Reassessment - 4
Constanze was such a bad wife as described before, and then their married
life must inevitably have not been favorable. Yes, unlike the majority
opinions, I believe their marital relationship indeed was no good fundamentally.
Many facts that Constanze had done so many merciless deeds on Mozart prove my understanding well, I believe. But I myself wonder why no one have touched on this contradiction so far.
Though I think like that, persons will not be in favor of my opinion. Because
they firmly believed that their marital relation was good enough since
they find Mozart's tender and loving words here and there in all of his
letters to Constanze.
In a sense, these letters were the evidence to the person who believed that Mozart had truly loved her.
However, as to these letters I think that they probably have misunderstood them for a long time .That is to say, I mean that these letters were not in the least the evidence that Mozart loved her truly, the details of which are to be explained soon later.
Anyway, I shall be asked to explain the reasons why their marital relationship was unfavorable.
Now let me show you the details.
Contents
- The Causes
(1) Various Changes of Their Circumstances
(2) Supposed Mozart's Illicit Love Affair
- The Length
(3) Continued Discord up to Mozart's Death
(1) How to read Mozart's Letters
(2) Missing Letters
The Good Wife Theorists have spread the story that the marital relationship
between Mozart and Constanze was very favorable.
However, when I read their opinions, all of them seem to be made-up stories based on their strong
imaginations, being completely taken in by Constanze's false talks and by misunderstanding Mozart's letters to her.
Following is my refutation to those opinions.
In the first place, I strongly doubt if their marriage were based on the genuine love.
If it were so, we can assume that their marital relationship might have been good. However,
if not, there was a great possibility that it was no good.
Indeed, their marriage was an entrapped one, not based on their mutual love. Then how
can we image their good marital relationship from such entrapped marriage?
As particulars how Mozart's marriage came about are well known, I will
skip to describe them except for the following grounds why this was not
the marriage based on their mutual love.
One thing I believe their marriage was not based on the genuine love is
that Constanze was not such a lady as Aloisia who enchanted Mozart deeply.
Constanze really had no good character and enough talent, and was not beautiful as described before. And more, she was the woman whom Mozart had not taken a notice till he lodged at Caecilla Weber's boarding house in Vienna.
Then how could Mozart be enchanted by such woman and decide to marry her
so soon unless there had existed some traps?
Though I wrote like this, I know some writers described that their relationship had begun in Munich at the end of 1778 after he was jilted
by Aloisia.
Based on Constanze's false talk, they believed that she consoled him in
his sorrow and then Mozart taught her piano being impressed by her tenderness.
But her talk was a very funny story. Can we believe that the jilted man taught piano to the sister in the same house soon after the miserable jilt ?
We should be careful Mozart did not write such happening at all in his four letters to his father sent from Munich that time.
We also should be aware that during his Mannheim-Paris trip, the name of
Constanze can not be found anywhere in his letters. Yes, Constanze was
the very existence to whom Mozart had not paid any attention during his
Mannheim-Paris trip.
Now my question is why Mozart in Vienna had to made up his mind to marry such a stranger within a half year unless he was entrapped.
As we know, his fame had already penetrated fully into Vienna from his boyhood, and
he was in a sense a super star of the times from the beginning of his Vienna
life.
Then he could choose a beautiful, rich and wise lady as his fiance from
among many beautiful and talented opera singers and/or his piano pupils
in Vienna.
However,strangely enough,he did not. He chose Constanze.
At that moment, Mozart was still twenty-five years old and was not in the
necessity of hasty marriage. Moreover he was in a position that he could
not yet find a steady job in Vienna. Then his motives for the hasty marriage
with Constanze baffle us all the more.
However, there actually were serious traps by her mother Caecilla and her
guardianThorwart at the back of this marriage, with which Mozart was tortured very heavily.
And these traps must have driven him to such hasty marriage.
The first trap was the marriage vows.
At around mid December 1781, he was already obliged to sign the marriage
vows by Thorwart. Mozart had to obey to sign this probably on account of his supposed making mess with Constanze in Caecilla's boarding house.
The second trap was the rumor on Mozart's marriage spread by Thorwart widely
among Viennese.
In spite of the existence of the promise not to spread the rumor between
the two, Thorwart dared to spread over Vienna that Mozart was going to
marry Constanze.
The aggressiveness of the rumor was to the extent that it reached to the
Emperor Joseph, about which Mozart wrote in his letter to Leopold on Jan.16,1782.
The third trap was the sudden and artful action at the end of July 1782 taken by Thorwart who lost his patience.
"On 29 July Johann Thorwart, Constanze Weber's guardian, applied to
the Senior Court Marshal's office, the appropriate authority, for permission
for her marriage with Mozart. The official consent, signed by Ferdinand
von Fetzer,the secretary of the department, was made out shortly afterwards"
(O.E.Deutsch)
Mozart must have been astonished by this Thorwart's action without Mozart's
leave.
On the other hand, at the beginning of August 1782, Caecilla declared threateningly
that she would recapture Constanze by using police power, who was placed in Baroness Waldstãten to protect from Caecilla's
teasing.
Mozart was frightened to know these two wicked plots and then he had to plunge into St. Stephen Cathedral on August 4, 1781,
regardless of his father's permission.
Thus this marriage was not in the least by his own voluntary will.
Now, according to the marriage vows, he was given three years of allowance
till he got married to Constanze.
Then, if their relation were based on their genuine loves, Constanze should wait till Mozart could settle his job and residence.
But she did not. She joyfully accepted this hastened marriage, probably thanking to these artful tricks by her mother and guardian.
Their marriage was thus never based on the genuine love, but the outcome of many traps.
It was very unhappy that Thorwart was Constanze's guardian.
He was the person whom Mozart could not neglect those days, when thinking of his success in Vienna.
He was the supervisor of the court theater and said to be the right hand of Count Rosenberg who was the director of the court theater. Thorwart had so big authorities that all things related to the court theater were to be approved by him.
Thus the existence of Thorwart was a great happy to Constanze, but unhappy
to Mozart.
Mozart was the person who valued honor above anything else.
Then, not to hurt his honor and his fame among Viennese, he dared to marry
her under the pretense of marriage based on genuine love.
.Yes, his marriage was actually not based on the mutual love. And then
why can we image a good marital relationship from such entrapped marriage?
As to the second reason why I think their relationship was no good is that
Mozart himself had not written and mentioned to anyone that their married
life was happy.
We also do not know anyone among Mozart's friend who talked objectively
in their reminiscences after Mozart's death that Mozart's married life
was happy .
What is more, he did not write about his married life at all in his letters
to Leopold.
This was really quite a strange story when thinking what he said to Leopold
before marriage.
Before the marriage, Mozart made a bluff of Constanze in his letter to
Leopold that she was an ideal lady who could be a good wife as well as
a good mother.
Then if she really were such kind of lady, there must have been many heart-warming
stories between the two.
As a result, he might have written at least one or two episodes in his
letters to Leopold if such heart-warming stories had actually happened
in their married life.
However, we can not find any sign in his letters at all, to our regret.
He should have put Leopold, who was obstinately against for the marriage
to the last, to shame by showing some of them in his letters. But he could
not. That was probably because there had been no particular heart-warming
affairs between the two.
On the other hand, it is also true that we can not find Mozart's letters
in which he confessed their marital relationship was unfavorable.
That was because he recognized well that Leopold would blame and laugh
at him, if he wrote such a thing in his letters.
His letters to Leopold aside, when we examine existing 40 letters from
Mozart to Constanze carefully, we are surprised to find that there were
only three letters in which Mozart described the words " Thank you".
They were the letters on May 16,1789, July 3,1791 and July 6,1791.
What Mozart thanked were not necessarily important matters. They were the
descriptions of her impression for an opera performed in Vienna, sending
scores and his suit back to him by his request, and some advice in her
letter not to trust so- and- so.
In line with few thanking words by Mozart, we are also surprised to read
his letter that there was no signs that Mozart was delighted with the contents
of Constanze's letters.
On the contrary, we know that her letters tortured Mozart seriously because he had to frequently reproach her flirtations with males in his replies to Constanze.
Thus, Mozart's letters revealed that their marital relationship was not
necessarily favorable.
However, it is true that we find the words "I love you." again
and again in his letters to Constanze.
People have taken his repeated these words "I love you" for his
genuine love to Constanze.
But it probably was not. I think people have been deceived for a long time
by his repeated words " I love you " in Mozart's letters to Constanze.
As to this I will explain separately soon later the reason why I think
so, in the paragraph '3. On Mozart's Letters to Constanze'.
Now apart from his letters, we should keep in mind that he left no thanking
word to Constanze upon his death.
As known well, he was in death bed for two weeks, and he had kept his clear
consciousness up to two hours before his death.
In such case, persons will leave thanking words to their spouses if their married life were happy and satisfactory. However, Mozart had not left such words to Constanze.
If he did, Constanze would have proudly told and let the biographers describe
that she was given by Mozart upon his death so splendid words for thanking
their married life .
But neither she nor Sophie, who took care of Mozart in death bed too, told
such thing to the biographers. That was because Mozart had never said such
thing.
As long as we know, Mozart's last words to Constanze was the next disgusted
sentence in his letter on October 14,1791. " Do as you like with so-and-so.
Adieu."
Thus we can not find the evidence of their good relationship from Mozart's
remarks.
We can guess too from Leopold's letters to his daughter Nannerl that Mozart's
married life was not favorable.
In February 1785, Leopold visited Vienna to make sure his son's success
by his own eyes. He stayed at Mozart's house for two months that time.
During his stay in Vienna, he sent eight letters to his daughter Nannerl
in St. Gilgen.
Among them, there were the letters in which he praised the kindness of Sophie, superb singing performance of Aloisia, and even Caecilla for her cooking skill, except for Josefa, the eldest of the Weber's daughters, who was in Graz that time.
However, strangely enough, we can not find the letter in which Leopold described about Constanze. Why?
Had he not at all written about Constanze during his visit to Vienna ?
- Definitely 'No'.
Leopold must have written his letter about Constanze and Mozart's married
life in Vienna and surely sent it to Nannerl in St. Gilgen, which was the
very things Nannerl wanted to know.
Then if Leopold observed that Constanze was a good wife and Mozart was
spending a happy life with his wife in Vienna, he would have willingly
told the fact to Nannerl by letter.
And this Leopold's letter to Nannerl must have been kept to posterity in
line with the existing eight letters. However, we can not find such letter
anywhere.
In my view, such letter from Leopold to Nannerl must have surely existed. However, such Leopold's letter to Nannerl might have been destroyed by Constanze intentionally since many bitter criticisms on her were supposedly found there, I suppose.
If not, why only that letter was missing?
As to this, please see my thought in Lost Mozart's Letters .where the related things on this are written.
Anyway, missing of Leopold's letter on Constanze and Mozart's married life
in Vienna may probably reveal that their relationship was not happy.
(4) Hidden Constanze's Letters
We know well that all Constanze's letters to Mozart had been destroyed.
But it seems that no one had so far cleared the questions, by whom and
for what purpose such stupid thing was done..
Constanze told boastfully to Novellos as if their marital relationship
had been favorable.
We can believe Constanze if her letters to Mozart where such favorable
relationships were written were kept to posterity. However, all her letters
to Mozart were completely thrown away by her without doubt as explained
below and in Lost Mozart's Letters.
Then we should doubt why all her letters to Mozart have been missing if
her statements were true.
She had exchanged many letters with Mozart when Mozart went out for travels
or Constanze herself traveled to Baden for her hot-spring cure. But, curiously
enough, only Constanze's letters to Mozart were completely thrown away
probably after Mozart's death and not kept to posterity.
By what reason and who did such a stupid thing ? - No doubt, Constanze
had done. That was because no one else could have thrown away all her letters
which Mozart has had under his care, the details of which is described
in Lost Mozart's Letters.
Here I wonder why she had to destroy all her own letters.
If she really loved Mozart and expressed it in her letters, she might have left her letters to posterity.
However, things must have been quite different .There was no letter in which she expressed " I love you too", I suppose. Then she had to destroy it.
Thus the destruction of her letters by herself reveals that their relationship
was not good enough.
Constanze's letters aside, when we take a look at Mozart's letters to her,
we are surprised to find her inconsiderate attitudes to Mozart here and
there.
One thing is that she did not respond to Mozart's letters properly. For
example, Mozart had sent 12 letters to her during his trip to Sachsen,
yet she replied only six. This was not restricted to this trip but was
her usual manner.
She was thus inconsiderate. However he frequently sent his letters to his
wife while he was traveling or while Constanze was at Baden.
In his letters to Constanze, he always showed his tenderness and attentiveness
to her as well as his words of love.
But when we read Mozart's letters to her carefully, we find that there
seems to be no sign that she responded to his loving word properly. Why
was that ?
Wasn't it by the reason that Constanze somehow came to dislike him ?
One more thing which surprises us is that Constanze would not stop making
merry with males regardless of Mozart's repeated complaints.
As far as we read Mozart's letters, her flirtation began from August 1789 at Baden and continued to his death year, as described in the previous chapter.
We can not know why she had not stopped her flirtation, but I myself suspect
that such immodest attitude was something like her revenge against supposed
Mozart's illicit love affairs, which is to be explained below.
What is more, we should point out that we can not pass over her very cold
attitudes upon and long after his death as mentioned before.
As to why she was hard on Mozart upon and after his death, I would strongly say that it was because their marital relationship was not favorable.
Probably the same reason can be applied to what she told about Mozart to
biographers - she only spoke ill of Mozart and had not spoken a word praising
this great musician.
Regarding her these disgusted behaviors, I myself can not wipe the consideration
off my mind that these cold attitudes must have been something like her
revenges to Mozart.
Well, above five are my grounds to think that Mozart's marital relationship
was not good.
Then we should find out the reason why their relationship was unfavorable
next.
As long as I hold my view against the majority opinion, I have to explain
my grounds why I think so.
In short, there happened the things to which Constanze felt big unsatisfactory
and/or held her grudge in their late Vienna life.
- The Causes
Unlike their rich and favorable life in the first half of their Vienna
years, the circumstances had changed for the worse in the late Vienna years.
Constanze was unsatisfactory with these situation changes, which probably
had caused her discord with her husband.
1) Intense Pressure to Freemasonry
As mentioned earlier, many persons had left from Vienna Freemasonry after
the Imperial Ordinance in December 1785.
After that Freemasonry gradually became to be recognized as the disagreeable
party in Vienna as explained before.
However Mozart had not only left from Freemasonry, but also his passion
for the party grown more and more larger. And he finally resolved to establish a new lodge named "Cavern" in his late Vienna era. His attempt to establish a new lodge became the rumor among Viennese, to which persons spoke this and that bitterly.
Constanze felt small for the fact that her husband was such a stalwart
Freemason.
On top of it, he had owned very large debts for his attempt.
She was unable to put up with such husband, which became one of her reasons
to hate him.
2) Separation from Viennese Fashionable Society
Although the details are to be explained in Sudden Drop of Mozart's Popularity, Mozart had been completely separated from Viennese fashionable society
in his late Vienna years.
Music concert those days was apparently one of the important part of the
fashionable society in Vienna. However Mozart had been driven out of this
society completely in his late Vienna years. Yes, he had not been invited
to the Burg Theater or any Viennese aristocracy's house only once after
April 1786 up to his death.
The cause for this separation is thought to be his Freemasonry activities,
in my view, which is to be explained later.
Mr.and Mrs. Mozart could no more have visited Viennese aristocracy's houses
and would not have attended the court ball.
Constanze who only loved gaiety became largely disappointed in such situation and hated her husband who had made such circumstance.
3) Humble Apartment House
In April 1787, Mozart suddenly transferred from the gorgeous Figaro House
to a humble apartment house in Landstrasse in the suburb. New annual rent
was 50 florins which was one ninth of the previous one.
After that they moved to the apartment houses in Tuchlauben (in December
1787), Währinger Strasse (in June 1788) and Judenplatz (in January
1789).
According to H.Kretschmer, these apartment houses were all humble and small.
Constanze, who had gotten used to live in luxury for a long time, could
not put up with such humble houses.
By the way, as to the cause of his transfer from Figaro House, it was blamed
for his poverty according to the popular myth. However it probably was
not, I think.
As explained in Mozart's debts, he was by no means poor any year even in his late Vienna years. What
is more, he had gotten a plenty of money ( 1,000 florins) in hand in Prague
just two months before this transfer. Then I cannot accept such opinion..
My simple answer is that Mozart must have thought that he no more needed
to live in the center of Vienna since he could no more expect piano performance
in future there.
We should be careful to the fact that, at the time he decided to move,
he had not been invited to Viennese noble man's house for two years ( the
last was his piano performance at Zichy's house in February 1785) and to
the Burg Theater for one year ( the last was in April 1786). Why such an
estranged person from the fashionable society could expect more piano concert
in future ?
There was no need for him to live in a gorgeous house since he had been
cut off from the persons in Viennese fashionable society.
Then I guess that he determined to transfer to less expensive house in
the suburb. Yes, he transferred only from the point of practical‐mindedness.
Though I explain it later, I assume that Mozart has been keeping his secret
love with some lady from Constanze for a long time.
However, it was disclosed to Constanze somehow one day in early 1789, before
his trip to Sachsen. The love affair made her completely suspect Mozart's
love to Constanze. Why I think so come from the following.
In the first place, we should strongly suspect the reason for his sudden
trip to Sachsen with Lichnowsky in April 1789.
As explained before, this was never the trip for the solution of his poverty.
The main purpose of this trip might have been the fund-raising for the
repayment of his debt to Lichnowsky as explained in Mozart's Debts. However, in my view, there was another hidden reason there.
The possible reason was the disclosure of his illicit love affair at that
time, I believe. Mozart and Constanze felt embarrassed each other that
time. The atmosphere that time must have shown that they had better not
live in the same house for a while.
Constanze of course got mad to know it. Her fury was so tremendous that
Constanze might have offered divorce to Mozart, I suppose. Then Mozart
at that time was driven to a corner.
Perceiving such difficulty, two Freemasons volunteered to help Mozart.
One was Lichnowsky. He thought that separation for a while would be necessary for Mr. and Mrs. Mozart. And then Lichnowsky, who happened to go back to his home country Sachsen, suggested Mozart to go out for the trip with him.
The other was Puchberg. He looked after Constanze at his house during the
term and tried to ease her together with his wife.
It is clear that Constanze was looked after by Puchberg during Mozart's trip to Sachsen since all Mozart's letters to Constanze during the term were addressed to Puchberg.
As to this, some writer described that the Puchbergs looked after Constanze for her leg disease and pregnancy. But it was not.
In that case, such relatives as her mother Caecilla and/or Sophie who
also lived in Vienna would have taken care.
In my view, Mozart would have not traveled with Lichnowsky so suddenly without having definite schedule in advance, if there have not happened such trouble..
I believe that there was such probable reason at the back of his trip to Sachsen.
We should next be careful about his letters during this trip, where we
may be able to detect the existence of his illicit love affair.
We know that the first letter from Mozart to Constanze during this trip was the one dated on April 8, 1789.
But it was the very day he departed ! What is more, he described in this
letter that he wrote it with shedding tears.
Then I wonder why he wrote the letter so immediately after his departure
with sorrowful tears.
Probably this letter suggests that there was an extraordinary happening
at the back of his departure.
In my view, that was the disclosure of his illicit love affair.
Then, by his guilty conscience, he wrote the letter immediately to Constanze
in shedding tears.
We should at the same time be careful that he signed at the end of this
letter as" your faithful, servant servant Mozart".
Among all his letters to Constanze, he had used such words only once in
this letter. Why had he used such humble words to his wife?
I guess that he had to be humble that time. Yes, on account of the disclosure
of his shameful illicit love affair, he had to bow his head using such
humble words.
Next is about the enigma of his lost letters during this trip.
We can know by Mozart's letter dated on May 23, 1789 the fact that his
consecutive four letters to Constanze soon after his departure( dated on
April 22, April 28, May 5, and May 9) were lost.
We should consider the reason carefully why these letters were lost, while
the rest of twelve letters were properly reserved.
We can probably not blame this for the postal delivery those days since
the delivery was very reliable even that time.
It was evident that Constanze had destroyed them all intentionally. Then why had she destroyed ? Let me describe my view next.
After his departure, Mozart's remorse piled up in his mind day by day.
Then worrying about the possibility of their collapse, he frequently sent
his letters to ease her.
He described his apologies and excuses here and there in these letters.
But she was never eased by such letters and would have determined not to
allow him.
Then she destroyed by her serious rage these letters which were full of
his excuse and apology .
In my view, she must have destroyed these letters long after Mozart's death
thinking that posterity might detect their unfavorable relationship when
they read these letters. The details are to be explained again in Lost Mozart's Letters.
Can we think of any other reason why only these consecutive four letters
were lost ?
The third reason why I suspect there happened the disclosure of Mozart'
illicit love affair that time is that Constanze went to Baden after Mozart's
returning home as if she changed places with Mozart.
For a long time, the purpose of her visiting Baden was said to be the hot-spring
cure for her leg troubles. However, I think that it was only a nominal
reason or a pretext.
True reason was that she would like to be apart from Mozart for a while
to divert herself after the disclosure of Mozart's illicit love affair.
Remember here that Constanze had began to make merry with males at Baden, at the first trip in 1789, soon after her arrival there.This reveals that the disease of Constanze was extremely light or quite a lie. Probably she must have gone there for her pastime being apart from Mozart.
I myself suspect that her flirtation at Baden were her revenge against
Mozart's illicit love affair.
Now, we can find the following strange sentence in Mozart's letter to Constanze
during her first trip to Baden.
"Don't torture yourself and me with your unnecessary jealousy. Trust
my love to you. You have the evidence to believe my love ! "(mid August
1789)
This sentence reveals that there surely was Mozart's love affair which
annoyed Constanze seriously.
The extent of Constanze's angry was not so slight as "unnecessary jealousy" though Mozart had described so.
In return for this Mozart's love affair, she did the flirtation at Baden
on purpose as her revenge against Mozart, I suppose
I wrote like this, but I myself admit that my opinion so far had not necessarily
persuaded my readers.
However, I am sure that readers will nod in assent to read my opinion that
Mozart's partner of his illicit love affair was Aloisia Lange !, the elder
sister of Constanze.
It will need a wider space to describe why I think so.
Then the description about it is to be written in next chapter "Aloisia Lange, the misunderstood Lady" separately, not in this chapter.
- The Length
The discord between Mozart and Constanze did not end just for a while.
By reading Mozart's letters to his wife, we come to know that their discord
continued to the end of 1791(Mozart's death year) and he could not have
gotten Constanze's reconciliation to the last.
Why I can say so come from the following.
As shown below, we find his sentence even in his letter dated September 6, 1791 that he was still asking her reconciliation, not restricted to the letters
written in 1789 and 1790.
"...... I hope you love me too as I love you."(May 16,1789)
"Ah! Love me at least half as much as I love you."(October 15,1790)
"Love me forever as I love you."(July 6,1791)
Yet, there was no sign in any Mozart's letter to Constanze that Mozart
was delighted to get her reconciliation.
What is more, to teach him a lesson and/or for her pastime, she continued
to respond him inadequately and divert herself at the casino in Baden even
in July 1791.
From above, we see that their relationship had not recovered until Mozart's
death.
The last words to Constanze that Mozart gave in his letter was impressive.
"Do as you like with Mr.So-and-so. Adieu."(October 14,1791)
As described before, Mozart had not spoken a thanking word to Constanze
upon his death.
Constanze's grudge against Mozart continued even after his death. The details
were already explained as her ice-cold attitudes to him in the previous
chapter.
No matter how I put emphasis on my own opinion, persons will not believe me as long as they take Mozart's letters to Constanze for his enthusiastic love letters to his wife.
Then next, I must prove here that Mozart's letters to his wife were not
the letters in which he had shown his sincere affection to Constanze.
Reading Mozart's letters to Constanze, many persons have felt that all his letters were full of affection, tenderness and attentiveness
to Constanze.
By these affectionate and tender words, persons believed that their marital
relationship had been favorable.
But in reality they were not. Now let me explain it.
I myself also admit that all his letters were full of his words "I love you". Yet I can not be in favor of the opinion that they were in favorable relationship.
Yes, there are something suspicious which trouble my mind. What weigh on my mind are the following.
Here, I would like to mention my overall comment first on his loving letters to Constanze.
What make me wonder is that these letters were written after1789. In other
words, these were written seven years after their marriage, when he was
already 33 years old.
My wonder is why Mozart could have such a fresh and pure love feeling to
Constanze as shown in his letters, though it has passed many years since
their wedding.
Then I can not help feeling something unnatural for his letters to Constanze.
Generally speaking, the marital love long after the wedding may change
to matured one.
However, what a fresh love world was spread in his letters !
It was as fresh as the love during the engagement or it was as if a fiction
world spread over his letters.
Though his letters to Constanze were written in such manner, the things
in reality might have been quite different, I guess.
In short, he had to write like that because there were Mozart's mess-up
about his illicit love affair. And then he had to write his letters to
Constanze like that manner to recover her love again, or asking reconciliation.
(1) How to read Mozart's Letters
Almost all persons in the past have read that Mozart's letters were full of affection to Constanze. And then they believed
that Constanze was Mozart's beloved.
However, by reading his letters to Constanze carefully, I am compelled
to feel that their relationship did not reflect the figure of loving each
other, but it looks like as if their relationship were that of her Majesty
the Queen and the faithful manservant.
It is true that he always described his loving words to Constanze, but
we should at the same time be very careful that, in all of his letters, he never failed to write to solicit her to love him too.
However she did not respond to him properly. Yet, Mozart begged her love
again and again by bowing his head for a long time.
What an incomprehensive scene it looks like ! He looks like as if he were
the apple polisher to Constanze.
Here we should consider the following questions very carefully.
(1) Why had he been so humble to Constanze?
(2) Why had Constanze not responded him properly ?
(3) Why had he asked Constanze to love him too again and again in all his
letters?
In my view, that was because there were the disclosure of Mozart's shameful illicit love affair at the back of this couple which was described above.
Then these letters were not his love letters to Constanze, but actually were "the letters he wanted to recover Constanze's love again",
in another word " the letters which he asked her reconciliation",
I think.
Yes, Constanze would never have forgiven this illicit love affair between her husband and her sister.
After the disclosure of his illicit love, Mozart was driven to a corner.
The first priority for him to do was to get the reconciliation at any cost. And then Mozart had to bow his head again and again, and had to ask her reconciliation
by writing that he loved Constanze from his bottom of heart.
There was no way for Mozart to solicit her to love him too that time.Yet, she was never eased by such easy method. To teach him a lesson, she did not reply him properly.
Even the time when she replied, she never wrote that she loved him too.
Thus her letters to Mozart had not included any loving words at all. This
may be the reason why no Constanze's letter was left to posterity.
By misinterpreting Mozart's letters, persons have been nicely taken in
for a long time, I guess.
(2) Missing Letters
In my view, persons in the past have taken Mozart's letters wrongly for showing his love to Constanze.
However, it was in a sense natural that persons have thought so because
there had existed artful trap as well there.
The artful trap was the destruction of some letters by Constanze to hide
the truth which had shown their unfavorable relationship. Yes, she destroyed
all the letters between the two in which their discords were expressed.
And then she kept only the letters convenient to her in which Mozart described his love to Constanze.
As a result, persons in the past believed that Mozart had loved her sincerely
and their relationship was favorable.
But we should have noticed that there existed other Mozart's letters to Constanze as I pointed out.
We know that 39 of Mozart's letters to his wife after marriage were kept
to date. However, these were not all the letters that Mozart had sent to his wife..
There must have existed at least more nine Mozart's letters to Constanze, the details of which are described in Lost Mozart's Letters.
And at the same time, we can know by reading these Mozart's letters that
Constanze had sent at least 22 letters to her husband though they have
not been kept at all to posterity.
Here, the important point is why these nine Mozart's letters and all Constanze's letters were hidden.
Taking a look at Mozart's letters kept to posterity, they show nothing
but Mozart's one sided love to Constanze, which are very convenient to
Constanze to be sure because they seem to be the evidence that she was
Mozart's beloved.
However, I believe that some inconvenient matters which had revealed their
discords were possibly written in those hidden nine Mozart's letters.
Unless their discords were written there, by what reason had Constanze destroyed these Mozart's letters?
On the other hand, why were not all her letters kept to posterity?
I wonder if Constanze had described in her letters to Mozart that she
loved him too. Probably not.
If Constanze had really loved Mozart and expressed her affectionate feelings
in her replies to Mozart, then she should have kept those letters to posterity.
But she had broken them all by herself.
It was probable that she had never written that she loved Mozart too in
her letters. On the contrary, her letters were full of the words accusing
his illicit love affair bitterly.
She of course could not show such letters to posterity. And then she destroyed
them all by herself after Mozart's death.
Thus only the letters in which Mozart wrote his deep loving words to Constanze were left to posterity. But the letters inconvenient for Constanze were completely destroyed.
Her wicked deed became the cause why persons after ages had their illusions
that Mozart's marital relationship was favorable.
Analyzing from such points of view, I conclude that their marital relationship
was actually not favorable.
Scholars and writers in the past have blindly believed Constanze's false
talk and also have misunderstood Mozart's letters.
I may say that they have been nicely taken in by Constanze's artful traps.
Bibliography
1.Selby Agnes
Constanze, Mozart's Beloved (Turton & Armstrong 1999)
2.Helmut Kretschmer
Mozarts Spuren in Wien ( translated by Takao Shiraishi, Ongakunotomo-sha,1991)
3. op.cit.
Mozart A Documentary Biography
4. op.cit
Briefe und Aufzeichnungen Gesamtausgabe, Weiterer Nachtrag
5. op.cit.
To gange fuldkommen lykkelig
6. op.cit.
A Mozart Pilgrimage: Being the Travel Diaries of Vincent & Mary Novello
in the year 1829
Author : Shuji Fujisawa
e-mail : ssfuji@mbj.nifty.com
First published : July 27, 2004
Updated : December 5, 2008
All rights reserved