Mozart’s Sister and their secret language
This isn’t the usual fare about talking to the flipside, accessing great musicians, as we do in TUNING INTO THE AFTERLIFE, but a discovery of a book written by my old professor Roye E. Wates at Boston University.
How I got into Roye’s class was a bit unusual — I had designed my degree at Boston University in the Humanities department. The once very popular major in the 1960’s had evaporated for the business school in the 70’s, so when I graduated in 1978 (“magna cum whaty?” I had to look that up) I was the only Humanities major out of 26 thousands students.
Late to the game? Or holding onto the rear of the boat?
My major was “The Impact of the 20th century upon the Arts” — which allowed me to study theater, music and painting in Europe, allowed me to take unusual courses in Boston. In Dr. Wate’s case, she was teaching a class in 20th century composers; if memory serves me it was about the newer artists of the 20th century, Webern, Shoenberg, and atonal music.
Before one’s eyes roll, or the head goes for a swim, I noticed something unusual about the study of science, biology, sociology going to Boston University. I was in the DGE program, which focused on small classes, advanced learning; it was the Harvard/Oxford alum Julian Baird who convinced me to join the program.
While fellow freshman had classes of 500, who routinely brought a tape recorder to the class, while the assistant gave the lecture the students would go out for coffee and transcribe the notes later — I had this one on one experience with only 10 to 12 students per class.
In Professor Wates class — I may have been one of five. Not many folks in that atonal group.
However, what DGE demonstrated in its program (since swallowed up by the main part of the University under John Silber’s belt tightening) was that each student took two years of classes in sociology, biology and humanities. And what they emphasized was the common themes that ran among them.
So while we were studying the birth of Greek art, we were also studying atoms, the birth of biology, we were also studying movements in sociology — the birth of civilization (and Howard Zinn was a professor at the University) and it became apparent that there was a wave of common knowledge that influenced each time period.
For example at the turn of the 20th century, the camera changed painting. People by and large moved on from depicting scenes, to deconstructing them. The impressionists, the fabulists, the surrealists, the dadaists — all taking apart painting as a concept.
In writing, James Joyce and others were deconstructing the novel. Taking out periods, paragraphs, Hemingway dispensing with adjectives… free association, unconscious writing… in theater, people were deconstructing the narrative, Pirandello taking the play into the theater seats and lobby, in film, the nascent version of it, people were using images to convey emotion — Dali and Bunuel created “Un Chien Andalous.”
Also the first World War forced everyone, from poets to artists, to throw out the old babies and the bathwater. It spawned the roaring 20’s, the anything goes experience of Paris, New York and Berlin.
And in music, the classical period deconstructed into atonal music. Debussy doing “pastorales” or Satie’s “gymnopedias” — (Think John Cage’s famous piece where a pianist sits in front of the piano for 3 minutes and plays nothing.) Deconstruction of the macro to the microcosm. But as we know, inside the macrocosm is the microcosm and vice versa. Or verse Vice-a.
I was particularly fond of the dadaists, as their art included comedy. (Duchamps “R Mutt” toilet and graffito) I saw a performance of Kurt Schwitter’s poetry at the Goethe Institute in 1977 and invited the performer to our class where he performed Schwitter’s “sneeze poem” to a startled classroom. Imagine a guy in a tux, starting to speak but is constantly interrupted by an oncoming sneeze that never happens. (all written out in a poem that lasts five minutes.)
But in Professor Wates class we also studied Kandinsky. She was translating a book of his poetry, and I was startled to read his X rated poems, (like a canvas, a metaphor for X rated behavior) I realized that his paintings included references to his sometimes Theosophist poetry with an eye towards sex.
A lot of “erect towers exploding rainbows” over “milky breasts of hills… “ and then learned that one day Kandinsky walked into his studio to see an amazing painting on the floor, wondered who had painted it — but then realized his canvas and fallen off the easel upside down. From then on, he would finish his paintings by turning them upside down and signing them. It was the subject of my final paper for Dr. Wates, and I’m sure she didn’t know what to make of it.
(One memorable conversations was with the curator of a museum in Paris, both of us with our heads turned upside down to look at the Kandinsky paintings with fresh eyes, seeing that he had turned them “upside down” before signing them)
That’s a preamble to Mozart’s sister Maria.
Dr. Wates wrote “Mozart: An Introduction to the Music, the Man, and the Myths.” Published in 2010, I’m sorry I wasn’t aware of it until looking at her obit in the Boston University alumni news.
This is an amazing book, and the story she reveals is amazing as well, and deserves a full series, a feature film treatment. (I’d attempt that, but it’s been awhile since anyone has asked for a treatment, so I’m writing this article (free on Medium!) instead to inspire someone to do so.)
Mozart had a much better, smarter, more accomplished sister.
Never heard of her?
No, of course not. At twenty, since her mother had passed away, Mozart’s father insisted she take over the “household duties.” Which in those days meant handling all the finances, all the cooking, cleaning etc. No more touring as a musician with her famous “little brother.”
Four years older than her famous brother, she was equally if not more talented. She began performing in public at an early age as well and the two of them toured Europe for a decade playing together in all of the most famous courts of Europe. He got the fame, but the two of them wore those same loopy outfits. “Cute!”
She wrote scores of music before Mozart — and is anyone surprised that none of her pieces were saved? Collected? Published?
Young Wolfgang (never called himself Amadeus) was passionate about his sister. Wrote for her, doted on her, grew up with her tutelage. His father, despite the silliness of the film version was a talented musician himself.
But in those days, archaic era before social security existed — the parents raised their kids to be the bread winners, the money makers - because their elder years depended upon the money their children made. That income was what their social security was.
That’s why it was important to have one’s son be the successful one in the family, because their income would cover the future of the family.
And Mozart was the designated money maker. Once his mother died, the father insisted that his sister take over the household chores. Quit her gig touring with her brother. Or as a soloist.
And in those days, it wasn’t an option. According to Dr. Wate’s book, many suitable suitors came and asked for her hand in marriage, but if the father is to be faulted for anything, it was his adamant refusal to let her go. “Who’s going to feed me and your brother?”
She does have the last laugh however. After her father died, she did marry. And after her brother died (not destitute, not in poverty, just from a startling cold) she did marry and live to be 78. She taught music as well. She carried on as a musician the rest of her life.
Wates digs into the other cliche’s, myths of Mozart’s life — the Salieri invention, a good literary idea, but inaccurate.
Never heard of her? You have now.
A virtuoso. As good as, if not more accomplished than her younger brother, who was born 7 years later. In 1761 “Wolfgang learns to play eight minuets from Nannerl’s book and composes a concerto at the age of 2.” (From Mozart, ibid, Amadeus press 2010)
“In 1763 the children perform at the Habsburg court in Vienna for Empress Maria Theresa… and then embark on a three year concert tour of European capitals; Munich, Paris, London, Amsterdam, Brussels, the Hague. At Versailles they play for Louis XV.”
What was that gig like?
In 1778 their mother dies, and Maria Anna is forced to take over the household. She reportedly refused, had a “tantrum” and did everything in her power to not become a “housekeeper” at the age of 20.
Alas, she had no choice in the matter.
Wolfgang marries Constanze, against his father’s wishes (again, making it hard for the son to tour and make the family money) but she is not as depicted in the film or play Amadeus — a talented Austrian singer, who was left penniless when Mozart passed suddenly — as this was the era before they had a stipend set aside by the Guild for the widows of musicians.
However, she survived by marrying a second time.
From Wikipedia, Constanze was “a trained Austrian singer. She was married twice, first to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart; then to Georg Nikolaus von Nissen. She and Mozart had six children: Karl Thomas Mozart, Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart, and four others who died in infancy. She became Mozart’s biographer jointly with her second husband.”
Constanze passed in 1842. Deserves credit for her journey.
Maria Anna passed in 1829. Equally deserves credit.
But what have we lost culturally? Mozart’s sister was as good as he was, if not better, and while he lived into his 30’s, she was forced to stop performing and playing at age 20. What music might she have composed?
No one bothered to keep the music she wrote.
From her Wikipedia entry:
“When Wolfgang was a toddler, Nannerl (four and a half years older) was his idol. According to Maynard Solomon, “at three, Mozart was inspired to study music by observing his father’s instruction of Marianne; he wanted to be like her.”
The two children were very close, and they invented a secret language and an imaginary “Kingdom of Back” of which they were king and queen. Wolfgang’s early correspondence with Marianne is affectionate and includes some of the scatological and sexual wordplay in which Wolfgang indulged with intimates. Occasionally Wolfgang wrote entries in Marianne’s diary, referring to himself in the third person.
Wolfgang wrote several works for Marianne to perform, including the Prelude and Fugue in C, K. 394 (1782) and the four Preludes K. 395/300g (1777.). Until 1785, he sent her copies of his piano concertos (up to №21) in St. Gilgen.”
Di Mozart include some of her music into his? We’ll never know.
“The secret language of Mozart.” That should be “the secret language of the Mozarts.” Imagine if the two of them continued playing, touring, writing… well, it’s a fantasy to be sure, but worth contemplating. Imagining.
Now if that’s not a miniseries or a fun feature film, I don’t know what is.
You’re welcome.