Of course, one knows Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The musical genius and society eccentric. And for sure, you have hummed along some of Mozart’s songs from “Eine kleine Nachtmusik” or “The Magic Flute”. If not in the opera, then while on the phone listening to music on hold in a waiting loop.
Yet, most likely you haven’t heard of his sister Maria Anna Mozart. And most likely, you don’t know either that Maria Anna Mozart was the original musical prodigy.
It wasn’t Amadeus who was the first Mozart celebrated as musical child star in 18th century Europe. It was his elder sister, Maria Anna Mozart. Why Amadeus became world-famous while his sister Maria Anna was forgotten, well, let’s recount what happened back then.
~ ~ ~
It is August 1763. The German city of Frankfurt is in a fever of excitement. For weeks the talk of the town, members of the upper class are impatiently waiting for the arrival of two infant prodigies. Two siblings touring Europe will be showing off their musical talents.
Sensation is a confidently accomplished piano wunderkind, a girl called Maria Anna Mozart.
The promotional material announces that “this virtuosic maiden will present the most challenging oeuvres of the most esteemed composers”. Maria Anna is the star of the show, she receives top billing. The advertisement continues to mention that the little brother of this exceptional maiden will perform, too, and play the violin.
We know that young Cornelia Goethe, the gifted sister of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, attends this concert in Frankfurt and she is, like the rest of Europe, astonished and inspired by this electrifying girl pianist genius. Maria Anna’s father praises his pre-teen daughter as one of Europe’s top pianists while little brother Amadeus admires her for her supreme musical skills, her talent for composition and her encouraging kindness.
This glamorous evening in Frankfurt’s concert hall is one of the first stations of a Grand European Music Tour the Mozart family has committed themselves to. Well, let’s rather explain that father Mozart has made his family commit to this endeavour.
A year earlier Maria Anna, she is eleven years old, had performed for Empress Maria Theresa, the mighty ruler of the Habsburg monarchy in Vienna. It went so extraordinarily well that father Mozart nurtures a bold idea: He must present the preciously precocious musical talent of his little daughter to the world!
~ The Musical European Tour
Father Mozart is an agile mind and a pushy parent. A successful musician himself, he is overtly ambitious and wants to advance in society. Father Mozart creates a possibility by relentlessly training and educating his children from a very young age, and as soon as the window of opportunity for social and pecuniary advancement opens up, he jumps at it.
Before Maria Anna turns twelve, her father kicks off their musical tour through Europe which will last for four years. Maria Anna’s teenage years will be consumed by playing Europe’s courts and concert halls.
The touring Mozart children with Maria Anna as headliner is a hit amongst Europe’s cash-rich nobility. Much like nowadays’ musical talent shows as “The X Factor” or “The Voice”, it was all the rage in 18th century Europe to indulge in performances of sensational music prodigies.
At a time when travelling was a privilege of the wealthy or adventurers, seeing so much of the world must have been an extraordinary experience for the young Maria Anna and her family.
Yet, 250 years ago life on the road was hard. Delayed payment for their shows from their noble but often unreliable hosts (PayPal and the like didn’t exist yet), bumpy horse-drawn carriage rides for many thousand miles and demanding performances in over 80 cities, all this strain led to exhaustion and ultimately illness.
~ The Touring Years
When touring London, father Mozart fell ill and mother Mozart ordered the children to be quiet. That meant no playing instruments either. Maria Anna didn’t mind; she was creative and resilient. If not playing music she spent her time writing music. And she took little Amadeus under her wings. With her confident and I-know-what-I-am-doing-here demeanour she already guided the little brother during their performances professionally on stage. As his elder and caring sister in daily life, she spoke with little Amadeus, joked with him, encouraged him and helped him with his own compositions.
And it is London where Maria Anna starts to write down the first music pieces of the then 8-year-old Amadeus. Amadeus’ first symphony (K. 16) is nowadays still known and available to us because Maria Anna chronicled it. One can only assume that she also had a good part in shaping the piece together with and for the little brother.
After performing on Europe’s stages for four taxing years, Maria Anna and the Mozart family return to their home in Salzburg. They are all exhausted. In a good way, I guess. They made their mark. The four-year campaign was successful.
From there on, all changes for Maria Anna. Very quickly and very abruptly.
~ The New Prodigy
Maria Anna is suddenly cut off from her performing, from her showing herself and her skills to the world, from her enjoying her confidence in front of an excited audience. Maria Anna is ordered by her father to stay at home.
Maria Anna is now 17 years old. She has reached a marriageable age and is expected to find a husband. There is no need any more for her to perform. Washed away is the high praise about her extraordinary musical skills. Another contender has been groomed to sustain the family’s well-being: The little brother.
Amadeus is a 12-year-old boy. He is well prepared and he can still pass as musical child wonder while Maria Anna is now regarded an adult and no good for the promotional story line of a prodigy show.
~ Unwarranted obedience
And this is one of the tragic centre pieces of this story: Maria Anna obeys.
Maria Anna complies with her father’s demands. She stays at home and allows herself to fade away into the greyest of oblivion. And why shouldn’t she? This was the way of the world only 250 years ago! Daughters were ordered, and they complied. Wives were commanded, and they complied. Sisters were ostracised, and they complied.
While father Mozart and little brother Amadeus continued to travel Europe to delight illustrious audiences, to meet other talented musicians and to grow their professional network, Maria Anna is locked up at home. Waiting for an acceptable suitor to get married to.
~ A Love Affair
Turning thirty, Maria Anna meets this handsome fellow, Franz d’Ippold. She is in love. Father declines. He needs her to stay at home. To help him. The father’s wife had just died. Father needs a domestic servant and intellectual companion. Pressure on Maria Anna to marry well increases immensely when rebellious little brother Amadeus acts out at exactly that breaking point. Amadeus is now 25 years old and he decides to break free from fatherly chains.
Amadeus leaves the family for Vienna. He refuses to fulfil expectations of being the breadwinner of the family. After all of what was invested by the whole family in Amadeus without any return, Maria Anna and the father stay disillusioned behind in their home town Salzburg.
I guess it is what they say: What you permit is what you promote. And father Mozart had it coming. Having indulged in the idea of raising a head-strong son and a submissive daughter, both with incredible talent, father Leopold got stung by his own strategy. Ouch!
~ The Unwanted Marriage
Without income (as that was supposed to be Amadeus’ role) it is fair to say that Amadeus’ actions contributed to Maria Anna’s own choice of husband being smashed.
And no surprise here, Maria Anna obeys again. She gives up the guy to serve the father. She continues however at least her piano practice and we know she taught lessons.
Aged 33, Maria Anna eventually got married off by her father to a much older man, a widower with five kids from two previous marriages. The chap paid extra for Maria Anna’s intact virginity. 500 Gulden that was. Some historical calculators say that this is about 12,000 Euros nowadays. Bargain!
~ It is not all what it seems to be
To be fair, little brother Mozart told Maria Anna otherwise. Amadeus encouraged Maria Anna to be a rebel, to stand her ground towards the old man. Maria Anna would have none of it. She just did as she was told by her father.
Reading those accounts, I actually got very cross with Maria Anna. How could she have done that? What the hell? Is there no self-respect? How far would she take this self-sacrifice?
I was puzzled. Yet, I realised: My blurb is 21st century stuff. 250 years ago, none of this mattered. Maria Anna was a child of her misogynous time and didn’t question her purpose to serve and to please. This also explains why she never thought it would be valuable to record her achievements, let alone to allow herself to mention her credits to the success of the Mozart family tour and to the career and the astonishing posthumous fame of her brother.
~ And You?
Even today, a lot of women comply as they don’t feel entitled to claim leadership or to voice their requirements. I raise my hand here, too, and plead guilty as charged. All too often, education and socially enforced brackets have numbed women to neither promote their achievements, nor to even recognise what their needs are.
Now, this doesn’t mean that one mustn’t try to break free. Yet, it is another hardship to break free of something you do not even perceive as bondage! In most cases, we only see in hindsight what has made us unfree. Once done, we then look back and wonder: “Oh, my, how could I have ever..”
~ Claiming achievements
From what we know from Maria Anna’s correspondence, she neither complained nor challenged her fate. No reproaches against the father were voiced either, it appears. She also held no ill will against her little brother succeeding in the world out there while she was confined at home.
And here is another tragic centre piece of this story: Maria Anna doesn’t feel entitled to claim her achievements.
~A new child prodigy?
Maria Anna’s marriage is busy. Taking care of the household and five temperamental stepchildren, she bears her husband three more kids. Her new married life takes place in the countryside, away from her cultured home town Salzburg. During the first years of her marriage, Maria Anna could still rely on her father’s support. We hear Father Mozart helped to organise servants and shopping for the household, and most importantly took over the upbringing of Maria Anna’s first born son Leopold (named after Father Mozart). One can only guess that Father Mozart saw the opportunity of pulling off another musical prodigy stunt.
Which, dear reader, doesn’t mean that I am suggesting Father Mozart wasn’t a loving grandfather. Whatever plans Father Mozart was contemplating though, they were crossed by his death when the grandson in his care was only two years old.
~ Losing the Father
After little brother Amadeus had abandoned Maria Anna for Vienna and his career and his own marriage, Maria Anna now faces the loss of the beloved father. She is on her own with the husband, the five stepchildren and, at the time, her first born son.
During those years before her father’s death, Maria Anna stays dedicated to record the achievements of little brother Amadeus. She is in agile contact with little brother and is requesting and receiving, playing and filing Amadeus’ creations. It is due to Maria Anna that many of Amadeus’ cadenzas (read: virtuous highlights in a musical composition) for the piano concertos survive today.
The passing of their father was devastating for Maria Anna and Amadeus. Their unshakeable beacon of what music for their life and success meant, he was gone. Maria Anna is now 36 years old. Amadeus is 31.
The two siblings correspond intensely over a year. We assume it is mostly about the father’s estate, they are no strangers of writing intimate letters to each other since their youth. Yet, a year passes and they stop writing to each other entirely. We know that feeling, don’t we? Good grief, we all have things to do, places to go, we just lose touch. Our busy-ness is preventing us to write that note or call that person. That is what happened to the Mozart siblings, I assume.
~ Losing Amadeus
Amadeus is dead. So early. He is only 35 years old. There is no more way of communicating. Maria Anna is once more devastated. How could this be? Her younger brother shouldn’t pass away before her, and at least not at such a young age. Oh no, this is unbearable!
We know little about those excruciating next 10 years Maria Anna faced. There are, it seems, no historic records.
Moving forward another 10 years, Maria Anna’s husband dies. Maria Anna is now 50 years old. For the first time in her life, Maria Anna is free to do as she pleases. Free of the father, free of the brother, free of the husband. I do not say this is a blessed state. And I do not think Maria Anna saw this state as freedom. She must have been grief-stricken and scared being suddenly left on her own devices.
~ On her own
Maria Anna returns to her home town of Salzburg. With all of her children and stepchildren. With her love of music, she continues to be a music teacher.
Maria Anna lives over forty years longer than little brother Amadeus. And she used this ample extra time to arrange her brother’s legacy. This lady was organised. She had kept a record of her littler bother’s musical pieces. She had all of her brother’s musical source material ready and she was the primary contributoress to a biography of Amadeus which kicked off Amadeus’ public high profile.
Maria Anna dies 78 years old.
Without her, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wouldn’t exist in our cultural sphere as we know him today. It is due to his sister, Maria Anna, who helped to shape her brother’s legacy for the world.
She never claimed any fame or contribution to his success. She never mentioned herself as the first Mozart prodigy.
We know that Maria Anna composed music herself. All of her compositions are lost. She never published any of them.
Nor did anyone else record it for her.