Mozart: A Life in Letters: A Life in Letters (80 page)

2.
Giuseppe Maria Gavard des Pivets, administrator general in Florence; Maddalena Morelli-Fernandez Corilla (1727–1800), poet. Linley and Mozart had performed at their houses in Florence.

1.
Giuseppe Prinsechi was a local merchant.

2.
The antiphon composed by Mozart on this occasion was K86,
Quaerite primum regnum Dei
. It is possible that Martini helped Mozart with the test piece: Wolfgang’s autograph is bound with a version by Martini that is nevertheless attributed to Mozart. A second copy, by Leopold and dated 10 October, also transmits Martini’s version.

3.
‘We testify that Master Wolfgang Amadeus etc. was enrolled among the Master Composers of our Academy on the 9th day of the month of October 1770.’

4.
Academy of Bologna.

5.
For
Mitridate, re di Ponto
.

6.
Maria Martha Hagenauer (1751–70), daughter of Lorenz Hagenauer and his wife.

1.
The singer was Antonia Bernasconi. Mozart’s ‘enemy’ may have been the composer Quirino Gasparini (1721–78), Kapellmeister at Turin 1760–70, who had set the same text, based on a translation of a play by the French dramatist Jean Racine (1639–99), in 1767. In the event, the
primo uomo
, Guglielmo d’Ettore (
c
. 1740–71), sang Gasparini’s version of the aria ‘Vado incontro al fato estremo’ instead of Mozart’s.

2.
Giovanni Battista Lampugnani (1708–88), harpsichordist at the Teatro Regio Ducal from 1758, rehearsed the singers for the performance of
Mitridate
.

3.
Leopold later explained (in a letter of 17 November, not included here) that the second ‘storm’ involved d’Ettore, who demanded at least four rewrites of the aria ‘Se di lauri il crine adorno’, two of ‘Vado incontro al fato estremo’ (neither of which he eventually sang) and two of the recitative ‘Respira alfin’.

4.
Georg Anton Kreusser (1746–1810), violinist and brother of Johann Adam Kreusser (1732–91), also a violinist in Amsterdam.

1.
Ballroom.

2.
Giovanni Andrea Fioroni (1715/16–78), Giovanni Battista Sammartini (1701–75), Gaetano Piazza and Giovanni Colombo, all active at various Milanese churches.

3.
The first,
Armida abbandonata
, premiered on 30 May 1770 at the Teatro San Carlo (see letter 27), the second,
Demofoonte
, on 4 November 1770.

4.
Mozart was to conduct the performances of his opera from the harpsichord.

5.
The overture to
Demofoonte
by Josef Myslivecek (1737–81), Czech opera composer active in Italy.

1.
‘Encore’… ‘Long live the maestro, long live the little maestro’… ‘at the end’.

2.
‘Se viver non degg’io’ for Aspasia and Sifare, in act 2, scene 15.

3.
Hasse’s name means ‘the Saxon’; composer Baldassare Galuppi (1706–85) is called ‘the man from Burano’ (after his birthplace); Mozart’s name means ‘Signor Knight of the Philharmonic Academy’.

1.
Nitteti
by Carlo Monza (
c
. 1735–1801), first given at the Teatro Regio Ducal on 21 January 1771.

2.
‘in the stars!’, i.e. heavenly.

3.
Melchiorre Chiesa (
fl
. 1758–99), from 1762
maestro di cappella
of S. Maria della Scala, Milan.

4.
On 2 January 1771 the
Gazzetta di Milano
reported that ‘On Wednesday last the Teatro Regio Ducal reopened with the performance of the drama entitled
Mitridate, Re di Ponto
, which has proved to the public’s satisfaction as much for the tasteful stage designs as for the excellence of the Music and the ability of the Actors. Some of the arias sung by Signora Antonia Bernasconi vividly express the passions and touch the heart. The young
Maestro di Cappella
, who has not yet reached the age of fifteen, studies the beauty of nature and exhibits it adorned with the rarest Musical graces.’ See Deutsch,
Documentary Biography
, 130–1.

1.
Ruggiero, ovvero L’eroica gratitudine
, also composed to celebrate the wedding of Archduke Ferdinand.

2.
Giovanni Manzuoli, who sang the title role in
Ascanio in Alba;
Giuseppe Luigi Tibaldi (1729-
c
. 1790), tenor.

3.
The Mozarts had met the glass harmonica virtuoso Marianne Davies (1744-1819) in London; her sister, the soprano Cecilia Davies (
c
. 1756-1836), was a pupil of Hasse and sang in
Ruggiero
when it was performed at Naples in January 1772.

4.
Dysentery.

1.
The Grenser firm of instrument builders had been founded in 1744 by Carl Augustin Grenser (1720-1807).

2.
i.e. the new prince-archbishop of Salzburg.

3.
This was to be
Lucio Silla
K135.

4.
On 17 August 1771, Leopold had come an agreement with the impresario Michele dall’Agata for a Venetian opera, but for unknown reasons the work was never composed.

5.
The sonatas are probably K6-7, K8-9, K10-15 and K26-31; the portrait may be a copy of the 1764 engraving by Jean-Baptiste Delafosse (1721-75), based on the watercolour by Louis de Carmontelle (1717-1806), of Wolfgang, Nannerl and Leopold Mozart performing.

1
. d’Asti, i.e. Francisco Aste d’Asteburg.

2.
28 October.

3.
These may have included
La locanda
by Giuseppe Gazzaniga (1743–1818) and
La sposa fedele
by Pietro Guglielmi (1728–1804).

1.
Venanzio Rauzzini (1746-1810), soprano castrato. Rauzzini was engaged at Munich from 1766 and sang the role of Celio in the first performance of
Lucio Silla
.

2.
Ignaz Joseph Hagenauer.

3.
Heinrich Wilhelm von Heffner (?–1774), Salzburg court councillor.

1.
Cordoni, who was to sing in the opera, took ill and was replaced by Bassano Morgnoni.

2.
Anna Lucia de Amicis sang the role of Giunia in
Lucio Silla
.

1.
Maria Anna Mozart’s letters to her husband are lost, so many references in Leopold’s letters to her (such as the ‘obstacles’ mentioned here) are obscure.

2.
Archbishop Hieronymus Colloredo. Laxenburg was the imperial summer residence, south of Vienna.

3.
Court chancellor Franz Felix Anton von Mölk.

4.
Franziska Oesterling, the daughter of an army captain from Baden. She was a patient of Dr Franz Anton Mesmer (1734-1815) and had lived in his house since 1772. Mesmer, who had known the Mozarts since their visit to Vienna in 1768, was famous for treating his patients with magnets and hypnotism, hence the term ‘mesmerism’. He is parodied in Mozart’s
Così fan tutte
(1790).

5.
Gottlieb Friedrich Fischer was an engraver in Vienna.

6.
Joseph Mesmer, son of Joseph Conrad Mesmer (1735-1804) and a second cousin of Dr Franz Anton Mesmer.

7.
Joseph Leopold von Auenbrugger (1722-1809) was a doctor at the Holy Trinity Hospital in Vienna. The reference to his daughter is unexplained.

8.
7 August.

9.
Matthäus Teyber, see List.

10.
K66, written in 1769. St Ignatius’ feast day is 8 August.

11.
K185, composed for the Mozarts’ Salzburg friend Judas Thaddäus von Antretter (1753-?) on the occasion of his graduation.

12.
A jumble of Latin, French, German and Italian, meaning ‘Today we met Herr Edlenbach in the street. He gave us your best wishes and asked to be remembered to you and your mother. Farewell.’

1.
Dr Franz Joseph Niderl von Aichegg.

2.
Georg Joseph Robinig von Rottenfeld, who had died in 1760.

3.
Joseph II had begun the process of confiscating Jesuit property in Vienna following the suppression of the Jesuit Order by Pope Clement XIV in July.

4.
The painter Maria Rosa Barducci (
c
. 1744-86) was the wife of Johann Baptist Hagenauer, the court sculptor; she had painted a portrait of Mozart’s mother (see letters 105 and 110).

5.
Johann Anton Niderl von Aichegg (?–1774) was the regional apothecary in Salzburg, but nothing is known about this case.

6.
The wife of Franz Friedrich von Heffner.

1.
Johann Nepomuk Sebastian Pernat (1734-94), canon of Munich cathedral; from 1775 he was spiritual councillor to the court of Elector Maximilian III Joseph of Bavaria. Maximilian Klement von Belval (?–1795) was a military official in Munich.

2.
Nannerl was to come to Munich for the premiere of
La finta giardiniera
.

3.
Dance hall.

4.
Leopold’s Litany is his last known work in the genre, composed in 1762; Mozart’s is K125 of March 1772.

1.
Joseph Gottfried, Count von Saurau (1720-75), cathedral dean in Salzburg.

2.
Leopold had arranged for Nannerl to travel to Munich with Joseph Franz Xaver Gschwendtner.

3.
That is, the Marienplatz in Munich.

1.
Maria Anna Sophie, wife of Elector Maximilian III Joseph; Maria Antonia Walpurgis (1724-80), sister of Maximilian III Joseph and widow of Elector Friedrich Christian of Saxony (1722-1763).

2.
Ferdinand Christoph, Count Waldburg-Zeil (1719-86), bishop of Chiemsee in Bavaria and a member of the Munich court, had formerly been dean of Salzburg cathedral.

3.
Here Mozart refers obliquely to the sense of confinement that he felt in Salzburg.

4.
The Mozarts’ fox terrier.

1.
Archbishop Colloredo had arrived in Munich on 13 January 1775.

2.
Charles VII (1697-1745), father of Elector Maximilian III Joseph, was Holy Roman Emperor (1742-5), during the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-48).

3.
Franz Joseph Albert (1728-89), landlord of the Black Eagle in Munich.

4.
Maria Cäcilia Barbara Eberlin (1728-1806), eldest daughter of the former Salzburg Kapellmeister and composer Johann Ernst Eberlin (1702-62).

5.
Maria Anna Raab (?–1788), owner of the Tanzmeisterhaus on the Makartplatz, Salzburg, where the Mozarts’ had rented lodgings since the late autumn of 1773. In the Mozart family letters, she is frequently referred to as ‘Mitzerl’.

1.
Siegmund von Antretter (1761-1800), Bavarian cadet.

2.
Wolf Joseph Ludwig, Count Überacker (1743-1819), court councillor.

3.
Official title of Leopold, Count Lodron (1719-84).

4.
Up to this time, Wolfgang had composed four
missae breves:
K49 (1768), K65 (1769), K192 (1774) and K194 (1774); it is likely that the mass performed in Munich was one of the more recent ones, K192 or K194.

5.
Domenico Fischietti (?1725–1810), formerly chief Kapellmeister at Dresden, active in Salzburg from 1772.

1.
Although signed by Mozart, this letter, entirely in Italian, is in Leopold’s hand and was presumably composed by him too.

2.
K222.

3.
Shortly after his election as archbishop, Colloredo instituted a number of modernizing reforms, including a shortening of the mass. Mozart’s (or his father’s) characterization is slightly disingenuous however: for some important feasts and occasions, especially those celebrated by the archbishop himself, the length of masses in Salzburg was not restricted.

1.
This petition does not survive.

2.
In April 1777, Joseph II (travelling incognito as Count Falkenstein) had visited Paris on a diplomatic mission to save the marriage of his sister Marie Antoinette (1755-93) and the dauphin; on 31 July, on the return journey to Vienna, he stopped briefly in Salzburg.