Diego Minoia - The Mozarts, Who They Were (Volume 1)

- Court Organist: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (from 1777)

- Leopold Mozart: Court Composer (with Caspar Cristelli and Ferdinand Seidl)

- Wolfgang Mozart:

From 1772, he was violinist at the Court Orchestra without a salary, followed by Concert Master with a very low salary of 150 florins annually. In September of 1777, he left the position in order to travel to Munich and Paris. Upon his return in January 1779, he was appointed the position of Court Organist and Concert Master. In Vienna, April 1781, he resigned permanently from the services of Archbishop Colloredo.

The Mozart family

We can begin with a "snap-shot" of the epoch with the celebrated painting by Johann Nepomuk della Croce that represents the Mozart family in 1780/81. It depicts Wolfgang and his sister Nannerl at the keyboard during the performance of a piece with four hands while their father, Leopold, poses nearby listening with his violin, ready to intervene. The oval-shaped portrait hanging on the wall portrays their mother who had passed away in Paris four years earlier. And hanging on the right is Apollo, the Greek God of the arts, displayed with the instrument devoted to him: the cithara. The Mozart family was formed 21 November 1747 when the 28 year-old Leopold Mozart married the 27 year-old Anna Maria Pertl at the Salzburg Cathedral after a rather long courtship. They were reputedly a handsome couple and enjoyed a solid marriage over the years, as we learn from the family correspondence available to us. In one letter sent to his wife, Leopold Mozart who was traveling with their son, Wolfgang, writes: "Today is our wedding anniversary. If I'm not mistaken, twenty-five years have passed since we had the joyful idea to marry: the fact of the matter is that we had this idea many years prior. The best things in life come to those who wait!".

In that era, roles were well-defined and customs and traditions were highly respected. The husband took care of all things related to finances and society (Leopold was extremely meticulous to the point of fanaticism as we will see in his letters), while the wife looked after the household and children, maintaining relations with their circle of friends or people who were in some way useful to reach certain purposes. The Mozart couple had seven children, but only two survived, the fourth-born Maria Anna (Nannerl) in 1751 and the seventh-born Wolfgang (Wolferl for family members) who came into the world in 1756. The mortality rate for childbirth in that epoch was a situation that was painfully accepted by parents who, for this reason, gave birth to many children. Wolfgang, himself, had six children of which only two survived.

In Nannerl's Diary which was written from 1775 to 1783, we learn that the Mozart family had a wide range of acquaintances, with friends who visited them at their home (some on a daily basis) or who they visited in their friends' homes, as well as the students of Leopold and Nannerl. They passed their time together chatting and gossiping or playing cards (tresette, tarocchi, briscola, etc.) or at range shooting played with air-compressed guns always made with small wagers of money or birilli (a game similar to bowling). The guests frequently stayed at the Mozart's home for meals and likewise the Mozart family was often hosted at their friends' homes to dine. And naturally, there were many occasions to play music. To begin with, there were the music lessons; Leopold taught violin while Nannerl taught the harpsichord at the Mozart residence or at the students' homes. But in the household, Mozart also played music with his circle of friends from Salzburg, many of whom belonged to the Orchestra of the Archbishop Court. He also played with foreigners passing through the city who were invited by Leopold or brought to him by his circle of friends who regularly visited.

Nannerl's friends would style her hair, accompany her for walks along the city walls (which no longer exist today), participate in the almost daily religious receptions which were often accompanied by the music of the Court composers such as Eberlin, Adlgasser, Michael Haydn and Wolfgang Mozart, himself. Processions were another attraction for the people, especially those of solemn occasions of which the Archbishop Prince would make an appearance. Or, as on the occasion of the Feast of Corpus Christi where they were accompanied in grand style by the Order of Chivalry, as was written in Nannerl's diary, Wolfgang couldn't resist making fun of the fact that on the occasion of a visit to the Hagenauer family (the previous owners of the Mozart house in Getreidegasse), he "saw the horses crapping" and dropped a lit candle on the procession.

Things wouldn't have been complete without blasphemous distractions, such as the frequent participation of the Mozart family (even for many days in a row) of the comedic performances proposed by the theatrical companies that toured Salzburg and would stop over for a few weeks where they offered various shows from their repertoire. In 1779, for example, Johann Bohm's theatrical company settled in Salzburg for the season, proposing over the course of the year about ten encore performances (in the neighborhood of sixty, according to Nannerl's diary) of a variety of comedies and ballets, which were, in truth, judged as "very bad". There were also the musical academies and ballets, as well as the evenings of weekly ballroom dancing, mostly during the Carnival at the Town Hall.

Here is the musical program of an academy held on 18 March 1779. (In Nannerl's diary, the twenty-three year-old Wolfgang sometimes wrote in his sister's journal with his characteristic gags, describing the academy as "trendy crapademia"):

1 -- a symphony (the Haffner Symphony KV385 composed by Wolfgang -- A/N);

2 - an Italian aria;

3 - a trio with three voices by Antonio Salieri (Imperial Composer and Kapellmeister during that epoch in Vienna -- A/N);

4 -- a cello concert by Joseph Fiala (oboist, cellist and friend of Mozart -- A/N);

5 -- a voice aria, oboe and harp;

6 -- An aria with trumpets, timpani, flutes, violas, bassoons and basses written by me (Wolfgang -- A/N);

7 -- Anfossi's first finale from "Perseguita incognitata" (Wolfgang's comically twisted title of the opera; the correct title by the composer Pasquale Anfossi's opera is "L'incognita perseguitata" (A/N);

8 -- out of mere compassion did we let Ceccarelli sing a Rondeau (Ceccarelli was a "castrato" and family friend who served the Salzburg Court, and for whom Wolfgang wrote an aria and an acting part -- A/N);

9 -- In conclusion, we performed in the entire city of Milan n.b.: with trumpets and timpani.

Moreover, on special occasions there was other forms of entertainment, such as fireworks in the Summer Equitation School.

Another fashionable activity during the mid-eighteenth century (also documented as a pastime in the Mozart household) was the silhouette, a portrait technique that traced the outline of a person or object and coloring the entire subject in black. This was achieved by hanging a white cloth in front of the subject while it remained back-lit, highlighting the outline. Among these activities (with the exception of brief lessons nearly everyday), there were of course the responsibilities at the Court that weren't particularly demanding for concerts or various tasks, such as Leopold's job tuning the piano at the Archbishop's summer residence at Mirabell Palace.

Sometimes walks were taken in the gardens of the Mirabell Palace, in the newer part of the city on the other side of the river. Alternatively, there were excursions outside of the city walls, such as the visit in 1780 to the salt refinery and San Zeno (remember that rock salt was the principle source of wealth in the region, of which is derived the name of the city of Salzburg, the castle of salt and the Salzach River - the passage of salt). One last interesting fact regarding the Mozart family is the ciphered code that Leopold and his wife used to avoid the curiosity of censorship (during that epoch, letters and correspondence were often opened and read to monitor the subjects' thoughts and ideas in order to avoid conspiracies). The letters that Leopold wrote were meant to circulate around Salzburg to express recognition of the musical feats that were accomplished in the various courts, consequently the secret code was used to communicate with his wife the occasions in which there were lies present in their correspondence to be fed to the Archbishop.