Mozart: The Man Revealed Page 7

  Wolfgang was young, very young. He would need nurturing, and he would need guidance, from a fellow musician who understood him completely. There was only one person totally and undeniably qualified to provide that, and that person was, of course, Leopold, his father.

  Like his sister, Wolfgang had shared his father’s bed on tour, and when he composed he had to find a small corner in a cramped room. The apartment in Salzburg might be slightly more comfortable, but would it do for this new set of circumstances?

  ‘Where will Wolfgang set up?’ Leopold wrote to Hagenauer. ‘Where will I find a special place for him to study and work, and he will certainly have plenty of work to do.’ Leopold is now referring to Wolfgang as ‘our little composer’.*

  As well as worrying about his domestic circumstances, Leopold was concerned about his position at court. He was deputy kapellmeister. But being away for so long made him in effect an absentee. Who could tell what jealousies he might find on his return, what cabals might have been formed to oppose him?

  He poured out his worries in letters to Hagenauer:

  The nearer I approach Salzburg, the more childish the gossip reaching my ears. I wish to be spared such things. For several years, thank God, things were peaceful and I was free of such annoyances, and I want to remain far away from them. In particular, very odd things are being said about our reception at court. I assure you that I find all this very strange, and it is affecting me in ways I did not expect. After experiencing such great honours, I cannot forgive or forget such rudeness.

  The last sentence is particularly to the point. Here is a man who, from humble origins and of middling status in Salzburg, thanks to his children’s talents, had met and chatted with the Emperor and Empress of the Holy Roman Empire, the Queen of France, Their Majesties the King and Queen of England, not to mention an almost incalculable list of aristocrats and nobility, archbishops and bishops.

  “That he can still not bridge the octave makes his skill all the more exceptional and admirable.”

  Leopold is hardly to be blamed if he was beginning to think that maybe he had moved beyond the court in Salzburg. He and his family were destined for higher things. There is evidence in his letters that he is already beginning to think of the next move, and it has nothing to do with his home city.

  There was a nagging worry, and it was something over which he could have no control. In Munich Wolfgang had succumbed to illness again. He had a fever and pains in his leg. We can probably say with some certainty he had rheumatic fever. In one so young that is a serious cause for concern.

  A side trip to Regensburg to perform was called off, but Leopold had Wolfgang at the keyboard again when the opportunity to play at court arose. Given Wolfgang’s precarious health, and the chill November temperatures, this was probably not wise.

  There was something else. In the three and a half years that the Mozarts had been away, Wolfgang had not grown by a single inch. Before they had left, it had been noted that Wolfgang’s hands were so small that they could scarcely span a fifth on the keyboard, let alone an octave. Back then, this had simply led to extraordinary praise for the way he negotiated the keyboard. ‘Amazing, considering his little fingers could scarcely reach a fifth on the harpsichord,’ observed one. ‘At proper speed and with wonderful accuracy he skimmed the octave his short little fingers could not span,’ said another.14

  But when, on the family’s return to Salzburg, Wolfgang’s fingers could span no more notes than when he had left, there were concerned mutterings. Still some would not let this cloud their admiration. ‘That he can still not bridge the octave makes his skill all the more exceptional and admirable,’ was one opinion.

  Leopold himself, as musician and father, must have noticed. Why else would he write, ‘How my children have grown!’ It was as if he was flying in the face of reality.

  It fed into Leopold’s growing conviction that he should waste no time in exploiting Wolfgang’s talent. He had always been a worrier and now he was once more in a state of high anxiety. What if God were suddenly to rob his son of the extraordinary gift he had given him?

  One acquaintance, who knew the family well, picked up Leopold’s concern. As he put it, they should all celebrate the child’s ‘wit, spirit, grace, and sweetness’ to provide reassurance ‘against the fear one has that so premature a fruit might fall before it matures’.15

  No sooner had they returned home to Salzburg, ten days short of three and a half years since they had left, than Leopold’s thoughts turned again to travel. Who could say how much time his son might have?

  Wolfgang had been a little less than seven and a half when they had left. He was now ten years and ten months. In the intervening period he had conquered Europe. Well, almost. There was one great prize still to be won: Italy. It would take considerable planning, but as the weeks and months passed Leopold set his sights firmly on it.

  * In the event, it was to be six more years before the family moved to a larger apartment.

  Vienna might have been the musical capital of Europe, but music in the Habsburg capital, or indeed Salzburg, was still largely an aristocratic affair. The same, broadly speaking, was true in other European countries. It tended to exist primarily in the capital city, radiating from royalty – whether major ruling houses or petty regional princes – down through the aristocracy, but not much further than that.

  Italy, on the other hand, was where people of all classes lived and breathed music. From wealthy aristocrats to street vendors, popular tunes of the day were being whistled and sung. One musical form more than any other belonged to Italy: opera. Almost every city worth its name could boast an opera house, and audiences packed in with little regard to social status.

  Wolfgang, while on tour and despite thoroughly unconducive conditions, not to mention illness, had composed whenever he could. Small pieces, sonatas, symphonies, a cantata, as well as an oratorio, other choral pieces and songs. Increasingly he was enjoying writing for voices, and Leopold, to his credit, encouraged him – particularly when commissions began to come in. No money-making opportunity was to be ignored.

  The family had been back in Salzburg for just a matter of months, and Wolfgang was barely past his eleventh birthday, when he began work on his first opera. There is no doubt Leopold assisted him, in this and other compositions, as one would expect from a father who was also an accomplished musician. It was a short work, a miniature opera, entitled Apollo et Hyacinthus.

  Leopold had ceased being surprised at what his son could achieve, even with a little paternal help. He must, though, have allowed himself a small smile of satisfaction as it became increasingly clear that there was no musical form his young son could not turn his hand to. Who could tell what riches his earning powers might one day command?

  The path ahead, though, was not entirely smooth, and Leopold must in part be blamed for this. He was, by nature, a boastful man. He can most certainly be forgiven for taking genuine pride in Wolfgang’s remarkable talents, and Nannerl’s, but he was just a little too strident in his boastfulness for some tastes.

  The family had returned from the extended tour of Europe laden down with gifts from admirers. Leopold lost no time in putting them on show and inviting friends and colleagues to come to the small apartment in the Getreidegasse and be impressed.

  One friend of the family described the apartment as looking like ‘a church treasury’. He listed nine gold watches, twelve gold snuffboxes, more gold rings with precious stones than he could count, earrings, necklaces, knives with gold blades, bottle-holders, pens and writing pads, toothpick boxes, and a snuffbox filled with coins. He estimated the gifts to be worth as much as twelve thousand florins.*

  As if this ostentatiousness were not enough, Leopold offered some items for sale at what were considered to be shockingly high prices, but he also – it was rumoured – slipped in some items he had himself bought with the intention of reselling them.

  In both London and Geneva, he had attempted to set himself up as a
n importer of pocket watches to Salzburg. Although this had come to nothing, he bought several timepieces, which he added to the pile of gifts from ‘great monarchs and princes’, inflating their prices accordingly.

  Of more potential damage, there were disquieting rumours that he was actually exaggerating Wolfgang’s musical powers. The boy might have been brilliant on the keyboard, nobody would dispute that – no less a figure than Michael Haydn said he lacked the confidence to enter into competition on the clavier with this boy – but no child so young could possibly compose works of the complexity and sophistication his father was claiming for him.

  The truth was, said the more strident voices, Leopold was composing the pieces himself and passing them off as his son’s. And those voices reached right to the top.

  The ‘Prince of Salzburg’, no less – the same archbishop whose patience had been tested by Leopold’s continual prolongation of the family’s tour abroad – decided to take matters into his own hands and put Wolfgang to the test.

  He took the decision to lock Wolfgang in a room for a week, during which he was not allowed to see anyone, gave him words for an oratorio, and ordered him to set the words to music.

  We have only one source for this drastic action, but it is a fairly impeccable one. An English lawyer and magistrate who had met the Mozarts in London, and had in fact put Wolfgang’s musical abilities to the test there, confessing himself amazed, related it in a report to the Royal Society of London.

  Wolfgang passed the test with flying colours. There is some doubt as to exactly which piece emerged, but it is generally believed to be the oratorio Die Schuldigkeit des ersten Gebots, for which he composed the first part, comprising eighteen arias and recitatives, as well as a sinfonia and trio. If that is excessive even for the genius of this boy, then it might have been the less substantial Grabmusik, K. 42. The eleven-year-old’s compositional powers were never called into question again. Leopold was off the hook as far as that was concerned, but it did not improve his standing one bit.

  Deputy kapellmeister he might be, with the respect the position naturally brought, but to say his was a popular appointment would be well wide of the mark. In fact he began to speak now of having enemies in Salzburg, and there might well have been some truth in this.

  Increasingly, senior Salzburgers, musical as well as aristocratic patrons, approached Wolfgang directly, commissioning him to write pieces or inviting him to perform at civic or religious events. Leopold began to sense he was losing control of his son.

  Leopold had a natural arrogance, which perhaps he had always had trouble curbing. Now that he had travelled further and wider than any of his musical colleagues in Salzburg, met kings, queens, princes, princesses, this arrogance found a natural outlet. One can imagine him regaling his colleagues with tale after tale, anecdote after anecdote, of places and personages they could only dream about.

  He might well have exaggerated for effect. The same man who had described the treasure trove of gifts reported the ‘strong rumour’ that the Mozart family would soon be on their travels again, visiting ‘the whole of Scandinavia, the whole of Russia, and perhaps even travel to China’. Add to that the fact that all knew his son had a talent none of them could approach, and it is easy to see why a mutual animosity, even jealousy, developed.

  Leopold had never liked Salzburg. It was nothing compared to his home town of Augsburg, even if he was none too complimentary about that place either. The fact of the matter is that Leopold was fed up with being a provincial. For goodness’ sake, he had lived in Paris, London and The Hague. He had been to Versailles.

  It seems Leopold made a conscious decision not to attempt to further his career in Salzburg. He was just one step away from the top musical job in the city: kapellmeister. But he must have suspected he had burned his boats as far as this was concerned. He had spent too much time away; he was blatantly neglecting court duties to concentrate on his children; and he had alienated powerful figures.

  He needed to get out of Salzburg, away from his petty rivals, and regain control of his son. It now seemed Wolfgang and his sister between them could provide the ticket by being taken on tour again. Leopold was still contemplating a trip to Italy, in fact he had already begun making plans, when the perfect opportunity arose to travel once again to the capital of empire.

  A wedding was in the offing, and it was a royal one. The emperor’s sister was to be married to the King of Naples. It would be a glittering occasion, attracting all the noble families of Austria, Hungary and Bohemia, many of them patrons of the arts. A perfect moment for the extraordinary Mozart children to be heard once again in Vienna.

  There seems to have been no block to Leopold leaving his duties behind; some in court circles in Salzburg might well have been pleased to see the back of him, with his constant bragging. The Mozarts left in the family carriage on 11 September 1767. Nannerl was sixteen, Wolfgang eleven and three quarters.

  “Leopold relished his new freedom – away from the intrigues at court and once again in sole control of his son.”

  Leopold relished his renewed freedom – away from intrigues at court, and once again in sole control of his son – and was clearly in jovial mood. At their first stop, the monastery town of Melk in the beautiful Wachau valley on the banks of the Danube, they were given a tour of the monastery, and then – as Leopold wrote to Hagenauer – he had ‘Wolgangganggangerl’ (as he referred to him in a letter) play at the organ without telling the monks who he was, then hurried out to their carriage leaving everyone bemused, bewildered, impressed, desperate to know who the boy was.

  Vienna was a city in celebration, emerging from mourning the sudden death of Emperor Franz in his carriage returning from the opera. Leopold reported that there were performances of opera and plays every night, as well as balls, illuminations and fireworks.

  However, strict etiquette demanded that the Mozarts could not visit aristocrats to perform in salons until they had first appeared at court, and no summons from the court was forthcoming. Things were very different from the way they were when the Mozarts were last in Vienna just four years earlier.

  The emperor’s premature death had changed everything. His widow, Empress Maria Theresa, went into heavy mourning. She cut off her hair, stopped wearing jewels and cosmetics, and wore only black. She no longer held musical gatherings in her apartments, stopped going to the opera and theatre, and to all intents and purposes became a recluse at Schönbrunn.

  She took her son, Joseph, as co-regent, and he immediately set about undoing much that his father had put in place, first and foremost cutting down on expenditure. This compounded Maria Theresa’s distress, ushering in a period of tension and conflict between mother and son, two strong characters neither inclined to give way.

  An invitation to a musical family from Salzburg to come and perform at the palace, even if the family had visited before and was known to them, was a long way down the royal list of priorities. The empress might have been reluctant to receive them because it would revive memories of the last time they were there, and the pleasure it brought to her husband. Besides, there was a wedding to arrange.

  Leopold put a brave face on it in letters to Hagenauer back in Salzburg. He needed to draw more money in Vienna to cover accommodation costs – four or even five hundred florins – but he told Hagenauer not to worry, the whole amount could be recouped in a single day under the right circumstances.*

  But the situation was about to get a whole lot worse, and there was nothing Leopold could have done to prevent it. The empress insisted that her daughter, before she leave for Naples with her new husband, should descend with her mother into the imperial crypt and bid her father a final farewell.

  This they did together, kneeling at the late emperor’s coffin for a full three hours. But near to Emperor Franz’s coffin lay the coffin of the new emperor’s second wife. She had died of smallpox, and the coffin was still unsealed.

  In a letter dated 7 October 1767, Leopold wrote to Hagen
auer that on the previous Saturday – four days earlier – the Princess-Bride reported feeling unwell. By Tuesday the smallpox rash had appeared.

  Eight days later Leopold reported in flowery language, ‘The Princess-Bride has become a bride of the Heavenly Bridegroom.’ He confessed himself angry that the empress had insisted her daughter should descend into the crypt. It was small wonder, given the ‘terrible odour’ from the unsealed coffin, that she fell ill. All Vienna believed she had contracted smallpox from the unsealed coffin in the imperial crypt.

  The royal household was thrown into complete confusion by the young princess’s sudden death. All the celebrations had proved premature. A gorgeous retinue of thirty-four coaches, specially decorated for the occasion, was disbanded. Official mourning was once again declared – so soon after mourning for the late emperor – and theatres closed for six weeks.

  Ever mindful of the costs involved, Leopold wrote that all the towns the newlyweds were to have passed through on their way down to Naples had to cancel festivities on which they had already spent vast amounts of money. With the wry humour of a musician, he noted that three famous singers who were to have serenaded the couple in Florence had all memorised their parts to no avail.

  Within a matter of days the disease spread across the city and Vienna was in the grip of a smallpox epidemic. The Viennese now talked of little else but smallpox, wrote Leopold. The disease spared no one, regardless of class. Another of the royal princesses fell ill.

  Archduchess Maria Elizabeth was, by general agreement, the most beautiful of the empress’s daughters. On receiving the diagnosis, so it was said, she called for a mirror to bid farewell to her face before the pock marks left their indelible scars. She survived the disease, but with her beauty gone for ever she entered a convent, ultimately becoming abbess in Innsbruck.