Marrying Mozart Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  PART ONE - Mannheim and the Webers, 1777

  PART TWO - Munich and Aloysia, 1778

  PART THREE - Vienna and Aloysia, 1780

  PART FOUR - Vienna and Maria Sophia, 1781

  PART FIVE - Vienna and Constanze

  PART SIX - The abduction form the Boardinghouse

  HISTORICAL NOTES

  FOR THE BEST IN PAPERBACKS, LOOK FOR THE

  Praise for Marrying Mozart

  “Marrying Mozart is a charming novel, so much so that one would enjoy it even if the gentleman involved in these girls’ lives were not one of the greatest geniuses in the history of music. As it is, however, it also has the virtue of offering a believable and appealing portrait of Mozart himself.”—

  Los Angeles Times Book Review

  “Marrying Mozart is as much about the difficult, colorful lot of the Webers as it is about the brilliant musician who married into their clan. Their story makes a grand little mini-opera, filled with twists of affection, musical politics, love, loss and chocolate.”

  —The Seattle Times

  “With its frequent changes in locale and abrupt shifts in the objects of affection, [the novel] is reminiscent of nothing so much as an opera—appropriately enough. A delight, at once fanciful and erudite : should be richly satisfying to Mozart buffs and fascinating to those in the outer circle as well.”—

  Kirkus Reviews (starred)

  “Cowell’s novel portrays Mozart as a passionate, determined young man and focuses on his relationships with the four Weber sisters. An engaging look at Mozart’s colorful world and his struggles during his early twenties.”—

  Booklist

  “As rich and unhurried as eighteenth-century court life.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “An imaginatively worthy tale. Cowell’s authorial and musical gifts are evident throughout.... It will enchant opera lovers, and entertain any readers who enjoy an intelligent but informed historical speculation.”—

  The News and Observer (Raleigh)

  “A fascinating tale ... Wolfgang Amadeus comes across as a brilliant flame, passionate but barely able to keep up with the Weber sisters—and their mother.”—

  Duxbury Clipper

  “A well-written, tightly crafted narrative in which emotional crises play a leading role, along with musical ambition.”

  —Palm Beach Post

  “Cowell’s operatic novel of Mozart and the four beautiful Weber sisters (he pursued one, married another, wrote music for a third, sought solace with the fourth) will appeal even to readers unfamiliar with the composer’s music.” —

  The Dallas Morning News

  “Stephanie Cowell brings alive the world of Mozart and his circle with stunning cinematic immediacy. Like the music that echoes through this captivating novel, the four Weber sisters—irrepressible, passionate, heartbreakingly hopeful—linger long after the last page is turned.”—

  Ellen Feldman, author of Lucy

  “It’s not just that Stephanie Cowell has music and history in her bones; not just that story seems to come to her complete with benevolent wraiths begging to dance across her pages; not just that Mozart makes such a colorful subject. No, she has something magical as well: a gift that makes time transparent and prose transportive. Marrying Mozart is a delight.”

  —Sandra Scofield, author of Occasions ofSin: A Memoir

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  MARRYING MOZART

  Stephanie Cowell is the critically acclaimed author of the historical novels Nicholas Cooke, The Players: A Novel of the Young Shakespeare, and The Physician of London (winner of a 1996 American Book Award). Trained as a lyric coloratura soprano, she lives with her husband in New York City.

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  First published in the United States of America by Viking Penguin,

  a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. 2004

  Published in Penguin Books 2005

  Copyright © Stephanie Cowell, 2004

  All rights reserved

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-14217-2

  1. Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, 1756-1791—Fiction. 2. Mozart, Constanze, 1763-1842—Fiction. 3. Mannheim (Germany)—Fiction. 4. Composers’ spouses—Fiction. 5. Weber family—Fiction. 6. Composers—Fiction. 7. Sisters—Fiction. I. Title. PS3553.O898M’.54—dc21 2003052546

  The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

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  for Russell, in a time of joy

  “Questo giorno di tormenti, di capricci e di follia, in contenti e in allegria solo amor può terminar.”

  “This day of difficulties, impulse, and silliness can only conclude in happy contentment through love.”

  from Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro, Finale Act Four first performance, Vienna 1786

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thanks to my husband, Russell Clay, for his love, encouragement, literary advice, and companionship during the writing of this book; to my agent, Emma Sweeney; and to my editor, Carole DeSanti, for her understanding of my artistic vision and her sensitive editing, which helped to shape the manuscript; also to associate editor Karen Murphy and the whole Viking team. Special thanks to my younger son, filmmaker/editor Jesse Cowell, who named the novel in a moment of inspiration.

  Others who read through drafts and made the novel richer by their historical and artistic comments include Katherine Kirkpatrick, Sally Lowe Whitehead, Elsa Okon Rael, Christine Emmert, Judith Ackerman, Ellen Beschler, and Richard Somerset Ward. Dr. Jean Houston came into my life in time to read a partial early draft, and gave me an irreplaceable spiritual gift from the generosity of her heart. Thanks to my father and stepmother, Jimmy and Viraja Mathieu, who first took me to Salzburg. It was Viraja who introduced me to the Mozart family letters.

  Others who exte
nded me their help in the particular journey of this book are Sandra Scofield, Mary Cunnane, Sebastian Ritscher, Madeleine L’Engle, John Kavanaugh, Lori Lettieri, Alice Tufel, Phil Milito, Renee Cafiero, and Robert Blumenfeld. My love to my older son, James Nord-strom, his wife, Jessica, and my granddaughters; my sister Jennie, her husband, Jerry, and son, David; and my husband’s large and warm family, particularly Eugenia Head. I am enriched by the support of my colleagues at work; the clergy, parishioners, staff, and musicians of my church, St. Thomas Church Fifth Avenue; and all the sisters of the Community of the Holy Spirit.

  The genesis of this novel occurred in my adolescence when I fell in love with Mozart’s operas and spent many a cold winter’s afternoon waiting on line for tickets to the old Metropolitan Opera House. Those years, and my years as an opera singer, include friends with whom I sang a great deal of Mozart. They are too many to list, but I do thank them for what we shared.

  Sophie Weber, February 1842, Salzburg

  I FOUND MY SISTER’S WEDDING HAT TODAY IN A ROUND box of thin wood at the bottom of my wardrobe. The white velvet had discolored, but there were the flowers I myself had fastened, now as fragile as old paper. Sixty years ago I had pinned the hat on her soft hair when she married the young Mozart.

  There were letters as well under the hat when I lifted it, but I didn’t read them, only sat with the hat on my wide skirts for a time. The afternoon passed; I can’t say how. It was a short winter afternoon such as we have in Austria, light dulled and curtains half drawn against the noise of carriages and horses in the street below. My landlady’s little girl brought candles early. The child looks in on me often, as does her mother, because I’m old and heavy, walk short distances with great effort, and need someone to bring meals and take away the chamber pot.

  Though I have not been away from my rooms in many years, I’m not alone. Visitors come. A few days ago an Englishman came. He knocked hopefully at the door, gazing curiously at me, addressing me with respect, wanting to know what I remember of my sisters and what we were to that then obscure young composer who came into our lives.

  “You are one of the four Weber sisters,” he said quietly.

  “Yes, monsieur, I am.”

  “The ones for whom he wrote music and whom he knew so intimately? Madame, I’m so moved. I plan to stay a time in Austria and would like to visit at your convenience. Would you speak with me? Would you be so very kind?”

  He said he was a biographer. He has not yet returned, but he will.

  Not yet, not yet, but in a little time I will put the box away, and perhaps tomorrow, when I am not so tired, I will look at the letters. Some are from her, most from him. What do I remember? Oh, very much. But I am trembling a little. I will have to use my cane.

  I rise slowly. For a moment I close my eyes, and my dusty, small, darkish room fades from me, as does my heavy body, and I am again with my sisters tumbled together with our mother and father in the fifth-floor rooms we rented on a side street in Mannheim. I can hear music, laughter, the pouring of wine. It is Thursday evening, musicians are coming to play, and there is our Mozart as he climbed the stairs for the first time. It was on a Thursday; it must have been on a Thursday. I was eleven years old, wearing a white pinafore over my dark dress, the youngest of the household....

  PART ONE

  Mannheim and the Webers, 1777

  Up five flights of cracking wood steps of a modest town house in the city of Mannheim, Fridolin Weber stood peering over his candle, which cast a dim light down the rounded banister below. “Mind the broken step,” he called convivially to his visitors. “Come this way, come this way.”

  Of middle years, he was a lean man but for a small round stomach under his vest, and he wore a long coat to his knees and mended white cotton hose to his breech buckles. His lank graying hair was caught with a frayed black ribbon at his neck and hung limply down his back. He craned his long neck to see down the stairs.

  Behind him, the front parlor of the cramped apartment had been dusted, polished, and abundantly lit with eight candles. There, near the clavier, his four daughters, age eleven to nineteen, stood dressed in their best ordinary gowns, hair glistening with curls that one hour before had been tightly wrapped in rags. It was Thursday. Things somehow always turned out well on Thursday evenings when friends came.

  The rest of the rooms were dark, except for the fire in the kitchen, for all the candles were in here. The parlor had been tidied, and a shawl draped over the clavier; all the music had been sorted in neat heaps on the floor. Weber’s corpulent wife, Maria Caecilia, emerged from the kitchen as if she had not been baking there for hours, and stood by his side, murmuring the words he knew she would speak. “There won’t be enough wine. Your cousin Alfonso drinks like a fish.”

  “Pour small glasses,” he said, squeezing her arm, and then, turning to the dark stair again, called down happily, “Yes, come up, come up, dear friends—I’ve been waiting for you.”

  From the darkness of the stair emerged Heinemann, a violinist from court, extending his always damp hands, and balding Cousin Alfonso, who wore his wig only for his cello performances. The four girls stood nudging one another, whispering, curtseying. Their hands were a little worn and pricked from washing and sewing. There was about them the scent of youth, youth that, with a little soap and a clean petticoat, was as fresh as flowers.

  Wine was poured in small glasses, and two more musicians arrived. Every now and then Fridolin Weber peered through the window down to the street. He knew everybody, everything. He knew the world of music especially, because he copied it page after page for a small fee. In addition, he was a versatile musician. For what occasion had he not played his half-dozen instruments at which he was adequately proficient, or poured forth his meager, congenial, slightly hoarse singing voice? But he was modest, his narrow shoulders rounded.

  “Who else do you expect this Thursday, Weber?” asked Alfonso, already enjoying his third glass of wine. “You seem to be waiting. Is it Grossmeyer, the choirmaster? He had rehearsal this night, I thought.”

  “Some new friends, recommended to me—a matron from Salzburg and her twenty-one-year-old son, who has composed a great deal already.” He leaned against the window frame to look down, and then drew in his breath with pleasure. “Perhaps that ... yes, that must be them. They’re making their way to the door below.” Negotiating among chairs, music stands, and guests, he crossed the room and opened the door to the landing once again. The cold breeze whisked into the room, and the candles fluttered. “Come up, come up,” he cried.

  An ample-busted woman with a long mournful face under her piled hair appeared panting on the top step. Behind her, trying to slow his climb in consideration, was her son, a pale young man with large eyes and a large nose, somewhat below middle height but neatly made with supple hands beneath his lace cuffs.

  “Frau Mozart, a pleasure, and Herr Mozart, I presume?”

  “You’re most gracious to invite us,” replied Frau Mozart.

  In a flurry of consultation the four girls disappeared into another room and returned with two more chairs that they offered, and Weber himself brought more wine. Introductions were made, and bows exchanged. Frau Mozart balanced her wine cautiously on her knee. She wore no rouge, and she gathered her dark skirts closely, as if wanting to leave as little of them as possible flowing about her; her mouth was compressed like a tightly drawn purse. She looked into every corner of the room, taking in the piles of music and the few sconces without candles.

  Weber rubbed his hands and rocked back and forth in his pleasure. “Do I understand you’ve arrived from Salzburg just two weeks ago? And that your husband is employed there as musician by the Archbishop’s court?”

  “Indeed, sir; we’ve come here looking for greater opportunities for my son.”

  “Why, there are opportunities enough here, Alfonso will tell you. I copy, I compose a little, I play several instruments. If music is wanted, I’m there to make it.” All this time Herr Mozart said
nothing, but looked about the room seriously, bowing when he caught someone’s eye.

  Cakes and coffee came; the wondrous fragrance of the hot beverage stirred with cinnamon and cream filled the rooms. Weber would not stint on his Thursday evenings, not even if they had nothing but porridge for three days following, thick and lumpy, with no sugar and only third-quality milk.

  “Now we’ll have music,” Fridolin Weber cried when the cake lay in crumbs on coat fronts and across the parlor floor. “What’s an evening without music? Alfonso, have you brought parts for your new trio? Come, come.”

  At once the four girls clustered against the wall to make room, while Weber, with a sweep of his coattails, sat down at the clavier and candles were moved to illuminate the music. The sound of strings and clavier soared through the small chamber, Fridolin Weber playing deftly, nodding, exclaiming at passages that pleased him. They finished the last movement with a great sweep of Heinemann’s bow, after which he lay his violin on his knee, perspiring and wearing a great smile. Some other brief pieces followed, and then Weber stood and called, “And will you play something as well, Herr Mozart?”

  The young man leapt up to the clavier; he pushed back his cuffs and began a sonata andante with variations. Each successive variation gathered in depth. Weber leaned forward. There was a rare delicacy to the young man’s playing, and an unusual strength in his left hand, which made the musicians look at one another. Heinemann grinned, showing small, darkened teeth. He sat breathing through his mouth, fingers drumming on his breeches above the buckle.