Rosetti Concerto for Two Horns

A week ago today my daughter Jamie Leff and Jesse Clevenger played two movements of one of Rosetti's concertos for two horns with the Buffalo Grove Symphonic Band. It's a charming piece and they played it beautifully. Here's a video of their performance (taken with an iPhone from the front row).

This is the concerto numbered C57 in Eb.

Mozart in fiction, part 5

I finished reading Mozart: A Life by Maynard Solomon, but I'm going to postpone writing about it until a later post. I will say that it's a fantastic book, with lots of research behind it. At times it was as gripping as a really well-written novel.

So, speaking of novels, I also finished another of the novels about Nannerl Mozart, this one being Mozart's Sister by Nancy Moser. This begins in the cemetery in Vienna, with Nannerl searching for her brother's grave, then flashes back to her childhood of exciting travels and performances with Wolfgang. This Nannerl is wide-eyed, describing the exotic cities, beautiful clothes, and stunning concerts that she and Wolfgang gave, while also making short asides revealing the negative. The novel ends with Nannerl having made a success of her marriage and step-children, with a brief coda taking place at the end of her life. Since she is a narrator, she naturally explains all her actions and decisions as being logical, or glosses over the parts of her real life history that put her in a poor light. Wolfgang (whom she always calls Wolfie though in actuality his family called him Wolferl) is the thoughtless, carefree prodigy who lives in the moment with no thought for the future. Leopold is definitely the boss in the family, whom Nannerl argues with as a young girl, but comes to rely on as an adult.

I am getting tired of novels about Nannerl, but maybe it's because I haven't read a really good one yet. There's one more to read, and there's also a movie. Perhaps I will decide that the truth is more interesting than the fiction.

Leopold Mozart: Tiger Dad?

I haven't read Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua, but I have read about it. And, it struck me as I was reading Mozart: A Life by Maynard Solomon, that Leopold Mozart was something of a tiger parent himself.

From what I gather, the thought behind tiger parenting is to demand the highest level of achievement from one's children, even when that means acting in ways that some would call unnecessarily harsh. For example, Ms. Chua told her daughter that the homemade birthday card the girl made for her wasn't good enough. (In her defense, she later explained it was a folded piece of paper with a smiley face drawn on it that had taken her daughter almost no time or thought to do.) The tiger mom also drills her children in areas like math both so they will get better and so they will feel more confident and like the subject.

The only acceptable musical instruments for the children of a tiger parent are violin or piano, or both, and hours of daily practice are required. Both of Ms. Chua's children demonstrated a high level of achievement in music, one performing at Carnegie Hall, though the other eventually rebelled and quit, taking up tennis instead.

Obviously, a tiger parent exerts a great deal of control over his or her children. The ultimate goal of the tiger mom is the success of her children, which she can take pride in. This mother seems to realize that in the end, her children will have their own lives, which she has worked hard to prepare them for.

Leopold Mozart was a working professional musician, with a home filled with music through friends and students. It was an ideal environment for the talents of his children to surface and be nurtured. The family letters and others' accounts show that Leopold loved his children dearly, especially Wolfgang, but that he was quite an autocratic parent as well. He did require hours of practice from both children. Wolfgang played both piano and violin extremely well, and Nannerl was an excellent pianist as well. (Most likely Nannerl did not play the violin because of the standard for the idealized female countenance, which the violin would have pulled askew.) He pushed them to work hard, which probably resulted in the several serious illness Wolfgang and Nannerl had in childhood. At one point on tour Nannerl received last rites. Leopold also took total charge of his children's education. Neither child went to school or had tutors. He appears to have done an excellent job. Wolfgang and Nannerl were well read and spoke several languages.

Unlike the tiger parent of the 21st century, Leopold could not let go of his children as they grew up. In Mozart: A Life, Solomon uses the family letters to show that Leopold tried to convince Wolfgang that he (Wolfgang) was incapable of managing on his own. Leopold wrote to him, arguing that Wolfgang had no experience arranging travel and would not be able to cope with these demands. He later tried to persuade Wolfgang that he should write pieces that people would like and not experiment with new ideas, and that he should move back to Salzburg and become a court violinist and organist. Nannerl didn't marry until she was in her 30s, very unusual for the time. Though there is nothing to indicate why she didn't marry earlier when she had suitors, some have speculated that Leopold either didn't find any of the potential husbands good enough, or he wanted to keep Nannerl at home to take care of him.

So was Leopold Mozart a tiger dad? He had some of the characteristics of one, but also had some unusual ideas about the goal of child rearing.

Mysterious Portraits

The New York Times recently ran an article in the Arts section titled "Portraits of Mystery: Wolfgang, Is that You?" The International Mozarteum Foundation, which is located in Salzburg, currently has an exhibition of Mozart portraits. According to the article, there are 14 portraits in various media that were done during Mozart's lifetime. The Mozarteum show includes 12 of these, nine of which belong to the Mozarteum. Recent research has revealed some new information about some of the images. The most famous portrait, the unfinished painting by Joseph Lange, Mozart's brother-in-law, was analyzed using x-rays and infrared. This showed that a smaller completed portrait had been mounted on the canvas, showing that the unfinished painting is an enlargement of the smaller complete work. Another painting was determined after cleaning to not be Mozart. A small portrait on ivory from 1783 that experts had doubts about is now proved to be authentic.

Portrait of Mozart by Joseph Lange

To me, as a non-expert, it is interesting how different the portraits look from one another. Most show Mozart with a full face and a bit of a double chin, though a miniature painted when he was about 16 years old depicts him as thin. Though the article doesn't address this, I thought it may have been taken after one of Mozart's illnesses. He had a number of serious illnesses as a child. The portrait from 1783, when he was about 26 looks very young -- I thought it was of him as a child.

A portrait that I find truly mysterious is the one at the Sibley Library in Rochester, New York. Sibley is the music library of the Eastman School of Music. When my husband and I went back for a reunion in 1991, the new library had been recently completed and we were able to take of tour. Going around a corner, we came to the bottom of the stairs and a striking view of a large portrait of a smiling Mozart. Everyone in our group exclaimed over it -- it's a beautiful painting and he's smiling! According to the library's web site, the painting is by Johann Heinrich Tischbein, a German painter of the 18th century. The library has no image of the painting on its website, and I have not found the picture that I remember anywhere else. Is it authentic? Tischbein died in 1788, so he would have had to paint  it during Mozart's life (as he died in 1791). If so, it should be counted among the 14 portraits painted during his life. There is no mention of it in the New York Times article. Further investigation is needed!

Mozart in fiction, part 4

Last time I said I was going to go back to nonfiction and I am now reading Mozart: A Life by Maynard Solomon. It a big book, over 600 pages, and calls for focused reading. It's very interesting, with many ideas to think about. But since it is a slow book, I slipped in In Mozart's Shadow: His Sister's Story by Carolyn Meyer.

This is a young adult novel; the jacket states it is for ages 12 and up. As a 4th grade teacher I regularly read books for kids, and there are many that I don't whole-heartedly like. This includes novels that are highly acclaimed and books my students love. For example, the Percy Jackson series by Rick Riordan is very popular with upper elementary readers. If you aren't familiar with it, it's set in the United States today and is about a boy who discovers his father is Neptune. Adventures follow. It's a great premise, but I could hardly make myself continue reading the first book. Even as the main characters were setting out on an important quest, I was bored and wanted to quit reading. (I didn't tell my students.) There are also many books for young people that I do like a lot, including Harry Potter (though I don't think the later books are children's literature) and the Mysterious Benedict Society.

That said, In Mozart's Shadow is disappointing. Nannerl Mozart is the narrator, from the time she is 13 years old until Wolfgang's death. The Mozart family had an exciting life, and Nannerl narrates all of it, but I never felt engaged in the story or that I knew Nannerl. We skim the surface of the events, which seem to pass quickly, followed by more trips and concerts. What we learn about Nannerl is that she loves music and performing, that she was bitterly disappointed to be left behind beginning with the trips to Italy that Leopold took only Wolfgang on, and she continued to be unhappy about not being able to participate in a musical life and not marrying happily. It becomes a one-note theme in the book. On the cover is a young lady in 18th century garb, looking sad, with downcast eyes. Wolfgang is depicted as a mischievous brat, Leopold Mozart as an autocratic father who only cared about his son, not his daughter, and Anna Maria, the mother, as a put-upon caretaker. There are also some adult themes, such as mistresses and dalliances, that may not be appropriate for all 12 year olds.

As I finished reading this novel, I started wondering how a writer could structure an interesting novel about Nannerl Mozart, for any age reader, since neither this one or Mozart's Sister, by A.M. Baud, were satisfying for me. In the real Nannerl's accounts of her family, she wrote in a a cryptic style that revealed little of herself. She referred to "the son" and "the father" when talking about her brother and father. "On 12 December 1769, father and son went alone to Italy," she wrote, remembering the event years later. And, "The Pope wanted to see the son, and gave him the cross and the brief of a militiae auratae equus." So it is difficult to deduce her personality and response to events. In addition, including every major event in her life can lead to a lack of depth, or a very long book.

I think if I were trying this I would try to pick up some of her personality from the letters of other family members. Like Carolyn Meyer, I would assume that Nannerl must have been devastated by not being able to pursue a life in music and ending up married to a man with 5 unruly children, living in a small town, isolated from her friends and any cultural life. I would not attempt to include everything in her family history, but perhaps focus on part of her life. This was a successful strategy in Marrying Mozart, which focused on a few years in the adult life of Wolfgang Mozart. As I tell my 4th graders, historical fiction means there are some true things, but there are also fictional events and people. Sometimes even the real people end up partly fictional.

Happy Birthday, Mozart!

Detail from Mozart family portrait by Johann Nepomuk della Croce

Today is the 257th anniversary of the birth of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. After I participated several times in the Schubertiade sponsored by Pianoforte Chicago, though sadly not this year, I thought what fun it would be to have a similar celebration of Mozart's work. Mozart wrote many chamber works, and he wrote much more for wind instruments than Schubert did. The Schubertiade is always heavy on pianists and singers. The word Schubertiade was coined by Franz Schubert's friends, who would get together with him to play his music in a relaxed setting in someone's home. The Mozart family also had such musical evenings, having friends over to play pieces by Mozart and other contemporary composers. I'm guessing this was probably a common entertainment among people who played instruments before television was invented.

Mozart evening, anyone?

Mozart in fiction, part 3

After learning about five different novels written about Nannerl Mozart, I was able to track them all down, mostly through the secondhand book source, alibris.com. I chose one at random recently to read: Mozart's Sister, by A.M. Bauld.

This is a very strange book. My husband described it as "like a nightmare." It has a bizarre dreamlike quality. I would say it has only the slightest connection with Nannerl Mozart's real life. The narrator is Franz Xaver Mozart, the younger son of Wolfgang, who is visiting his aged, infirm aunt Nannerl, as he actually did. This seemed at first to be a similar format as Mozart's Last Aria, however, this Franz Xaver expresses disgust with his decrepit aunt, and, in a science fiction twist, he can transform himself into a spider (shades of Kafka!) and travel back in time to observe his family before his birth. Other historical events that appear in this novel include a visit by Vincent and Mary Novello, who did in fact travel from England to visit the elderly Nannerl and interview her about her life and her famous brother. And, like both Mozart's Last Aria and Marrying Mozart, letters are very important in advancing the plot. The Mozart family is, of course, known for being prolific letter writers.

The author invents several important characters who have significant interactions with Nannerl and Leopold Mozart, including a love interest for Nannerl. Bauld does include an Author's Note clarifying which characters were invented, but these characters add to the strangeness of the mood and the depiction of the real people. Most of the characters seem to be unhappy. Example (and spoiler -- alert!): Nannerl love interest is an itinerant draper and amateur musician who is Jewish. They fall in love, but neither tells the other, and after a series of unhappy misunderstandings, he eventually leaves, possibly to perish in a shipwreck on the way to Van Dieman's Land (Tasmania). But maybe not. maybe he made it up.

I was very confused by the end of this book. I think I will go back to nonfiction for awhile.