Mozart: A Life in Letters: A Life in Letters (18 page)

While I was listening to High Mass on the Feast of St Philip and St James in the Church of the Holy Apostles in Rome, I saw a familiar face. He came over to me; and who do you think it was? – – it was our former servant, Porta. He was neatly dressed, lace cuffs, a gold watch, etc. etc. He’d been with the French troops in Corsica. The next day he came to offer me his services just as Herr Meissner was arriving. I refused even so much as to listen to him. Just ask Herr Meissner, he saw him. The fellow’s an adventurer.

I was sincerely sorry to hear about Frau Adlgasser’s accidents and hope she’ll soon be better.
⁶
Best wishes to them both. Frau
de Amicis
⁷
sends her best wishes to you and Nannerl, together with those of her mother, brother etc.

When we read the article on the
Miserere
, we couldn’t help laughing out loud.
⁸
There’s not the slightest cause for anxiety. People are making far more of it elsewhere. The whole of Rome knows; even the pope knows that Wolfg. wrote down the
Miserere
. There’s absolutely nothing to be afraid of: quite the opposite, it’s done him great credit, as you’ll shortly be hearing. You must make absolutely certain that everyone reads the letter, so that we can be sure that His Grace gets to hear about it.

If the portraits have turned out to be a good likeness, you may pay whatever you like for them.
⁹

I must close now as we’re off to see the imperial ambassador, Count Kaunitz.
¹⁰
Farewell, we kiss you and Nannerl 1000 times and I am your old

Mzt

I hope you’ve recovered from your cold.

[
Note enclosed by Mozart to his sister written in a mixture of Italian and German
]

Cara sorella mia
,

My dear sister, I really don’t know how to reply to your letter as you wrote almost nothing. I’ll send you Sgr Haydn’s
¹¹
minuets when I have more time. I’ve already sent you the first one. But I don’t understand. You say that they’ve been stolen, these minuets. Did you steal them? Or what? Please write soon, and write every post-day. Thanks for sending me the maths book, and if ever you want a headache, please send me more of the same. Forgive me for writing so badly, but the reason is that I too have a slight headache. I really like the twelfth minuet by Haydn that you sent me, and you’ve written a wonderful bass for it, without the slightest mistake. I’d like you to try your hand at such things more often: Mama mustn’t forget
to have both the guns cleaned: write and tell me how Mr Canary is. Is he still singing? Is he still whistling? Do you know why I’m thinking of the canary? Because there’s one in our front room that makes a noise just like ours. By the way, I assume that Herr Johannes has received the letter of congratulation that we were going to write to him, but if he hasn’t received it, I’ll tell him in person what it would have contained when I get back to Salzburg. We wore our new suits for the first time yesterday and were as beautiful as the angels, but I’m afraid that we won’t be bringing any other beautiful things back home with us.
Addio
, farewell, best wishes to Nandl, tell her to be a good girl and pray for me. I am

Wolfgang Mozart

The opera
¹²
that Jommelli is writing will open on the 30th, we saw the king and queen
¹³
during Mass in the court chapel at Portici, and we also saw Vesuvius: Naples is beautiful, but it’s as crowded as Vienna and Paris. Of London and Naples, I’m not sure whether the people in Naples are not more impertinent than those in London, for here the common people, the
lazzeroni
, have their own general or chief who receives 25 silver ducats from the king every month, just to keep the
lazzeroni
in order. De Amicis is singing in the opera, we called on her and she recognized us at once. The second opera is being written by Cafaro, the 3rd by Cìcio de Majo,
¹⁴
it’s not yet known who’s writing the 4th. Be a good girl and go to Mirabell
¹⁵
to hear the litanies and the
Regina Coeli
or
Salve Regina
, and sleep well and don’t have any bad dreams. Give Herr von Schiedenhofen my barbarous good wishes, tralaliera, tralaliera, and tell him to learn how to play the repeating minuet on the keyboard, so that he
doesn’t
forget it, he should
do
so soon so that he may
do
me the pleasure of letting me
do
the honours and accompany him.
Do
give my good wishes to
all our other good friends, and
do
keep well and
do
not die but
do
me a favour and write me another letter, so that I can
do
the same, and we can then keep on
doing
so until we are
done
, for I’m someone who will keep on
doing
things until finally there’s nothing left to
do
, but for now I’ll have done.

Wolfgang Mozart

Mozart and his father set out from Naples on 25 June, arriving back at Rome the next day. On 5 July Mozart was awarded the Order of the Golden Spur by Pope Clement XIV, with whom they had an audience on 8 July. They left Rome on 10 July, arriving at Bologna on 20 July. From 10 August until 1 October, Leopold and Wolfgang lodged at the country home of Giovanni Luca, Count Pallavicini-Centurioni just outside Bologna, where Mozart received the libretto to
Mitridate, re di Ponto
(‘Mithridates, King of Pontus’). He started workon the opera on 29 September
.

You’ll have received my letter of the 28th on the 4th, in other words, on the day after you wrote to me, and in the meantime you’ll also have received my letter of the 4th inst.

We arrived here on this estate at around midday yesterday after hearing Mass in Bologna, it’s about as far from the city as Maria Plain is from Salzb.
¹
We were finally able to get a good night’s sleep, and I don’t need to describe the excellent service here. You can imagine the rooms and the beds, the sheets are of finer linen than many an aristocrat’s shirt etc., everything is made of silver, even the chamber utensils and nightlight, etc. etc. In the evening we went for a drive in 2
sedias
– Wolfg. with Her Excellency the Countess and the young
Count, and I and His Excellency the Field Marshal,
²
we have a footman and a servant to wait on us, in other words, 2 people, and the footman sleeps in our anteroom so that he’s always on call, while the servant has to dress Wolfg.’s hair. His Excellency has put us in the first rooms – in Salzb. they’d be on the ground floor – as these are the best rooms in summer, when the upper rooms get very hot, so that we don’t feel the slightest heat during the day and especially at night. Apart from our rooms, there’s the Sala Terrena where we eat and everything is fresh, cool and pleasant. The young count, who is Wolfg.’s age and the only heir, is very talented, plays the keyboard, speaks German, Italian and French and has 5 or 6 tutors a day for lessons in various branches of knowledge and other exercises. He’s already an imperial chamberlain. As you can imagine, this young gentleman and Wolfg. are the best of friends.

We’ll be remaining here for a while – how long I don’t know. Perhaps for the whole of the month, until the worst of the heat is over. And my foot?
³
– – Thank God, it’s better. The wound has healed completely and the skin is gradually falling off. But however much I try to avoid doing so, I have to use it during the daytime, with the result that by evening I have a slight swelling near my ankle, but this always goes away again during the night, and each day it grows less. Their lordships never make me stand but insist on my remaining seated, with my leg resting on a second chair. They even arranged 2 chairs for me for mass in the chapel today. We have Mass every day before noon, when the young count serves; after Mass the
Rosary
,
Litany
,
Salve Regina
and
De Profundis
are said.

You’re invited to enjoy the finest figs, melons and peaches! And I’m extremely pleased to be able to tell you that we are well, thank God. If I’d not removed the ointments and plasters, I’d have had a lot more trouble, as these drew all the salts and pus and water to them, and since the body is provided with enough of these liquids through its daily intake of food and drink, I’d have had to wait a
long time for the end. If nature itself had made this opening, it would, of course, have been very bad to prevent such a discharge, but since it resulted from an unforeseen incident, it was enough and more than enough to have an open wound on my foot for 6 whole weeks. It should be a warning to everyone not to apply a plaster but to use nothing but paper and urine, in order to prevent pus from collecting.

Give my good wishes to Kapellmeister Lolli and tell him that I shall, of course, deliver his messages and that I’ve already spoken to a number of his old acquaintances. We forgot to congratulate Nannerl on her name day.
⁴
My foot brought back all my old melancholy thoughts. It’s very sad to hear that things are getting more and more expensive in Salzb. Is no thought being given to ways of combating this increase? – – Give my very best wishes to Herr von Schiedenhofen and his dear Mama. I’ll be replying to Herr von Schiedenhofen’s letter shortly. I received all 3 letters at once today. I must close. His Excellency’s letters are being sent to town, and this one has to go with them. We kiss you and Nannerl 1000 times. Wolfg. has just gone for a drive with the countess. We send our good wishes to all – to all etc. and I am your old

Mzt

[
In Italian
]

Dear Friend,

Here at last is my letter! I have only just got round to replying to the one that you most kindly sent to me in Naples but which I did not receive until two months after you’d written it. My father’s plan was to take the road from Loreto to Bologna; from there to travel to Florence, Livorno, Genoa and Milan and in consequence give you a surprise by turning up in Florence unexpectedly. But, my father
having had the misfortune to injure his shin quite badly when the shaft horse of our mail coach fell and as this not only forced him to remain in bed for three weeks but kept him in Bologna for 7, this nasty accident meant that we had to change our plans and travel to Milan via Parma.

First, we have missed the opportunity to undertake such a journey and, second, it is no longer a suitable time to do so as everyone is in the country and we’d be unable to recover the cost of our journey. You may be assured that this accident is a source of infinite annoyance to us. I would do everything in my power to have the pleasure of embracing my dear friend and, like me, my father would very much like to see Signor Gavard again, to say nothing of his most dear and kind family, as well as Signora Corilla
²
and Signor Nardini, and then to return to Bologna; we’d do this if we had any hope of recovering the cost of our journey.

As for the lost engravings, my father thought of an expedient and your note arrived just in time to allow him to keep back two. Could I ask you, therefore, to let me know as soon as possible how I should send them to you?

Keep me in your dear friendship and believe me when I say that, with undying affection, I am and shall always remain

Your most devoted servant and loving friend

Amadeo Wolfgango Mozart

[
Leopold’s postscript, also in Italian
]

Could I ask you to give our good wishes to all our friends? Leopoldo Mozart

On 9 October Mozart was admitted to the Philharmonic Academy of Bologna, and four days later Leopold and Wolfgang left Bologna for
Milan, arriving there on 18 October for the rehearsals of
Mitridate, re di Ponto,
to be performed at the Teatro Regio Ducal, Milan.

We arrived in Milan safe and sound, thank God, at 5 in the evening on the 18th. We had to spend a whole day in Parma as the rivers were so swollen by the amazingly heavy rain that no one could cross them. All afternoon on the 14th we drove through an amazing thunderstorm and terribly heavy rain, but my luggage didn’t get wet, as I’d protected it in a double thickness of oilcloth. I’ve had very painful rheumatism in my right arm for 3 weeks now, and I suffered from it on the journey, too. But at least it hasn’t got any worse and is in fact noticeably better, even if it’s not gone away completely. NB: I don’t need anything for it and haven’t needed anything. I expect it to leave as it came. The movement of the
sedia
wasn’t at all good for me, but I kept thinking: evil must be banished by evil. So it was a somewhat tiresome journey on account of the thunderstorm and heavy rain, and a somewhat painful one on account of my arm.

We left Bologna a few days later than planned because the Philharmonic Academy unanimously elected Wolfg. a member of their society and presented him with the diploma of
accademico philarmonico
. But this happened only after all the necessary preliminaries and after he had been duly examined. He was required to appear at the Hall of the Academy at 4 in the afternoon on 9Oct.; in the presence of all the members, the director of the academy and the 2 invigilators – who are all old Kapellmeisters – gave him an antiphon taken from an antiphoner, of which he had to write a 4-part setting in an adjoining room, where he was taken by the beadle, who locked the door after him. Once he’d finished it, it was examined by the invigilators and all the Kapellmeisters and composers, and a vote was then taken, which was done by means of black and white balls.