Are things about to get Steam-y?
In the previous post I mentioned that I’d have more to say about Mozart’s older sister Maria Anna whom the family called Marianne and nicknamed Nannerl. Most standard Mozart biographies at least mention his older sister. There’s little doubt that she and Wolfgang were quite close for much of the composer’s life – certainly up to his marriage to Constanze in 1782. There’s also no dispute that, like Wolfgang, Maria was a musical prodigy whose talent was cultivated by their father Leopold. So, while we have a two and a half hour bus ride to the northwest to the UNESCO World Heritage town of Český Krumlov we can pass the time looking at the life of Maria Anna Walburga Ignatia Mozart. Let’s start by examining some of the facts we know.
When Nannerl was seven, Leopold, who was himself an accomplished musician, began teaching Marianne to play the harpsichord and fortepiano. She proved so talented that she not only attracted the attention of her brother (who apparently idolized her and began imitating her at age three or four) but when the children performed, top billing typically went to Maria Anna. In fact, his daughter played so well that Leopold wrote, “Nannerl no longer suffers by comparison with the boy, for she plays so beautifully that everyone is talking about her and admiring her execution.”
The Grand European tour
Sometime in 1762, the Mozart children traveled to Vienna where they spent three months performing for members of the Viennese aristocracy and these led to a performance for Empress Maria Theresa at the Imperial Court. This, in turn prompted a multitude of royal and other performances for which the family was handsomely paid. One report says that this stay in Vienna generated more income in a single week than Leopold typically earned over two years. Naturally, this prompted him to conceive a plan to take his family on a performing tour through Europe’s great cities and capitals.
JPH73646 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-91) and his sister Maria-Anna, called ‘Nannerl’ (1751-1829) (ivory) by Alphen, Eusebius Johann (1741-72)
ivory
Mozart Museum, Salzburg, Austria
German, out of copyright
The tour began in July 1763 a few weeks before Nannerl turned 12. Wolfgang would have been seven and a half years old. Their first stop of what would be a three year tour was Munich but they lingered longest in Paris, where they spent nearly five months and London where they stayed from 27 April 1764 until 24 July 1765. Such was their renown and so effective were the letters of introduction they brought from Paris that a mere four days after arriving in the British capital the children performed for the then 26 year-old King George II and his 19 year-old bride Charlotte Sophia earning a repeat performance scheduled for 19 May.
At one point during their stay Leopold fell seriously ill and the family moved to a house at 180 Edbury Street in the then village of Chelsea.
(Wikimedia Commons – Own Work by Spudgun67 CC BY SA 4.0)
Their father’s illness not only precluded the children from performing but also limited their ability to practice.
So what’s a prodigy to do?
Although he had already composed several pieces of music, it was in London where the young Wolfgang met Johann Christian Bach who inspired him to compose symphonies. And so he did – writing his first as early as May 1764. However, it was during his father’s illness that Wolfgang began to compose rigorously and it’s here that we can begin to speculate about the role Nannerl might have played in spurring her brother’s nascent genius.
Letters and contemporary recollections clearly show that Wolfgang asked Marianne to transcribe his compositions. Given her prodigious talent it’s not unreasonable to wonder whether she was merely a transcriptionist or whether she was a collaborator. As noted above, Wolfgang adored and idolized his older sister but we also know that he and his father both also respected her musical ability. Could she have made suggestions? Could she have made subtle changes that he quietly accepted? Given that it would have been unseemly in the 18th century for a girl – or a woman for that matter – to even be credited as a composer, these are reasonable questions. (Much of Mozart’s work can be found in the “London Sketchbook.” But history also knows of at least one composition from that time by Nannerl called Capricci. Sadly, that score has been lost.)
(From Smithsonianmag.com)
In 1769, Maria Anna turned 18 and now fully of marriageable age, was no longer free to continue working as a touring musician. Merely accompanying her younger brother and chaperoned by her father would have likely produced a scandal that might have limited her marital prospects but, more importantly, inhibited Leopold’s ambitions for his prodigious son. So, while Mozart père et fils continued touring, Nannerl remained at home in Salzburg.
Although she remained homebound, she continued playing music and Wolfgang would compose pieces for her to perform. But he also sent her compositions insisting that she, “tell me quite frankly how you like it.” It appears that she not only responded but composed music of her own that she sent to him. In one 1770 letter, Mozart wrote to his sister, “I am amazed to find how well you can compose. In a word, the song is beautiful. Try this more often.”
No music attributed to Maria Anna Mozart survives but we have evidence that she did compose on her own. Would it be unreasonable to wonder what became of those compositions?
Enter Professor Martin Jarvis
We need to rewind the clock a bit. When Wolfgang was first learning to play, Maria Anna kept a musical note book to which three different writers contributed. This was determined by identifying three clearly different styles of handwriting. Martin Jarvis began forensically studying original Mozart manuscripts in 2007 while working as professor and lecturer of music at Charles Darwin University in Australia.
Over a five-year period, working in concert with a forensic document specialist in the United States and an Australian police forensic scientist, the three performed a detailed analysis of handwriting and music calligraphy by members of the Mozart family. According to Professor Jarvis, the likely writer scholars have called “Anonymous 1” was Maria Anna.
Jarvis then wrote a research paper about Nannerl in which he concluded, “After 250 years of musical oblivion, the forensic examination has provided evidence that has enabled Maria Anna Mozart to be identified as probably Anonymous 1; and, that she is also the likely composer of over 20 pieces of music in her own notebook.”
(Maria Anna ca. 1785 – Wikimedia Commons – Public Domain)
Continuing his quest of discovery, he focused on Mozart’s five violin concertos, and noticed something odd about three of the compositions. In an interview with ABC News he said, “Of the five violin concertos, three of them were composed by a person called Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and two of them – in a different handwriting – were composed apparently by Amadeus Wolfgang Mozart.”
Did Mozart claim credit for at least some of his sister’s compositions? It’s possible but Professor Jarvis suggests another, and perhaps, more likely possibility. Due to her gender, he supposes, Nannerl might have chosen to allow her work to be published at the time under her brother’s name rather than creating even a hint of scandal.
Perhaps Professor Jarvis will continue his investigations and discover that Nannerl did, indeed compose some of the work believed to have been composed by her brother. Perhaps he’ll discover the opposite and learn that Wolfgang indeed composed all the work attributed to him. More than likely, the questions he’s raised will remain unanswered.
And if he finds proof of Nannerl’s authorship, what then? It certainly shouldn’t diminish in any way our appreciation of Wolfgang’s singular genius. Rather, as Sophia Hall wrote for classicfm, “whether or not her skill lives on in Mozart’s compositions, her memory should be celebrated for the great musician she was.”