Mozart: A Life in Letters: A Life in Letters (37 page)

Mzt

Martin Grassl
, Prince Breuner’s valet, was buried today, Wolfg. will recall writing a
little horn piece
⁵
for him. War upon war! No more formal dinners at court! 2 windowsills were stolen from the new building in the archbishop’s garden outside the town, and a lot of damage was caused during the night.

[
On the envelope
]

At Hellbrunn
⁶
a tame stag that used to take bread from people’s hands and that the prince was very fond of was killed during the night and its body dragged away. There were 200 people at yesterday’s ball, last Wednesday there were only 36. The prince still hasn’t attended. We’ve not the slightest reason to think of a ball. Everyone sends their best wishes: Herr Deibl, who asks after you every Sunday, Cat. Gilowsky, Herr Bullinger, Sallerl etc. etc. I’ll tell you everything else about Paris in my next letter.

75. Mozart to his father, 19 February 1778, Mannheim

Monsieur mon très cher Père
,

I hope you’ll have received my last 2 letters: in the second I expressed my concerns about my mother’s return home, but I now see from your letter of the 12th that this was entirely unnecessary. I always assumed that you’d disapprove of my travelling with the Webers and never had any such thought in mind
in our present situation
– that goes without saying; but I gave them my word that I’d write to you. Herr Weber doesn’t know how things stand with us; I’ll certainly not tell anyone; wishing only that I was in a position of not having to think of others and that we were all well off, I forgot, in the intoxication of the moment, the present impossibility of the matter and failed, therefore, to tell you what I’d done. The reasons why I’ve not gone to Paris will be sufficiently clear from my last two letters. If my mother hadn’t started on about it, I’d certainly have gone with them; but when I realized that she didn’t like the idea, I didn’t like it any more either; for as soon as people don’t trust me, I don’t trust myself any longer. The days when, standing on a chair, I sang the
oragna fiagata fiagata fa
and at the end kissed the tip of your nose are past, of course, but does this mean that my respect, love and obedience towards you have decreased? – – I’ll say no more. As for your
reproach about the little singer in Munich, I must confess that I was a fool to tell you such a barefaced lie. After all, she simply doesn’t know what
singing
means. It’s true that for a person who’s been studying music for only 3 months she sang extremely well; and she also had a very pleasing, pure voice. The reason why I praised her so much was no doubt because from morning till night I never stopped hearing other people saying that there was no better singer in the whole of Europe and that until you’d heard her, you’d heard nothing; I didn’t dare contradict them, partly because I wanted to be good friends with them, partly because I’d come straight from Salzburg, where we’ve been taught not to contradict. But as soon as I was on my own, I couldn’t help laughing out loud, why didn’t I also laugh in my letter to you? – I don’t know.

Your caustic comments on the fun that I had with your brother’s daughter I find deeply offensive; but since things are not like that, I feel under no obligation to reply. As for Wallerstein, I simply don’t know what to say; I was very reserved and serious at Beecke’s; and at the officers’ table, too, I maintained a true air of authority and spoke to no one. But let’s forget all this, you wrote it only in the first flush of anger.

All that you say about Mlle Weber is true; and even while I was writing it, I knew as well as you that she’s still too young and needs to learn how to act and must first appear on stage, but with some people one must often proceed by degrees. These good people are as tired of being here as – you know
who
and
where
.
¹
At the same time they think that everything is possible. I promised them that I’d tell my father everything, but even while the letter was on its way to Salzburg I kept telling them that she just needs to be a bit more patient, she’s still a bit too young etc. They accept whatever I say as they think very highly of me. At my suggestion, her father has invited Madame Toscani – the actress – to give his daughter acting lessons. Everything you say about Mlle Weber is true, except one thing, namely, that she sings like a Gabrielli, as I wouldn’t like it at all if she sang like that. Everyone who’s heard Gabrielli will say that she’s
capable only of singing passagework and roulades; and she earned admiration by performing these in a very particular way, but people stopped admiring her after they’d heard it 4 times. In the longer term they got no pleasure from it as one soon grows tired of passagework; and she had the misfortune of not being able to sing. She was unable to sustain a breve
properly
, she had no
messa di voce
, she couldn’t hold a note, in a word, she sang with art but no understanding. But this singer goes to the heart, and she enjoys singing cantabile most of all. I introduced her to passagework only through the
great aria
²
as she’ll need to sing bravura arias if she goes to Italy. She’ll certainly never forget cantabile singing as this is her natural inclination. When asked his honest opinion, Raaff – who’s not given to flattery – said she sang not like a pupil but like a teacher. So now you know everything. I commend her to you with all my heart; and please don’t forget the arias, cadenzas etc. Farewell. I kiss your hands 100, 000 times and remain your most obedient son

Wolfgang Amadé Mozart

I’m too hungry to write any more.

My mother will open up our large cashbox for you. I embrace my sister with all my heart, she mustn’t cry at every shitty misfortune, otherwise I’ll never come back as long as I live. Best wishes to all our good friends, especially Herr Bullinger.

[
Maria Anna Mozart’s postscript
]

My dear husband, I hope this letter finds you in good health again and we’re both sincerely sorry our last letter came as such a shock to you, conversely your last letter of the 12th upset us greatly, I beg you by all that’s dear to you not to take everything so much to heart, it’s bad for your health. Everything can be put to rights again, and nothing will have been lost but bad company. We’ll do the best we can to make arrangements for our journey to Paris, our money amounts in total to 140 florins, we’ll try to sell the carriage, but I don’t think we’ll get much more than 60 or 70 florins for it – only
recently a beautiful four-seater carriage with glass was bought for 9 louis d’or – we’ll pack all our things into 2 trunks and travel to Paris by mail coach, which won’t be all that expensive, decent folk travel that way, but we should have lodgings, so that we shan’t need to stay at an inn for long, if the businessman you mentioned would do us this favour and help us, that would be most kind of him. Meanwhile I await your next letter with impatience, so that we can organize what you think needs to be done.
Addio
, farewell, both of you, I kiss you many 10, 000 times and remain your faithful wife

Maria Anna Mozart

All conceivable good wishes to all our good friends. This is a terrible pen, and the ink’s no better.

Mon très cher Fils
,

Just so that you can convince me good and proper that you’re absent-minded and inattentive in everything, you say at the start of your letter of the
14th
that you see from my letter of the 9th that I’ve not yet received your last 2 letters, in other words, you’re claiming that by the 9th I’d already answered your fanciful and near-fatal letter of the 5th, even though you must know from my extended correspondence with you in Mannheim that a letter takes around 6 days and even though I’ve already told you that your own letters always arrive on a
Tuesday
or
Friday
, so you can’t receive a reply to them in under a fortnight. It wouldn’t be worth my while to spell this out if it weren’t by way of information,
as such an observation is extremely useful for travellers
. I know very well when you’ll receive my letters: and I’ve also been at pains to ensure that you receive everything in good time. – But what’s the use of my meticulousness, care, consideration and a father’s efforts applied to so important and necessary an undertaking when – faced by an apparently serious obstacle that your Mama may have seen long ago – you fail to place
any real trust in your father and change your mind only when caught between two fires and can go neither forwards nor backwards. Just when I think that things are on a better footing and proceeding smoothly, some new idea, as unpredictable as it is foolish, occurs to you or else it turns out that the situation is different from what you’d reported it was. Have I again guessed aright? – So you’ve received only 96 florins instead of 200?
¹
– – And why? – – Because you completed only 2 concertos and 3 quartets.
²
– How many were you supposed to write for him as he paid you only half? – – Why did you tell me
a lie
and say that you were to write only 3 short and easy concertos and a couple of quartets: why didn’t you listen to me when I
explicitly
wrote to say that
you should deal with this gentleman’s request as a matter of the utmost priority
? Why? So that you’d be sure of getting these 200 florins, because I know people better than you.– Haven’t I already guessed everything? It seems that, even though I’m some distance away, I can still see more and judge things better than you, for all that these people are under your very nose. You shouldn’t doubt me when I mistrust people but should proceed with all the caution that I always enjoin on you. Much to our detriment, you’ve learnt this lesson within a short space of time. Admittedly, you’ve already come to an agreement with Herr Wendling, you’ll still be paid and you’ll forward the works in due course. Indeed – if Herr Wendling can persuade lovers of the flute in Paris to buy what you’ve already supplied, he’ll try to get some more. One person has to pay; the other takes advantage of it. You also wrote to me about a few pupils and in particular said that the Dutch officer would pay you 3 or even – you thought – 4 ducats for 12 lessons: but it now turns out that you could have had these pupils but that you’ve abandoned them simply because they missed the odd lesson. You prefer to give lessons as a favour – yes, that’s what you want! And
you’d rather leave your old father in need. The effort is too much for a young man like you, no matter how good the pay, it’s more fitting that your 58-year-old father should run around for a pittance so that by the sweat of his brow he can earn what he needs to support himself and his daughter and,
instead of paying off his debts
, support you with what little is left, while you amuse yourself by giving a young girl lessons for nothing. My son, give it some thought and try to be reasonable! Just think whether you’re not treating me more cruelly than our prince. I never expected anything from him. – From you I expect everything – from him I must accept everything as a favour – from you I may hope to receive it on the strength of your duty as a child. He is ultimately a stranger to me – but you are my son – you know what I’ve put up with for more than 5 years – what a burden of care I’ve taken on because of you. The prince’s behaviour could only humiliate me; but you can annihilate me: he could only make me ill; but you can kill me. If I didn’t have your sister and Herr Bullinger, this true friend of ours, I would probably not be able to write this letter, on which I have already been working for 2 days. I have to hide my fear from the whole world, these are the only 2 people who are allowed to know everything and who are a comfort to me. I believed that everything you wrote was true, and since everyone here is sincerely glad when all goes well with you and since they are always asking about you, I was happy to give them a
detailed
account of the money that you were making and of the journey you were taking to Paris; you know that people take pleasure in
annoying the archbishop
, and there were plenty who used this account to that end. Old Herr
Hagenauer
was very upset to hear that you had to draw 150 florins in Mannheim as these people want us to do well and earn some money. But when I told him what you’d written and explained that your board and lodging was costing you nothing and that you’d be receiving 200 florins and that you also had some pupils, he was very pleased. I naturally had to ask him to be patient over payment of the 150 florins, but he replied: It doesn’t matter.
I’ve every confidence in Herr Wolfgang, he’ll do his duty to you as a son, just let him go to Paris, while you relax
. Just consider these words and our present circumstances, and tell me whether I shan’t suffer a stroke
because as an honest man I can’t leave you in this situation, no matter what it may cost. You can be assured that not a soul knows that we transferred 150 florins to Mannheim as the Hagenauers would never in a million years give the
archbishop
that pleasure: but how upset these friends will be if I again have to support you in order for you to go to Paris. But let me prove to you that this must remain your only firm decision. It’s simply not possible to think in terms of travelling around, especially in the present critical situation: it’s often impossible even to recover one’s travelling expenses; you invariably have to go cap in hand, looking for patrons, simply to ensure that the concert pays its way; you must always go looking for new letters of recommendation to take from one place to the next; you always have to beg for permission to give a concert and have to deal with a hundred eventualities of an often trivial nature; and ultimately you scarcely earn enough to pay the landlord, so that you have to fall back on your own money – assuming you have any – to pay for the journey or else you have to pawn or sell your clothes, watches and rings. I’ve already experienced the former for myself. I had to borrow 100 florins from Herr
Olenschlager
in Frankfurt, and as soon as I arrived in Paris I had to borrow another 300 florins
from Tourton & Baur
, although in the event, of course, I didn’t need it all as we were soon paying our way: but first we had to become better known and deliver our letters of recommendation etc.: and in a large city that took time as it’s not always possible to meet people or speak to them. My dear Wolfg., all your letters convince me that you invariably accept the first wild idea that comes into your head or that someone else puts there, and you do so, moreover, without considering it or analysing it properly. For example, you write: I’m a composer and
mustn’t bury
my talent for composition etc. etc. But who says you should do so? – Yet that’s precisely what you’d be doing if you roamed around like a gypsy. If you want to become universally known as a composer you need to be in Paris, Vienna or Italy. You’re now nearest to Paris. The only question is where do I have a better hope of achieving prominence?
In Italy
– where in
Naples alone
there must be at least 300
maestri
and where, throughout Italy, the
maestri
often have a
scrittura
2 years in advance from those theatres that pay
well? Or in Paris, where there are 2 or 3 writing for the theatre and other composers can be counted on the fingers of one hand? The keyboard must bring you your first contacts and make you popular with the great, then you can have something engraved by subscription, which brings in a little more than writing 6 quartets for an Italian gentleman,
³
for which you may get a few ducats or even a snuffbox worth 3 ducats. It’s even better in Vienna, there at least you can arrange a subscription for music in manuscript form.
⁴
Both you and others have had experience of this. In short, if I could teach you to be more mature and to adopt a more considered approach to these wild ideas of yours, I’d make you the happiest man in the world. But I can see that these things take time – and yet, where your talent is concerned, everything came before its time. Everything about the sciences you’ve always grasped with the greatest ease. Why shouldn’t it be possible to get to know people? – To guess their intentions? – To close one’s heart to the world? – And in every case to think things over and in particular not always alight on the good side of a question or the side that flatters me or my secondary aims? Why shouldn’t I apply my reason to examining the bad side and looking into all eventualities and all the consequences – and ultimately think of my own interests and show the world that I am capable of
insight and reason
? Or do you think it does me more honour to regard myself as a fool and let others influence me in ways that are of benefit to them but of harm to me, allowing them to laugh up their sleeves and regard you as young and inexperienced and easily led. My dear son,
God has given you excellent judgement
, which – it seems to me –
only 2 things
are stopping you from properly applying. I’ve taught you how to use it and how to know your fellow humans. When I used to be able to guess what would happen and could predict much of what came to
pass, you’d often say by way of a joke:
Papa is second only to God
. What do you think these two things are? – Examine yourself, learn to know yourself, my dear Wolfg.: – you’ll find that you have too much
pride
and
self-love
; and that you immediately become over -
familiar
and open your heart to everyone, in short, in wanting to be unconstrained and natural you become too open. The first of these should of course drive out the second, for those who are motivated by pride and self-love do not easily stoop to familiarity. But your own pride and self-love are wounded only when you’re not shown the appreciation that is your due: even people who don’t yet know you should be able to see from your face that you’re a man of genius. But to sycophants who bend you to their self-interested will and praise you to the skies you open your heart with the greatest ease and believe them as readily as the Gospel. And,
naturally, you’re taken in
, as they
don’t even need to pretend
as
their praise costs them little
; they don’t say anything that’s untrue and that they’d have to force themselves to admit;
only their intentions remain hidden from you
, intentions which must – and could – show you their ulterior motives. And in order to ensnare you all the more effectively,
women
become involved – if you don’t resist them, you’ll be unhappy for the rest of your life. Think of all that has happened to you in your short life – think it over in cold blood, with sound common sense – and you’ll see that I’m speaking to you now not just as a father but as your true friend. For however delightful and dear to my heart the name of
son
may be, the name of
father
is often hateful to children. But I don’t believe that this is true of you, even though a woman in Vienna once said to you:
If only you didn’t have a father
. These words should have filled you with disgust. Please don’t think that I mistrust your love as a child; everything I say is intended simply to make a decent man of you. Millions of people have not received the great favour that God has granted you. What a responsibility! And what a lasting shame it would be if so great a genius were to be diverted from his course! – But this can happen in a moment! – You’re exposed to more dangers than the million people who have no talent as you’re exposed to infinitely more persecutions on the one hand and temptations on the other.