Mozart: The Man Revealed Page 3
There Wolfgang played the organ in the Franciscan Church. He played it so well, Leopold wrote in a letter back to Hagenauer in Salzburg, that ‘the Franciscans rushed to the choir stalls and were almost struck dead with amazement’. You can understand why. This was a boy not yet seven years of age playing a mighty organ.
The Mozart family arrived in Vienna on 6 October, almost three weeks after leaving home. At the quayside, reality struck. The Mozart name might have reached the imperial royal family in the Hofburg Palace, but it was unknown to custom officials on the banks of the Danube.
The Mozarts were told to open their luggage for inspection. Perhaps Leopold gave his son a knowing look; perhaps it was Wolfgang’s own initiative. The boy took his violin out of its case and played a minuet. The senior customs officer, enchanted by the impromptu recital, allowed the family to proceed without opening their bags.
“Leopold had good cause for optimism. Word of his children’s musical prowess had reached the very top.”
They stayed first in temporary accommodation on the Fleischmarkt, then moved into lodgings on the Tiefer Graben. It was not the height of comfort. Leopold reported that they had a single room on the first floor, ‘a thousand feet long and one foot wide’. It was partitioned in two, with Leopold and Wolfgang sharing one bed in the sleeping area, Anna Maria and Nannerl sharing the other. Leopold was irritable, and complained the children would not stop wriggling.
Word had most definitely arrived in Vienna ahead of them, and it had spread at the highest level. Leopold took himself off to the opera four days after arriving in the capital (to see Gluck’s Orfeo) and overheard another of Maria Theresa’s sons spreading the word from his opera box that ‘there is a boy in Vienna who plays the clavier admirably’.
This son was Archduke Leopold, who in time would succeed his brother Joseph as emperor. We know, therefore, that even before the Mozarts arrived in Vienna, the extra-ordinary talent of young Wolfgang was talked about by the emperor, empress and two future emperors.
And it permeated down. The senior aristocrat who had arranged the recital in Linz had returned to Vienna and spoken immediately to the highly influential director of opera. Count Herberstein, Leopold’s companion on the boat, had done his part too to spread the word in Vienna.
Leopold was most certainly not exaggerating when he wrote to Hagenauer in Salzburg, ‘As soon as it became known that we were in Vienna, the order arrived that we should present ourselves at court.’
On Wednesday, 13 October, the family took a carriage to Schönbrunn Palace, the emperor’s summer residence west of the city. To say they had arrived, in more senses than one, would be an understatement.
One can picture Anna Maria and the two children looking agog as the imperial carriage, which had been sent to collect them, drew up to the grand, imposing and beautiful baroque palace, recently improved and remodelled on orders from Empress Maria Theresa. Leopold, I imagine, sat quietly, expressionless, jaw probably set, wondering if everything was about to go as planned. Was it possible that his son could have an off day?
He need not have worried. The account of the occasion, as detailed by Leopold in letters to Salzburg, has achieved legendary status. It is the first real evidence we have of young Wolfgang’s extraordinary talent at the keyboard. It also gives us our first true insight into his character, into what kind of child he was.
The family was ushered into the royal presence. Empress Maria and her husband Emperor Franz sat in two luxuriously upholstered chairs. Also present was their youngest daughter, Maria Antonia, just three months older than Wolfgang, who in a few short decades would enter history as Queen Marie Antoinette of France. There were also other family members in the room, as well as some senior figures such as ladies in waiting.
It began conventionally enough – other than the fact that this was a boy aged six and a half, and inordinately small for his age. Wolfgang climbed onto the stool, little legs dangling, and played on the clavier. To his father’s relief he did not disappoint.
‘People could hardly believe their ears and eyes at [Wolfgang’s] performance,’ reported one of the ladies of the court.7
Emperor Franz himself, taking control, decided on a little mischief. Little Wolfgang was to be put to the test. ‘I can see that you play with all your fingers, which is what you are used to doing. But what if the keyboard were covered? Could you pick out a tune then with even one finger?’8
Wolfgang squealed with delight. It was just the kind of trick that appealed to him. A piece of cloth was found, and laid along the length of the keyboard to cover the keys. The black keys being raised will have held the cloth slightly above the white keys, so that no indentation to mark the separation between the keys would have been apparent. Wolfgang would have to play completely blind, which unsurprisingly caused him no problem at all.
First he picked out a tune with one finger. Then, with no difficulty, he played with all his fingers, probably looking up into the air with a mischievous grin, maybe cheekily directed at the emperor himself.
Emperor Franz, spellbound, dubbed him Hexenmeister (‘little wizard’). The empress, too, was unstinting in her praise, because little Wolfgang jumped down from the piano stool, ran over to her, leapt up onto her lap, put his arms round her neck and showered her with kisses.
Never had the empress of the Habsburg empire been treated with such familiarity by anyone outside her immediate family, and then by a child she had never met before.
There was more familiarity that caused much amusement. At one point Wolfgang, careering round the room as a child would, slipped on the marble floor. Maria Antonia, the future Queen Marie Antoinette, helped him to his feet. ‘You are very kind,’ he said to her. ‘One day I will marry you.’9
The emperor then informed everyone that Herr Mozart was author of an indispensable guide to playing the violin, and ordered his daughter-in-law, who was learning violin, to play for Leopold.
One can imagine Leopold swelling with pride at this unexpected encomium. Not only had his young son impressed the royal family beyond measure, but his own talents were being praised too.
It was a thoroughly satisfied Leopold Mozart who took his family back to the humble lodgings they shared on the Tiefer Graben – rather below what a family of musicians who had entertained the emperor and empress might be used to.
The whole visit to Schönbrunn had lasted three hours, which included a personal guided tour for Wolfgang of the empress’s private apartments, carried out by the royal children who were excited to have a new young friend.
If word had reached the royal palace before the Mozarts’ arrival in Vi-enna, it now raced through the ranks of the nobility like a forest fire. So many requests were there for Wolfgang to perform in aristocratic palaces and salons that Leopold had to write home to the prince-elector in Salzburg asking for an extended leave of absence.
Since one of those requests was for a second visit to Schönbrunn palace, the extension was a formality. That particular request from the very top brought with it 100 ducats, a very welcome addition to Leopold’s finances.
There was more. Other aristocrats gave Leopold a variety of gifts and – much more welcome – money. By the time the family had been in Vienna for a month, Leopold had sent home to be banked the sum of 120 ducats, which was more than two full years’ worth of his Salzburg salary.*
We have reason today to be very grateful to the empress for the gifts that she gave to Wolfgang and Nannerl – a set each of full-dress court clothes. These might have been hand-me-downs from royal children, but Wolfgang and Nannerl wore them the following year, back home in Salzburg, for two oil paintings, the first portraits we have of the Mozart children.
The young Wolfgang looks thoroughly regal in lilac jacket and matching brocaded waistcoat, with plentiful gold braid, gold buttons and tassels, white lace collar and cuffs and white stockings. He is holding a black hat and wearing a sword. His left hand is tucked imperiously into his waistcoat, his right rather arroga
ntly on his hip, one finger extended. He wears a wig, and he gazes unflinchingly at the painter. Were it not for his diminutive size, he could be a decade older than he was.
Nannerl, in a plum-coloured taffeta dress appliquéd with sheer white lace, has an equally self-assured gaze, her right arm bent at the elbow, hand turned with fingers splayed, as if she has been interrupted while playing at the keyboard.
And that, perhaps, is the most interesting feature of the portraits. Both have keyboards. That, now, is the Mozart children’s raison d’être. They are musicians.
Leopold Mozart had every reason to be thoroughly pleased with the way things had gone in Vienna. But, as we have seen, he was something of a worrier, a born pessimist perhaps. And the truth was he did have cause, if not for pessimism, then at least for worry.
Leopold held a senior position as musician at the court in Salzburg. The most senior musician at court, the kapellmeister, had died the previous June. It was taken for granted that his deputy would succeed him, which would leave a vacancy for the number-two position.
Leopold Mozart was a leading candidate for deputy kapellmeister, but just when he should have been back in Salzburg pressing his case, manoeuvring along with other candidates, ensuring his name was at the forefront, he was away in Vienna.
Leopold put pen to paper. Using Hagenauer as a conduit, knowing full well his words would reach the court, he stated that if by staying in Vienna he was in any way losing favour with the prince-archbishop, he would leave ‘on the instant’ by mail coach for Salzburg.
He went further, and his choice of words is interesting. ‘I am now in circumstances that allow me to earn my living in Vienna,’ he wrote. ‘I still prefer Salzburg though, but I must not be held back. If I am, I cannot say what others might persuade me to do.’
It is a veiled threat to resign from the Salzburg court and move, with his family, to Vienna permanently. His children, and in particular Wolfgang, he now knew, would be able to bring money in through their musical talents, and enough for the family to live on.
Leopold must have wondered if he had gone too far. Was he pushing his luck? What if the prince-archbishop called his bluff? It was not entirely a bluff. But here he was relying on his children’s continued talent. The old worry resurfaced. What if they failed to improve? What if the aristocracy tired of them, and their earning power dwindled? What if something totally unforeseen were to happen?
And that last worry is exactly what occurred. By the time of the Mozarts’ second appearance at Schönbrunn, on 21 October, young Wolfgang was seriously unwell. It had been threatening for some time. His mother was convinced the boat journey on the Danube, which had been unseasonably cold, wet and windy for September, had damaged his health.
So prodigious was Wolfgang’s talent that, even suffering from a worsening cold and sore throat, he had been able to play as well as ever in the salons of the nobility. But people – high-ranking aristocratic people – were beginning to talk. Was Leopold pushing his son too hard?
“Even the empress was heard to say Leopold was sacrificing his son’s health in the pursuit of ducats.”
Even the empress was heard to say Leopold was sacrificing his son’s health in the pursuit of ducats. It was not looking good for Leopold. Or Wolfgang.
After that return visit to Schönbrunn, Wolfgang came down with a rash and lesions, with pain in his back and hips, which were diagnosed as ‘a kind of scarlet fever’. His condition was made more difficult by his adult teeth beginning to come through. (He was just six years and nine months.)
The doctor confined him to his bed, and there he stayed for two weeks, after which time he showed considerable improvement. But word of scarlet fever had spread, and Leopold suddenly found invitations cancelled and others not forthcoming.
Leopold has done himself no favours with posterity by writing to Hagenauer that ‘this adventure [Wolfgang’s illness] has cost me 50 ducats’. He compounded this by spending an impressive 23 ducats on a private coach. He justified it by claiming they would have returned with fewer ribs had he not done so. He is probably right, in that Wolfgang’s health would have suffered even more had he travelled in a more basic form of transport.
He suffered enough as it was. By the time the family arrived home in Salzburg, Wolfgang was so seriously unwell that smallpox was suspected. He had a fever, which prevented him from sleeping, and complained he felt nothing in his lower legs and was unable to move his feet.
He was confined once again to bed, and it was a week before things began to improve. With all the caveats of attempting a diagnosis two and a half centuries after the event, it seems the earlier illness was a streptococcal infection, followed some weeks later by rheumatic fever. Though his young age allowed for a swifter recovery, these were serious ailments for a child as young as Wolfgang.
While Wolfgang’s mother worried over his health, Leopold looked beyond that to the effect a serious illness would have on the family finances. He had already seen how in Vienna Wolfgang’s poor health had led to an immediate loss of income. If that were to recur, the rosy future he had once seen for the family would swiftly dissipate.
He had his own position to consider too, and it was precarious. Leopold had seriously tried the prince-archbishop’s patience by extending his absence for a second time, to fit more recitals in on the journey home.
In what looks to us like an absurd misjudgement, once back in Salzburg he had defended himself to Archbishop Schrattenbach by saying he had been forced to take the return journey slowly because the extreme cold made it necessary to protect the children’s health. He compounded this by saying he had been suffering from dreadful toothache, which so disfigured his face that people who knew him had not recognised him.
If we are not fooled today, neither was the archbishop. But just when things were beginning to look really grim, they started to improve. Although Michael Haydn (the younger brother of Joseph) was brought to Salzburg as court composer and konzertmeister, thus diluting the power of the deputy kapellmeister, Leopold Mozart got the promotion he wanted.
Wolfgang’s health improved too, and it was soon evident that his extraordinary young genius had not suffered.
Leopold looked to the future, and with his innate pessimism the future was at worst precarious, but at best … who could tell? It was time to be bold. Bold and courageous.
Wolfgang had conquered Vienna. Now it was time for him to conquer Europe.
* It is practically impossible to estimate what money in mid-eighteenth century Vienna would be worth today. It has been calculated that 20 gulden, or florins, might be worth around £500. Given that there were 4.5 gulden in a ducat, 100 ducats might be worth around £11,250, meaning the sum Leopold banked would be around £13,500 in today’s currency.
On 9 June 1763, the Mozart family – mother, father, and two children – left Vienna for an extensive tour of Europe. Leopold had planned an ambitious itinerary. In the event it would be far more ambitious than he had intended, visiting more places and taking much longer than originally planned.
In all, the tour lasted for three and a half years, covered several thousand miles, stopped in eighty-eight towns and cities (several more than once), and the children performed for audiences totalling many thousands.
Leopold was easily able to persuade the benign Archbishop Schrattenbach to give him paid leave of absence, the costs again being partly born by Hagenauer and other wealthy burgers of Salzburg. The musically aware elector had witnessed the Mozart children’s skills for himself, and knew any kudos they received would reflect well on Salzburg and its ruler.
That is indeed what happened, but to a degree far beyond anything Schrattenbach, or Salzburg, or indeed Leopold Mozart, might have expected. By the time of the family’s return home, the name Mozart was known throughout Europe.
Those who had attended one of their recitals were heard to speak of the experience decades afterwards. In fact Germany’s foremost playwright and poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, sh
ortly before he died, vividly recalled seeing ‘the little man with his wig and his sword’10 performing in Frankfurt nearly seventy years earlier.
It certainly did not begin auspiciously. The family of four, plus a valet who also dressed wigs, had made less than a day’s travel when one of the back wheels on the carriage broke. A temporary replacement was supplied at a coaching inn, but it was not quite the right size.
They had to continue, so Leopold and the valet walked alongside the carriage for two hours to lessen the weight, and they arrived just after midnight in the town of Wasserburg in Bavaria, in search of a cartwright and an inn where they could stay.
It ended up costing Leopold two new wheels, an extra night in the inn, which included a bed for the coachman too, and feeding the team of four horses and replacing them with a new team.
Leopold complained of the extra expense and time lost in a letter to Hagenauer back in Salzburg, but saying also that he put the second day to good use (knowing word would be relayed to Schrattenbach).
While the coach was being repaired, Leopold took Wolfgang to the church in Wasserburg. The organ there had pedals, and the small boy with short legs had not played on an organ with pedals before.
Leopold showed Wolfgang how to play with a pedal board, and then wrote in astonishment: ‘Pushing away the stool, he experimented while standing.* Remaining upright, he played as he worked the pedal, and gave the impression of having practised in this manner for several months.’ Adding, again – we can assume – in the firm expectation that word would reach the archbishop, ‘This is a new sign of God’s grace.’
The carriage repaired, they travelled on to Munich, arriving on 12 June. This was a return visit to the Bavarian capital, and here they collected more admiring members of the aristocracy, including the elector himself.