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

The most glaring examples we find in the letters from Milan, sent over the course of Leopold and Wolfgang's third and final Italian journey in which he complains of a terrible pain in his arms and legs that kept him from departing for their return to Salzburg. In truth, he was procrastinating in order to find out the result of his contacts with Peter Leopold of Habsburg-Lorraine, Gran Duke of Tuscany, regarding Wolfgang being hired by the Florentine Court, which turned out to be unsuccessful. Leopold was, unfortunately, obliged to return to Salzburg with his tail between his legs, his great Italian dream vanished.

Looking back at the coded language, it was nothing particularly complex and if a censor were to have gone to the trouble of deciphering it, they would have probably figured it out. Besides, it appears that none of the letters with coded parts were chanced upon by the monitors because, if they had been, the censor would have surely been curious to know which secrets might have been revealed in these senseless sentences included in letters that were otherwise easily comprehensible. And the methods for saying it were surely not lacking. So here is the little Mozart family secret: substitute the vowels of some of the words with consonants

A = M E = L I = F O = S U = H

Instead of Milano, they would have written Mflmns

Wolfgang's mother

Anna Maria Walburga Pertl (1720 -- 1778), was born in St. Gilgen, a small village situated 545 meters above sea level on the banks of Lake Wolfgangsee, approximately thirty kilometers from Salzburg, the region's capital. It lies in a pleasant area and was enriched by small alpine lakes. In that epoch, there were just a handful of homes inhabited by farmers.

Anna Maria's father, Wolfgang Nikolaus Pertl (married to Euphrosina Puxbaum, the daughter and widower of two musicians of the church), completed his law studies and began a promising career as a state official in Salzburg, Vienna and Graz. However, an incapacitating disease forced him to accept a lesser job as Vice Superintendent at Huttenstein, a town near St. Gilgen, with a reduced annual salary of 250 florins. Taking into consideration the situation (imagine that today the town has little more than 3,000 inhabitants, divided into 7 districts and that at that time the population was much lower) such a position wouldn't be particularly honorary, let alone well paid. At her father's death in 1724, the family lived in serious poverty with debts of more than one thousand florins, causing their assets to be repossessed. This situation forced the wife to make the decision to return to the family's place of origin in Salzburg with two small children, one of which died shortly after. Here, they lived a life of misery, managing to survive only thanks to a town welfare payment and minimal domestic jobs for other families. Therefore, we can assume that Anna Maria and Leopold's first meeting surely occurred in Salzburg.

The cultural habits of farm life acquired in St. Gilgen and the environment of the impoverished in Salzburg must have certainly impacted Anna Maria's formation which highlights, as sources tell us, a certain spontaneous and simple zest for life combined with an enjoyment for crude banter, even to the point of exceedingly vulgar. These traits were passed on to her son, Wolfgang, as well as her "poetic" gift of rhyming all words related to the digestive and intestinal tract.

Following are a few fragments of a rhyming composition (in German) sent by the twenty-two year old Amadeus to his mother on 31 January 1778: "(...) They are also from people who carry crap in their belly/ but who let it out before, as well as after the revelry. They pass gas all night long/ in such a way as to resonate valiantly. (...) As of now we have left more than eight days ago/ and we have already shit in huge quantities.". In all fairness, it should be stated that their father was not immune to the same literary pinnacles, at least as far as the same vulgarity among members of the family.

Let us now look further into Anna Maria's "colorful eloquence". Following is one of the most famous examples. A segment of a letter that the fifty-three year old Mrs. Mozart sent from Munich to her husband, Leopold (who had remained in Salzburg): "Goodbye, my darling (the original in Italian -- A/N), be well, into your mouth your arse you'll shove. I hope you sleep well, but first shit in the bed until it explodes, it's already past one o'clock, now you can make a rhyme", Munich 26 September 1777. The translation from German, besides the explicit significance, doesn't allow us to understand the playful tone given that the text is in rhyming couplet and ends with a riddle of a fecal nature. This very same "poem" was later partially used by Wolfgang in the lyrics to one of the Canons composed around 1788 (in Vienna) for the amusement of his friends, "Bona nox! Bist a rechta Ox" ("Good night! You are a true ox"), in 4 voices a cappella.

Endowed with a limited culture (which was not uncommon among most of the population in that epoch, especially amidst the women), Anna Maria always possessed a subordinate role toward her husband, as well as her son, as was demonstrated during the journey to Paris (which, as we will see, proved fatal for her), during which she remained passive to the indications from her husband in Salzburg and the differing aspirations of Wolfgang. She didn't speak any language except her own "Salzburg" German. In fact, during the European journeys carried out by the family, she associated only with German expatriates at public or business functions.

We can discern a pleasant disposition. However, as far as culture and knowing her station in society (even with later attendance at the European courts which had most certainly helped refine her), she was lacking. Here is an example of her ungrammatical way of expressing herself in writing (and I do believe that her speech was similar): "(...) I hope that you and nanerl is well, what is my bimperl up to (the family dog, A/N), it's been awhile since I've not heard nothing about him..." Letter from Mannheim to her husband, 31 October 1777 as quoted by W. Hildesheimer. Though she did have the opportunity to refine her ways through her initial association with her circle of Salzburg friends of the family (the smaller local nobility, as well as the well-to-do high society) and later, with some of the principal European courts thanks to the exhibitions of the two child prodigy children.

Wolfgang's sister

Maria Anna Walburga Ignatia Mozart (1751 -- 1829) Wolfgang's sister, five years his elder, also had a musical formation that led her to become a very accomplished harpsichordist / pianist. Thanks to the Mozartian correspondence, we know that in the family she was usually called by the affectionate nickname of Nannerl (Nannina, Annetta). Her father began her musical formation at age seven, teaching her to play the harp and fortepiano, as well as voice lessons. While she was very close to her younger brother, with whom she undertook the first long European journeys in the role of one of the prodigious children, she was, however, taken less seriously by her father than her brother.

The reasons for this attitude, seen through modern eyes as certainly discriminatory, were at least two: as five years older than Wolfgang, Maria Anna inspired less of an impression as a "child prodigy" and consequently, her career was destined to be shorter term. Evidence of the favored treatment that their father used toward his son (and as can be observed today and which does not do Leopold Mozart honor), concerns two cases of illness and recovery. In November 1765, while returning from London on the first great journey that the entire family had embarked upon, Nannerl fell ill in Holland of a pulmonary disease that was so serious as to have her last rites given in danger of death. Fortunately, she recovered and Leopold then wrote to his trusted friend, Hagenauer, to have 6 masses celebrated in thanks at the various churches of Salzburg. The following month, again in Holland, Wolfgang fell ill with a sort of typhoid fever and after his recovery, Leopold ordered 9 masses of thanks to be celebrated, (3 more than those dedicated for the recovery of his daughter).