasmuch that at his tender age he not only equals the Masters of the art, but even exceeds them, I believe, in readiness of invention. I hope therefore that Your Excellency will be pleased to honour them with your protection during their stay there and to find them means of appearing in public, as I also urgently beg you will help them in the matter of their prudent and most advantageous conduct.’ See Deutsch,
Documentary Biography
, 110–11.

6.
Franz Lactanz, Count Firmian, see List.

1.
Giovanni Luca, Count Pallavicini-Centurioni (1697–1773); Mozart performed at the Palazzo Pallavicini on 26 March. The cardinal was Antonio Colonna-Branciforte (1728–86).

2.
Giovanni Battista Martini (1706–84), music theorist and historian. Mozart’s puzzle canons K73r and canonic studies K73x are based on models taken from volumes 1 and 2 of Martini’s
Storia della musica
(Bologna, 1757).

3.
Carlo Broschi (1705–82), castrato, who took the name of Farinelli; he was one of the most renowned singers of his day and performed throughout Europe before settling in Bologna in 1759.

4.
Clementina Spagnoli (
c
. 1735–after 1788), soprano; Catarina Gabrielli (1730–96), soprano.

5.
Giuseppe Francesco Lolli (1701–78) was deputy Kapellmeister at Salzburg 1752– 63, Kapellmeister 1763–78; Johann Baptist Hagenauer (1732–1810), a member of the extended Hagenauer family, was court
statuarius
(sculptor) in Salzburg.

6.
To the publisher Breitkopf.

7.
Probably K122.

8.
A macaronic combination of German vocabulary and Latin inflections, meaning, ‘There will be a convenient time for writing. Now my head is always full of many thoughts.’

9.
A medicinal syrup made from the coltsfoot plant.

10.
For the Salzburg Haffner family and their business contacts, see List.

1.
The famous
Miserere
by the Italian baroque composer Gregorio Allegri (1582–1652) was traditionally sung in the Sistine Chapel on the Wednesday of Holy Week and Good Friday.

2.
Clement XIV (1705–74), elected pope in 1769.

3.
Lazaro Opizio Pallavicini (1719–85), a distant relative of Giovanni Luca, Count Pallavicini-Centurioni.

4.
‘I too can speak a little German.’

5.
‘So that we shall not incur the Church’s censure, now or later.’

6.
He was the postmaster at Rome.

7.
Probably K123.

8.
Dancing master at the Salzburg court.

1.
Lugiati had commissioned Mozart’s portrait in Verona, see letter 20.

2.
Unidentified.

3.
Also unidentified.

1.
Bernardo, Marchese Tanucci (1688–1783), Neapolitan prime minister.

2.
Sir William Hamilton (1730–1803), diplomat and art collector, was the English ambassador to Naples from 1764–1800; his first wife Catherine (née Barlow) died in 1782, and in 1791 he married Emma Hart, the later mistress of Admiral Horatio Nelson.

3.
Burkat Tschudi (1702–73), instrument maker in London. Mozart had played on one of his harpsichords in London in July 1765. He has no apparent connection with the Baron Tschudi mentioned below.

4.
Ignaz Joseph, Count Spaur (1729–79), canon of Salzburg cathedral. He became bishop of Brixen in 1778.

5.
Jean-Georges Meuricoffre (1750–1806), banker; he had met the Mozarts in Lyons in summer 1766.

6.
Maria Anna (née Fesemayr), wife of the Salzburg organist Anton Cajetan Adlgasser.

7.
Anna Lucia de Amicis (
c
. 1733–1816), soprano.

8.
This article has not been found.

9.
These portraits appear not to have survived.

10.
Ernst Christoph, Count Kaunitz-Rietberg (1737–97), eldest son of Prince Kaunitz.

11.
Michael Haydn, composer, see List; his twelfth minuet (below) is unidentified.

12.
Armida abbandonata.

13.
Ferdinand IV (1751–1825), king of Naples, and his wife, Maria Carolina (1752–1814), sixth daughter of Maria Theresa; she had married Ferdinand in 1768 instead of her sister Josepha (see letter 14, n. 3).

14.
Pasquale Cafaro (1715/16–87),
Antigono
; Francesco de Majo (1732–70),
Eumene.

15.
The summer residence of the archbishop of Salzburg.

1.
About 3 km.

2.
Count Pallavicini-Centurioni, his second wife, Maria Caterina Fava, and their son, Giuseppe Maria (1756–73).

3.
In a letter of 30 June 1770 Leopold reported to his wife that he had sustained a leg injury while travelling in a coach.

4.
26 July.

1.
After returning to England, Linley died prematurely in a boating accident in 1778.