Mozart: A Life in Letters: A Life in Letters (84 page)

1.
Marie Antoinette.

2.
The build-up to the War of the Bavarian Succession; hostilities did not actually break out until July, when Prussia invaded Bohemia (see letter 88).

3.
It was widely believed that England and France would go to war as a result of France’s support for the North American colonies during the War of Independence (1775–83).

4.
A garrison town near Salzburg.

5.
A tight-bodiced dress with a looped-up skirt to reveal a decorative underskirt.

6.
In the event, Mozart wrote parts of the ballet,
Les petits riens
K299b, see letter 87.

1.
Siegmund Haffner the younger.

2.
When he visited Paris as Count Falkenstein in April 1777 (see letter 49, n. 2).

3.
Siegmund von Antretter.

1.
Nannerl Gschwendtner (1746–82) was the sister of Joseph Franz Xaver and Vital Gschwendtner; Franz Anton Spängler (1705–84) was a Salzburg merchant.

2.
An all-purpose venue used for balls, wedding feasts and parties located outside the town.

3.
Maria Hagenauer.

4.
Siegmund Haffner the elder, who had died in 1772.

5.
Siegmund Haffner the elder’s son-in-law.

6.
Siegmund Haffner the younger would cease to be a ward of court when he was twenty-five.

7.
Count Arco’s nephew (1764–1832).

8.
Daughter of Casimir Villersi (?–1776), former tutor to Archbishop Colloredo.

9.
K246.

10.
Possibly Count Kuenburg and his wife, Friederike Maria Anna. Their daughter was Theresia (1769–1805). The Langenhof was the palace of the Kuenburg family, now Siegmund-Haffner-Gasse 16.

11.
Andrea Lucchesi (1741–1801), music director at Bonn from 1774; the concerto may be Lucchesi’s keyboard concerto in F major, published at Bonn in 1773.

12.
Although
Briefe
v. 526 suggests Mozart’s ‘graduation music’ may be K287, it is more likely to have been either the andante second movement or the allegro fourth movement of the serenade K203 of August 1774; the concerto is unidentified. Andreas Pinzger (
c
. 1742–1817) was a court violinist in Salzburg.

13.
The war came to be known as the
Kartoffelkrieg
(Potato War) because of the lengthy manoeuvres by both armies to obtain food supplies and deny them to the enemy.

14.
Karl Theodor had made an agreement, on becoming elector of Bavaria, to cede Lower Bavaria to Joseph II in exchange for the Austrian Netherlands; this was fiercely opposed by Prussia.

15.
Franz Siegmund Adalbert, Count Lehrbach, hunting master for the Austrian Innviertel region and a court official in Salzburg.

16.
The town of Eger, now Cheb, is about 150 km west of Prague, on the border with Germany.

17.
The daughter of the Duc de Guines.

18.
Maria Franziska, Countess Wallis, who was the sister of Archbishop Colloredo, see List.

19.
Unidentified.

20.
Königgrätz, modern-day Hradec Kra´lové in the Czech Republic; its bishop was Joseph Adam, Count Arco.

21.
Ferdinando Giuseppe Bertoni (1725–1813), a student of Padre Martini, later served as music director at St Mark’s, Venice; Luigi Gatti (1740–1817), second music director at the Reale Accademia, Mantua, was appointed music director at Salzburg in 1783.

22.
Anton Theodor, Count Colloredo-Mels und Waldsee, archbishop of Olmütz 1777–1811, was the cousin of Archbishop Hieronymus Colloredo.

23.
Mozart’s mass cannot be identified with certainty; prior to his visit to Mantua in January 1770 he had written four such works: K49 (1768), K139 (1768), K65 (1769) and K66 (1769).

24.
Theresia Maria Josepha von Arco (1740–?), daughter of Count Arco; Hasse is unidentified.

25.
Maria Judith Lipp, Michael Haydn’s sister-in-law. Apparently he had been considered as a possible successor to Adlgasser as court and cathedral organist.

26.
Joseph Marini, court confectioner 1772–6.

27.
The Dutch translation of Leopold Mozart’s
Gründliche Violinschule
was published in Haarlem in 1766 (see letter 12) and an unauthorized French translation,
Méthode raisonée pour apprendre à jouer du violon
, by Valentin Roeser, in Paris in 1770. Roeser is presumed to be the composer of twelve duos and a caprice published with the treatise.

28.
Unidentified;
Briefe
v. 527 suggests the caprices may be K395 but these are almost certainly earlier works, described by Mozart as ‘preambele’ and sent by him from Munich to Salzburg in October 1777.

29.
Georg Joseph Vogler,
Gründe der kurpfälzischen Tonschule
(Mannheim, 1778).

30.
Here Leopold refers to Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach,
Versuch über die wahre Art das Clavier zu spielen
(Berlin, 1757); Pier Francesco Tosi,
Opinioni de’ cantori antichi, e moderni o sieno osservazioni sopra il canto figurato
(Bologna, 1723); Johann Friedrich Agricola,
Anleitung zur Singkunst
(Berlin, 1757); Johann Joseph Fux,
Gradus ad Parnassum
(Vienna, 1725); Joseph Riepel,
Anfangsgründe zur musicalischen Setzkunst
(Regensburg and Vienna, 1752); Meinrad Spiess,
Tractatus musicus compositoriopracticus
(Augsburg, 1745); Johann Adolph Scheibe,
Der critische Musikus
(Hamburg, 1738–40); Jean d’Alembert,
Elémens de musique théorique et pratique
(Paris, 1752, but presumably the German translation published Leipzig, 1757); and Jean-Philippe Rameau,
Traité de l’harmonie réduite à ses principes naturels
(Paris, 1722). Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg and Johann MAt theson both published several important works; Marpurg’s include
Der critische Musicus an der Spree
(Berlin, 1749–50),
Abhandlung von der Fuge
(Berlin, 1753–4),
Anleitung zum Clavierspielen
(Berlin, 1755),
Handbuch bey dem Generalbasse
(Berlin, 1755–8) and
Critische Briefe über die Tonkunst
(Berlin, 1760– 64); MAt theson’s are
Grosse General-Bass-Schule
(Hamburg, 1731),
Kern melodischer Wissenschafft
(Hamburg, 1737) and
Der vollkommene Capellmeister
(Hamburg, 1739).

31.
It was the custom to serenade Antonia Maria, Countess Lodron, on her name day.

32.
The music for the German translation of
Les deux chasseurs et la laitière
(1763), to which this presumably refers, is by Egidio Duni (1708–75) not André-Ernest-Modeste Grétry (1741–1813).

1.
Il Parnasso confuso
by Giacomo Rust, performed at Salzburg on 17 May 1778.

2.
See previous letter, n. 22.

3.
Leopold had shown an earlier interest in lightning conductors when he was in England, see letter 10.

4.
The tunnel through the MÖnchsberg in Salzburg.

5.
Günther von Schwarzburg
.

6.
The tenor Anton Raaff had been taught by the Bolognese castrato Antonio Bernacchi (1685–1756), known in particular for his performance of ornaments and cadenzas.

7.
From Johann Christian Bach’s
Alessandro nell’Indie
(1762). The aria was included in the pasticcio
Ezio
, which Mozart heard in London in 1764.

8.
These songs are lost.

8.
These songs are lost.

9.
K297, ‘Paris’.

10.
18 June.

11.
A common orchestral gesture in which all the instruments started together with a unison or chord.

12.
Evaristo Felice dall’Abaco (1657–1742), violoncellist.

13.
‘Monsieur, were you in Paris? – Yes. – Were you at the Concert Spirituel? – Yes. – What do you say about the
premier coup d’archet
? Did you hear the
premier coup d’archet
? – Yes. I heard the first and the last. – What do you mean, “the last”? What does that mean? – Yes, the first and the last – and I liked the last even more than the first.’

1.
Heinrich Wilhelm von Heffner had died in 1774.

2.
K297, ‘Paris’.

3.
For 26 June 1778: ‘The Concert Spirituel on the feast of Corpus Christi began with a symphony by M. Mozart. This artist, who from the tenderest age made a name for himself among harpsichord players, may today be ranked among the most able composers.’ See Deutsch,
Documentary Biography
, 176.

4.
Pierre La Houssaye (1735–1818), violinist.

5
On 31 May, in Paris.

6.
Mozart had already set four arias from
Demofoonte
:K71 (
Ah, piu111 tremar non voglio
), 77 (
Misero me – Misero pargoletto
), 82 (
Se ardire, e speranza
) and 83 (
Se tutti i mali miei
).

7.
Johann Samuel Schroeter (1752–88), music master to Queen Charlotte of Great Britain. Mozart refers here to Schroeter’s concertos for keyboard, two violins and bass, op. 3, for several of which he composed cadenzas (for op. 3 no. 1, K626a/II, H and N; for op. 3 no. 2, K626a/II/O; for op. 3 no. 6, K626a/II, F and G).

8.
Nicolas-Joseph Hüllmandel (1756–1823); his published sonatas include six for keyboard and violin, op. 1 (1774); three for keyboard and violin, op. 3 (1777); and three for keyboard solo, op. 4 (1778).

1.
Not included here.

2.
Leopold had reported that Michael Haydn played the organ so badly on Holy Trinity Sunday that he was worried that Haydn was about to die as Adlgasser had, during a service the previous December (see letter 69); it turned out, however, that Haydn was merely tipsy.

3.
In the same letter Leopold had also reported the gist of an oblique conversation he had had with Starhemberg concerning Wolfgang’s possible return to Salzburg as court organist.

4.
Countess Wallis.

5.
Unidentified.

6.
Alexandre et Roxane.

7.
In fact, the ballet had been given six times, on 11, 20 and 25 June and 2, 5 and 7 July.

8.
Karl Ernst, Baron Bagge (1722–91), a well-known amateur musician.

9.
Johann Christian Bach; the opera was
Amadis des Gaules
, first performed on 14 December 1779.

10.
The Italian composer Niccoloò Piccinni was active in Paris from 1777.

11.
This project never materialized.

12.
Of the two surviving slow movements for the ‘Paris’ symphony, it is likely that the andante in 6/8 is the original, and the andante in 3/4 the replacement movement composed by Mozart. The first edition of the work, published in Paris in 1788, includes only the 3/4 andante.

13.
The French translation of Leopold’s
Gründliche Violinschule
referred to earlier.

14.
Georg Joseph Vogler’s
Tonwissenschaft und Tonsezkunst
(Mannheim, 1776) was a method for determining chord roots and chord functions.

15.
Joseph Beer (1744–1812), court trumpeter in Paris from 1777–82 and clarinettist to the Duc d’Orléans. In his letter of 29 June, Leopold reported that he had received a letter of recommendation for Beer (possibly from Josepha Duschek).

16.
Carl Stamitz and his brother Anton Thaddäus Stamitz (1754–before 1809).

17.
Mozart had met the violinist Paul Rothfischer on his visit to Kirchheimbolanden in February (see letter 71).

1.
26 July.

2.
King Frederick II (the Great) (1712–86).