Mozart: A Life in Letters: A Life in Letters (81 page)

1.
Decreed in the council chamber of Salzburg.

2.
Decreed as above.

1.
Physiognomy. The businessman was Johann von Grimmel (1738-94). 2. Georg von Unold auf Grünenfurt (1758-1828); his brother was Jakob (1755- 1809).

2.
Georg von Unold auf Grünenfurt (1758-1828); his brother was Jakob (1755-1809).

3.
‘We’re living like lords.’

4.
Presumably Mozart refers to the anonymous portrait of 1777 showing him aged twenty–one, wearing the Cross of the Golden Spur; see Deutsch,
Bildern
, 13.

5.
Hieronymus Colloredo.

6.
‘11 o’clock at night’.

7.
The certificates he received on his election to the musical academies at Bologna and Verona.

1.
Franz Joseph Johann Nepomuk Bullinger was a close family friend, see List.

2.
Target-shooting with airguns was among the Mozart family’s favourite pastimes, and is mentioned many times in Leopold’s letters to his wife and son.

3.
Rosalia Joly; she is often called Sallerl in the letters.

4.
Maria Anna Katharina (Katherl) Gilowsky, see List.

5.
Johann Christoph Glatz was a merchant in Augsburg. Wolfgang and his mother intended to go on there from Munich.

6.
Leopold’s brother Franz Alois Mozart (1727–1791) still lived in Augsburg. Leopold had important contacts at the Catholic church of the Holy Cross, dating back to his youth.

7.
Landlord of the Black Eagle in Munich; Leopold and Mozart had stayed at the Three Moors in Augsburg in 1763.

8.
The instrument builder Johann Andreas Stein (1728–92) was a long-standing friend of the Mozarts. He had last seen Wolfgang on his visit to Augsburg in 1763.

9.
Franz Bioley, cloth merchant, and Johann Conrad Fingerlin, manufacturer.

10.
The writer and theatre poet Johann Christoph Zabuesnig (1747–1827) had visited Salzburg in 1769 and written a poem in honour of Mozart. It reads, in part: ‘Here, where the Salza springs from gloomy rocks/And greets the open land with waters fair,/Cutting in two the happy land’s fair town,/Whose castle now with it the name can share,/A child, by Nature formed a work of art,/A wondrous boy one fortunate day was born,/Whose genius turned the fables of the past/To foolish stories, justly laughed to scorn./O child! by noble mind so lofty raised/That all too lowly writes my feeble pen,/If e’er thy merits can be duly praised,/Thy fame itself will be a poem then.’ See Deutsch,
Documentary Biography
, 86-7.

11.
Maria Anna Thekla Mozart, see List.

12.
The imperial councillor Jakob Wilhelm Benedikt Langenmantel von Westheim und Ottmarshausen (1719–90) was a childhood friend of Leopold Mozart. Both had studied at the Jesuit high school in Augsburg and in 1737 they travelled together to Salzburg, where they matriculated at the Benedictine University.

13.
Of the Order of the Golden Spur.

14.
Fr Anselm Hilber (1755–1827) was the son of Joseph Hilber, a violinist active in Salzburg from 1749.

15.
Johann Michael Demmler (1748–85). Mozart later recommended Demmler to succeed Adlgasser as court and cathedral organist in Salzburg; in the event, he gained the post himself.

16.
A small silver coin; see Note on Currencies.

17.
The ‘Antretter’ music is the serenade K185; the contredanses cannot be identified. The violinist Antonio Brunetti (
c
. 1744–86) was concert master in Salzburg; Mozart wrote the adagio K261 and the rondo K269 for him.

18.
The row was between Michael Haydn and Giacomo Rust (1741–86), Kapellmeister in Salzburg from 12 June 1777; at the end of the year he asked to be relieved of his post because the bad weather in Salzburg affected his health. Giuseppe Ferlendis (1755–1802) was an oboist active in the Salzburg court music establishment from 1775–8. The sonata is one of Wolfgang’s so-called epistle sonatas, one-movement instrumental works played between the reading of the Epistle and the Gospel during Mass; to this date, Mozart had written twelve such works: K67-69 (1771–2), 144, 145 (both 1774), 212 (1775), 241, 244, 245, 263 (all four 1776), 274 and 278 (both 1777).

1.
The castrato Tommaso Consoli (1753-after 1811) sang the roles of Ramiro in
La finta giardiniera
(Munich, 1775) and Aminta in
Il re pastore
(Salzburg, 1775).

2.
Joseph Anton, Count Seeau (1713-99), director of opera and drama at the Munich court.

3.
Johann Baptist Becke (1743-1817), flautist in the Munich court chapel, who was a family friend.

4.
Klemens Huber, actor and dramaturge active in Munich, 1776-9.

5.
Maria Anna Sophie.

6.
Johann Georg von Lori (1723-87), court councillor in Munich.

7.
Sigl was apparently a local piano teacher.

8.
‘without any money’.

9.
A comedy by Gustav Grossmann (1744-96) based on
Julie, ou La nouvelle Héloïse
(1761) by Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-78).

10.
Johann von Cröner (
c
. 1737–85) was a violinist.

11.
‘may God spare me them’.

12.
Eugen Franz Erwein, Count Schönborn (1727-1801), hereditary high steward of Austria; his second wife, Maria Theresia (1744-1828), was the sister of Archbishop Colloredo.

13.
‘Farewell, my treasure.’

1.
Joseph Thomas Cassel was a violinist, flautist and double bass player in the Salzburg court music establishment.

2.
Voltaire’s
Zaïre
(1732), performed in German with incidental music by Michael Haydn.

3.
Franz de Paula Gundacker, Count Colloredo (1731-1807) was the archbishop’s eldest brother.

4.
Silvester Barisani (1719-1810), physician to Archbishop Colloredo.

5.
Czech composer and music teacher Franz Xaver Duschek and his singer wife Josepha, see List.

6.
‘From the Most Exalted Prince’s (i.e. the archbishop’s) Decree.’ This decree is in reply to Leopold Mozart’s petition (now lost) to be reappointed as deputy Kapellmeister.

7.
Joachim Kolb.

8.
Antonio Ferrari, cellist; Franz de Paula Stadler (
c
. 1744-1827), tenor and violinist; Andreas Pinzger (1740-1817), violinist.

9.
The works cannot be identified.

10.
K272,
Ah, lo previdi – Ah, t’invola agl’ occhi miei
, composed in August 1777.A scena is an extended dramatic episode, often for solo singer.

11.
Franz Xaver Wotschitka (
c
. 1727-96), chamber virtuoso at Munich.

12.
Therese Pänkhlin (1738-?), the Mozarts’ maidservant.

13.
In the event, Mozart sent Nannerl four preludes, K395, on 11 October 1777.

1.
Joseph Ferdinand Maria, Count Salern (1718-1805) was Count Seeau’s predecessor as the director of opera and drama at Munich.

2.
Wife and daughter of Johann Georg von Branca (1714-89).

3.
The cassations are possibly K247 and K287. The identity of the rondeau is disputed – the serenade K250 has been proposed, but K251 is more likely.

4.
Benefit performance.

5.
Singspiel is the term for German-language opera, usually comic, with spoken dialogue.

6.
Margarethe Kaiser, active at Munich 1776-84.

7.
Giovanni Baptist Valesi (Johann Evangelist Wallishauser, 1735-1816), active at the Mannheim court during the 1770s; he sang the role of the High Priest of Neptune in the first performance of
Idomeneo
.

8.
Wilhelm Ernst Sigmund von Rumlingen (?–1825) was later music director of the German court opera in Munich.

9.
Mitridate, re di Ponto, Ascanio in Alba
and
Lucio Silla
.
Munich
, 3 Oct. 1777 To all good friends bad friends good friends bad friends all manner of messages!

10.
That is, Maria Aloisia Viktoria Robinig von Rottenfeld (1757-86). Aloisia von Schiedenhofen (1760-1831), below, was the sister of Johann Baptist von Schiedenhofen.

11.
Joseph Fiala (1748-1816), an oboist active at the Palatine court (first at Mannheim, later at Munich) from April 1777.

1.
Joseph Christian Willibald Michl (1745-1816), court composer at Munich.

2.
Clemens Wenzel, Prince of Saxony, archbishop-elector of Trier; Pietro Pompeo Sales (1729-97) was music director at Ehrenbreitstein, the palace of the archbishop- electors of Trier, near Koblenz.

3.
Aloisio Lodovico Fracassini (1733-98).

4.
Unidentified.

5.
Franz Lactanz, Count Firmian.

6.
Prince Franz Xaver von Breuner (1723-97), cathedral dean at Salzburg.

7.
Nannerl’s diary entries, which she included here, have been omitted.

1.
Joseph Konrad von Hamm von Sonnenfels (1728-95), secretary in the war department at Munich; his daughter was Maria Anna Joseph Aloysia (1765-?). It seems that Leopold was considering taking her as a boarding pupil, but this plan did not materialize, see letter 79.

2.
The Stube or Bauernstube was an inn across from the Augsburg city hall. In the preceding passage Mozart mentions a number of Leopold’s Augsburg contacts, including the instrument builder Johann Stein (see letter 52); Friedrich Hartmann Graf (1727-95) was music director in Augsburg and the brother of the composer Christian Ernst Graf (1723-1804), whom the Mozarts had met in The Hague.

3.
Mozart had by this date composed four solo keyboard concertos: K175, 238, 246 and 271.

4.
Joseph Hafeneder (1746-84) was a court violinist in Salzburg; his trio is lost.

5.
A pun on the name Langenmantel (literally ‘longcoat’);
kurz
means ‘short’.

6.
Here, too, Mozart plays with words.
Sporn
(‘spur’) is also dialect for
Sparren
(‘spar’ or ‘pole’);
einen Sparren zu viel haben
is ‘to have a screw loose’.

7.
Anton Christoph Gignoux (1720-95), director of the local music society, was a long-standing acquaintance of Leopold Mozart.

8.
Unidentified.

9.
K175, 238, 246 or 271.

10.
Maria Anna Thekla (Baäsle).

1.
Franz Jakob SpĠth (1714-86), instrument builder in Regensburg.

2.
Johann Andreas Schachtner (1731-95), Salzburg court trumpeter, poet and close friend of the Mozart family.

3.
Father Philipp Gerbl (1719-1803), Kapellmeister at Augsburg cathedral.

4.
Ignaz Franz von Beecke (1733-1803), pianist and composer, music director to Prince Kraft Ernst of Oettingen-Wallerstein.

5.
‘as wretched as usual’.

6.
See previous letter; sonatas K279–284.

7.
Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart (1739-91), writer and editor of the influential
Deutsche Chronik
; in the 27 April 1775 issue Schubart had written, ‘… I also heard an
opera buffa
by that wonderful genius
Mozart
. It is called
La finta giardiniera
. Flashes of genius appear here and there; but there is not yet that still altar-fire that rises towards Heaven in clouds of incense – a scent beloved of the gods. If
Mozart
is not a plant forced in the hot-house, he is bound to grow into one of the greatest musical composers who ever lived.’