by Glover, Jane
The dynamic and charismatic nature of Constanze in these joyful encounters rather overshadowed the additional presence of young Wolfgang, and of Sophie. But they were noticed. Sophie emerges as a slightly shadowy, quiet figure. At one point on that first visit, Vincent Novello and Wolfgang moved to the piano, where Wolfgang played and Vincent listened. Sophie went with them, preferring to be with the music than to chatter with Constanze and Mary on the other side of the room. And Wolfgang too seems to have been a slightly introverted, even troubled soul, a fact which Mary Novello rather acutely attributed to his carrying the burden of a famous name:
In the room was . . . her youngest son, who though somewhat resembling his father seems to have no genius, and this feeling perhaps may cast a shade over his countenance rendering it rather heavy, and damps the ardour of his musical works reducing them to mediocrity; something of this despair of effecting anything worthy of his father’s name seemed to hang over him, otherwise he appeared goodnatured, modest, easy of access and frank.
But the Novellos were increasingly impressed by Wolfgang (‘he improves much on acquaintance’), and especially by his kindness to his other aunt. For it was he who took them to see the frail Nannerl, and Vincent was ‘particularly charmed by the respectful and kind cordiality with which Mozart’s son behaved to her, calling her repeatedly “meine liebe Tante” and exerting himself to the utmost to ascertain and fulfil all her wishes’.
Nannerl had finally lost her sight in 1826, though she had still been able to play the piano. But early in 1829, in her seventy-eighth year, her frailty had increased considerably, and she had become bedridden; and, as with all chains of rumour, the reports of these infirmities had become distorted and exaggerated. By the time Vincent Novello heard them in London, poor Nannerl was understood to be not only blind and incapacitated, but effectively destitute too. So the warm-hearted Novello had raised for her the sum of 60 guineas, from seventeen subscribers. This he undertook to deliver himself, on his travels. His list of donors included the organist of St Paul’s Cathedral, Thomas Attwood, who had studied composition with Mozart in Vienna for eighteen months in his early twenties, the composer Ignaz Moscheles, the pianist Cipriani Potter, the publisher J. B. Cramer, and the harp-maker and great friend of Beethoven, J. A. Stumpff. (Stumpff corresponded from time to time with Constanze, and indeed when the Novellos returned to London, they carried a letter to him from her.) Novello also had it in mind to mount a concert in London for the benefit of ‘Madame von Sonnenburg’.
It is no doubt fortunate that Constanze managed to intercept some of the Novellos’ misconceptions before they themselves met Nannerl. On their first afternoon in Salzburg, Constanze gently explained that her ‘belle-soeur’ could not enjoy the pleasure of actually seeing them when they presented her with their gift. She also made it clear that although Nannerl was infirm, she did not require charity. The Novellos learned of Nannerl’s refusing André’s offer of the profits from the Requiem scores, because she ‘would not be made the subject of public observation’. And, Vincent Novello added, ‘Madame Nissen thinks she would not like a concert to be given for her.’ So Constanze had mercifully cut that one off at the pass. She had also signed the receipt for the 60 guineas on Nannerl’s behalf, in order to save her any embarrassment. It is even possible that Constanze had actually contrived to postpone the Novellos’ calling on Nannerl, in order to prepare the scene for her visitors. Nannerl still had her pride, and Constanze was especially sensitive to it.
Poor Nannerl was indeed ‘blind, languid, exhausted, feeble and nearly speechless’ when young Wolfgang took the Novellos to see her the following day. But she knew they were coming, and was by now extremely anxious not to miss them. She had spent a restless night worrying, and apologized profusely that she had not been able to receive them when they had first called. The Novellos were most moved by Nannerl’s state, described with compassion by Mary:
She is quite blind but suffers no pain, hers is entirely a decay of nature. She remains in bed like a person ready for the death stroke and will probably expire in her sleep. Her countenance, though much changed, even rather ugly, has something resembling her portrait. She is very fair and has most delicate hands. Like most blind people she is always alive to touch and kept our hands locked in hers, asking which was der Herr and which Madame, grieved very much that we could not speak German, ‘kann nichts Deutsch’. Her voice is scarcely intelligible it is so low.
But Nannerl thanked them graciously for her ‘cadeau’, and removed any potential embarrassment by ‘conceiving it was sent for her approaching name’s day the 26th – the feast of St Anne’. The Novellos also discovered that, far from being penniless, Nannerl was attended by a servant who lived in the apartment with her, ministering to her every need. This was one Joseph Metzger, whose duties included those of a secretary, for it was he who wrote on her behalf to thank Novello and his fellow subscribers for their gift. And, as in Constanze’s houses, on the walls there were family portraits, which Nannerl was especially keen for her nephew to show her visitors, and other paintings too, as Vincent Novello noted (‘I particularly noticed those of Vandyke and Rembrandt’). So any lingering notion of Nannerl’s destitution was thoroughly dispelled as soon as the Novellos entered her apartment.
They did not stay long with Nannerl, but did inspect, and indeed play, her ‘instrument on which she had often played Duetts with her Brother’. Nannerl told the Nissens that, having not touched it since she took to her bed, she had just two days previously tried to play again, only to discover that her left hand did not function at all. The last pieces she had actually managed, six months earlier, were little excerpts from Die Zauberflöte (‘Das klinget so herrlich’), and Don Giovanni (the minuet). The reverential Vincent Novello commented, ‘This to me was a most touching proof of her continued sisterly attachment to him to the last.’ (It was also, of course, a definition of who Nannerl was, an almost territorial claim of identity with the name and the music of her brother.) The Novellos took their tender parting: ‘I fear she cannot continue much longer in her present exhausted state [continued Vincent] – but whenever the hour arrives which no one living can ultimately avoid, I can only hope that it will not be attended with the least suffering, and that she will calmly cease to breathe as if she were merely sinking into a tranquil sleep.’
Vincent and Mary Novello tore themselves away from Salzburg and continued on to Vienna, where they spent several days in more Mozartian research. They were considerably fortified by introductory letters given to them by the willing Wolfgang, and had fascinating meetings with, among others, the Abbé Stadler and Joseph Eybler. And Mary Novello also met Constanze’s other sister, the now sixty-nine-year-old Aloysia. This fascinating encounter came about because Thomas Attwood in London had given them a letter for her – a fact which had occasioned a small flash of irritation in Constanze when they had told her of this, for Attwood had sent no message to her. Sure enough, Aloysia turned up on the Novellos’ doorstep. Vincent must have been out at the time, for only Mary recorded their meeting. She found her to be ‘a very pleasant woman but broken by misfortune – she is parted from her husband who allows her so little that she is obliged to give lessons which at her age she finds a great hardship’. Mary cannily used the occasion to seek Aloysia’s advice on singing teachers for her daughter Clara in Paris, and elicited some quite forthright opinions: ‘she declares that most of the Italian singers cannot read the music they sing – nature has done much for them in a voice but that they are quite ignorant of the science’. (As a good pianist and all-round musician herself, Aloysia would indeed have been exasperated by such deficiencies.) Aloysia also professed great fondness for young Wolfgang, whom she loved ‘better even than her own children’. And at last the two women entered the area that Mary will have been most anxious to explore:
She told me Mozart always loved her until the day of his death, which to speak candidly she fears had occasioned a slight jealousy on the part of her sister. I ask
ed her why she refused him, she could not tell, the fathers were both agreed but she could not love him at the time, she was not capable of appreciating his talent and his amiable character, but afterwards she much regretted it. She spoke of him with great tenderness and regret, as of her sister whose understanding she thinks very superior.
So, for all her professional feistiness, poor Aloysia now emerges as a rather sad woman with real bitterness in her memories. She had chosen to blot out any recollection of the considerable parental opposition to her liaison with Mozart, preferring instead to retain a romantic picture of star-crossed lovers. And although she and her sisters were still close, the ‘slight jealousy’ in Constanze to which she referred could perhaps more truthfully have been applied to herself. When she politely expressed her regret to Mary that she had never been to London, she actually blamed Constanze: ‘she was much pressed by the English when at Hamburg to come, but had no one to go with, as Mme Mozart left her to present the Requiem to the King of Prussia’. It was Constanze who after all had had not one but two loving marriages, whereas her own had failed. Constanze was now living in extreme comfort while she was struggling at the edge of poverty. And ultimately, of course, it was Constanze’s name, not hers, that would for ever be joined with that of Mozart. Like so many of her generation and kind, Aloysia had once received tumultuous applause in the great opera houses and concert halls of Europe, and now faced only bleakness and hardship.
As the Novellos headed back to London, they again stopped in Salzburg. By delightful chance, the first person they met was young Wolfgang, at the offices of the Diligence coach company as he was about to set off on a journey to the Tyrol. He informed them that Nannerl was in ‘the same state of languor’, but that his mother was ‘in excellent health as usual’. They did not disturb Nannerl when they found her to be sleeping peacefully, but later that day did climb the hill to the Nonnberggasse house to call on Constanze and Sophie. To their dismay, Constanze was out – in fact herself on a vigilant visit to Nannerl. But Sophie pressed them to stay and wait for her return, and while they did so she opened up with her own Mozartian reminiscences. (The Novellos had rather ignored her two weeks earlier.) What both Vincent and Mary Novello wrote down was an account of Mozart’s last days virtually identical to that which Sophie had sent to Nissen for the biography, almost as if the very process of composing it for her brother-in-law had provided her with a script from which she could easily satisfy the questioning of other enquirers. This was probably not the first time that Sophie had divulged her crucial role in Mozart’s final illness, and it certainly had its effect on her English visitors. ‘She also told me that Mozart had died in HER arms,’ gasped Mary. With touching and commendable loyalty to her own husband, Sophie then showed the Novellos a Mass by Jakob Haibl, and Vincent politely praised it. Constanze eventually arrived home, and was genuinely delighted to find the Novellos there. Another afternoon of Mozartian conversation and genuine friendship was passed. And later that evening Constanze and Sophie surprised the Novellos by turning up at their inn. ‘Both she and her sister came to us like old friends; placed themselves by our side at table, and paid us the compliment of partaking of our little Meal, without the least formality, and just as if they wished to convince us that they felt as much at home with us as at their own house.’
After supper the gallant Vincent insisted on walking the women home for their final farewell, climbing back up the hill to the little street past the nunnery. He was ecstatic: the moon was full, the countryside that it now so mysteriously revealed was exquisite, and Mozart’s widow was on his arm. And Constanze too enjoyed the gentle companionship of the civilized Englishman of whom she had so quickly become fond, and confided to him her deepest anxieties about her Wolfgang and his Polish ‘mistress’. Vincent was so touched by this moonlit, post-prandial baring of Constanze’s soul that he did not even share its revelations with his wife.
ON 10 OCTOBER 1829, just over two months after the Novellos’ visit, Nannerl died. She was seventy-eight years old. Although she must at times have felt, rightly, that her achievements as a musician represented a mere fraction of her potential, the life of Nannerl Mozart remains to this day one of the most fascinating for a woman of her time. Her earliest years were of an excitement, glamour, drama, effort and achievement that very few children of any period can possibly know. Her father immediately recognized her considerable gifts, and taught her superb technique at the keyboard, together with sight-reading and memory skills. Her younger brother was soon to outshine her, but their childhood was one of happily shared experiences and games, most of them involving the process of making music together. Nannerl inevitably found it a little difficult when attention was increasingly focused on Wolfgang, but she never let her flashes of sibling jealousy destroy the joy and pride that she felt in his brilliance, and soon she adapted to gliding along in his slipstream: ‘I am only my brother’s pupil,’ she would modestly declare.
The door to this wonderland was slammed in her face in her late teens. As her father and brother strode happily off to Italy, repeatedly and for several months at a time, Nannerl was suddenly excluded from the very activities that had been her lifeblood. Her joy in her brother’s development was shifted: where she had been a participant in it, she was now to be an observer. And despite the fact that other girls and women of her own age in Salzburg were pursuing exciting musical paths, her dictatorial father never even contemplated the notion that she too might have a performing career. She would have grown close to her mother as they fended for themselves in Salzburg. But the tragic loss of Maria Anna, on yet another trip from which Nannerl was barred, was devastating for her. For a while she assumed the role of her mother in the Tanzmeisterhaus, taking domestic responsibility for Leopold and Wolfgang; and her gifts as a chamber musician flourished within those walls, affording great pleasure to her listeners, her colleagues and herself. But after the final departure of Wolfgang from Salzburg, her involvement in his continued blossoming took yet another step back. Although she still played regularly and with great pleasure, her life at the beck and call of her domineering father became increasingly claustrophobic.
Nannerl’s marriage in her mid-thirties, to a selfish widower several years her senior, does have the stamp of desperation. She entered into it in the full knowledge that conjugal gains would be achieved only with musical sacrifices, but even so she was probably startled to discover the bitter reality of her decision. Her years in St Gilgen constituted another shock to her artistic system: she could not play at all, and she was now utterly severed from the dazzling world of her brother. But while she did experience a kind of bereavement for the loss of her playing days, she duly became a wife, mother and stepmother, and stuck to this role loyally and doggedly; she continued her duties as a daughter too, until Leopold’s death. But her relationship with her own children was complicated. Leopold had effectively confiscated her firstborn son in the most important early part of his life, and in due course she tragically lost both her daughters. She must have known the true meaning of loneliness.
After the death of her husband, Nannerl quickly returned ‘home’, as it must have felt, to Salzburg, and there at last, in her quiet widowhood, she seems to have discovered a sense of peace. She was cooperative with biographers and publishers, and wholeheartedly supportive of the Nissens’ huge project, for in adding her weight to it she relived, and therefore enjoyed all over again, the thrills of her childhood. She suffered cruelly from the debilities of age (whereas, in her childhood, she had been hailed as a ‘prodigy of nature’, in her final years she was described as a ‘decay of nature’), but evidently she bore these with dignity and grace. The arrival of her nephew Wolfgang, in her late life, brought her a new conduit for love and a reconciliation with her past, and perhaps, too, a roundness to her life as she entered her final sleep.
AS INSTRUCTED IN the codicil to her will, Nannerl was buried in the churchyard of St Peter’s Abbey, around the corner from her apartment, rather than
in the cemetery of St Sebastian on the other side of the river, with the rest of her family. Her son Leopold inherited all her possessions, with the exception of a few named bequests to her stepgrandchildren and her servants. But Nannerl did specify that any items that had come from the Mozart side of the family, as opposed to the Berchtolds’, should be returned to the next generation of Mozarts after Leopold’s death. As it happened, Leopold passed all these items straight on to Constanze and her sons; and, while he was about it, ordered a copy of the Nissen biography from her, before he faded back into Mozartian obscurity. The younger generation was certainly behaving with perfect propriety.
In Constanze’s own final years, the marketing of the biography became one of her main preoccupations. She kept a record of all her correspondence relating to its sales and distribution, her Tagebuch meines Brief Wechsels in Betref der Mozartischen Biographie. In it she noted every transaction between 1828, when advance notices of the biography’s imminent publication first appeared, and 1837. Her chief collaborators in this business partnership were Breitkopf and Härtel in Leipzig, Feuerstein in Pirna, André in Offenbach, and, a little surprisingly, for he was a big rival of Constanze’s recently deceased cousin Carl Maria von Weber, Gaspare Spontini in Berlin. She also recorded in her Tagebuch her dealings with lawyers in Copenhagen on matters relating both to Nissen’s estate and to her own will, which she regularly revised; and with her bankers, Schuller & Co., in Vienna. Constanze had become a shrewd businesswoman, determined, tenacious and razor-sharp.