If we think that maybe at least some people did have more fun in the 18th century than we're having in the 21st, we naturally wonder why that would be, and maybe even how we can have more fun now. There are several good theories, in my opinion. The Mozarts' fun was generally centered around getting together with their friends and acquaintances to play games, talk or make music, so I
'm considering what is different now that stops us from having that kind of experience.
We've all heard that electronics in general and the Internet, Facebook, etc. are stopping us from having live interactions with our friends. Certainly the Mozart family had no choice but to interact in person or through hand-written letters with their acquaintances. There are many articles and studies about the ways in which people interact with their devices instead of the people that they're with. Recently NPR reported on a study that too much time on Facebook can make us sad. A recent New York Times article looked at how our extreme use of our smart phones is distracting us from the events and people in our lives. My favorite book on the subject is Hamlet's Blackberry, by William Powers. Powers takes a long view of technology, looking all the way back to the ancient Greeks, and suggesting reasons and ways to take control of how and when we switch off and reconnect face to face.
Then there's that three to four hour break after lunch that many residents of Salzburg and Vienna enjoyed in the 1700s. In spite of our many time-saving devices today, we work a lot. I don't know anyone who could take a break like that from work.
Perhaps because 18th century families tended to stay in one area instead of moving away from family and friends, it was just a part of their lives to socialize together. The Mozart family, though, does not fit this description. Leopold Mozart was estranged from his mother and siblings, perhaps because of his choice not to go into the family trade of bookbinding and also because of a dispute over inheritance. His wife, Anna Maria, had lost her family. Her father and sister died when she was still a child, leaving only her mother and herself. The Mozarts also traveled much more than most people at that time. Their large social group was made up of neighbors, fellow musicians, visitors to Salzburg and people they met on their travels.
There are no doubt other reasons as well. So many things back then were different and difficult, but there are some specific aspects that I envy, especially the frequent musical gatherings and that three hours in the afternoon!
When we think about life in the past, we often think of what people didn't have -- indoor plumbing, central heat, air conditioning, shopping malls, airplanes -- the things that make our lives easier and more comfortable. People in the past, of course, didn't realize that they were missing these things. We might also have an impression of lives of hard labor, poor medical care, and a lack of education for many. This was no doubt true for many, though some might argue that it's still true today in many places in the world.
I have been thinking about this because of The Mozart Family: Four Lives in a Social Context, by Ruth Halliwell (see previous blog post here). Halliwell includes lots of information about the daily life of the Mozart family, as well as the economics and politics of their time and place. The Mozarts would fall into middle class of 18th century Salzburg. They were not rich, but neither were they poor. They were educated and valued education. Leopold had a reasonable position with a salary in Salzburg that enabled him to support his family and retire with income to live on. He was always hoping for a better position or a promotion, but on the other hand, his job allowed him to travel extensively with his family.
Aside from the extraordinary three-year tour of Europe when Wolfgang and Nannerl were children and the later trips to Italy with just Wolfgang and Leopold, what were their daily lives like? Halliwell has used Nannerl's diaries to find a window into those lives. Nannerl's diary is a barebones account of activities, with no description or commentary (though there are a few lighthearted or nonsensical additions from Wolfgang), so, Halliwell explains, most historians have not found much value in them. She has used the entries to reconstruct the events during the visit of Wolfgang and Constanze to Salzburg in 1783.
During the three months that Wolfgang and Constanze visited, Nannerl went to church nearly every morning, sometimes with Constanze. Mornings were often devoted to giving lessons, or sometimes to playing visits. After the mid-day meal, many Salzburgers had a three to four hour break from work!! The Mozarts spent this time entertaining, walking, or playing music. They had visitors almost every day. Nannerl mentioned over 170 people in her diary during the mid-1770s, an indication of how social the family was. Of course, during this three month period in 1783 there were no doubt many friends who wanted to see Wolfgang, but its' clear that even at other times the family had frequent visitors. A group of friends regularly came over to shoot air guns with darts (Bolzlschiessen). Members took turns designing a humorous target, which sometimes featured members of the group in caricatures, and prizes were awarded for the best shooting. Other days they would host musical afternoons with various musician friends. Other entertainments included card playing and skittles.
In the evenings there were sometimes concerts at the court, which Leopold would participate in as part of his job, or the theater. The Mozarts lived across the street from the theater and would go every day that the troop was in town. As an "old" man Leopold wrote that he could only manage to get to the theater once a week. ("Old" because that is how Leopold described himself, though he was 67 when he passed away.)
When I told my husband about all of the above, his remark was, "I think they had more fun than we're having."
In addition, carnival season offered many opportunities for entertainment. Carnival in 18th century Germany was the weeks before Lent began, so it included February, to give some perspective. (Carnival today in Rio is a modern version.) Because Lent is time for forgoing many pleasures, such as rich foods and some types of entertainment, carnival was the season for concerts and operas, masquerade balls and other parties. New operas and other works were commissioned for carnival. Mozart's operas Lucio Silla, Mitridate, re de Ponto, and Idomeneo were commissioned for carnival seasons. The Mozarts celebrated carnival not only in Salzburg, but in Munich, Vienna, and Italy. Nannerl attended a masked ball in Munich one year dressed as an Amazon. There is no record of the reaction to her costume,as far as I know.
Certainly many things were harder in the 18th century. Many children died in infancy; Leopold and Anna Maria had five infants die. Travel was difficult, slow, and dangerous. Opportunities were limited, especially for women. But, the amount of free time, at least for people in the Mozarts' circle, is astounding, as well as the amount of socializing they did and the number of friends and acquaintances. Maybe they did have more fun.
(Facts in this post come from The Mozart Family: Four Lives in a Social Context by Ruth Halliwell, Mozart's Women by Jane Glover, and Mozart; A Life by Maynard Solomon. If there are errors or omissions they are mine, not these authors'.)
One of the best classes I ever took was called Music in the Middle Ages. It was my senior year at Eastman and the course was taught by Dr. Hendrik van der Werf. I learned a lot about medieval music, but the most important lesson was one that was more universal. Dr. van der Werf taught us to think critically about all the historical information and commentary we were reading, even when it was written by experts in the field. His big question always was: how do you know? Are you sure you know? What are you basing your ideas on? In the case of the middle ages, he pointed out that we use the music that has survived to draw conclusions. We don't know how much music originally existed, so we can't know how much was lost over time or what percentage of the original amount what we have is. Do we have 50% and 50% is lost? Do we have only 10%, or 75%? We don't know. We could be missing music that would throw a very different light on music in the Middle Ages. The message was, any conclusions we make from the existing evidence, including the artwork of the time, must be provisional and subject to rethinking.
This idea of examining evidence and also thinking critically about it obviously applies to many parts of life - politics, advertising, all those scientific studies that turn out to have been funded by an interested industry. However, I have been thinking about Dr. van der Werf's concept in relation to the Mozart biographies I have been reading.
I was impressed with Maynard Solomon's biography of Mozart and his use of primary documents in making his points. I also thought that Jane Glover solidly supported her points with the use of letters and scores. But even as I read them, I wondered about how they used the letters of the Mozart family. The letters are so extensive and nearly everyone who uses them only quotes bits, often the same letters over and over. Even if you get a book of the letters, they aren't all in there because there are so many.
One of my summer projects was to find and read The Mozart Family: Four Lives in a Social Context by Ruth Halliwell. This was a "project" because it is a very expensive book, so I needed to find a library with a copy. This involved getting a library card for the Northwestern University Library and checking out the book, which is 788 pages long (though the very extensive bibliography is part of those pages). So there was a significant investment of time on my part in traveling and then reading, but it was worth it. The Mozart Family is a wonderful book. Halliwell has read all the letters, as well as Nannerl's diaries and other primary sources. She puts into context some of the quotations that have been used out of context, and she notes where a statement is just mysterious and we don't really know what the author was trying to say. Halliwell also gives an amazing amount of background information, such as the political situation, economics of the Salzburg area, and what daily life was like at the time.
One lesson I got from reading this was how broad and minutely detailed the historian's work is. Simultaneously! For an example of the minute details, Halliwell includes a long explanation of how Leopold and Nannerl communicated after her marriage and move to St. Gilgen, while Leopold remained in Salzburg. The two tradespeople who carried letters and parcels back and forth are identified and details about them are given, as well as the particular days and times they would come and go. How Leopold would quickly shop for Nannerl's requested items and send a response is also documented. It is an unexpected look into the 18th century. There are also highly detailed sections on the medicine of the time and smallpox, which crosses over into religion and the state of vaccines.
Echoing the problems of studying the Middle Ages, quite a few of the letters have been lost. We know this because in some cases the replies still exist. Scholars have actually worked out a chronological sequence of letters, giving numbers to both existing and missing letters, though there are missing letters that haven't been entered into this system.
I came away from Solomon's biography thinking that Leopold Mozart was a tyrannical control freak who interfered with both of his children's lives and happiness and that Wolfgang was a visionary musician with reasonable plans who finally had to escape from his family in order to write the music he needed to write. After reading Halliwell's look at the Mozart family (which is not a biography of Wolfgang Mozart) I had a more nuanced view of both men. Leopold had valid concerns about some of his son's plans, based on his own experiences touring with the family, for example. Wolfgang was neither an eternal child, as some writers depict him, but neither was he always kind and sensible. Does Halliwell draw her own conclusions, like other biographers? Yes, but as I read the book, it was always clear to me when she was giving her own opinion or interpretation. For example, she presents quite a bit of evidence that Leopold loved Nannerl and was a good father to her, as opposed to some other authors who present him as carrying little about her and her musical education. On the other hand, when the Mozart family arrived in Vienna during a smallpox outbreak, Leopold took Wolfgang and fled to a safer location. Halliwell states that the conclusion that Leopold valued Wolfgang above Nannerl appears unavoidable.
Author bias in biography is inevitable. Just as a reader needs to consider the source of the information being presented, so he or she also needs to be aware that no author is completely neutral. I find that this makes reading biographies more interesting. It's another layer to consider.
The Mozart Family: Four Lives in a Social Context is a wonderful book for learning more about the time and place of the Mozart family. Next - did people have more fun in the 18th century?
The last of the novels about Nannerl Mozart, that I located is titled Mozart's Sister, (obviously a popular title), by Rita Charbonnier. I did not like this book.
While it is clear that the author knows something about Mozart and his family, the characters are two-dimensional caricatures of the real historical people. Leopold Mozart is depicted as uniformly stern, doting only on his son and treating Nannerl almost as if she didn't exist, interacting with her only to stifle her musical abilities. Anna Maria, the mother of Nannerl and Wolfgang, appears to be coarse and uneducated, her dialogue peppered with swearing. The first appearance of Nannerl shows her as a strange, possibly autistic, little girl with a gift for music. Wolfgang is self-centered and casually cruel to others.
The events also do not follow the historical record. Captain d'Ippold was in reality a lifelong friend of the Mozart family, as well as a suitor of Nannerl's. In this novel he rejects Nannerl and her family and deliberately moves to another city to get away from them. When Nannerl meets her future husband, Baron Johann Baptist Franz von Berchtold zu Sonnenburg, he is a charming, handsome man, though in reality he was quite a bit older than Nannerl and appears to have been somewhat of a curmudgeon. His children have all been given now names, too. That seems like a small point, but if the real names are easily available, which they are, and the book is filled with real people, why change their names? Even before I finished the book, I started considering why I disliked it so much. I enjoy historical fiction and read a lot of it. I recognize that everything in a historical novel will not be true. How much needs to be true, or what aspects of history need to be preserved in a novel? A problem with historical fiction is that readers take the fiction parts as fact. I recently participated in an online discussion thread on education in which one writer sited Salieri's killing of Mozart in the Amadeus movie to make a point about some people's jealousy of gifted individuals. The person making the comment and the person who responded to it both believed that Salieri really did kill Mozart. I jumped in with the generally accepted facts about Mozart's death as well as what we know about Salieri. I used to have my 4th graders read Mr. Revere and I, a historical novel narrated by Paul Revere's horse. I really like this book and it brings parts of the American Revolution to life for young readers. It doesn't bother me that a horse is telling the story, though I made a point in teaching with the book to clarify aspects of the story that were not historically accurate, such as that the real horse that Revere rode on his famous ride was a borrowed horse, not his own. However, the Revere family and other historical figures, such as Samuel Adams, are depicted realistically, and the important events of the time are also accurate. Then I began thinking about the other Mozart novels I read. They all include some fiction, of course. My favorite turns out to be the first one I read, Mozart's Last Aria. Notable fictions that author Matt Rees has created include Nannerl making a trip to Vienna after her brother's death and having one character die who in reality lived a reasonably long life. Both these elements are important to the plot, and Rees includes extensive notes in his afterword about the history behind the story that explain what he changed. He also has a discography of the music referred to in the story and an explanation of how he structured the plot. I find that whenever I read historical fiction I always wonder what's true and what the author made up. That is what inspired me to start reading nonfiction about Mozart. The afternotes and discography that Matt Rees included at the end of Mozart's Last Aria enhanced the reading experience for me and saved me from searching for some answers. I also think that including actual works of Mozart as important parts of the plot is excellent! There is one more novel that I haven't yet read, this one being about Anna Maria Mozart. There's is also a movie titled Mozart's Sister that I haven't seen. For now, though, I'm reading another nonfiction work, The Mozart Family: Four Lives in a Social Context. The author has done extensive research with the primary documents. I'm looking forward to reading it and then writing about it!
Dale Clevenger has retired from the Chicago Symphony; his last concert was Tuesday. The send-off at the tribute concert on Monday from the CSO, colleagues, students, and friends was awe-inspiring.
As a former Clevenger student I was thrilled to receive an invitation, not just to the concert, but to play in a large horn choir made up of his students, former students, and colleagues. My daughter Jamie was invited, too, as a current Clevenger student. Our piece was the Adagietto from Mahler's 5th Symphony, a work strongly connected with Dale. If you have never listened to the Chicago Symphony recording of Mahler's 5th with Georg Solti conducting, go do that right now! Here is the horn obbligato from the 3rd movement, with Daniel Barenboim conducting:
We all arrived at Buntrock Hall at Symphony Center for the rehearsal on Monday morning. Nearly 70 horn players had come from all over the country, Europe, and Japan to play in this concert. Buntrock Hall was filled with horn playing and conversation as we all reconnected with our colleagues. I talked with people I hadn't seen in 30 years, horn players I knew when I was in the Civic Orchestra, and friends of Jamie, people I had never met before -- all horn players!
After the warm-up time, we went onto the stage of Orchestra Hall and rehearsed the Adagietto with Dale conducting. It was exciting and a bit nerve-wracking to be playing on the stage with hornists like Norm Schweikert, Eric Ruske, Jeff Nelsen, Gail Williams, and the CSO horn section! In addition to being a great horn player, Dale is also a fine conductor and used our short rehearsal time to the best advantage.
After the rehearsal, while most of us went out to find some lunch, Sarah Willis (4th horn in the Berlin Philharmonic) held a special Horn Hangout via the Internet as part of the tribute. (I watched it later on youtube.) Many people in Chicago, Italy, and other places came on to offer congratulations, memories, and thanks to Dale. His son Jesse Clevenger, a fine horn player himself, talks near the end of the session; his thoughtful and deeply felt remarks go to the heart of why Dale is such a great musician. The entire video is well worth watching:
Cut to the concert! The horn choir, all dressed in black, were all given seats in the terrace (behind the stage). The CSO Brass opened the concert with a Gabrieli Canzon. Dale conducted the entire program except for the Mozart Symphony #25. He brought a box of tissues with him, which he showed to the audience. The CSO Brass were superb, as always. Next, the other five members of the horn section -- Dan Gingrich, Jim Smelser, Dave Griffin, Oto Carrillo, and Susanna Gaunt -- played the Mozart 3rd horn concerto arranged for 5 horns and strings by Dan Gingrich. This was such an inventive arrangement, with the solo phrases moving through the section and the horns taking the woodwind parts as well. A standing ovation followed. The CSO Brass came back on to perform parts of Der Rosenkavalier. Beautiful and impressive. Another standing ovation. During the applause, the brass gave Dale a tusch, an improvised fanfare given by brass (and sometimes percussion). It is a sign of the highest respect and is only rarely given. I have only seen a couple of tusches, one was for Carlo Maria Giulini when he stepped down as Principal Guest Conductor of the Chicago Symphony, and one for Georg Solti when he retired.
The chair for the tribute video.
A video tribute, with interviews with a number of CSO players followed. Before beginning the video, the stage crew brought out a large, comfy chair for Dale. The video was both moving and funny. It has been circulated on Facebook, but here is the link: http://cso.org/ListenAndWatch/Details.aspx?id=24191
The concert continued with two movements of Mozart Symphony #25. This is the piece that opens the movie Amadeus. Ricardo Muti conducted this piece, which features some high, acrobatic horn parts. The last piece on the program was the Adagietto. Ian Harwood, who was in charge of us horn players and did an awesome job with that, had told us that we needed to leave the terrace quickly, pick up our horns and music, and get on the stage as soon as possible. So at the close of the Mozart, most of the terrace stood up and left. We did move quickly, though most of us wanted to play a few notes before playing on stage! I ended up toward the back of the crowd and the sight of 70 musicians all carrying horns, streaming down the circular stairs of the rotunda and into the backstage area was a striking spectacle. I wish someone had been there with a camera. We crowded onto the stage and Dale gave the downbeat. Someone else will have to comment on how well we did. It was an intense experience that seemed to go by in an instant. Lovely arrangement for horn choir by John Schreckengost. Dale and the choir received a standing ovation.
Maestro Muti watching the horn choir
Afterwards there were greetings and farewells in the rotunda, and then about half of the 70 horn players went across Wabash to the Exchequer for pizza and more chatting. The next morning I said good-bye to my friend Henry, who drove 11 hours from Knoxville to attend and play in this concert.
I know from talking with other horn players and friends in the audience that this was a truly special occasion for people. I think it's because of Dale's stature as a musician, a horn player and a teacher. When I play horn, it's his sound that's in my ear and his voice in my head. But it's also because of the kind of person he is. He is a very generous, "people" person, always ready to include new people in his life.
Two nights after the tribute I was at a rehearsal with a young horn player, still in college, who had also played in the concert. We both agreed that we were still buzzing from the whole experience. We're not alone. To echo my friend Henry, "It was a night I shall never forget."
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).
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.
I am a retired teacher. I taught at Quest Academy, an independent school for gifted children for over 20 years. Besides gifted education, my other major interest is music. I play (French) horn in several groups in the Chicago area.
