The Mozarts, Who They Were (Volume 1). Diego Minoia
and a few are a blend of biographical and musical analysis.
This book is different from all the others, as the reader will realize from the first pages. To begin with, we will be talking about the entire Mozart family, not just Wolfgang. There is no musical analysis of the compositions and the biography was written principally from information drawn from the most direct and reliable source: the Mozartian epistolary. It is rich in subject matter that is not present in other publications on the Mozarts: information about the epoch in which they lived, their way of thinking and living, interesting facts about events and situations of which they were the protagonists, et cetera.
The objective of this labor of love is to offer a new instrument, less specialistic and certainly not musicological, but with a wealth of information, extracting acquired facts that will allow us to completely lose ourselves in the way of life of the mid to late 1700s.
I hope that I have been successful in personifying the Mozarts without downplaying the individual. My aim is to display the evidence with the simplicity and clarity of my decades of interest in Amadeus, Leopold, Nannerl and the thousands of characters in which they came into contact.
Right from the beginning, my intention was to write a book that would be interesting and pleasurable to read with ease and entertainment for musicians - who don't always find informative and specialized publications of detailed study which offers a better understanding of the context in which Mozart lived - as well as for music lovers, who will become acquainted with Mozart as a human, rather than the Salzburg "genius" high on his pedestal, as is often the case.
All will be discussed without the long digressions of a "critique", but rather with the affinity and affection of which the Mozarts are deserving. What they contributed to mankind far outweighs what they received in return.
I will tell you what the Mozarts were truly like, how they lived and how they thought during the 18th century, with the addition of interesting facts relative to situations or matters where they are pertinent to the reader related to the Mozarts in Salzburg, while they were on their "European Tour" and during the three times they traveled to their beloved Italy.
In Volume I, we will be looking at the period dating from 1747 -- 1775. Nearly thirty years that consisted of the formation of the Mozart family; the birth of their children, the early sojourns from Salzburg that served to introduce the child prodigies to society, the Grand European Tour, the three journeys to Italy and the final attempts in Vienna and Munich by Wolfgang, accompanied by his father.
After this period, Amadeus traveled alone, with the exception of a brief initial journey with his mother between Munich and Paris, where she died. He then relocated definitively to Vienna, where he married, concluding his artistic and human parabola in 1791. As a result, the period following 1777, Amadeus returned to a new phase of his life that went beyond his range, which we will talk about in the next volume.
The reader who is interested in this book can choose, based on his or her preference, between the e-book version or the printed hardcopy, both available in two separate volumes.
Part 1
Salzburg and the Mozart family
The story of the events linked to the Mozart family could be best described by borrowing the subheading from "Don Giovanni", a playful drama; an oxymoron that I believe entertained Amadeus Mozart, who adored a good play on words and which, undoubtedly, is well suited to the intrigue of the protagonist's role of seducer in the opera. The definition could also be adapted to the above-mentioned Mozartian parable, or possibly even more appropriately adapted to the reversal of terms, defining the journey among the world of the Mozart family as a Dramatic Comedy.
The early years, while not easy, were certainly joyous and rich in satisfaction for the prodigious, young Wolfgang, shared with his sister Maria Anna, known as Nannerl. They enjoyed the favor of concerts at the important European courts, compliments and gifts from reigning monarchs and from the Pope, admission to prestigious musical academies (Bologna, Verona), honors (Knight to the Order of the Golden Spur, granted by Pope Clement XIV), adventurous journeys full of interesting encounters and the discovery of the world beyond the confines of the small principality of Salzburg.
The entire family participated, at least during the early years, in the tours that would launch the prodigious brother and sister, which included lengthy European trips through Germany, Holland, Belgium, France, England and Switzerland. Only on the three tours to Italy was Wolfgang chaperoned alone by his father, Leopold, who had decided to complete the education of his only son, in order to prepare him for a career as a composer, accompanying him to "drink directly from the spring" of the music from that epoch: Italy.
Adventures and travels were undertaken with high hopes, with curiosity and open ears, to listen, comprehend and assimilate the music, styles and the trends that were to transform this young "phenomenon" into a musical giant. Not everything, however, went as hoped and a sequence of events gradually transformed things from a joyous comedy into a drama.
After his great successes were underway in Wolfgang's final years, during the period when he was searching for affirmation in Vienna (the empire's capital), an advancing movement of "removal" began of the Salzburg musician by the fashionable and superficial Viennese intellectuals; an attitude that most certainly created feelings of bitterness and disappointment in the musician and the man.
We will talk about all this in due time, as well as Mozart's music. I do believe that in order to truly know and understand an artist, it is necessary to learn about the places where he spent his time, the way he lived and thought during his era, who he encountered and the ideas that helped shape him.
Of course, even without any knowledge of his life, we can still enjoy Mozart's compositions, but we risk limiting our comprehension of their musical range; the musician without the man in his entirety, of which places, people and ideas contributed so much. We will, therefore, begin at the beginning: Salzburg, the city that was first the cradle to his art and later a prison, as perceived by the Mozarts.
Salzburg: where it all began
Our story begins, inevitably, in Salzburg. This beautiful town is now Austrian, but in Mozart's epoch, it was part of the Bavarian territory, spread out along the Salzach River.
27 January 1756, Johannes Chrysostomus (feast day of this saint) Wolfgangus (his maternal grandfather's name) Theophilus (his godfather's name) Mozart was born. The name Theophilus (from the Greek Theofilos, "Friend of God" or "He who loves God") was soon transformed into Amadeus
and later, at times, charmingly shortened to Amadé. In letters from his father, there is occasional reference to the German version, Gottlieb, as well as the affectionate nickname of Wolferl.
At that time, Salzburg, comprised of 16,000 inhabitants, was the small capital of one of the many princedoms that were part of the Holy Roman Empire of the Germanic Nations, a federation of independent states, some of which were governed by secular sovereignty and others by a prince-bishop, all of which recognized supremacy to the Emperor. The Prince-Bishop of Salzburg was the Primas Germaniae law and leader of the Bavarian bishopric. So, to be exact, the highly acclaimed (by the Austrians) Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was actually born German of Bavaria. He himself confirms this, as well as his father Leopold who was born German of Augsburg, as can be seen in the letters of the epistolary, where they compare customs of foreign countries during their travels, saying "it's not like in Germany" or "we Germans". Another letter provides further confirmation, sent to Maria Theresia Hagenauer (the wife of friend Johann Lorenz Hagenauer) by Leopold Mozart from Paris with the following address: "To Mrs. / Mrs. Maria Theresia / Hagenauer / Salzburg / in Bavaria".
The religious influence in Salzburg was clearly evident in its architecture, given the presence of numerous churches and of the cathedral chapter made up of 24 canon priests. For centuries, the princedom was culturally and economically tied to Bavaria. It was only in 1816, after various vicissitudes, that the territory was assigned to Austria following a decision taken by the Vienna Congress.
In the princedom,