Marrying Mozart

by Stephanie Cowell

  “I can’t, it’s true!” Mozart laughed happily.

  The symphony had ended, and the sound of applause carried through the rooms. Mozart listened for a moment, his face brightening more. “That’s Joseph Haydn’s work,” he said. “I know his style.”

  “Yes, Joseph Haydn, an extraordinary composer. But you don’t know that when he asked the Prince if I might come this evening, he asked for you as well. He is our host Prince Ester-hazy’s kapellmeister, and knows your work very well. You’ve written how much you admire his quartets. Why even now—”

  “He’s here and asked for me?” Mozart leapt to his feet.

  At that moment, Joseph Haydn appeared at the door. Mozart knew him at once from a portrait he had seen, though he was older now, perhaps fifty years. “But it is you who were conducting!” Mozart said, hurrying forward, almost stammering. “Herr Kapellmeister, had I recalled that surely it was you conducting, I would have gone into the ballroom to hear you. I know your work. I have been longing to meet you for many years, Herr Kapellmeister.”

  Bowing, Haydn took the young composer’s hand in both of his, and looked curiously into his face. “So you are Salzburg’s Wolfgang Mozart. I know your music as well; I borrow scores of it when I can’t hear it played.”

  Closing the door slightly so that they could retreat a little from the noise of the other guests, the three men sat down under the shelves of books and a portrait of Emperor Joseph. In his excitement Mozart could hardly remain still; he rocked back and forth slightly with a great smile on his face.

  Haydn was more quiet; his arm lay across the curved sofa back. “So you now live here in Vienna,” he said. “You know, as a little boy, I was a chorister here at Stephansdom. I sang like an angel, but when my voice broke, they turned me into the street. I cannot say if being a musician is more difficult than other professions ; it’s the only one I have known.”

  “Are you here for long, sir?”

  “For the winter, as I sometimes am with my patron. But I’ve been wanting to say this for a time, to write you. I’ve studied a score of your Idomeneo, so rich and deep, too much perhaps for those who wished to be amused. That quartet, and the prince’s line: ‘Andrò ramingo, e solo’—I’ll wander forth and alone. I wept. I am sorry it was not successful, and yet I feel it’s with an opera that you will finally come to notice. Perhaps one not entirely so seria, eh? Not so very tragic in tone, but one that expresses the joy and the sadness of life, so entwined. Neither just one or the other.”

  “Herr Kapellmeister, yes! That’s what an opera could be, and I could write one if I knew it would have a production, if such a commission came to me. I long for such a commission.”

  Haydn opened his eyes wider. “But here’s good fortune, you see! I was just speaking before with the court opera’s director, Count Orsini-Rosenberg, and he told me he’s looking for a new work. The Grand Duke of Russia is planning a state visit to Vienna in the autumn, and they want something to appeal to him.”

  Mozart leapt up, began to move quickly about the room, then came back to Haydn, his face a little flushed. His fingers drummed on the scarlet fabric of his coat. “Can this be true? I’ve tried for an introduction and have written twice, but he’s not answered my letter.”

  “Then you’re fortunate to be here tonight to present yourself in person. He’s in the ballroom still. You know his face? Good. We’ll remain here a time. My orchestra played before, and my work is done for the night, praise God.”

  Mozart could hear a flute and piano sonata beginning as he hurried toward the ballroom. Passing a smaller chamber lit with candles, he saw the Baroness von Waldstätten, at whose house he had given a few concerts on her enviable fortepiano. This handsome woman of about fifty years arose from the curved-back sofa and sailed coquettishly toward him, her great wide dress over its panniers brushing against the few young men fawning about her; one followed her, another carried her shawl. There were faint flecks of hair powder on her shapely shoulders, and she carried her head leaning slightly to one side so that a white curl drooped prettily. No doubt one of the young men was her current lover. Mozart gazed for just a moment at her slightly chapped, rouged lips, then he told her where he was going.

  “Oh the Count!” she said. “The Count. I know his wife, a dull woman. But, more important, he knows the Emperor well, and that makes him even more valuable. In the end, pleasing the Emperor means far more than pleasing silly me! When are you coming to play for me again? Come, I’ll take you to him.”

  In the large ballroom the many white-and-gold chairs had been pushed back carelessly by those who had left after the symphony ended. At one end of the room stood the music stands, with their extinguished candles and instrument parts; a violinist’s bow had been left on the floor. Before these stood Orsini-Rosenberg, a man of medium height wearing a silky white wig and a bit of rouge on his lips. His frontal lace spilled forth profusely.

  “Ah Mozart, I do know your name,” he said when he turned to the composer at last. “And Haydn can’t cease to praise you, nor can our beautiful Baroness here. I think highly of your work, but you must understand there are so many composers and the Emperor’s devoted to the ones whose work he knows. He is very fond of Maestro Antonio Salieri, whose Italian operas are not unknown to you, I am certain.”

  “I am familiar with Kapellmeister Salieri, of course. He is a fine teacher.”

  “Still, there may be a possibility. It all depends on many things, one being the appealing subject of your work. Leave word where I can send for you. Do you know my secretary, Thorwart? He has said you are acquainted.”

  Thorwart stood near the Count, his chest stiff, chin raised, English waistcoat buttoned tightly over his belly. Mozart had seen him about the boardinghouse now and then. What is he doing here? Mozart thought. Will this help or harm my effort?

  He bowed and the secretary nodded curtly in return. But by now others had pushed close into the circle, so that there was no more opportunity at present to speak with the Count.

  Bowing here and there, Mozart passed the empty music stands and made his way rapidly back to the small room with the many books to share his good news. He found it empty. Instead, Haydn was waiting for him at the bottom of the curving double set of stairs that was lined with portraits.

  Haydn took his arm. “You’ve spoken to Orsini-Rosenberg? I will do what I can to keep your name in his ear.”

  “With what can I repay you, sir?”

  “You will repay me when I hear your opera,” said the older man.

  Mozart walked around excitedly for some time, bowing to those people he knew. Orsini-Rosenberg had gone off to the dining room for supper, and the Baroness had swept away in her carriage, pressing his hand and winking at him as she left. Padre Martini had also departed, but he had left a small folded letter for him, saying he would be staying at the Stephansdom rectory.

  In a small room lit by a little chandelier whose candles were sloping in the draft from one of the room’s large curtained windows, someone was playing a clavier. As Mozart listened, a pure soprano voice began to sing an arrangement of a traditional song in English. Someone spoke the soprano’s name, Nancy Storace, and said she was from London and was beginning to make a reputation in Vienna. He had heard of her. Now he stood leaning against the door, watching her pretty mouth form the words.

  When the song ended, he turned away. I’ve enough on my mind without some new romance, he thought. They easily link my name with one or another and gossip. Everyone already assumes I am in love with the Aurnhammer girl, who has no charm and wears such low-cut dresses that one is forced to look even if one doesn’t wish to ... and to my embarrassment I do look, and I feel what I would not. But I must go away now and think of what subject I can take for my opera. I want nothing but that.

  He retrieved his cloak and hat and made his way through the great double front doors. The carriage of another departing guest creaked by, a footman walking before it holding a torch high. The wheels left new trac
ks in the snowy court. He walked past waiting horses, their breaths smoky, and the smell of dung. He was almost to the gate when he heard from behind him the first E flat chord of his own wind serenade.

  Looking back through the swirling snow, he could just make out the six players with their horns, clarinets, and bassoons huddled closely together under the shelter of the portico. He was drawn forward and stopped a few feet away, watching them as snow fell around him. There was Leutgeb indeed! Mozart’s smile grew broader and more delighted as the six men repeated the first movement of his serenade. At the last notes, he ran forward, clapping.

  “Bravo, bravo, maestro!” They grinned, clapping back. “We’ve made a great success this evening. We have played at three houses.”

  He stood among them, out of the snow. “And I’m likely to make a greater success. Johann, bravo! Very good, all! Listen, I may have a chance at an opera. I’ll try to find a story written in German; the Emperor prefers that. But will you play elsewhere?”

  “Ah no, the hour’s too late.”

  The six wind players wrapped up their instruments, and they and the young composer walked a time in the snow, their voices rising among the still houses until they came to Petersplatz, where they wished him good night.

  He let himself in with a large iron house key and was mounting the steps as softly as he could when he heard the sound of a woman weeping from the second-floor parlor. He turned back quietly and creaked open the door. It was perfectly dark but for the light reflected from the whirling of snow through the open window. “Who’s there?” he murmured, but at his voice the sobbing ceased.

  He walked cautiously past the clavier and shut the window.

  Whoever had been weeping was kneeling by the sofa. He came closer, and saw the long rich hair drifting down almost to the floor. Josefa glanced at him, and looked away.

  “Ah, what is it?” he cried.

  “Aloysia’s baby has died at her wet nurse’s cottage.”

  He raised his face to the now-closed window, watching for a moment as the snow beat against it, then dropped into a chair by Josefa. Ah, he thought, what shall I do about this? What can I do? The indifference and cruelty of the world when we hardly dare stop to pity one another.

  “I’m so very sorry,” he said at last.

  Her words were muffled. “Are you truly, Mozart? Or are you still too angry?”

  “A child is dead. How can I not be sorry? Her child. It wasn’t mine. I can’t begin to understand what I feel.”

  “I found out this afternoon. When my papa died, I sang, but I can’t do that now. I can’t do anything but cry; I can’t stop, and I hate it. Since I was small I have never wanted to cry.”

  Her long face was streaked with tears, and he felt for his handkerchief in his coat, but she shook her head, refusing it. “And why should it hurt so?” she said, beginning to sob again. “Children die of so many things. Papa and Mama had two who died after I was born. But it doesn’t matter if much of the world has the same suffering.”

  “I also never want to cry again,” he said. “And yet I know I will. My priest friend told me when I was a boy that if I felt deeply in one area, I must in all.”

  She bent down again, her head almost to the floor. She murmured, “Why do we love the people we can’t have? When Aloysia was a baby, she was my own, my own. I was jealous but for a time, she was my very own. She’s nobody’s now. She wouldn’t understand my sorrow. And her child, her Maria, was to me ... not much to her, but all to me ... and that’s gone.”

  “You’ll have children of your own.”

  “Will I? Don’t you know, Mozart? No one will love me that way, and you’re cold to all of us now.”

  “I must be to go on. Don’t you know that?”

  His hand came from his knee, hesitated, and then rested on her hair. For a moment she was still. Then she sat up entirely, shaking him off, staring ahead of her. “Don’t touch me; I would much prefer that you didn’t touch me.”

  “Josefa, do you dislike me so?”

  “No, it’s just that I can’t bear it. Will you go away now, please, and leave me alone? Oh, my little child, my little love.”

  He went heavily up the stairs and into his room, where a bit of snow had blown under the window and onto the sill. On the table was his music for the sonata for two pianos and the horn serenade in E flat. He stood without moving for some time in the dark room; then he covered his face with both his small, supple hands.

  Sophie Weber, June 1842

  MONSIEUR NOVELLO AND I HAD BEEN TALKING ALL afternoon, and now evening had come and the light was fading. I rambled a great deal because remembering the death of my little niece brought those few weeks back to me. We sat together, and he took my hand; together we mourned for the dead.

  He asked, “Did the grief bring your family closer?” He had not taken out his writing implements that day, but only listened.

  “Yes, Aloysia and Mother had a tearful reconciliation. It didn’t last very long; within two weeks they were shouting at each other again. It broke my heart, but I should have expected it. Josefa had gone on her own several times to see the child. It was as if she were the mother. She could not speak for tears; we hadn’t expected this of her. But you never knew what she would say or do about anything.”

  “Where did she go that night after Mozart left her alone? I think you said she later ran out into the snow.”

  “We never knew where she went; perhaps to those strange friends of hers, those mannish women. She had no luck rising in music in Vienna at that time; that pretty English soprano rose before her. But what did any of this matter next to the child who was gone? And then a few days after we heard of the baby’s death, she left us. My little heart was truly broken.”

  “Who left you?”

  “Josefa.”

  PART FIVE

  Vienna and Constanze

  My most beloved Sophie and Constanze,

  This is my tenth day in Prague, and I have already sung twice at the opera. Alfonso and his wife, who traveled with me (you know he was engaged to play here), have found me a good place to live. I am miserable to be away from both of you, but I had to go. Oh sisters, will you visit our niece’s grave and bring flowers as soon as they bloom? For now, some evergreen berries.

  Stanzi, you must promise me to be steadfast and do nothing rash. Your new suitor, Henri, seems a blessing, and I wouldn’t be surprised if you did run off with him to Paris, and leave Mama with her fine scheming plans. But do you know him very well? Have you fallen in love with him—as men often do with women—simply because he is so handsome ? That’s why Papa married Mama, because he was sick with love for her; she was such a beauty. Be careful; there’s more to life than that. And don’t think you have no beauty. You do have it, but you’re still afraid to look at it because it’s not the kind you want.

  I hardly dare ask how Mother does. Frau Alfonso feels she is a little out of her mind and is drinking too much, and that her reliance on Father’s old friend Johann Franz Thorwart will lead her into more delusions and terrible plans, in which you cannot help but be involved. You know “Uncle” Thorwart insisted Mama invest her small savings in one of his ventures, and she lost all of it; Alfonso has ended his friendship with Thorwart over that. Now we’re afraid the unscrupulous T is likely to want to make it up to her with far wilder schemes. Pah! I despise him.

  How bad of me not to stay and help you both, but what could I do? I was drowning in that house, so very unhappy, and I am happiest when I can sing good parts. I feel so much emotion in me that it pours out in music. If I can’t persuade you both to come here, I’ll return eventually and we’ll all live together.

  My heart is with you, and I will come back for you.

  In all love and always,

  J. Weber

  On Easter Sunday, sitting in the parlor with the stacks of music pushed to one side of the table, Constanze wrote her reply, her head resting on her hand.

  Josefa,

  I miss yo
u so much. Sophie and I simply rattle around together in this house. Aloysia avoids us; she is always singing at private concerts when not at the opera and makes great sums of money. And as for Mother, her moods are so bad that yesterday the boarder in our best room took his bags and went away. The other day I came into the parlor and saw Father’s ghost at the clavier. He raised his eyes and looked at me. Where are my daughters, where are my daughters? he seemed to say. Then he was gone.

  I send with this letter two that have come for you from Munich, and carefully hid them so they would not be opened. Are they from him whom you loved? Alas, what is the love of a sister compared to the great pull of the world? I don’t feel it so I can’t understand. I have no great gifts. I would like to be happy, to make those few people dear to me happy. I wanted to keep us all together. I’m still determined to do so in the end.

  Yes, Henri tells me he loves me. I didn’t think anyone would love me; I have always felt myself unlovable. And then I was on the edge of loving a very wrong person, but now I never walk down his street anymore. Henri has bought me a little ring, though the engagement is not yet known. My only problem is that I’m not in love with him. I like him, but I gave my love away stupidly, and now I don’t have it anymore. Do you think it comes back? So he loves me, and I pretend I love him. (I could wish he were not so vain.)