MARIANNE MOZART.

OLFGANG MOZART'S sister, Maria Anna Walburga Ignatia, known to her family and friends as Nannerl, was born July 30, 1751, and was thus five years older than her brother. She early showed a decided talent for music, and made extraordinary progress under her father's tuition. She made her appearance as a clavier-player during the early professional tours of the Mozart family in 1762, 1763-1766, and 1767, competing successfully with the first performers of the day, and overshadowed only by the accomplishments of her younger brother. Her father writes (London, June 8, 1764): "It suffices to say that my little lass at twelve years old is one of the most accomplished players in Europe"; and independent accounts which have come down to us coincide in this expression of opinion. During their stay at the Hague in October, 1765, she was seized with a serious illness and brought to the brink of the grave; her recovery, which had been despaired of by her parents, was hailed by them with delight. In November, 1767, she and Wolfgang were both struck down by smallpox at OlmÜtz; this also she happily recovered.

She did not accompany her father and brother in their subsequent journeys to Italy, but remained at home with her mother. Nevertheless she continued her studies as a clavier-player, and made good her claim to be considered a virtuoso; as such she was recognised by Burney's informant in 1772 (Burney, Reise, III., p. 262). She owed much, as she was the first to acknowledge, to the example and instruction of her brother, who threw himself eagerly into her studies whenever he was in Salzburg. Leopold writes to his son (January 26, 1778) that the violinist Janitsch and the violoncellist Reicha of the Wallerstein Capelle, who were giving a concert in Salzburg, "absolutely insisted upon hearing Nannerl play. They let out by their great anxiety to hear your compositions that their object was to judge from her gusto of your way of playing. She played your Mannheim sonata excellently well, with charming expression. They were delighted both with her playing and with the composition. They accompanied Nannerl in your trio in B flat (254 K.) exceedingly well." He goes on to tell Wolfgang of the high opinions formed by these musicians both of his compositions and of Nannerl's style of playing; and how she always repeated: "I am but the pupil of my brother." Wolfgang used in after years, when they were separated, to send her his pianoforte compositions, and set great store on her APPENDIX I. judgment, frequently also giving her his own opinions and criticisms on music and musicians—as, for instance, on Clementi.

Marianne made some few attempts at composition; a song which she sent to her brother in Rome excited Wolfgang's astonishment at its excellence, and she wrote exercises in thorough-bass which were quite free from mistakes, and gave him great satisfaction. Her father remarks at a later date (February 25, 1778) that she had learnt to play thoroughbass and to prelude exceedingly well, feeling that she would have to support herself and her mother after his death. Once (July 20, 1779) when Wolfgang sent her from Paris a prelude—"a sort of capriccio to try the piano with"—as a birthday greeting, she jokingly put her father to the test. She received it at four o'clock in the afternoon, and at once set to work to practise it till she knew it by heart. When her father came in at five she told him that she had an idea, and that if he liked she would write it down, and thereupon began the prelude. "I rubbed my eyes," says Leopold Mozart, "and said, 'Where the deuce did you get that idea?' She laughed and drew the letter from her pocket."

She early began to give lessons on the clavier, her father writing from Milan (December 12, 1772): "Tell Nannerl that I wish her to teach little Zezi carefully and patiently; it will be to her own advantage to instruct another person thoroughly and with patience; I know what I am saying." These lessons afterwards became a source of income which could hardly have been dispensed with in the needy circumstances of the Mozart family; they enabled her to support herself as long as she lived at home, and thus lightened her father's pecuniary anxieties. She was considered even by her own family as somewhat parsimonious, and her father was agreeably surprised at hearing her exclaim, when told of Wolfgang's difficulties on his Parisian journey: "Thank God that it is no worse!" although she well knew that her own interests would have to be sacrificed to help her brother out of his scrape. But there is in fact every reason to believe that her heart was a tender one, and easily touched; she felt the loss of her mother very deeply, and had the warmest sympathy for her brother; sometimes indeed this took a livelier form than he cared for, and we find him once writing with ill-humour (Mannheim, February 19, 1778): "My best love to my sister, and pray tell her not to cry over every trifle, or I shall take good care never to come back"—an expression which did not fail to call down a reproof from his father. The relation of the brother and sister to each other was from childhood of the tenderest and closest description. The severe discipline to which they were both subjected, the journeys they took together, and above all the concentration of all the thoughts and energies of both upon music, increased their natural affection, in which there was not a trace of envy or jealousy on either side. Wolfgang vented his love of joking and teasing upon his "Schwester Canaglie"; and the letters which he wrote to her while on his Italian tour give abundant proofs of their unrestrained and innocent intercourse. The joking tone of MARIANNE MOZART. Wolfgang's correspondence with his sister was not entirely dropped even when they had passed their childhood, but they also shared the more serious concerns of life together in fullest sympathy. We have seen how unendurable life at Salzburg became to Wolfgang as he grew up, and his sister's position was in no way a more enviable one. When her mother and brother left home for their journey to Paris, she remained to keep house for her father, who praised her for her attention, economy, and industry, and for her good management of the maid-servant, who was both dirty and untruthful. After her mother's death she continued her care of the household, which was occasionally increased by their receiving boarders. Pianoforte practice, generally with her father for some hours in the evening, and lessons to various young ladies, filled up her time. She was much liked as a teacher, and her pupils were distinguished for precision and accuracy of playing. When Wolfgang was at home, the house was full of life, her father was cheerful, and she had a companion with whom to share her joys and sorrows; but if he was away, the father, who could scarcely live without him, was often gloomy and preoccupied, and not even her tender ministrations could compensate him for the absence of his son. Marianne had but few distractions from her quiet domestic life in the form of gaiety or company; she took a lively interest in the persons and concerns of her few acquaintances, an interest which was shared by Wolfgang even when he had left Salzburg. "Write to me often—that is, of course, when you have nothing better to do," he writes from Vienna (July 4, 1781) "for a bit of news is a great treat to me, and you are the veritable Salzburg Intelligencer, for you write about everything that ever happens, and sometimes, no doubt to please me, you write the same thing twice over." Their father had impressed upon them the importance of keeping a regular diary, and this Wolfgang did in his earlier years; Marianne continued the habit much longer. Fragments of her diary still exist, and among her letters to her brother are two which contain very detailed accounts of the performances of Schikaneder's theatrical company at Salzburg.

Towards the end of 1780, while Wolfgang was at Munich busy with his "Idomeneo," Marianne was seized with an illness which for a time threatened to turn into consumption; it was long before she completely recovered. It appears probable that an attachment which did not turn out happily had something to do with this illness. Marianne, who had been a pretty and attractive child, became, as the family picture in the Mozarteum shows, a handsome woman, to whom suitors would not be wanting. Wolfgang's jokes about Herr von MÖlk, an unfavoured admirer of Marianne's, as well as other mysterious allusions in his letters, prove that the brother and sister shared with each other their tenderest feelings. When Mozart was finally settled in Vienna, he lost no opportunity of being useful to his sister: "Ma trÈs chÈre soeur," he writes (Vienna, July 4, 1781)—"I am very glad that you liked the ribbons, and will inquire as to the price of them; at APPENDIX I. present I do not know it, since Fr. von Auerhammer, who was so kind as to get them for me, would accept no payment, but begged me to say all that was nice to you from her as a stranger, and to assure you that it gives her very great pleasure to be of any service to you; I have already expressed your acknowledgments to her for her kindness. Dearest sister! I have already told our father that if you would like anything from Vienna, whatever it may be, I will get it for you with the utmost pleasure; this I now repeat to you, with the addition that I shall be extremely vexed if I hear that you have intrusted your commissions to any one else in Vienna." Constanze was always ready at a later time to perform the same sort of service for her sister-in-law. But Wolfgang's sympathy with his sister was displayed in more serious matters. On July 4, 1781, he writes: "And now I should like to know how it stands with you and our very good friend? Write and tell me about it. Or have I lost your confidence in this affair?" This good friend was Franz D'Yppold, captain in the imperial army, who came to Salzburg as Governor to the Pages, and was made Councillor of War in 1777. He conceived an attachment to Marianne, which she returned, but his circumstances did not allow him to marry. Mozart, seeing that his sister's health and happiness were at stake, represented to her that there was nothing to hope for in Salzburg, and begged her to induce D'Yppold to try his fortune in Vienna, where he, Wolfgang, would do his utmost to advance his prospects. She would be able to earn far more by giving lessons in Vienna than in Salzburg, and there could be no doubt they would soon be able to marry; then the father would be obliged to give up his service at Salzburg, and join his children in Vienna. Unfortunately these promising plans remained unfulfilled; and as there appeared to the lovers no prospect of a possible union, the connection between them ceased. D'Yppold never ceased to be on friendly terms with L. Mozart, and always testified great sympathy and esteem for Marianne herself. He was very fond of her little son, who lived with his grandfather; and, during an absence from home of L. Mozart, he came to the house every day to see how the child was getting on.

Marianne returned in kind her brother's interest and sympathy in her love affairs. To her he poured out his complaints of the hard fate of himself and his Constanze, and the latter began a correspondence with her long before her father had reconciled himself to the connection. Correspondence between the brother and sister naturally flagged somewhat when Wolfgang became engrossed in his life and occupation at Vienna. He justifies himself against her reproaches (February 13, 1782): "You must not think because I do not answer your letters that I do not like to have them. I shall always accept the favour of a letter from you, my dear sister, with the utmost pleasure; and if my necessary occupations (for my livelihood) allow of it, I will most certainly answer it. You do not mean that I never answer your letters? You cannot suppose that MARIANNE MOZART. I forget, or that I am careless—therefore they must be real hindrances, real impossibilities that come in the way. Bad enough, you will say! But, good heavens I do I write any oftener to my father? You both know Vienna t How can a man without a penny of income do anything here but work day and night to earn a living? My father, when his church service is over, and you, when you have given a couple of music lessons, can sit down and write letters all day if you choose; but not I.... Dearest sister, if you could imagine that I should ever forget my best and dearest father or yourself, then—but no! God knows, and that is enough for me—He will punish me if it should ever happen."

In 1784 Marianne married Johann Baptist, Baron von Berchthold, of Sonnenburg, councillor of Salzburg and steward of St. Gilgen. Wolfgang wrote on her marriage (August 18, 1784): "Ma trÈs chÈre soeur,—Potz Sapperment! it is time that I write to you if my letter is to find you still a virgin! In a couple of days it will be all over! My wife and I wish you all manner of happiness and good fortune in your new life, and are full of regret that we cannot be present at your wedding; but we are in hopes of meeting you and your husband next spring at Salzburg, and perhaps also at St. Gilgen. We regret nothing now but the solitude in which our father will be left. True, you will be near him, and he can often walk over to see you, but he is so tied to that confounded Kapelle! If I were in my father's place, this is what I should do: I should ask the Archbishop in consideration of my long service to set me free—and I should take my pension and go and live quietly with my daughter at St. Gilgen; if the Archbishop refused, I should hand in my resignation and join my son in Vienna. And to this I wish you would try every means of persuading him. I have written the same thing in my letter to him to-day. And now I send you a thousand good wishes from Vienna to Salzburg, summed up in the hope that you two may live as happily together as we two. Your loving brother, W. A. Mozart."

A long list of letters from L. Mozart to his daughter testify to his care for her welfare. He is indefatigable in his attention to household matters, and occasionally receives from her presents of game or fish; he also keeps her constantly informed of what is going on in town. He is, as may be supposed, always ready with advice or remonstrance, both to his daughter and her husband, whom he considers "too absorbed in the spirit of economy"; he makes plenty of sarcastic remarks, but is, on the whole, under more restraint with them than with Wolfgang. His keen glance and shrewd sense never fail him. His son-in-law's hasty application for the stewardship of Neumark drew from him serious advice to weigh everything well beforehand, and then to be resigned to what should happen. "I write all this," he adds (November 20, 1786), "because I can easily imagine how many useless and vexatious ideas and remarks will be let fall upon the subject; whereas, if it is to be, the course of Providence cannot be withstood." Report said that Marianne APPENDIX I. had not always an easy time of it with her husband; and five stepchildren cannot have left her much leisure for repining. L. Mozart describes them as naughty, ill brought up, and ignorant; one of the boys, Wolfgang, was heard to boast that "he had got the better of his second mamma, and, when he was naughty, papa always laid the blame on her and the servants, and blew them up."

In June, 1785, she came to Salzburg to be confined in her father's house. As her health long remained delicate, L. Mozart kept his little grandson, bestowing upon it the tenderest care, and informing his daughter of the child's well-being in every letter. "I can never look at the child's right hand without emotion," he writes (November 11,1785); "the cleverest pianist could not place his hand upon the keys more charmingly than he holds his little hand; whenever he is not moving his fingers they are all in position for playing, and when he is asleep the tiny fingers are bent or stretched exactly in the right proportion, as if they were resting on the keys; in short, it is the most charming sight in the world. It often makes me sad to see it, and I wish he were three years old, so that he might begin to play at once." He could not persuade himself to part with the child, and although he often abused the father for never coming to see it, he declared himself: "I tell you I mean to keep little Leopold as long as I live."

After their father's death Wolfgang wrote to Marianne (June 16, 1787): "Dearest Sister,—I am not at all surprised at your not writing to me yourself the sad and totally unexpected news of our dear father's death; I can readily imagine the cause of your silence. May God receive him to Himself! Be assured, my darling, that if you are in need of a faithful, loving brother, you will find one in me. My dearest sister, if you were still unprovided for, there would be no need of all this. I would, as I have intended and said over and over again, have left all to you with the greatest pleasure; but as it is, one may almost say, useless to you, while to me, on the contrary, it would be of the greatest advantage, I think it my duty to consider my wife and child."

This letter affords no clue to the share of his father's inheritance claimed by Mozart, and it is not known how the matter was arranged. It was doubtless not without some reference to this that a letter written soon after by Mozart to his sister (August, 1787) treated of his pecuniary position. "In answer to your question as to my service," he says, "the Emperor has taken me into the household, and I am formally appointed, but have only 800 florins—this is more, however, than any other member of the household. The announcement of my Prague opera 'Don Giovanni' (which is to be given again to-day) ran: 'The music is by Herr Mozart, Kapellmeister in the actual service of his Imperial Majesty.'"

I do not know of any later letters. Marianne kept up no correspondence with her brother's widow; from a letter to Sonnleithner (July 2, 1819), we gather that she had not heard from her sister-in-law since 1801, that she knew nothing of the children, and had only heard of her second marriage by chance.

In 1801 the Baron von Sonnenburg died, and his widow retired with her children to Salzburg, where she lived in comfort, if not in wealth. She returned to her old occupation, and gave music lessons—for money certainly, but not from need, since her simple and frugal way of life enabled her even to lay by a portion of her income. She was always much respected and liked in Salzburg. In 1820 she became blind, a misfortune which she bore with equanimity, and even cheerfulness, as the following anecdote will show: Receiving a visit from a lady whom she disliked—people who were fond of her paid her frequent visits to afford her amusement in her misfortune—she exclaimed, when at last the visitor had departed, "What an infliction to be obliged to converse with that person! I am glad that I cannot see her!"

She died at an advanced age in her native town, October 29, 1829.