Mozart: A Life in Letters: A Life in Letters (88 page)

1.
‘examination’… ‘male or female’.

2.
Presumably the sonatas op. 7, published by Artaria in 1782. In 1783 Artaria also published Clementi’s sonatas opp. 9 and 10.

3.
‘charlatan’.

4.
Johann von Fichtl was a Salzburg court agent in Vienna; privy councillor Optat Basilius Aman (1747–85) had bought property near Salzburg, but Mozart’s comment is ironic.

5.
In a letter of 7 May 1783 Mozart had asked Leopold to approach Giambattista Varesco, the librettist of
Idomeneo
, for a new libretto to set.

6.
Mozart and Constanze planned a visit that summer to Salzburg.

1.
Raimund, Baron Wetzlar von Plankenstern (1752–1810) had been Wolfgang and Constanze’s landlord when they lived at Wipplingerstrasse 14 from December 1782 to April 1783.

1.
Idomeneo
.

2.
The opera
L’oca del Cairo
(‘The Goose of Cairo’) K422, to a text by Varesco, was left incomplete by Mozart; the
buffa
aria was ‘Siano pronte alle gran nozze’, the quartet ‘S’oggi, oh Dei, sperar mi fate’ and the finale ‘Su via, putti, presto, presto!’

3.
Bernhard, Baron Deglmann, councillor in the Bohemian-Austrian chancellery

4.
K423 and 424; Bach’s fugues cannot be identified with certainty. About 1782 Mozart had arranged five fugues from Book II of
The Well-Tempered Keyboard
for string quartet (nos. 1–5, K405).

5.
For the Vienna Tonkünstler-Sozietät.

6.
Maria Margarethe (Gretl) was the sister of Heinrich Marchand, Leopold’s pupil; Maria Johanna (Hanni) Brochard (1775–?), daughter of the Munich dancer Georg Paul Brochard, was another pupil.

7.
The violinist Franz Lamotte.

1.
Johann Philipp Freyhold, flautist in service to the Margrave of Baden-Durlach.

2.
‘annoyance’, meaning that Leopold would be burdened with additional teaching duties to the boys at the Chapel House.

3.
Possibly K448, K425 ‘Linz’, K449.

1.
Presumably K413–415.

2.
The Trattnerhof, the property owned by Johann Thomas von Trattner and his wife where Mozart and Constanze were renting rooms, included a concert hall.

3.
The two subsequent concerts took place on 24 and 31 March.

4.
In the event, Mozart gave only one concert, on 1 April.

5.
Georg Friedrich Richter (
c
. 1759–89).

6.
This concert did not take place.

1.
K450 and 451, K452.

2.
The other works on the programme included the ‘Linz’ symphony K425, arias sung by Adamberger, Cavalieri and Luigi Marchesi (1755–1829), a famous castrato.

3.
The texts are from Metastasio’s
L’Olimpiade
; Gatti’s settings date from 1775.

4.
K453.

5.
Leopold III, Count Pa´lffy.

6.
There is no record that this concert took place.

7.
The civil servant Gottfried Ignaz von Ployer (
c
. 1743–97), a cousin of Barbara von Ployer’s father, the tax collector and timber merchant Franz Kajetan von Ployer (1734–1803); Barbara lived at Gottfried’s house.

8.
Zeno Franz Menzel (1756–1823) did not get the post but later became violinist in the Vienna court chapel.

9.
Although these quartets cannot be identified with certainty, they probably included the first three of the quartets dedicated to Haydn, K387, 421 and 428; see also letter 148.

1.
Regina Strinasacchi (1764–1839), a twenty-year-old violin virtuosa.

2.
K454; the concert, attended by the emperor, was on 29 April 1784 at the Kärntnertortheater.

3.
Ignaz Joseph Pleyel (1757–1831) studied with Haydn from 1772 to 1777.

1.
K450.

2.
K451.

3.
K453.

4.
K449.

5.
Apparently Mozart did not wait: at least some of the concertos were available in manuscript copies from the Viennese music dealer Lorenz Lausch (?1737–94) as early as 10 July 1784. Only the concerto K453 was published in an engraved edition during Mozart’s lifetime (Speyer: Bossler, 1787).

6.
The Mozarts’ maid.

7.
Barbara Schwemmer.

1.
On 23 August 1784, Nannerl, at the age of thirty-three, married Johann Baptist Franz von Berchtold zu Sonnenburg of St Gilgen.

2.
St Gilgen was about a six-hour coach ride from Salzburg.

1.
Anna Helena née Wohlhaupt (1723–97), wife of the grenadier captain Johann Joseph Hermann Hermes von Fürstenhof (1723–1809).

2.
i.e. his son-in-law.

3.
Strobl and St Wolfgang are villages not far from St Gilgen.

4.
Leopold’s cook.

5.
Maria Anna Zezi, wife of the merchant Johann Bernhard Zezi (1742–1813).

6.
Franz Armand d’Ippold (c. 1730—91), court military councillor in Salzburg; Nannerl Mozart had been disappointed in her hopes of marrying him.

7.
Michelangelo Bologna, castrato active in Salzburg 1782–4.

8.
Two of Nannerl’s step-children, Anna Margarete (Nannerl) and Wolfgang. Johann Berchtold zu Sonnenburg, a widower twice over, had five children by his previous marriages.

1.
Leopold usually means his son-in-law when he writes ‘my son’ in his letters to Nannerl, but here he refers to Wolfgang, whose name day was 31 October.

2.
The amateur musician; see letter 87.

3.
The stewards were required to carry a canopy over the archbishop’s head during services in the cathedral.

4.
‘Martern aller Arten’. Of the court musicians mentioned here, nothing for certain is known of Reiner: for the others, see letters 54 and 100.

5.
Ludwig Schmidt (
c
. 1740–1814), director of the Ansbach-Bayreuth comedy troupe that was putting on
Die Entführung
.

6.
Meaning Leopold.

7.
Margarethe (Gretl) Marchand had sung at a ‘Concert des Amateurs’, a private undertaking, in Munich attended by Elector Karl Theodor; Alessio Prati (1750–88) was a composer.

8.
Dorothea Wendling (1767–1839) became virtuosa da camera in Munich in 1788.

9.
Lisel Wendling.

10.
Gasparo Pacchierotti (1744–1821), castrato.

11.
Leopold and Nannerl used the glass carrier, who seems to have made a regular round trip between Salzburg and St Gilgen, as a postal service. It is not known what sort of glass she carried, or why.

12.
Unidentified.

13.
Alois, Count Rechberg (1766–1849). He and his brother Anton, Count Rechberg (1776–1837) were friends of Mozart’s in Vienna.

14.
K453.

15.
Players in Ludwig Schmidt’s troupe.

16.
Leopold agrees with his son-in-law about the current political unrest in the Austrian Netherlands.

17.
Maria Johanna Brochard, Leopold’s former pupil. In 1790 she obtained a post with the Munich court theatre.

1.
Die Entführung aus dem Serail
.

2.
The archbishop’s sister-in-law.

3.
Die Entführung
was given at Mainz on 24 January 1784 and at Mannheim on 18 April 1784. The earliest documented performance in Berlin is 16 October 1788, some four years after the date of this letter.

4.
In late July 1766.

5.
Nannerl’s step-daughter, Maria Anna Margarethe.

6.
Maria Margarethe Polis von Moulin (1746–79), Berchtold zu Sonnenburg’s first wife, was the mother of four of his five children.

7.
Joseph Barisani (1756–1826), eldest son of the archbishop’s physician, Silvester Barisani.

8.
Strasswalchen is a town northeast of Salzburg, but it is unclear what this refers to.

9.
‘from the breast to the arse’… ‘from the arse’. A promotion
in petto
(‘within the breast’) is one made in secret.

1.
11 February.

2.
The city casino on the Neuer Markt and a venue for concerts.

3.
Unidentified.

4.
K466.

5.
Anton and Bartholomäus Tinti were both members of the Masonic lodge ‘Zur wahren Eintracht’ (‘True Concord’). Soon after this Anton Tinti became resident Salzburg minister in Vienna.

6.
K458, 464 and 465, the final three of the six quartets dedicated to the composer Joseph Haydn (1732–1809) and first performed privately on 15 January; Leopold already knew the quartets K387, 421 and 428.

7.
Luisa Laschi (
c
. 1760–
c
. 1790) was engaged at the Italian opera in Vienna from 1784 to 1790; she sang the roles of the Countess at the premiere of
Le nozze di Figaro
(1786) and Zerlina at the first Viennese performance of
Don Giovanni
in 1788. The concert was at the Burgtheater.

8.
K456; the blind piano virtuosa Maria Theresia Paradies (1759–1824).

9.
See letter 121, n. 2; she was the intended wife of Archduke Franz (1768–1835), eldest son of Leopold, Archduke of Tuscany.

10.
Elisabeth Distler (1769–89), singer, sister of the violinist and composer Johann Georg Distler (1760–99).

11.
K466.

12.
Gottfried Ployer lived in Döbling, a Viennese suburb.

13.
Leopold refers to Elector Karl Theodor’s proposal to give Lower Bavaria to Austria in exchange for the Austrian Netherlands (roughly equivalent to modern Belgium); this would give him a stronger power base in northern Europe and the hope of a royal crown. It made him very unpopular in Bavaria.

1.
Heinrich Marchand gave a concert on 2 March at the Burgtheater.

2.
Nothing is known of this concert.

3.
The actress Marianne Boudet was married to the horn player Martin Lang.

4.
See letter 89, n. 2; the concerts were on 23 and 28 February and 7 March. Mozart may have played at some or all of them.

5.
Christoph Torricella (
c
. 1715–98), music publisher. He published the first editions of Mozart’s variations on ‘Ah, vous dirai-je Maman’ K265, ‘Salve tu, Domine’ K398 and ‘Unser dummer Pöbel meint’ K455, as well as the keyboard sonatas K284 and 333 and the accompanied sonata K454.

6.
In the event, Mozart never completed a keyboard arrangement of
Die Entführung aus dem Serail
; the earliest surviving complete arrangement was published at Mainz in 1785 or 1786. The three sonatas are K284, 333 and 454 (the last with violin accompaniment).

7.
Mozart had performed on his pedal piano at his Burgtheater concert of 10 March 1785; the announcement of the concert makes it clear that the instrument was a novelty: ‘On Thursday, 10th March 1785 Herr Kapellmeister
Mozart
will have the honour of giving at the I. & R. National Court Theatre a Grand Musical Concert for his benefit, at which not only a
new
, just
finished Forte piano Concerto
will be played by him, but also an especially
large Forte piano pedale
will be used by him in
improvising
.’ See Deutsch,
Documentary Biography
, 239.