by John Suchet
An essential reference work is The Cambridge Mozart Encyclopedia, edited by Cliff Eisen and Simon P. Keefe (Cambridge University Press, 2006).
What is certain is that there will be a whole new raft of publications to mark the tercentenary of Mozart’s birth in forty years’ time. The world will be as keen to know about this musical genius as it is today, and has always been.
Who can tell what original documents might have come to light by then? Maybe some of Leopold’s letters to his son will prove not to have been destroyed. Autograph manuscripts might be sitting in someone’s loft as I write this.
There is always a danger that biographies like mine – like all the books I have listed above – will become outdated, or in certain aspects prove to be wrong. That, though, is not a reason for not writing them in the first place.
We can be grateful that we know as much about this great artist as we do, and can only hope that future generations might be able to know more about him than we know today.
This book is dedicated to the Emmy Award winning television documentary maker James Black. James was a lifelong lover of Mozart’s music. At the time that he became ill with dementia, he had completed a six-part television series on Mozart’s life that was soon to be put into production. His illness, and death in 2014, prevented this. His widow Nula is in talks to revive the series.
Nula helped James for many years with his research on Mozart, just as my late wife Bonnie helped me for many years with my research on Beet-hoven. James and Bonnie, we are certain, would be elated to know that Nula and I are now married.
The city of Salzburg is today ‘Mozart city’. Fly into Salzburg and you land at W. A. Mozart Airport. The city’s university is the Universität Mozarteum Salzburg. The house where he was born and the apartment in which his family later lived are museums dedicated to his life. On any day of the year (including Christmas) they are full of visitors – tourists, school groups, Mozart enthusiasts. They claim to be two of the most visited museums in the world.
Souvenir shops bristle with Mozart memorabilia, from emblazoned T-shirts and mugs to boxes of Mozart chocolates in all shapes and sizes. The boxes, that is. The chocolates are always round, made of dark chocolate, marzipan and nougat, covered in gold or silver foil with a portrait of the composer, and universally known as Mozartkugeln (Mozart balls).
All of which would rather surprise Mozart, since he, like his father, loathed the city, and the city thoroughly disliked him.
Not everyone approves of the way the city has used Mozart’s name to such overwhelming commercial effect. In 2007 Salzburg Council commissioned a local artist to create a temporary installation that could stand alongside the statue in the Mozartplatz.
Instead of making a separate work of art, he created an installation covering the much revered statue – top to bottom – in shopping trolleys to protest against the commercialisation of the city and its heritage. His work did not find favour with Salzburgers. Such was the outcry at the defamation of the city’s famous son that the trolleys were removed six months prematurely.
There is not a night of the year when Mozart’s music cannot be heard in the city of his birth, from the most exclusive setting of the annual Salzburg Festival to the humblest abode. The same is true in Vienna, where music students, dressed in Mozart wigs and his famous red jacket and breeches, hand out leaflets for the day’s performances; though only one building bears witness to his ten-year residency in the city.
Ultimately, as the people of Salzburg, and indeed Vienna, will readily admit, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart belongs to the world.
1. The Travel Diaries of Vincent and Mary Novello, quoted in Glover, Jane, Mozart’s Women (London: Macmillan, 2005)
2. Solomon, Maynard, Mozart, A Life (London: Hutchinson, 1995)
3. My extracts from Leopold Mozart’s letters are from Anderson, Emily The Letters of Mozart and His Family (London: Macmillan, 1966)
4. Gutman, Robert W., Mozart, A Cultural Biography (New York: Harcourt, 1999)
5. ibid.
6. ibid.
7. Niemetschek, Franz, Life of Mozart, trans. Helen Mautner (London, 1956)
8. ibid.
9. Lever, Évelyne, Marie Antoinette: The Last Queen of France, trans. Catherine Temerson (London: Piatkus, 2001)
10. Sadie, Stanley, Mozart: The Early Years 1756–1781 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006)
11. Eisen, Cliff, New Mozart Documents (London: Macmillan, 1991)
12. Nannerl Mozarts Tagebuchblätter, ed. Geffray, Geneviève (ed.), with Angermüller, Rudolph, quoted in Sadie, Mozart: The Early Years
13. The Leisure Hour (London 1882), quoted in Sadie, Mozart: The Early Years
14. Diary of Father Beda Hübner, quoted in Sadie, Mozart: The Early Years
15. From Friedrich Melchior’s La Correspondance littéraire, philosophique et critique, quoted in Glover, Mozart’s Women
16. My extracts from Mozart’s letters are taken from Robert Spaethling’s Mozart’s Letters, Mozart’s Life, the first in which the translations attempt to reproduce in English Wolfgang’s often ungrammatical and misspelt German. See Acknowledgements.
17. Solomon, Maynard, Mozart: A Life (London: Hutchinson, 1995)
18. Burney, Charles, Music, Men and Manners in France and Italy, 1770, ed. H. Edmund Poole (London, 1974)
19. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, The Confessions, Book 7, trans. J. M. Cohen (London: Penguin, 1953)
20. Johann Adolf Hasse, quoted in Sadie, Mozart: The Early Years
21. Eisen, Cliff, New Mozart Documents
22. Riesbeck, Caspar, Travels Through Germany in a Series of Letters (London, 1787)
23. Reviews collected by Christian Daniel Schubart (1739–91), quoted in Gutman, Mozart, A Cultural Biography
24. My extracts from Anna Maria Mozart’s letters are also from Anderson, Letters of Mozart and his Family
25. Solomon, Mozart: A Life; Wolfgang Hildesheimer, Mozart, trans. by M. Faber (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985); Gutman, Mozart, A Cultural Biography
26. Nissen, Georg Nikolaus von, Biographie W. A. Mozart’s (1828), quoted in Sadie, Mozart: The Early Years
27. Gutman, Mozart, A Cultural Biography
28. Nannerl Mozarts Tagebuchblätter, quoted in Glover, Mozart’s Women
29. Landon, H.C. Robbins, Mozart and Vienna (London: Thames and Hudson, 1991)
30. ibid.
31. Nissen, Biographie W. A. Mozart’s, quoted in Glover, Mozart’s Women
32. ibid.
33. Nannerl Mozarts Tagebuchblätter, quoted in Glover, Mozart’s Women
34. Solomon, Mozart: A Life
35. Memoirs of Lorenzo Da Ponte, trans. Elisabeth Abbott, ed. Arthur Livingston (New York: Dover Publications, 1967)
36. ibid.
37. ibid.
38. ibid.
39. ibid.
40. Glover, Mozart’s Women
41. Memoirs of Lorenzo Da Ponte
42. ibid.
43. Glover, Mozart’s Women
44. Solomon, Mozart: A Life
45. ibid.
46. ibid.
47. Recounted in Otto Jahn: W.A. Mozart, 3rd ed. by H. Deiters, 1889-1891; Eng. trans. by P. D. Townsend, 1891
48. Nissen, Biographie W. A. Mozart’s
49. Friedrich Schlichtgroll, Mozarts Leben (Götha, 1793), facsimile edition of the reprint (Graz 1794), ed. Joseph Heinz Eibl (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1974)
50. Benyovszky, Karl, J. N. Hummel: Der Mensch und Künstler (1934), quoted in Solomon, Mozart: A Life
51. Nissen, Biographie W. A. Mozart’s
52. ibid.
53. Jahn, Otto, The Life of Mozart (3 vols.), trans. Pauline D. Townsend (London: Novello, 1882)
54. Solomon, Mozart, A Life
55. Jahn, The Life of Mozart
56. Niemetschek, Life of Mozart, trans. by Mautner
57. ibid.
58. ibid.
59. Nissen, Biographie W. A. Mozart’s, quoted in Glover, Mozart’s Women
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60. ibid.
61. ibid.
62. ibid.
63. ibid.
64. ibid.
65. Gärntner, Heinz, Constanze Mozart: After the Requiem trans. by R. G. Pauly (Milwaukee: Amadeus Press, 1986)
Page numbers in italic refer to illustrations
A
Adriatic Sea 84
Allegri, Gregorio 79–80
Alps 74, 86, 92, 101
Amsterdam 53–54
Ancaster, Duke of 78
Antwerp 33, 54
Arco, Count 166, 168, 170–172
Asti von Asteburg, Madame d’ 88
Augsburg 2, 3, 5, 29–30, 62, 104, 121–123, 125, 128–131, 140
Austerlitz, Battle of 1
B
Bach, Johann Christian 46–47
Baden 235–237, 240, 242, 243, 246–249
Bäsle see Mozart, Maria Anna Thekla
Bath 77
Bavaria 1, 2, 15, 28, 108, 128, 131, 160
Bedford, Duke of 39
Beethoven, Johann van 45
Beethoven, Ludwig van xi, 45, 54, 67, 74, 123, 195, 210, 223, 231, 240, 244, 253
Belgium 32, 54
Berlin 180, 221, 231
Berne 54
Black Forest 131
Bohemia 62, 131
Bologna 73, 76, 83–85, 87, 88, 120
Bonn xi, 54, 74, 223, 244
Bonnières, Adrien-Louis de, Duc de Guînes 151
Bozen 100
Brahms, Johannes 210
Brenner Pass 92, 94, 100
Britain 39, 80
Brussels 32, 54
Burney, Charles 85, 131
C
Calais 40, 49
Cambrai 54
Canterbury 50
Casanova, Giacomo 213
Catherine the Great 178
Ceneda 213
Ceseletti family 89
Chabot, Duchesse de 143
Channel 40, 44, 49
Charlotte, Queen 41–42, 46, 47, 57
China 62
Clement XIV, Pope 79, 81
Closset, Dr Thomas Franz 235, 250
Colloredo, Count Hieronymus Franz de Paula Joseph 98–99, 99, 101, 105, 106, 109, 111, 113–114, 119–120, 150, 159, 160, 163, 165–168, 170–172, 177–178, 198–200
Cologne 45
Copenhagen 256
D
Da Ponte, Lorenzo 196, 213, 214, 215–218, 220–222
Danube River 18, 19, 25, 63
Donaueschingen 54
Dover 40–41
Dresden 231–232
Duschek, Josepha 232, 234
E
Emilian, Pater 125
England 42, 45, 46, 78
Eslinger, Joseph Richard 17
Eugen, Duke Karl 30
Eyck, Count van 35, 36
F
Farinelli 76
Ferdinand, Archduke 95, 96, 97, 100, 101
Firmian, Count Karl Joseph von 74–75
Florence 64, 73, 76–78, 83, 85
France 20, 38, 39, 140
Frankfurt 27, 31, 237, 244
Franz, Emperor 20, 57, 63, 64
G
Geneva 54, 60
George III, King 41–42, 47, 57
Gerl, Barbara 241
Germany 1, 27, 31, 32, 38, 54, 131
Glover, Jane 217
Gluck, Christoph Willibald 19, 68, 69, 141, 189, 195, 221, 224
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von 27, 32
Gottlieb, Anna xii, 241
Grimm, Friedrich Melchior 36, 143, 149
Gutman, Robert 129
H
Hagenauer, Johann Lorenz 9, 16–19, 24–25, 28, 29, 31–33, 35, 49, 54–56, 63, 64, 67, 69, 89, 93, 19
The Hague 49–51, 53–54, 62
Hamilton, William 80
Handel, George Frideric 41
Haydn, Joseph 26, 108, 206, 207, 210, 211, 237, 238
Haydn, Michael 26, 60
Heidelberg 31, 131
Herberstein, Count 18, 19
Hildesheimer, Wolfgang 129
Hofdemel, Franz and Magdalena 230, 241
Holy Roman Empire 1, 2, 16, 32, 57, 81
Hummel, Johann Nepomuk 235
Hungary 62
I
Innsbruck 92
Italy 59, 62, 68, 73, 74, 84, 88–89, 91, 94, 96, 102, 103, 118, 120, 137, 140
J
Jahn, Otto 235, 241
Joseph II, Emperor 18, 19, 63, 163, 220–224, 236, 237, 253, 254
K
Karl Theodor, Elector 131, 133, 160
Klosterneuberg 212
Koblenz 31
Köchel, Ludwig von 14
L
Lange, Joseph 157, 159, 173, 177, 234, 258
Lausanne 54
Leipzig 231–232, 234
Leopold, Emperor 19, 237–238
Lichnowsky, Count 231
Ligniville, Eugenio Marquess of 76
Lille 50
Lincolnshire 78
Linley, Thomas 77, 77, 78, 85
Linz 18, 19, 202, 212
Lodi 76
Lombardy 74
London 32, 38–43, 43, 44–47, 47, 48–50, 60–62, 78, 80, 85, 94, 222, 238
Loreto 84
Lothringen, Prince Karl Alexander von 32–33
Louis Philippe, Duc d’Orléans 36
Louis XV 35, 36, 222
Luxembourg 32
Lyons 54, 97
M
Mainz 31
Mannheim 121, 126, 128, 130–132, 132–133, 135, 137–140, 156
Mannheim-Munich orchestra 181
Mantua 73, 74
Maria Elizabeth, Archduchess 64, 66
Maria Theresa, Empress 18–20, 21, 25, 38, 57, 63, 65, 70, 92, 95–96, 102, 106, 163, 189, 247
Marie Antoinette 20, 222
Maximilian III of Bavaria 16, 108, 118, 119, 120
Mechelen 54
Melk 63
Milan 73, 74–76, 83, 86, 88, 92–95, 97, 99–102, 109, 259
Teatro Regio Ducal 75, 92, 95, 99
Modena, Duke of 75
Modena, Princess Maria Beatrice of 95
Moravia 66
Mozart, Anna Maria 6, 7, 7, 8, 19, 25, 27, 43, 50, 53, 79, 80, 93, 95, 101, 106, 107, 115–118, 121, 126, 129–135, 139–151, 154, 155, 158, 161, 227
Mozart, Anna Maria Thekla (Bäsle) 6, 121–123, 124, 125–130, 132, 155–156, 158, 234
Mozart, Constanze xi, xii, 157, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178–189, 196–204, 206, 208, 209, 211, 212, 219, 221, 223, 227, 228, 231–236, 238, 240, 242, 243, 245–251, 253, 254, 256–259, 259
Mozart, Franz Alois 121
Mozart, Franz Xaver Wolfgang xi, 190, 245, 255, 257, 260
Mozart, Karl Thomas xi, 204–205, 209, 228, 231, 240, 245, 255, 259
Mozart, Leopold xi, 2–3, 5, 5, 6–9, 11–14, 15–22, 24–26, 27–28, 30–33, 35–36, 38–54, 56–71, 73–81, 83–86, 88–92, 100–118, 120–121, 129, 131–138, 140–147, 149–153, 155, 158, 160–164, 166–170, 172–175, 177, 179, 181, 184–186, 196–201, 204, 207–212, 215, 224, 225, 227, 237, 260
Mozart, Maria Anna (Nannerl) xii, 6–9, 11–12, 14–19, 23, 23, 24, 27, 28, 37, 38, 40, 41, 45, 47, 50–51, 52, 54, 55, 60, 63, 66–67, 71, 74–76, 84, 87, 95, 96, 100, 101, 106, 107, 110, 111, 115, 116, 118, 143, 158, 160, 162, 190, 199, 200–201, 208, 209, 210, 224, 225, 226, 227, 258
Mozart, Raimund Leopold 197–202
Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus x, 52, 72, 82, 144, 147, 191–193, 223, 234
Andante and Allegro in C major for clavier 14
Apollo et Hyacinthus 59, 67
Ascanio in Alba 92, 95, 97
Ave verum corpus 240
Bastien und Bastienne 70
birth 8–9, 10
childhood 11–14, 15–26, 27–38, 39–48, 49–58, 59–70, 71–82, 83–92, 93–102
Clarinet Concerto in A 248
Clarinet Quintet in A 236
Concerto for Flute and Harp 151
Coronation Mass 159
Cosí fan
tutte 221, 236
death 251–252, 251–251; 254, 256, 259
Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute) xii, 214, 242, 243, 245, 246, 246–247, 249
Die Entführung aus dem Serail 180–181, 181, 183, 216
Die Schuldigkeit des ersten Gebots 61
Don Giovanni 218, 219, 219–222, 232, 258
Eine kleine Nachtmusik 222
Exsultate, jubilate 101
funeral 253, 254
Grabmusik 61
Haffner Serenade 112
Haffner Symphony 185, 188
Haydn Quartets 210
Idomeneo, rè di Creta 160–162, 163, 178, 200
Jupiter Symphony 228–229
La clemenza di Tito 244, 245, 246, 247, 250
La finta giardiniera 108, 110
La finta semplice 69, 108
‘Laudate Dominum’ 159
Le nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro) xii, 217, 218, 220, 222, 232
‘Little’ Symphony in G minor 108
Linz Symphony 202
Lucio Silla 100–101
marriage to Constanze 175–188
Mass in C minor 200
Mitridate, rè di Ponto 84–85, 88, 93
Paris Symphony 151–153, 153, 158
Piano Concerto No. 11 191
Piano Concerto No. 12 191
Piano Concerto No. 13 191
Piano Concerto No. 14 204
Piano Concerto No. 15 204
Piano Concerto No. 16 204
Piano Concerto No. 17 204
Piano Concerto No. 18 204
Piano Concerto No. 19 204
Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor 210
Piano Concerto No. 25 in C 229
Piano Concerto No. 27 in B flat 239
Piano Concerto No. 9 in E flat major 112
Piano Sonata No. 11 in A major 180
Requiem 243–245, 245, 248, 249–250
scatology 122, 126, 135, 198
Sinfonia concertante in E flat 159–160
String Quintet No. 3 in C 222
String Quartet No. 19 in C major 211
String Quartet in D minor 197
Symphony in F 67
Symphony No. 39 228
Symphony No. 40 228
Vesperae solennes de confessore 159
Munich 15, 16, 28, 29, 30, 54, 57, 104, 108–110, 116, 117, 117, 118, 120–121, 131, 156, 157, 160–163, 168, 173, 177, 198, 206
Mannheim-Munich orchestra 181
N
Naples 62, 64, 73, 80, 81, 83, 84
Nardini, Pietro 77
Nassau-Weilburg, Princess Caroline of 50–51
Nelson, Horatio 80
Netherlands 32, 54