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7273X 47 ITOW Mozart PDF
7273X 47 ITOW Mozart PDF
spitting image of your brother. He seems very healthy, but as with all children, he is
teething. But he is generally charming and very friendly and laughs when someone is
talking. . . .
Yesterday the 15th there was yet again another concert in the theater [Burgtheater]
for a young woman who sang charmingly. Your brother again played his great new con-
certo in D minor [K. 466] magnificently. Today we are attending a private concert in
the home of the Salzburg agent von Ployer [his daughter, Barbara, was one of Mozart’s
prize pupils; see Chapter 47].
Your brother, sister-in-law, [Heinrich] Marchand, and I kiss you a million times, and
I remain eternally your faithful father.
[Leopold] Mozart
This last letter suggests the variety of Mozart’s musical activity at this time in Vienna.
Mozart is trying to make money by publishing his music, and a group of three recently
engraved sonatas is mentioned here. In addition, he is in the process of generating a
keyboard score of his opera Die Entführung aus dem Serail (1782), having already
engaged in an arrangement of it for woodwinds. Finally, we get a sense of the inten-
sity of Mozart’s lifestyle; his household is a constant whirl of activity from morning
to late night, which seems to exhaust his sixty-six-year-old father. Notice, finally,
that when Mozart plays a concert, both his piano and his pedal piano have to be
moved so that he can play his own instrument at the host venue.
Vienna, 12 March 1785
Your brother [recently] made 559 gulden at his concert, which was unexpected, be-
cause he is simultaneously giving his six subscription concerts at the Mehlgrube
[casino], which have more than 150 patrons, each of whom pays one souverain
[13.5 gulden; bringing gross revenue for the series of more than 2,000 gulden]. In addition
to that, he has often been playing in the theater at other concerts.
As for the keyboard arrangement of Entführung aus dem Serail, it can be said that a
certain [Christoph] Torricella [printer in Vienna] is setting it. Your arrangement by
Torricella is by your brother, but it is still not yet ready. He may have completed only
the first act. I’ll ask about it. Torricella has also engraved three sonatas, of which one is
for violin [K. 333, 284, and 454]. Enough. I shall purchase everything that is issued. . . .
We never arrive back home before one A.M., and I never get up before nine. We
have lunch at two or half-past two. What lousy weather! Every day there are concerts,
more and more students, music, and copying. Where can I escape? If only the concerts
would end. It is impossible to describe the hustle and bustle. Your brother’s pianoforte
has been moved at least twelve times from his house to the theater or to someone else’s
house. He has had a large pedal piano made, which goes under the body of the piano
and is about two feet longer and extremely powerful. And each Friday this has been
carried to the Mehlgrube [casino] and also to the respective residences Count Zichy
and to Prince Kaunitz. . . .
With a million kisses from my heart I am eternally your faithful father.
[Leopold] Mozart
Source: Translated from the original German in Mozart: Briefe und Aufzeichnungen, ed. Wilhelm A.
Bauer and Otto Erich Deutsch (Kassel, 1963), Vol. III.