Mozart: A Life in Letters: A Life in Letters (89 page)

8.
The Tonkünstler-Sozietät concert on 13 March included the first performance of Mozart’s cantata
Davidde penitente
K469, adapted from his unfinished mass in C minor K427.

9.
Presumably K448.

1.
The reconstituted German opera company survived until 1788; see letter 132, n. 5.

2.
Here Mozart writes ironically.

1.
i.e. his grandson.

2.
Anna Maria Pietschner, see letter 18, n. 1.

3.
The play by Christian Heinrich Schmid, see letter 101, n. 6.

4.
Berchtold zu Sonnenburg’s son by his second wife.

1.
The concerto played by Heinrich Marchand was K466; Haydn is of course Michael Haydn.

2.
Fr Dominicus Hagenauer was abbot of St Peter’s in Salzburg; the abbot of Baumburg, an Augustinian monastery in Upper Bavaria, was Albert Knol; the region of Franconia was in southern Germany.

3.
Johann Lorenz Hagenauer.

4.
Johann Evangelist Schmid (1757–1804) was court organ builder in Salzburg; his predecessor (see below) was Johann Rochus Egedacher (1714–85).

5.
Probably a Hanswurst character.

6.
Franz Anton von Berchtold zu Sonnenburg (1749–1809), Nannerl’s brother-in-law.

7.
Nannerl’s maid.

8.
Leopold refers to a cutting with acrostics and riddles; it has not been reproduced here. Some lines in this paragraph referring to riddles have also been omitted.

9.
Lorenz Hübner (1753–1807), editor of the
Salzburger Staatszeitung
.

1.
Sebastian Winter, the Mozarts’ former valet, was now in service to Prince Joseph Maria Benedikt of FĀrstenberg (1758–96). In August 1786 Mozart had offered the FĀrstenberg court, through Winter, copies of his latest compositions. FĀrstenberg purchased copies of the symphonies K319, 338 and 425 (which survive in the FĀrstenberg collection at Karlsruhe), and the concertos K451, 459 and 488 (these copies are lost).

2.
K488.

3.
He had proposed that he should compose exclusive works for the prince, on a regular basis, for a fee.

4.
As a boy, Mozart invented a fantasy world called the ‘Kingdom of Rücken’ with which Winter, as Mozart’s childhood valet, would have been familiar. It is possible that Mozart refers to it here; Rücken, which means ‘backs’, and Ricken are pronounced similarly.

5.
The Mozarts had visited Donaueschingen in October 1766, see letter 13.

1.
14 November.

2.
Mozart’s letter is lost.

3.
Carl Thomas and Johann Thomas Leopold.

4.
Nannerl’s stepdaughter.

5.
Melodrama by Georg Benda (1722–95), first performed at Gotha on 27 January 1775, which Mozart had heard during his visit to Mannheim. In November 1778 he wrote of his plans to compose a similar work; nothing came of it, however. Leopold of course means von Berchtold zu Sonnenburg by ‘my son’ in this sentence.

6.
Christoph Martin Wieland, poet and dramatist.

7.
Nannerl’s step-son.

8.
She lived until 1794.

9.
Castore e Polluce
by Georg Joseph Vogler was first performed at Munich on 12 January 1787.

1.
The amateur composer and singer Gottfried von Jacquin (see List) was one of Mozart’s closest friends in Vienna.

2.
Franz de Paula Hofer (1755–96), imperial court violinist, had travelled to Prague with Mozart. In 1788, he would marry Constanze’s sister Josepha.

3.
Johann Joseph Anton, Count Thun-Hohenstein (1711–88); Mozart had composed the symphony K425 for him in Linz in 1783. He was the father-in-law of Maria Wilhelmine, Countess Thun-Hohenstein.

4.
Joseph Emanuel, Count Canal of Malabayla (1745–1827), Freemason and builder of the Canalgarten in Prague, a famous botanical garden.

5.
That is, without composing even a single line of music.

6.
‘in the room of charity’, i.e. placed at his disposal.

7.
Mozart writes ‘
das schöne Bandel Hammera
’, which rhymes with ‘
camera
’ and is Viennese dialect for ‘
und das schöne Bandl haben wir auch
’ – presumably a reference to the trio K441, the so-called Bandel-Terzett, of which only a fragment survives.

8.
Karl Raphael Ungar (1743–1807), director of the Clementium Library in Prague.

9.
Opera (1786) by Giovanni Paisiello.

10.
‘as usual’.

11.
The clarinettist Anton Paul Stadler, see List; Elisabeth Barbara Quallenberg, wife of the clarinettist Johann Michael Quallenberg (
c
. 1726–86); Maria Anna Antonia Crux (1772–?), singer, instrumentalist and niece of Johann Michael Quallenberg; Kaspar Ramlo, violinist; Franz Jakob Freystädtler (1761–1841), composer and pupil of Mozart’s.

12.
It was at the concert on 19 January that Mozart performed the symphony K504 (‘Prague’) and three piano improvisations, including one on ‘Non più andrai’ from
Le nozze di Figaro
. The second concert apparently never took place.

13.
His brother was the botanist Baron Joseph Franz von Jacquin (1766–1839); for his sister Franziska von Jacquin, see List.

14.
January; Mozart conducted a performance on 22 January.

1.
Ludovico Antonio Muratori (1672–1750), philosopher and writer who advocated an enlightened Catholic tolerance.

2.
Apparently a violinist; no details are known.

3.
A gambling card game.

4.
In this context probably ‘lover’.

5.
In this passage Leopold mentions a number of Mozart’s ‘English’ friends to whom he was very close at this time. For the Storace family, see List; O’Kelly is the Irish tenor Michael Kelly (1762–1826); the composer Thomas Attwood (1765–1838) was a student of Mozart’s.

6.
Attwood.

7.
Stephen Storace.

8.
Heinrich Marchand.

1.
This may have been Mozart’s last letter to his father.

2.
The singer Ludwig Fischer and the apparently unrelated oboist Johann Christian Fischer (1733–1800). Ludwig gave a concert at the Burgtheater on 21 March 1787 that included a Mozart symphony and the scena
Alcandro, lo confesso – Non soò d’onde viene
K512. Mozart’s keyboard variations (K179) of late 1774 were composed on a minuet from Johann Christian Fischer’s first oboe concerto (1768).

3.
Unidentified.

4.
Johann Christian Fischer.

5.
The sentiments expressed here echo those of the German Jewish philosopher Moses Mendelssohn (1729–86)in
Phädon oder über die Unsterblichkeit der Seele
(
Phaedo or On the Immortality of the Soul
, 1767), a copy of which, probably inherited from Leopold, was found among Mozart’s effects.

6.
August Clemens Ludwig Maria, Count Hatzfeld (1754–87). Mozart had met him in 1786 and composed the violin part of K490, the scena ‘Non piuò, tutto ascoltai – Non temer, amato bene’, for him.

1.
Franz d’Ippold had informed Mozart of Leopold’s death in a letter of 28 May 1787, now lost.

2.
‘testamentary disposition’. Wolfgang wanted d’Ippold to serve as executor of Leopold’s will, but because of a possible conflict of interest with Nannerl he declined.

1.
Mozart had purchased a pet starling on 27 May 1784 and noted at the time that it was almost able to sing the theme of the third movement of his piano concerto K453.

1.
After Leopold’s death, Mozart’s autograph scores still in Salzburg were sent to him in Vienna; copies of some works were sent to the monastery of the Holy Cross in Augsburg and others sold on the open market. The inventory of Leopold Mozart’s estate does not give specific details of the music that he owned.

1.
Unidentified.

2.
Possibly Giuseppe Antonio Bridi (1763–1836), who sang at the private performance of
Idomeneo
at Prince Auersperg’s in March 1786.

3.
Marianne (Nanette) Natorp; Mozart dedicated the four-hand sonata K521 to Marianne and her sister Barbara (Babette).

4.
Possibly the song
Das Traumbild
(‘Wo bist du, Bild, das vor mir stand’) K530, based on a text by the poet L. H. C. Hölty. Mozart dated the work Prague, 6 November 1787.

1.
Abbreviation standing for Brother of the Order; Johann Michael Puchberg, see List, belonged to the same lodge as Mozart.

1.
Presumably because Mozart rarely wrote to her. This is his last surviving letter to Nannerl, possibly the last he wrote her.

2.
These works cannot be identified with certainty; Michael Haydn wrote more than 30 masses and 170 graduals.

3.
Mozart’s most recent piano trios, both for keyboard, violin and violoncello, were K542 (22 June 1788) and K548 (14 July 1788); the piano quartet is possibly K493, composed in June 1786 but not published until 1787. Mozart’s earlier quartet, K478, was composed and published in 1785 and had presumably already been sent to Salzburg.

1.
Major General Johann Joseph Philipp Pachta von Rayhofen (
c
. 1723–1822).

2.
This opera commission from theatre impresario Domenico Guardasoni (
c
. 1731– 1806) was not realized.

3.
Frederick William II of Prussia (1744–97) had succeeded his father Frederick the Great in 1786.

4.
Karl Lichnowsky.

5.
‘love me and look after your health, which is so dear and precious to your husband.’ Constanze was frequently ill at this time, probably with complications arising from her numerous pregnancies.

1.
Johann Gottlieb Naumann (1741-1801), music director to the elector of Saxony.

2.
Friedrich August III, Elector of Saxony (1750-1827), whose court was at Dresden.

3.
Where Mozart was lodging.

4.
Anton Kraft (1749-1820), violoncellist in the service of Joseph Haydn’s employer, Prince Nikolaus Esterházy (1714-90); his son Nikolaus Kraft (1778-1853), also a violoncellist.

5.
Presumably K563, for violin, viola and violoncello.

6.
That is,
Don Giovanni
.

7.
K537.

8.
Alexander Michailovich, Prince Beloselski-Beloserki (1757-1809), Russian ambassador at Dresden from 1780 to 1790.

9.
Johann Wilhelm Hässler (1747-1822).

10.
Johann Georg Albrechtsberger (1736-1809), composer and organist at the Viennese court.

11.
The opera was
Le trame deluse ovvero I raggiri scoperti
by Domenico Cimarosa (1749-1801); Manservisi had sung the role of Sandrina at the premiere of
La finta giardiniera
(Munich 1775); Maddalena Allegranti (1754-after 1801), soprano; Adriana Ferrarese del Bene (1759-after 1803) later sang the role of Susanna in the Vienna revival of
Le nozze di Figaro
(1789) and created that of Fiordiligi in
Così fan tutte
(Vienna 1790).

12.
It is uncertain what portrait Mozart refers to here.

1.
Of Mozart’s letters, four have gone missing: those of 22 and 28 April and of 5 and 9 May; none of Constanze Mozart’s letters survives.

2.
The Tiergarten in Berlin, formerly a royal hunting reserve, became a public park in the eighteenth century.