"Mozart"

A sermon by Dave Weissbard

delivered at

The Unitarian Universalist Church

Rockford, Illinois

05/14/06

Johannes Crisostomos Wolfgang Gotlieb Mozart was born on January 27, 1756 – 250 years ago. The anniversary of that birth is being celebrated around the world this year, and the reason is obvious – in the eyes of most people versed in Western music, he was among the very greatest. In a brief life, only two years longer than that of Jesus, he composed 626 pieces of music including 53 symphonies; 21 operas, musical plays or dramatic cantatas; masses and other and sacred works, chamber music, ballet music, duets and ensembles, songs, canons, marches, dance music, concertos for piano, strings and wind instruments, cassations, serenades and divertimenti. And, of course, it is not just a matter of quantity but of quality. Much of his music is considered to be among the most beautiful ever composed.

I have not, with the exception of a college course in Music 101 (one of the most challenging I took), studied music or musicians. While I had some sense of Mozart’s great contribution, it paled in comparison to its true scope. Most of what I thought I knew about his life came from Peter Shaffer’s “Amadeus” which is a drama loosely based on the life of Mozart. “Amadeus” is, however, credited with creating what is referred to as the “Mozart mania” of the 80's – A. Peter Brown writing in 1991 suggested that the play and movie “did more for Mozart’s case than anything else in the 200 years since his death.”

The actual life story of Mozart, while less intense than Shaffer’s script, is hardly less awe inspiring in its complexity. It is hard to imagine an adequate “brief biography” of Mozart, but to let this celebration of his birth go by without at least an introduction to the man would be unacceptable. A eulogy at a memorial service does not pretend to be a complete biography. In celebrating the life of one who has died, what I try to do is suggest some of the depth and complexity of the one who has died. In this case, I would like to whet your appetite for knowing more about the life of this fascinating man because there are excellent biographies available. While the music certainly stands on its own merits, I believe it means even more in the context of a real life.

Mozart did not come upon music by accident. His father, Leopold, was a court musician, composer, and music teacher. His mother, Anna Maria Pertl, was from a musical family. His mother gave birth to seven children, of whom only two survived infancy: Maria Anna who was born in 1751, and Wolfgang who, as I said, was born in Salzburg in 1756. The first two names are because of the saint’s dayo n which he was born; the name Gottleib, which means beloved of God, is the German form of the Latin “Amadeus.”

Maria Anna, who was known as Nannerl, had exceptional talent at the clavier and her father began instructing her at the age of 7. She later remembered her brother picking out thirds on the keyboard when he was 3. Three days before his fifth birthday he sat down at the keyboard and in a half hour learned a scherzo his sister had been working on. That was followed a march and another scherzo, and then he composed his own andante in C major (which was only six measures long.)

Their father realized what he had at home and started to de-emphasize his own career in order to instruct his children. In January of 1862, Leopold took his children on a 3 week trip to Munich during which they played duets for the Bavarian Elector, Maximilian III Joseph. Wolfgang kept composing and in September they went on a four month tour to Vienna. The following June they began a 3 ½ year tour that took them around Germany to Belgium, the Netherlands, Paris, London, back to the Netherlands, and back and forth. The two children were a tremendous hit – people could not believe that they were capable of performing the music they did. They had many command performances for European royalty, including at Versailles. By the end of the tour, Wolfgang had completed his 33^rd composition, the Kyrie in F. He was not yet 11. There were other family trips to Vienna where Leopold hoped his family might be established, but that did not pan out. At the end of 1769, which was the year Wolfgang composed the Te Deum we will hear shortly (he was 13 at the time), Leopold took only Wolfgang to Italy. He apparently had decided that Wolfgang had the more exceptional talent – particularly perhaps because of his composing, because Nannerl’s performances were still amazing. Sexism rears its ugly head: from that time on, she generally performed only at home.

In April of 1770, Wolfgang and his father attended a performance of Allegri’s Miserere at the Sistene Chapel and Wolfgang went back to their lodging and wrote the whole thing out from memory. He went back to hear it again to be sure he had not missed anything. They toured Italy for 15 months before returning to mother and sister in Salzburg. (All this time, Leopold was supposedly working at the court.) They did two more tours of Italy, including the first performances of Wolfgang’s Lucio Silla in Milan when he was not yet 17.

We hear a lot about stage mothers who drive their children hard. Clearly, Leopold was cut from that mold. He believed that his son was a gift to the world from God and it was his job to make sure the world recognized it. He kept tight control of all of the aspects of his son’s life. They kept traveling to Vienna and elsewhere, seeking opportunities for Wolfgang to compose and perform.

In August of 1877, when he was 21, Wolfgang petitioned the archbishop of Salzburg who was his father’s (and by then his) employer, for permission to seek their fortunes elsewhere. He apparently mistakenly thought the archbishop would continue to pay them, but he fired them both – but then relented and let Leopold back on the payroll with the understanding that he needed to stay in Salzburg and earn his pay.

Mozart and his mother then left for Bavaria and Paris. Even though he was 21, his father believed Wolfgang was in need of parental supervision, and since he could not leave Salzburg, mother went instead. Along the way they visited his father’s family and Wolfgang developed an intimate and long lasting relationship with his cousin Maria Anna. He and his mother went on to Mannheim where they met the Weber family and Wolfgang fell madly in love with the very talented second oldest daughter Aloysia. He composed music especially to showcase her rare abilities. Five months later he and his mother went on to Paris. While they were there, his mother became ill, and then sicker, and they tried treating it with the state of the art medicine - bleeding, and she got weaker. She died on July 3 of 1778. Wolfgang wrote to his father, warning him that Anna Maria was very ill, but not yet telling him she was dead. He wrote to a family friend, alerting him to stand by to console Leopold when he received the real news. Leopold never forgave Wolfgang for allowing his mother to die.

For reasons which are not clear, his beloved Aloysia Weber became cool to Wolfgang. The Weber family moved to Vienna after the death of the father, and Wolfgang ended up living with them for a time. The upshot of that was he decided to marry Constanze. His father disapproved, feeling that she was just after his money – not that there was a lot yet, but that she anticipated there would be. His father refused to approve of the marriage, and controlled as he was by his father, Wolfgang hesitated, but on August 4, 1782, he and Constanze were married in Vienna. He was then 26.

What with his father’s disapproval, and his sister’s disapproval (since Nannerl viewed her as a threat to her relationship with her brother), Constanze has not generally been favorably viewed by biographers over the years. Albert Einstein, who was a Mozart expert, had some really nasty things to say about Constanze, but there seemed to be more than a bit of projection of his own relationships into that.

The negative view of Constanze seems to be changing in more recent biographies. I particularly recommend Jane Glover’s Mozart’s Women, which makes a good case for Mozart having been well ahead of his time in the roles he composed for women. The most convincing evidence suggests that Constanze and Wolfgang were truly devoted to each other and that she was able, when necessary, to take charge and get some structure into their rather Bohemian life. Wolfgang loved people and had many friends, mostly performers and composers and patrons. They lived a fairly lavish lifestyle which tended to cost just a little more than Wolfgang was bringing in. We are often told how dire were their financial straits – we love the image of the starving artist. In actuality, Wolfgang did quite well most of the time, although the economy did fluctuate and bad times are not good times for musicians. They did move around Vienna quite a lot, depending on their income and how much he could borrow from friends – mostly fellow Masons.

The Mozarts had six children, one less than his parents, and like his parents experience, two survived infancy. The first, Raimund Leopold was born in June of 1783, and died in the care of a babysitter while Wolfgang and Constanze were on a trip to Salzburg so Wolfgang’s father and sister could meet Constanze. Their second child, Karl Thomas, was born the following September.

The Marriage of Figaro was premiered in May of 1786 and their third child was born in October and died in November. Eine kleine Nachtmusik was composed in August of 1787, Don Giovanni in October, and a fourth child, Theresia was born in December and died the following June. Anna Maria was born in November of 1789 but lived only one hour. Cosi fan tutte was finished in January of 1790.

• Andante in F for a Small Mechanical Organ and Adagio and Rondo for Glass Harmonica, Flute, Oboe, Viola and Cello in May

[Actually, the catalog of his works lists 34 compositions in 1791 adding several dances and songs to the major works I mentioned.]

On the 20^th of November, Mozart “took to his bed,” and on the 5^th of December, he died, with his Requiem in D minor unfinished. He was buried in a common grave at the cemetery at St. Marx in Vienna.

Mozart was at the peak of his career. He had certainly not run out of creative energy, but the stress of his life had apparently accumulated. There were rumors that he had been poisoned. Shaffer’s “Amadeus” suggests that his competitor Salieri was responsible for his death – both for tormenting him with a masked figure that commissioned his Requium and by poisoning him. Constanze appears to have helped spread the rumor that Solieri had plotted against him, but there is a lot of evidence that they held each other in respect. Doctors who have examined the evidence – obviously at a distance – maintain that Mozart died of purely natural causes - probably rheumatic fever.

A fascinating theory I discovered on the internet is that Mopzart did not really die, but only pretended to because of the pressure of his life and work. The author maintains that the man whom Constanze later married was actually Mozart – there is a strong resemblance in the portraits – and strangely, her second husband, to whom she was also devoted, a Dane, Geog Nicholas Nissen, devoted the last part of his life to a biography of Mozart and was buried in the Mozart family plot. It’s a fascinating story, but I find no evidence of reputable scholars taking it seriously.

Constanze and Wolfgang’s two surviving sons were well provided for by the income from Mozart’s music – they were not doomed to poverty. In fact, interestingly, Constanze and her husband ultimately, after several years in Denmark, moved to Salzburg and helped care for Nannerl in her declining years while they worked on the biography, which Nissen had not finished by the time of his death.

Why does Mozart command so much attention? Perhaps it stems from the eternally misguided effort to understand the man behind the music. Although Mozart's music is often recognized as universal, it has received varying interpretations of its essential meaning. For example, critical opinion of the Symphony No. 40 in G Minor K. 550 is one of total admiration, but its character has remained elusive. Robert Schumann found it classical in the strict sense, full of Grecian "lightness and grace." Alfred Einstein thought it a "fatalistic piece of chamber music." Jens Peter Larsen believed it was not the expression of a private mood. Robbins Landon stated that it belongs to a series of works revealing the downside of Mozart's manic tendencies, while Jack Westrup found in it the spirit of opera buffa. Probably no work of the symphonic canon elicits such a wide range of affective reactions from knowledgeable critics. But perhaps it is this variety of reactions to his music that explains the varied interpretations of the person. Perhaps it is only in this sense that the biographies with their explanations of the man parallel the receptions of the music. While one can attempt to set the historical record straight, Shaffer's . . . Salieri had it right on one count: the phenomenon of Mozart transcends explanation.

I have continued top puzzle over the question I raised in the Kairos – “What impact does the life of a genius like Mozart have on our democratic emphasis on the worth and dignity of every person. Of course, Kurt Vonnegut addressed this in part in the story of Harrison Bergeron, to which I have turned several times in my 27 years here. That is the story in which the Handicapper General of the United States sets out to make everyone just alike – no one can be more graceful or more intelligent or more articulate or more musical than anyone else because we don’t want anyone to feel left out. Those who are exceptional are forced to wear various kinds of handicaps to equalize them.

It is clear that all being equal means that people should have equal opportunities, not that we delude ourselves into believing that no one is exceptional. We believe that all should be treated with respect, but that does not mean that we could – or should – blind ourselves to the qualities of a Mozart or an Einstein or a Gandhi.

What is hard for us to grasp, sometimes, is that there is diversity in the world – both people with exceptional abilities and people with severe limitations, and that we are committed to the principle that it is not productivity that determines worth, but that it is inherent in being human.

May we seek to remember that vital principle, even as we delight in the music of a genius.