Read on to discover more about Mozart's talented sister, Maria Anna, aka Nannerl...
Was Mozart's sister the better musician? This is what many audience members are longing to know when coming to see my play, The Other Mozart. After more than 350 performances (this August coming to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe) in NYC, Los Angeles, and across the United States, Munich, Vienna, London, Salzburg and Hong Kong, the subject matter provokes this question.
'Imagine an 11-year-old girl, performing the most difficult sonatas and concertos of the greatest composers, on the harpsichord or fortepiano, with precision, with incredible lightness, with impeccable taste. It was a source of wonder to many.' - Augsburgischer Intelligenz-Zettel, 19 May 1763.
Who was Maria Anna Mozart, aka Nannerl?
This review was written about Maria Anna (Nannerl) Mozart, a keyboard virtuoso, child prodigy and composer. She received her first piano lesson at the age of eight. Her father, Leopold, a renowned music teacher, made a music notebook especially for her lessons, still known today as the 'Nannerl Notebook'.
Only two years later she was touring, performing at the major courts throughout Europe, as a wunderkind: Munich, Frankfurt, Bonn, Cologne, Brussels, Geneva, Paris, Vienna! The Empress Maria Theresa was so astonished by her talent, she commissioned a portrait of her and gave her a dress belonging to her daughter (the future Marie Antoinette).
Her father would proudly report back home to Salzburg, 'My little girl, although she is only 12 years old, is one of the most skillful players in Europe.' Amsterdam, Geneva, Zurich, Brussels, Paris again: 'Mademoiselle Mozart has the most beautiful and most brilliant execution on the harpsichord. No one can rob her of supremacy.' In London, at 13 years old, she wrote her first symphony.
Maria Anna, aka Nannerl, and Wolfgang Amadeus... the talented Mozart siblings
But am I forgetting somebody? It appears I am writing her story here without even a mention of her sibling! I must have learned this selective practice - from the way her sibling’s story is usually told.
We once had two Mozarts. Two child prodigies: Maria Anna and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
She was five years older than Amadeus. Wolfgang began his piano lessons aged three because he saw his sister play. The two children were taught together by their father using her notebook, receiving the same education in music and the liberal arts. She was billed first in announcements of their performances. They toured most of Europe performing together as wunderkinder, to the astonishment of all who saw them.
They were each other’s only playmates, and their play-thing was music. The Symphony No. 1 is still only attributed to Wolfgang, but the way Nannerl modestly told the story of its creation later in life strongly suggests a true collaboration. And we know her virtuosity through the many keyboard works that Wolfgang wrote specifically for her to play.
A distraught Nannerl Mozart is forced to quit touring to learn 'the arts of housekeeping'
Soon Nannerl’s education was shifted away from composition and towards the 'arts of housekeeping'. She was expected to learn from her mother how to become a proper wife, while Wolfgang continued his composition lessons. I cannot blame the parents. In those days, as middle-class, financially vulnerable family of musicians, the only possibility for Nannerl’s financial security was to enter into a good marriage – while for Wolfgang it was to get a permanent position at a court and bring the family along to a major city.
They kept performing together until she turned 18. A little girl could perform and tour, but a woman risked her reputation and prospects. She was left behind at home in Salzburg, with her mother. Her father took only Wolfgang on the next tours. Each time they left without her, Nannerl would fall violently ill for months at a time: she wept, screamed, retched and vomited. She never performed outside of Salzburg again.
She continued to play at home and she wrote music – which Amadeus praised: 'Cara sorella mia! I was truly amazed… in one word, the piece you wrote is beautiful. You should compose more often.'
Nannerl continued to play the keyboard in private
A few years later, with Wolfgang still pursuing that elusive paying position, their father was clear, writing to Amadeus: 'Nannerl plays excellently, and with great expression... perfect insight into harmony and modulations… She extemporizes [improvises] so successfully that one is astounded… Let me remind you of the purpose of your journey: to get a good permanent appointment – so that I can quit my thankless position in Salzburg, and relocate our family – knowing that you will be able to help your dear sister, for it is clear as noonday that her future is entirely in your hands. For were I suddenly to breathe my last, your sister would be forced to go into domestic service. Our future depends on your abundant good sense. For surely Nannerl did not practice all the days of her life only to use those highly skilled hands for housekeeping!'
She kept hoping to join Wolfgang and have a happy musical life in a major city. But finally, resigned and at 33, she married a twice-widowed baron with five children and moved to a backwater village. Her fortepiano was placed in the smallest room of the house, where she kept playing, every day, for three hours. In winter her instrument was destroyed by the dampness. She kept playing.
Have any of Nannerl's compositions survived?
None of her compositions survived.
Or did they?
Some of the early compositions attributed to Wolfgang may be hers, or a collaboration of the two children, as with the Symphony No. 1. In 2010 a fragment of music manuscript, a composition exercise attributed to Wolfgang, was being auctioned at Sotheby’s. Able to see it at last, experts determined it was actually Nannerl’s. There may be many other such misattributions in private collections, if only the collectors were willing for them to be examined.
We may never know how good her compositions were. But the question I find more interesting is: how did we lose a Mozart? I created a play exploring exactly that – what were the forces that blocked and erased her. How did we lose a Mozart?
The Other Mozart is running at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe this August and continues touring internationally. For tickets and more information, visit: https://theothermozart.com/