Reassessment-9

Lost Mozart's Letters

As to the letters related to Mozart during his Vienna era, what was left to after ages shows quite an abnormal aspect. We can only see Mozart's letters, but can not find any sender's letter to Mozart as shown in the Attachment-1

Yes, all the letters addressed to Mozart during his 11 years in Vienna had completely disappeared except for one from Robert May O'Reilly of the Italian Theater in London..

Furthermore, analyzing existing Mozart's letters closely, we can know that many Mozart's letters during his Vienna years were also lost. The number of lost Mozart's letters came up to at least 41 letters as explained later.

By checking Mozart's letters carefully, we come to know that the lost letters were not restricted to his Vienna era. We also can notice that a considerable number of letters to and from Mozart were lost during his Mannheim-Paris travel, the details of which will be also described later.

I wonder what happened to these letters.
Was this caused by a natural progress, or by an unpardonable destruction by someone who had wicked intentions? We should make sure which was the cause of this issue.
If the cause was the latter, we should find out the criminal and his/her intention. And at the same time to find out what facts were hidden by the destruction of letters is very important in this case.
The following are the summaries to respond to these questions.

Contents

1. Opinions for the Cause of Lost Letters

(1) Mozart is to blame for this
(2) Reference to Freemasonry
(3) Frequent House Movings
(4) Constanze is to blame for this

2. The Criminal of the Letter Destruction

(1) Constanze had enough Incentives
(2) Constanze was the Last Holder of all Letters
(3) Other Grounds

3. Lost Letters during Mannheim-Paris Travel

(1) Lost Letters between Mozart and Aloisia
(2) Lost Letters between Mozart and Fridolin
(3) Lost letters between Mozart and Leopold

4. Lost Letters in Mozart's Vienna Years

(1) Lost Leopold's Letters
(2) Lost Mozart's Letters
(3) Lost Nannerl's Letters
(4) Lost Constanze's Letters

1. Opinions for the Cause of Lost Letters

In the first place, let me list up many opinions as to the causes of lost letters in the past.

Nissen who was Constanze's husband and wrote "Biographie W.A.Mozarts" described in his book as to the cause of lost letters in Mozart's Vienna era as follows.

"As he was then too busy and has already been independent from his father, he could not have the serious attitudes for writing to his father and keeping the letters from his father."

Viggo Sjøqvist who wrote "Twice perfectly happy" described in the book that;

"Constanze herself had carefully kept Mozart's letters to her. And then, why can we say that such a lady had to throw away all the letters that Mozart received from 1781 to 1791 ?"

"It is widely known that Mozart was so unconcerned that he had thrown away even his own musical works. Therefore there was a great possibility that Mozart himself had destroyed all the letters including his father's ones sometime after 1781 because he had already not been obedient to his father's supervision those days. As far as Leopold's letters are concerned, there was enough reason for Mozart to destroy them with disgusting feelings against Leopold in his mind"

William Stafford who wrote "The Mozart Myths" stated in his book that;

"His sister opinioned that this was because they made reference to freemasonry, and Leopold thought they were too dangerous to keep when official opinion turned against the masons."

"Some scholars have thought that Constanze destroyed these (Leopold's) letters because they contained adverse remarks about herself and her family, but this is implausible."

"Perhaps Mozart did not bother to save letters; perhaps they were lost in many house movings; perhaps Constanze, after his death, thought that letters by him were valuable but letters to him worthless."

Paul Nettle described in his book "Mozart and Masonry" that;

"The other reason than the remarks on Freemasonry should not be overlooked for the lack of correspondence between the father and the son after 1785. Probably Constanze would have destroyed some of Leopold's critical letters on Mozart's marriage together with the replies."

Lastly, Alfred Einstein described in his book as follows.

"These letters (his father Leopold's letters to his son) were apparently destroyed by Mrs. Mozart."


As long as I have investigated, no other causes of lost letters than above were found. Then we can summarize the causes for lost Mozart's letters as follows.

1) Mozart is to blame for this. 2) Reference to Freemasonry. 3) Frequent house movings 4) Constanze is to blame for this.

Now, let us check them one by one from now on whether they are persuasive or not..

(1) Mozart is to blame for this

To defend Constanze, Sjøqvist described that Constanze herself had carefully kept Mozart's letters to her. But I do not think so.
For example, Mozart's four consecutive letters to her written in April and May 1789 while he was traveling to Sachsen were missing. It is implausible to think that all these four consecutive letters were lost on the way of delivery considering the accuracy of the postal delivery those days.
It seems that she destroyed these letters by herself. But the grounds to think so are to be explained later.
Trying to defend Constanze, Sjøqvist then changed to blame it for Mozart's unconcern and his disgusting feelings to his father. But I never think so.

As far as the letters are concerned, Mozart was not a dissolute person. He was the man who could have completely brought all the letters, which he received during Mannheim-Paris travel for 16 months, back to his home in Salzburg.
In another aspect, in his letter to Constanze dated on May 23,1789, he listed up all 17 letters which they exchanged during his trip to Sachsen, with dates and places where he sent or received. This fact reveals that he was very serious and attentive in handling letters.
Thus Mozart was not unconcerned to the letters he had exchanged.

Sjøqvist said that Mozart had enough reason for destroying his father's letters since he had disgusting feelings to his father.
Yes, it is true that there had been serious conflicts between the two, especially at the time when he was going to resign Salzburg court and marry Constanze in 1781. We of course should admit Sjøqvist's opinion in a sense. However, in my view, the relationship between Mozart and Leopold recovered soon after those conflicts.

When we check Mozart's letters to Leopold after his marriage, we scarcely find their troubles there.
On the whole, the matters written in Mozart's letters to Leopold after his marriage are such ordinary things as reporting his various music activities in Vienna, sending his new music scores to Salzburg, asking to send back his own autographs to Vienna, and congratulations for father's and/or sister's name days, etc..
Leopold's replies to his son must have not been unpleasant since the contexts of Mozart's letters were such quite normal and usual one.
Then I have strong question to the opinion that Mozart himself had destroyed all Leopold's letters during 1781 to 1787 with his disgusted feeling.

On the contrary, we can say it was not Mozart but Constanze who was unconcerned.
She thoughtlessly gave Mozart's family letters and his music scores to others as presents long after Mozart's death.
Mr.and Mrs Novello were, for example, one of such persons who benefited by Constanze. They were given Mozart's autograph of the Rondo "Al desio di chi t'adora"(K.577) and a part of his letter to Leopold (date unknown) as well.
Carl Gollmic, a musician in Frankfurt, was also such a person. He was given Mozart's letter to Nannerl dated on July 24,1782.
What is more, Constanze took Nannerl's diary to pieces inconsiderately and gave them to her acquaintances. In addition, such thoughtless deed was taken by her with Mozart's precious musical scores. The scores of the Minuet (K.168a) and the Rondo for Clavier Concerto (K.386) were taken to pieces by Constanze respectively and were given to her acquaintances.
Then I think that Sjøqvist made a wrong guess.

In reference to this issue, we should consider the following fact with care if we denounce that Mozart is to blame for this.
That is the question why we can find no Leopold's letter to Mozart after 1781 in the "Biographie W.A.Mozarts" written by Nissen.
At the time when Nissen began to write the biography in 1824, he naturally must have noticed the curious fact that no Leopold's letter to Mozart after 1781 were left. Then Nissen would have asked the reason to Constanze.
At that time Constanze had only to declare fairly that they were all thrown away by Mozart, if Mozart himself had destroyed them all. But she could not say so. As a result, Nissen could not write decisively in his book that Leopold's letters were all destroyed by Mozart. He had only described this and that for his plausible reasons.
In my view, this clearly reveals that Leopold's letters were not destroyed by Mozart.

Leopold's letters aside, let us turn our eyes to Constanze's letter to Mozart.
We know that Constanze also wrote many letters to Mozart while he was traveling to Berlin and Frankfurt, and while she was staying in Baden. However, none of her letters was kept to date. Yes they were all completely destroyed by someone.
In this case, can we believe that Mozart himself, who obstinately begged Constanze's responses, had destroyed his wife's letters insensitively while he was alive? We probably can not say 'Yes' since no reasonable answer can be found.

Thus there seems no reason for Mozart to destroy his father's letters and his wife's letters. While on the other hand, Constanze had enough reason to destroy both letters by herself.

It is needless to say that Leopold was her hateful enemy to Constanze. He opposed to her marriage with Mozart to the last and showed his cold attitude toward her when she visited Salzburg with Mozart for the first time. Then it was very probable that she destroyed his letter to Mozart with her disgusting feeling.

As to her letters to Mozart, there were probable reasons that she herself destroyed them completely.
It was because she did not want posterity to read her uneducated sentence, for one thing.
The other is that Constanze's loving words which Mozart madly asked to her were supposedly not written in her letters.
These two factors were very inconvenient for her to be a ' Good and beloved wife'
Then she tore down all her letters to Mozart after his death, I guess.

Therefore I can conclude here that the opinion "Mozart is to blame for this" is apparently explained subjectively, not based on analytical studies. Then this seems to be quite unreliable, lacking the firm grounds to believe so.

(2) Reference to Freemasonry

This opinion seems something plausible, but may be applied to a very small number of the lost letters.
It is true that all Mozart's letters to his father from July 1784 to May 1787 were missing except for one letter dated on April 4, 1787.
As we know, Mozart joined the Freemasonry lodge "Beneficence" in December 1784 and Leopold also became the member of the same lodge in April 1785. Then the timing of some missing letters between them were consistent with Mozart's activities in the lodge.
Therefore we can not necessarily deny that there was a possibility that they exchanged letters with regard to Masonry.

However, it is implausible to think that the letters exchanged between Mozart and Leopold from 1785 to 1787 were all reference to Freemasonry.
Both Mozart and Leopold might have destroyed the letters if they were referred to Freemasonry, but might have kept other letters than reference to Freemasonry.
However, curiously enough, all letters between Mozart and Leopold except for one above mentioned one during this term were completely lost. .
This tells that the cause for the lost letters after 1785 is not entirely to blame for the reference to Freemasonry, of course. Yes, there was someone who intentionally destroyed the letters.

(3) Frequent House Movings

In his Vienna life, Mozart changed his residences 11 times. Then we may consider that there was a possibility that the letters which he received were lost at the mix-up of transfer.
Yes, this is a plausible reason for generality, but this may not be applied to Mozart case from the following grounds, I think.

His last transfer was in September 1790, when he relocated to the 'little Kaiserhaus' in Rauhensteingasse.
Even if we assume that all the letters Mozart had received before September 1790 were lost at the mix-up of this last relocation, the letters Mozart got at the ' little Kaiserhaus' after October 1790 ought to have naturally been kept there.
But, curious to say, the letters which Mozart received at his last residence were also completely lost and were not kept to date except for only one letter from O'Reilly on October 26,1790.

It is evident that he had gotten many letters at his last apartment house from such persons as Puchberg, Constanze in Baden and Anton Stoll after September 1790. However, they were also completely lost and none were kept to date.
We should recognize here the fact that the lost of letters also took place even at his last residence.

What reasons can we think that Mozart had to destroy all his wife's and friends' letters by himself ?
Probably we can not find out particular reasons for Mozart to destroy his wife's and his friend's letters.
Then this suggests us that Mozart himself can not be the criminal of the letter destruction. Someone other than Mozart must have broken all these letters after Mozart's death.

Now, if the lost letters were caused by their frequent relocations, Constanze should have told so to Nissen and let him describe the reason why all the letters in Mozart's Vienna era were completely excluded in his book.
But Constanze did not say so since the fact was quite different.
Thus this opinion also can not be the cause of lost letters.

(4) Constanze is to blame for this

I believe this is the most probable for the cause of lost letters.
However, the grounds for the past argument seem not necessarily to have been persuasive, only claiming that Constanze destroyed those letters because adverse remarks about herself and her family were written there.
Things would have not been so simple but more complicated. As to this, I would like to show the details separately in the next paragraph ' 2. The Criminal of Letter Destruction'

Here I would like to touch on another subject, digressing from the main subject for a while.
That is Constanze's and Nissen's shameless lies about the lost letters. I would say that they had told transparent lies.
Their statements make us believe that they had not necessarily gotten all of the family letters when they were given them from Nannerl in 1824. In another words, they said that they had not gotten the family letters after some time in Mozart's Vienna years. But this was not true.

Constanze wrote to Benedict Schack on February 16, 1825 that they (Mr.and Mrs. Nissen) were given approximately 400 letters from Nannerl, where the family letters up to 1781 were contained.
In this letter to Schack, she pretended that they had not received the family letters after 1781, which was a barefaced lie as explained below.
On the other hand, Nissen described in the preface of the "Biographie W.A.Mozarts" that Leopold's letters, which they came to hand from Nannerl, was up to March 22,1781, while on the other hand Mozart's letters up to July 1784.

Strange to say, their opinions were inconsistent though the biography was made by the collaboration of the two. Anyway, it is clear from the following facts that both of the two told shameless lies.

When we check the family letters quoted in the "Biographie W.A.Mozarts", we can easily find out the following letters in that book.

1.Mozart's letter to his father on April 4, 1787.
2.Mozart's letters to Nannerl on June 16, 1787 and August 2, 1788.

Nissen declared in his book that the last Mozart's letter they could get was the one before July 1784. Then, how he could quote Mozart's letters written in 1787 and 1788 in his book ?

We also can find another curiosity in the preface of his book.
He wrote in the preface that Mozart's letters in 1786 were very few, most of which were written in 10 to 12 lines.
I wonder why Nissen could write about Mozart's letters in 1786 though he declared in the preface that Mozart's letters ended in July 1784.

From above, it is very clear that Nissen and Constanze were given all Mozart's family letters from Nannerl which contained the letters till 1788 at least.
But they had to tell lies in her letters and in his book. The supposed reason might have been because Constanze was to blame for the missing letters.
Then Constanze herself pretended as if they had not given the family letters after 1781.
Nissen, as Constanze's husband, also could not make it clear in his book that his wife was the criminal for the letter destruction.
Therefore both of the two had to tell transparent lies.

Now I will move to the next subject why we can judge Constanze as the criminal of the letter destruction.

2. The Criminal of Letter Destruction

We may be able to identify Constanze as the criminal of letter destruction since she had enough incentives and chances to do so, the details of which are explained below.

(1) Constanze had enough Incentives

We should in the first place pay careful attention to the fact that she had already let Schlichtegroll and Niemetschek describe in their biographies that Constanze was the clever and beloved wife.
Yes, she wanted to build up her solid reputation in future that she was the good Mozart's wife, though it really was quite suspicious. Then the existence of letters which contradicted to her talk was the very nuisance to her.

It is no doubt that there surely had existed many letters which Constanze felt obstructive.
The typical ones were Leopold's letters to his son where he described his obstinate oppositions to the marriage with Constanze, abusing Constanze and the Weber family very severely. The details of which are to be explained later in 4. Lost Letters in Mozart's Vienna Era.
Constanze herself would like to pretend to posterity that she was the suitable lady for Mozart's wife without any obstacles to marry. Then she had to destroy Leopold's letters completely to cheat persons in future.

As to these Leopold's letters, I guess that all have thoughtlessly been thrown away by Constanze before she met Nissen for the first time supposedly in 1797.
Yes, sometime after Mozart's death, she had destroyed all Leopold's letters completely with her disgusting feelings against Leopold.

In case Nissen could have known that Constanze had such precious letters, he might have suggested to keep them carefully at her side. However, the fact might have been that all Leopold's letters have already changed to litter before Nissen came to know her.
This may be the most probable reason why Nissen could not at all cite any Leopold's letter after 1781 in his book.

Constanze had her strong disgusting feelings not only to Leopold but to Nannerl as well.
Nannerl also disliked Constanze and could not welcome her as a member of Mozart family.
We know the fact that she had written coldly in her diary ' my brother's wife' or ' my sister-in-law' in stead of writing her name Constanze or her nickname Stanzel, when Mozart and Constanze visited Salzburg for the first time after their marriage.
We know as well that Nannerl was the person who wrote in her reminiscences that "Mozart married a girl quite unsuited to him , and against the will of his father, and thus the great domestic chaos at and after his death" (Deutsch).
Constanze could not forget such Nannerl's coldness to her and had held her grudges against Nannerl for a long time.
Then she destroyed all Nannerl's letters to Mozart in his Vienna era as well.
This may be the supposed reason why we can not find Nannerl's letters to Mozart at all after 1781.
Like these, there were enough incentives for Constanze to destroy various letters. More details are to be explained hereinafter by degrees.

Here, I must go back to Mozart's Salzburg era to explain the destroyed letters by Constanze.
They were the many letters between Mozart and Aloisia/Fridolin during his Mannheim-Paris travel and some Mozart's letters to Leopold in the same period concerning about the engagement to Aloisia.

I believe that these letters were also destroyed by Constanze since they were also very nuisance to her.
As explained below, the planned engagement between Mozart and Aloisia in reality was favorable and blessed by both fathers. Probably their smooth and favorable progress could be read from those destroyed letters, I suppose.
Constanze then worried that persons in future generation would detect that Aloisia was Mozart's more sincere lover than Constanze, if they could read their letters. Then she destroyed these letters.
Afterwards she let Nissen only describe in his book that Aloisia jilted Mozart very coldly behaving as if she could not identify him.

Next we know that all Constanze's letters to Mozart have completely disappeared. This was surely acted by Constanze. As to these letters, Constanze had enough incentives to destroy.
One is that she would not have liked posterity to read her letters to Mozart because her loving words to Mozart were supposedly not written there. If such words were written in her letters, she would have kept them for the proof of their mutual love. But as explained in Mozart's Marital Relationship, she really had not loved Mozart.

The other is that her sentences revealed that she was a woman without any culture as Einstein pointed out. Disclosure of these two were very inconvenient to her since she boastfully admired herself as a wise wife in the biographies.

Thus there were many incentives for Constanze to destroy letters related to Mozart.

(2) Constanze was the Last Holder of All Letters

We should recognize that the last person who could come to hand all letters related to Mozart was after all Constanze.
Let me check the holder of letters related to Mozart briefly.

1. Upon Mozart's death, many letters which Mozart received and had in his hands were left without doubt to Constanze.
They were the letters from Leopold, Constanze and many Mozart's friends in his Vienna years. In my opinion, they were all destroyed by Constanze sometime after Mozart's death since no other person than Constanze could touch to these letters.

2. Nissen received Mozart's family letters from Nannerl around autumn in 1824.
They were the letters exchanged among Mozart's family in Salzburg era, Mozart's letters to Leopold and Nannerl in his Vienna era, and the letters between Leopold and Nannerl after 1784.

3. For writing Mozart's biography, Mr. and Mrs. Nissen tried to gather Mozart's letters at around 1825 by sending their letters to many Mozart's friends in which they asked to submit Mozart's letters to them.
Such persons as Father Bullinger, Aloisia Lange, Baroness Waldstätten, von Jacquin, Puchberg, and Anton Stoll would have willingly submitted the letters they have gotten from Mozart. Then, thanks to their favors, we can now read Mozart's letters to them.

4. Nissen died in 1826 before the completion of his book. At that point, Constanze could have gotten in her hands all the letters described in above 2 and 3 .

After all the last holder of all letters related to Mozart was no other than Constanze. She survived till 1842 and was the last person among those who were close to Mozart, except for her two sons and Sophie.
And as to these letters, there seems to have been no chance that these were moved to other person's hand until Constanze's death.

Under such background, who else other than Constanze can be the letter destroyer ?
Constanze had enough time up to her death to destroy many letters unfavorable to her without any nuisance after Nissen's death in 1826.
Yes, she must have been the criminal of letter destruction.


(3) Other Grounds

In Nissen's book, we find no explanation or excuse for the lost letters at all except for his implausible excuse only for lost Leopold's letters.
He could cite in his book no letter at all which Leopold wrote to his son after 1781. What is more, he could cite in his book no letter which Constanze wrote to Mozart. He could not quote only a letter Mozart had received from his friends, too.
But Nissen kept silence completely about the reason why those letters were not cited in his book.

In fact those letters have already been destroyed by Constanze when he met her for the first time. Yes, he could not cast a glance at them long before he began to write the biography. And then there was no way for him to quote those letters in his book. This was the reason why we can not find Leopold's, Constanze's and many Mozart friends' letters at all in Nissen's biography.
Nissen would have supposedly known well that Constanze herself had broken all those letters. Then he could not touch on this matter in his book. After all, he had done with describing simply in the book that Leopold's letters were kept till March 1781, which was a shameless lie.
Thus Nissen's complete silence and no excuse about missing letters reveals in a sense that the criminal of letter destruction was his wife Constanze.
If he had known due and persuasive reasons other than this, he should describe it in the book. But he could not.

Now this is another story digressing from the current topics, but we know well that many persons' names and some part of sentences were deleted from many Mozart's letters, which were undoubtedly not convenient to Constanze.
It is said that Nissen did it. However it probably was not by Nissen's initiative, but evidently by Constanze's instruction since Nissen himself had known nothing about the state of things about Mozart and his wife in Vienna ( He transferred to Vienna after Mozart's death , in 1793, for the first time).
Considering such wicked tricks were made by Constanze's initiative, I can not help suspecting that more wicked trick like letter destruction was also naturally done by Constanze.


An Inevitable Question and the Answer

I should not end this paragraph without answering to an inevitable question as if I did not notice it.
That is the question why Constanze had not destroyed all the letters unfavorable to her, if she were the real criminal of letter destruction.

As we know, among the letters kept to posterity, there exist some letters unfavorable to her. They are, for example, the letters Mozart reproached her flirtations with males in Baden.
Yes, the question is why such unfavorable letters were kept to posterity, if she were the real criminal.
This is a difficult question to answer since no clue for solving this question was left.
Then the following is my own personal thought.

As described before, a great many letters were left at Constanze's hand when Nissen passed away in 1826.
Constanze would be pleased at the situation that she could treat those letters just as she wanted since the last nuisance, Nissen, had already gone.
Probably she began to sort out of the letters after Nissen's death.
In sorting the letters, she had to keep the letters which Nissen cited in the biography as the original. She would have determined to keep some letters to posterity which were harmless to her. But she was going to tear many letters unfavorable to her without mercy.
Thus the work of selecting letters was time-consuming and very troublesome job which required her to read through the vast volume of letters. Of course she could not finish it at a time.

On the other hand, although the most part of the biography was nearly completed by Nissen, she had to fill up the unfinished portion by the help of someone. Fortunately, a doctor named Feuerstein gave her a helping hand and the book was completed.
From that time she became very busy by the negotiation for printing and publishing with Breitkopf und Härtel. In March 1829, the printing of the book was completed and the publishing became ready. Then she became busy again for the sales.

Breitkopf und Härtel was assigned to the consignment sales of the book, but she had to write letters asking to be the subscribers for the book to many Royal families and nobility in Europe. On top of it, she had to announce in the papers to make sure the sales of the book.
However, the sales did not show satisfactory progress as she expected . What is more she was involved in the troubles of collecting money for the sales. Many years were necessary for the solution.
Long afterward, she got tired of this job and left it to her son Franz Xaver.
It was in December 1837 when they pulled out of this job. Franz sold all rights to Breitkopf und Härtel together with unsold books that time.

Thus she was very busy for a long time after Nissen's death.
She became too old, nearly 76 years old, when she completely pulled out of the book sales.
Probably long interval and senility made Constanze forget her pending job, the letter destruction. Or, there was another possibility that the letters somehow got mixed in her Salzburg house.
Thus a large number of letters which contained letters unfavorable to her were left just as they were, when she died in 1842.
Franz Xaver inherited her property, but he passed away soon in 1844. All his possession including Mozart's piano, letters, music and portrait were bequeathed to his mistress Josephine and she presented all of the them to Mozarteum.

As to this issue, I myself take notice of the point that it was not Constanze but Josephine who presented all the letters to Mozarteum.
If the present was done by Constanze herself, she must have hidden all the letters unfavorable to her without fail. However, it was Josephine who generously presented all letters to Mozarteum.
Both Franz and Josephine would not have destroyed any of the letters since there seems to be no reason for them to do so..
I guess thus the reason why the letters unfavorable to Constanze were also kept to date.


Now let us check next what kind of letters were destroyed by Constanze. Here I would like to explain the lost letters during Mozart's Mannheim-Paris travel first, and then move to the lost letters in his Vienna years.

3. Lost Letters during Mannheim-Paris Travel

When we examine Mozart's letters carefully, we come to know that the letter destruction by Constanze had already begun with the letters written in his Mannheim-Paris travel.
They were the letters connected with Mozart's engagement to Aloisia which were exchanged between Mozart and Aloisia, Mozart and Fridolin, and Mozart and Leopold.
These were damned nuisances to Constanze who declared falsely that she was Mozart's beloved, because favorable talks about their engagement were likely written in these letters.


Mozart and his mother Maria Anna left Salzburg on September 23,1777 and made journey for Paris through Munich and Mannheim. A year and 4 months have passed when Mozart returned back to Salzburg again in mid January 1779.
During the term, many letters were exchanged between Salzburg (Leopold and Nannerl) and the staying places of the journey (Mozart and Maria Anna). Mozart and his mother sent 62 letters in total to Salzburg, while Leopold and Nannerl wrote 67 letters to Mozart and Maria Anna during the term.

Checking each letter mutually, we come to know that there was no missing letter between these two parties (Mozart, Maria Anna in travelling and Leopold, Nannerl in Salzburg.) before they arrived in Paris.
However, the story became somewhat suspicious after Mozart arrived in Paris. Yes, not a few letters were likely to have been thinned out by Constanze sometime far long after from this time.
In short, those were almost all the letters between Mozart and Aloisia, between Mozart and Fridolin, and some letters between Mozart and Leopold. They were the letters relating to the engagement between Mozart and Aloisia as explained later.

The reason why I think so comes from the following grounds.
One is the sudden decrease of the number of Mozart's letters to Leopold after April 1778 when it was just after his arrival in Paris..
The other is that we can easily find apparent maneuver by Constanze regarding the correspondence between Mozart and Aloisia, Mozart and Fridolin.
From above two, I suspect that there was a great possibility that many letters after Mozart's arrival in Paris might have been lost. Now let me show my analysis.

Sudden decrease of Mozart letters to his father

As shown in the following table, the number of his letters to Leopold showed drastic decrease after April 1778 when compared it with the previous six months.

(Table-1)

The number of Mozart's letters to his father during Mannheim-Paris travel.

Outward journey(Munich to Mannheim. October,1777 to March,1778)

(He left Mannheim on March 14, and arrived in Paris on March 23.)

Homeward journey(In Paris. April,1778 to September,1778)

(He departed Paris on September 26)

I wonder what was the reason for that?
It was true that it took more days for postal delivery since Paris was located far more long distance from Salzburg than Munich and Mannheim .
However, this might have been the minor reason for the decrease of his letters to Leopold, I guess.

Probably he had been very busy for writing many letters from Paris to Aloisia Weber and her father Fridolin after April, 1778, though they were not kept to date. As a result Leopold was neglected by Mozart for a while.
Yes, Mozart had enough reason to send frequent letters to them.
All of us know that Mozart was crazy about Aloisia in his Mannheim stay and had a strong desire to get engaged to her. But he had to move to Paris by Leopold's compulsory order that time.
In such circumstance, why did not Mozart write his letters frequently to Aloisia from Paris ?

Since the term of the company with Aloisia was too short (probably Mozart met her in January 1778 for the first time and had to leave Mannheim in March that year), it was impossible in such a short term for Mozart to persuade Aloisia and to get a promise to marry in future.
Then he must have determined to send frequent letters from Paris to Aloisia in Mannheim to persuade her to engage. Of course, he at the same time sent many letters to Fridolin to get her father's consent.
As a result, he must have been very busy for sending many letters to Mannheim as soon as he arrived in Paris. This might have been the major reason why the number of his letters to Leopold decreased so substantially, I suppose.


Tricks to their correspondence

Things were like that. But, when we check Mozart's letter to Aloisia and Fridolin, we are surprised to find that only two Mozart's letters ( one to Aloisia and one to Fridolin) were kept to posterity.
Can we believe that he really wrote only once to them respectively ?
What is more, the replies from Aloisia and Fridolin to Mozart, which he himself must have kept with care at his side, can be seen nowhere !

I strongly doubt these results.
When we read existing Mozart's letters to them, we can easily detect that there existed many other Mozart's letters to them. But they were not kept to date.
I myself am convinced that this was caused by Constanze's wicked tricks ( destruction of letters ) since those letters were inconvenient or nuisance to her.
Now let us check more in details.

(1) Lost Letters between Mozart and Aloisia

When we search for the letters between Mozart and Aloisia, we find that only one Mozart's letter to Aloisiaon on July 30, 1778 was kept to date.
We can be so silly if we think that Mozart wrote only one letter to Aloisia, or this was the only one Mozart's letter that Aloisia had kept at her side.
No doubt, Mozart sent many passionate love letters from Paris to Aloisia. And Aloisia must have kept all Mozart's letters for a long time.
But Constanze had destroyed all Mozart's letters, which Aloisia had submitted to Nissen, with her disgusting feelings to her sister some day after Nissen's death in 1826.

Here, let us check the only one Mozart's letter to Aloisia to assure that he surely had sent many letters to her.

"My beloved friend !
You sent me an aria and asked me to add grace notes on it the other day, but please allow me not to have sent the score with grace notes yet to you 　　 I could not have enough time to write to you since I had to respond to your father's letter as early as I can　　however, I am sure to send it to you by next mail."

This is merely the first part of Mozart's letter to Aloisia on July 30, 1778. We should pay careful attention to the date of this letter in the first place and the contents of this letter next.
What I want to mean is that this can never be the first Mozart's letter to Aloisia from Paris.
It has already passed more than four months since Mozart arrived in Paris when this letter was written,
Then, do we think that he could do without sending a love letter to his beloved friend in Mannheim for four months? - Probably, not.

Secondly, if this was the first Mozart's letter, he must have begun with a quite different sentence in this letter, for example, with some greeting and/or thanks to the two pairs of lace ornaments for cuffs which Aloisia knitted for him and gave them at the farewell in March 1778.
What is more, all persons who read the first part of this letter will admit from its context that Mozart and Aloisia have already exchanged their letters several times till then.

And, when we go on reading this letter, we can find the following sentence written by Mozart in the middle of this letter.

"Please give me your letter very often　　You will never know how your letter made me joy."

This sentence may suggest as well that they have already exchanged letters each other at that time.

Thus we can easily detect in Mozart's letter that their correspondence had already started and not a few letters had been exchanged between the two.
However, we can not know when was Mozart's first contact and how was the mail frequency between the two since no letter except for this was kept to posterity.
Yet, I guess that the frequency was very high since Mozart must have made frantic efforts to get engagement from her. He must have written again and again in his letters how he loved, and how he had a strong desire to marry her. But where have such Mozart's letters gone ?

On the other hand, it is sure that Aloisia also sent many letters in response to Mozart's letters.
These letters from Aloisia were of course in Mozart's hands. However, all of them were lost somehow and none of Aloisia's letters to Mozart were kept to date.
Where have all Aloisia's letters gone? Had Mozart destroyed all Aloisia's letters by himself ? Or, someone else did ?

Thus so many letters between Mozart and Aloisia have been lost. As a result all information about their engagement were completely hidden.
Then we have been robbed of the chance to know the following, to our regret,.

-How did their love proceed actually ?
-How did he open his mind to Aloisia?
-How did Aloisia respond to Mozart?
-What drove Mozart to marry her ?
-When was he going to marry this young girl ?
-How did he think about his future job in response to this marriage ?

If all their letters were kept to posterity, we may be able to know the answers to above questions. However, almost all letters have been lost. And the truth of the affair were hidden in the darkness.
I myself firmly believe that Constanze had destroyed all the letters to hide the truth for her convenience. The reason why Constanze destroyed them will gradually be explained from now on.

Here, we should consider why Mozart's letter to Aloisia on July 30, 1778 was safe and kept to posterity.
It seems that Mozart had not expressed his passionate love to Aloisia in this letter. On the contrary he expressed very suppressively in writing loving words. And the whole letter can be read as if their relation was still that of a music teacher and a pupil of singing, not as those who are deeply in love with each other. This was probably the reason why Constanze tolerate to leave it to posterity.

(2) Lost Letters between Mozart and Fridolin

As to the letters between Mozart and Fridolin Weber, only one letter from Mozart to Fridolin was left to posterity.
However, we can also find the fact that they have exchanged many letters frequently by the following Mozart's letter to Fridolin dated on July 29, 1778.

"My best friend !
I have gotten your letter dated on July 15 just now. - How long I have been waiting for your reply, and how I was thinking this and that about it ! - But it ended ! - I could have recovered my composure finally thanks to your precious letter..............I only would like to make sure again if you received my letter dated on June 29. - I sent three letters to you in succession. - One was the letter on June 27 addressed directly to you. - the second, the letter on June 29 which was addressed to Heckman, and the third dated on July 3 with the same address."

By this letter we can clearly know that this was neither the first nor only one Mozart's letter to Fridolin. And we can find in Mozart's letters that Fridolin also sent his letters to Mozart often. We can know such fact from Mozart's letter to Leopold too, for example, Mozart's letter to Leopold on October 15,1778. Yes, they have been exchanging letters for a long period.
It is needless to say that Mozart has been asking for Fridolin's consent to his engagement with Aloisia by sending frequent mails.

And by above Mozart's letter, we can easily guess that Fridolin gave Mozart his consent to the engagement.
Yes, it is true that he did not express directly in this letter that he could have gotten Fridolin's consent since we do not find such words as ' consent', 'engagement' and 'Aloisia' anywhere in this letter. However, to write his letter as if he wraps something up is Mozart's usual way as we know.
What else can we guess that Mozart asked to Fridolin that time other than the engagement to Aloisia, if my guess were improper ?
Mozart would not have visited Aloisia in Munich in case he could not have gotten Fridolin's consent in advance. But he did. That was because he got Fridolin's consent by this letter.

By the way, we should suspect the reason why many Fridolin's letters to Mozart were not at all kept to posterity.
In my view, the contents of his letters might have been his favorable responses to Mozart's repeated requests regarding the engagement with Aloisia.
These Fridolin's letters were maddening and inconvenient to Constanze since everything written there was so smooth and favorable to the engagement, although Constanze had to tread a thorny path being opposed by Mozart's father.
Constanze would not like future generations to read such Fridolin's agreeable letters to Mozart. And then, after Mozart's death she might have completely destroyed all Fridolin's letters which Mozart had kept at his side.

Fridolin's letters might have been thus destroyed by Constanze.
By the way, how was the progress of Mozart's letters to Fridolin?
I myself guess that upon her father's death, Aloisia might have inherited the letters that Fridolin had received from Mozart since the contents of Mozart's letters to him were all related to the engagement with Aloisia. Other sisters had no reason for inheriting those letters.

Aloisia had probably kept both Mozart's letters addressed to her and her father with care for a long time at her side.
But, when she was asked by Mr. and Mrs. Nissen to submit Mozart's letters, she must have accepted to submit all letters she had, which would have been necessary for Nissen to describe Mannheim episode.
However, after Nissen's death, all these letters became the possession by Constanze. She could now treat them as she wanted. Then Constanze destroyed them all by her strong jealousy to Aloisia as well as her disgustful feeling to Mozart.

(3) Lost letters between Mozart and Leopold

It was the letter on July 3, 1778 when Mozart confessed to Leopold his intention of engagement with Aloisia for the first time. He obscurely described in that letter that he had some thought and prayed everyday for it, but he asked his father not to let him clear it till the opportunity would come.
Probably he has not yet gotten Aloisia's and/or Fridolin's consents that time. He was going to open his mind to his father after getting both Aloisia's and Fridolin's consents.

As long as we check Mozart's letters to Leopold, Leopold had kept silence about this for some time. However, we can read Leopold's favorable attitudes toward this issue in the following two letters to his son.

"As to Miss Weber, there is no need for you to think that I take any objection to your company with her."(September 3, 1778)

"There are two thoughts in your head which drive other thoughts away from you and prevent you from thinking properly and deliberately. The first prime cause is your love for Miss Weber. As to this issue, I am not against it at all. Even the time when her father was poor, I was not against for it. And then. how can I be now against it when Miss Weber can make you happy - not that you make her happy ?" (November 23, 1778)

As shown in these letters, Leopold had no intention to oppose it at all.
But, curious to say, we find no letter between the two on this issue except for above two letters.
However, I firmly believe that there existed several letters related to this issue other than above.

I guess, for example, that there must have been Mozart's letter in which he opened his real mind about the engagement to Leopold, asking father's consent at the same time.
It was something like his promise to Leopold that he would make his mind clear in due time.
He must have written such letter and sent it to Leopold some time after getting both Aloisia's and Fridolin's consents. However, strange to say, we can not find such letter anywhere in the existing letters.

The other is Leopold's letters in which he gave his consent to Mozart. I assume that such letter must have surely existed. But we can not find such letter anywhere too.
Assuming if such letter were not written, the story become quite incomprehensible. Because Mozart, in this case, went to Munich to get engaged to marry Aloisia at his own discretion without explaining it at all to Leopold and getting his consent in advance. However, such thing must have never happened.
Probably, father's consent was essential for the engagement those days as we see in the case of his marriage to Constanze.
Then such letters must have surely existed that time, I guess.

We should notice that there existed more letters between Mozart and Leopold regarding this issue.
Before giving his consent to Mozart, Leopold must have naturally asked his questions on this engagement.
They were the questions about the timing of the wedding, his future job in response to this marriage, and where to live, for example.
Mozart of course would have replied to these questions. However, we can not find such letters anywhere too.

Remember here that existing Mozart's letter to Leopold in the (Table-1) in August and September 1778 was few, only one respectively.
This was probably not because Mozart did write only one letter to Leopold in August and September 1778, but because other letters written by him that time were destroyed together with Leopold's letters long afterward by Constanze, I suppose.
In any case, Constanze would not like posterity to know the detailed information about the smooth engagement story between Mozart and Aloisia.

From above, we come to know that there existed many letters on the engagement between Mozart and Aloisia/Fridolin, Mozart and his father.
But almost all have been supposedly destroyed by Constanze later. Yes, she tried to hide the favorable condition about their engagement to future generations.

Thus things have gone well until Mozart's arrival in Munich. However, in my view, he had to face the miserable collapse there not caused by Aloisia's initiative but by her mother's compulsory order, the details of which are described in Mozart's Real Marital Relationship.

4. Lost Letters in Mozart's Vienna Years

As to Mozart's family letters, the preservation for the letters became quite confusing and incomprehensible after March 1781 when Mozart's life had started in Vienna.
We can classify those lost letters as follows (Refer the following (Table-2) below too).

1) All Leopold's letters to his son after March 1781 were completely lost.
2) Some Mozart's letters to his father from March 1781 to June 1784 were missing though many letters were fortunately kept to posterity.
3) All Mozart's letters to his father from July 1784 to May 1787 were lost except for one dated on April 4, 1787.
4) All Nannerl's letters to Leopold were not reserved to date.
5) All Nannerl's letters to Mozart after 1781 were missing.
6) All Constanze's letters to Mozart were completely destroyed.
In addition to his family letters,
7) All letters from his acquaintances to Mozart were lost except for one from May O'Reilly in London.



(Table-2) Family Letters in Mozart's Vienna era

* M=Mozart, L=Leopold, N=Nannerl
* Three Mozart's letters to Leopold written in January 1781 which belong to his Salzburg era are excluded in this table.
* In 1784, Mozart's letters were kept until June 9. After that no letter was kept to date except for one letter on April 4, 1787.
* The number of lost letters are based on my research. We can find in many Mozart's letters to Leopold his descriptions about the existence of now lost letters.
Also in Leopold's letters to Nannerl we find his descriptions that he sent his letter to his son or he received the letter from Mozart, but now lost.Thus we can know how many letters have been lost. However, the number may not reflect all lost letters. Then above number of lost will show the minimum.
* The state of letters between Mozart and Constanze are shown below separately.


As to the exchanged letters between Mozart and Leopold, above table makes us know that we at present can read less than half letters (105 letters ) among the supposedly existed letters (219 letters) between the two. What I want to mean is that lost information were bigger than the conveyed one to posterity.
What is more, we can only hear one side information between the two. Yes, Leopold was forced to keep silence as if he was put a gag in his mouth
I firmly believe that this result was of course caused by Constanze's trick, not by natural progress.
Then we should be careful for the intentionally hidden information when we consider Mozart issue.
Now let us try to find out what kind of backgrounds had existed behind the destruction of these letters.

(1) Lost Leopold's Letters

It will be needless to explain that the probable reasons for Constanze to have destroyed all Leopold's letters existed in the point that the contents of his letters were quite unfavorable to her.
Especially, his strong opposition to the marriage, and his observation about herself and the daily life in Vienna were the very things which Constanze would like to hide to future generations.

Letters opposed to His Son's Marriage

We now can not read Leopold's letters to his son after 1781 at all, but we can perceive dimly the contents of his letters by reading Mozart's letters to his father that Leopold was quite against to his son's marriage to Constanze.
The following are the grounds for the signs of Leopold's bitter criticisms which can be read in Mozart's letters.

- Our father looks like as if he were a bogy who wore the mask of human, doesn't he ? ( Mozart's letter to Nannerl on December 15, 1781. After reading Leopold's bitter criticism on Mozart's desire to marry Constanze)
- It is too much to say " Put Thorwart and Caecilla in chains with the tag of 'The tempters of young person' and let them clean up the street."(Mozart's letter to Leopold on January 16,1782)
- Don't think that Constanze has such wicked ideas.(Ditto)

We can not know exactly how Leopold accused his son, but his angry and opposition must have been far more stronger than our imagination.
It was natural that Constanze was mad when she could have the chance to read these Leopold's letters. And this was probably the main reason for Constanze to have destroyed all Leopold's letters.

Reading Mozart's letters to his father, we notice a curious thing that the dispute on the marriage between the two suddenly stopped in mid January 1782, as if it was settled.
Yes, Mozart did no more touch on his marriage issue at all in his letters after January16, 1782 up to the end of July 1782.
However, this really is a very curious thing because Leopold has not given his consent to his son at the beginning of 1782. We should remember that Leopold obstinately opposed the plan to the last.

In spite of no existence of letters relating to Mozart's wedding from mid January to July 1782, I firmly believe that there must have actually been many letters between Mozart and Leopold relating to this wedding.
For example, Leopold must have asked Mozart by letter such questions as follows during the term.

1) why Mozart wanted to marry such a woman of ill repute in Vienna (Leopold had gathered bad rumors on Constanze from Gottfried von Moll and Peter Winter )
2) why he so hastened to marry Constanze
3) how he was going to settle his job to cope with the marriage life
4) how he managed to raise such necessary money for wedding as the betrothal money, wedding ceremony expenses, fee for residence, etc..

Without persuasive Mozart's answers to these questions, Leopold would have never permitted this marriage. However, we can not find such Leopold's remarks in any existing Mozart's letters.
During the term, we only find Mozart's letters relating to his music activities in Vienna as if such difficult problems had never happened.
However, I believe that both Mozart's and Leopold's letters relating to such questions and answers surely existed, but both letters must have been completely destroyed by Constanze later on.

The ground why I think so comes from the (Table-3) shown in the next paragraph (2) Lost Mozart's Letters.
The table shows that the number of Mozart's letters to Leopold became remarkably less from February to July 1781. This probably reveals that many Mozart's letters had existed but were destroyed by Constanze afterward since the contexts of his letters were supposedly full of troublesome answers in response to his father's annoying inquiries.
Constanze would have not liked posterity to read such troublesome letters between the two.


Letters on his Reluctant Acceptance

Now we know by Mozart's letter to his father on August 7, 1782 that Leopold somehow gave his permission finally. But we do not know why Leopold, who obstinately opposed to this wedding to the last, suddenly changed his mind. As far as I know, I have not read so far the persuasive opinion why Leopold suddenly changed his mind. However we should make it clear.
As to this, I guess that the background for Leopold's sudden mind change might have existed in the point as follows.

Around late July 1782, Mozart was driven to a corner by Caecilla and Thorwart since till then he could not tell them that he had gotten Leopold's approval .
Mozart was in a very difficult situation and implored father's consent by sending two letters dated on July 27 and July 31 to Leopold in a hurry.
How did Leopold respond to his son's entreaties ? It was evident by Mozart's letter on August 7 that Leopold surely sent two letters to his son. Probably one was the letter still describing "No", the other describing " reluctantly Yes".

Why had such curious thing happened at the same time ?
The following is my conjecture to this question. The key to solve this question is hidden in the next description in Deutsch's book.

"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."

Yes, Mozart got upset tremendously to know this sudden Thorwart's action. Then he immediately informed this incident to his father in Salzburg by letter probably on July 29, 1782.(This letter seems to have been destroyed too)
At the time this letter reached to his father, Leopold had already sent his refusal answer in reply to Mozart's letter on July 27.
However, after that, he received his son's letter on July 29 in which Thorwart's action was described. Reading this letter, Leopold finally had to give up for his obstinate opposition, and then he sent the letter that he reluctantly accepted.
This probably was the background why Mozart received his father's "yes and no" letters at nearly the same time.
The background of this marriage were thus full of tricks from the beginning to the end. Constanze, of course, did not want posterity to know such backgrounds behind her marriage. And then she destroyed all these letters long afterwards.


Letters of his Observation for Mozart's Vienna Life

Destroyed Leopold's letters were not restricted to the letters relating to the marriage.
Constanze did not to want Leopold's letters, in which description about herself and their daily life in Vienna were written, to be kept to posterity since those letters were likely to have been quite different from what she stated in the biographies.

In 1785, Leopold visited Mozart in Vienna arriving on February 11, and stayed there for more than two months. He sent eight letters from there almost every week to his daughter Nannerl in St. Gilgen starting from February 16,1785.
It was sure that Leopold wrote to Nannerl about Mozart's daily life in Vienna and the manner of Constanze as a house wife since these were the very things that Nannerl wanted to know.
However, we can not find such description in any existing Leopold's letters to his daughter.
This is a very curious story because he wrote about Constanze's mother Caecilla and her sisters Aloisia and Sophie, except for Josepha who was in Graz that time, with his praising words for all of them in his letters to Nannerl that time. But strange to say, only the letter on Constanze was missing.

I believe that it was not because Leopold had not written the letter about Constanze, but the letter itself was hidden by Constanze afterward probably because bitter criticisms on her were written there. The reason why this letter was hidden comes from the following ground.

During the term of this trip, Leopold, a man of method, had sent his letter every week to Nannel as he did so in Salzburg.
However, an exception took place between February 21 and March 12 that time. Yes, we can find no Leopold's letter to Nannerl during the term.
It may not be reasonable for us to think that Leopold had not written a letter to Nannerl for nearly 3 weeks.
Then I suspect that there existed at least one Leopold's letter to Nannerl written in late February or early March, in which bitter criticisms on Constanze were written. Of course this letter must have been destroyed by Constanze long afterwards.

During Leopold's stay in Vienna, Constanze did not welcome and treat him well at all.
For example, when Leopold visited Aloisia and Caecilla respectively, she did not attend him. She went out with her husband leaving Leopold alone at home. Then her sister Sophie brought Leopold to Aloisia's and Caecilla's home.
Things were like that, Leopold ought to have had bad feelings about her. Therefore the contexts of Leopold's letter to Nannerl might have been full of bitter criticism about Constanze.
Far later on, Constanze might have shrewdly found this letter in the bundle of Leopold's letters to Nannerl. She of course destroyed the letter not to be open to posterity.

Here, I would like to mention about Leopold's letter to Nannerl on March 19,1785.
This letter itself was completely destroyed and we can not know what was written in this letter. But we can know only a few lines of the letter by the memorandum taken by Nissen who had read the letter before destruction.

"My son Wolfgang has enough money in hand to be sure and he could have saved 2,000 florins in bank if he had not owned debts. In spite of his high earnings, his eating and drinking are modest to the maximum extent."

Probably Leopold wrote on and on in this letter about Mozart's daily life in Vienna showing the details of his eating, drinking, association, pleasures and pains, etc.. These are the very things that we posterity as well as Nannerl want to know. However the letter itself was lost.
But we can guess from Nissen's memorandum that actual Mozart's daily life were modest and not excessive unlike what Constanze told brazenly in the three biographies.
She had emphasized in the biographies that Mozart spent a dissipated life being addicted to champagne and Tokay wine. But Leopold's observation had significantly contradicted to what Constanze told.

The existence of such Leopold's letter was of course really a nuisance to Constanze since her intention in mind was to build up a solid reputation in future as the clever wife who managed this dissipated musician.
And then this Leopold's letter had to be disposed of by Constanze.

Important Leopold's letters on the observation about Constanze and Mozart's daily life in Vienna were thus destroyed. As a result, persons after ages can not get any clue to know what Constanze was like and if Mozart could have spent a happy marriage life with her.

Destroying letters unfavorable to her might have been Constanze's strategy to keep consistency with what she said in the biographies and to win her fame in future as a result.

(2) Lost Mozart's letters

As shown above (Table-2), we can know at least 31 Mozart's letters to his father from 1781 to 1784 have been lost. But they were not all the lost Mozart's letters during the term.
By the following description, we shall come to know there existed more lost Mozart's letters to his father other than these 31 letters.

After March 1781, Mozart sent 43 letters to Leopold within the same year which were more than 4 letters per month on average. However, checking the number of Mozart's letters to his father in the first half of 1782 (see the (Table-3) below), we soon notice a curious thing - the number of his letters showed sudden decrease.
We should be careful for the background.


(Table-3) The number of Mozart's letters to his father
　　　　　　 　　（Jan.1782 to July 1782)

The number of his letters in January was naturally large since Mozart had to inform many things about the marriage to Leopold. However, the number of his letters sharply decreased after that.
Reading Mozart's letter to Leopold on January 30, 1782, we can know the marriage problem was still outstanding. Leopold became furious and he never said 'Yes' at that point.
Then, though the number of letters after February show very small, Mozart must actually have sent more letters frequently to Leopold asking for father's consent. Because he was no doubt requested to inform his father's consent to Caecilla and Thorwart as soon as possible.

However, as described earlier, there was no sign for him to ask his father's consent until the letter on July 27, 1782. The contents of Mozart's letters from March to July 27, 1782 were only on his music activities in Vienna as if the marriage problem did not exist.
Could he do without asking father's permission until July 27, 1782 ? - Probably, no. He must have sent his letters asking father's consent again and again.
However Leopold opposed obstinately to Mozart's requirement each time when he got his son's letter. It was an endless dispute between the two.

Things might have been like that between Mozart and Leopold during that term.
Constanze hesitated to leave such letters and destroyed them all since she did not want posterity to know that their marriage was full of troubles.
Thus we can guess there must have existed many other lost Mozart's letters than the ( Table-3 ).

Even after his marriage, Mozart sent his letters to Leopold continuously till Leopold's death. He was not a heartless man who stopped sending letters to his father because of his independence from the parent after marriage.
As shown in the (Table-2), it was sure he continued to write to Leopold every year, but they were hidden after July 1784. Probably the letters after that time were also destroyed by Constanze.
But we can not know why the turning point of the destruction of all Mozart's letter took place after July 1784, and what the motive was.

Only one letter that we can read after July 1784 is his famous letter on April 4,1787 to Leopold in death bed, in which Mozart described his own thought about death.
Regarding this letter, some suspicions come to my mind.
One is who let Mozart know that Leopold was in death bed that time, and where the letter has gone.
Without such information, Mozart could not have written his letter to Leopold on April 4,1787.

I guess that it probably was Nannerl who had been taking care of her father in Salzburg from March 1787.
At that time, she must have sent her letters to Mozart probably several times asking to come back home and see his father since she have seen through their father's destiny.
I firmly believe that such Nannerl's letters have existed, but we can not find them now. These Nannerl's letters to Mozart also might have been destroyed too.

In response to such his sister's letters, Mozart had undoubtedly replied to Nannerl. However we can not find such letters anywhere. These probably have gone somewhere.
Without doubt Nannerl had strongly requested her brother to come back home that time. But Mozart did not do so somehow. Then Mozart must have surely written his excuse in his reply to Nannerl why he could not visit Leopold. This is the very things we posterity want to know, but we can not do thanks to the destruction of letters.
Thus we can guess that there existed several lost letters between Mozart and Nannerl in early 1787.

Next suspicion is whether or not Mozart made do with only one letter to Leopold who was in death bed for two months.
Mozart himself must also have been worrying for his father's destiny that time. However, he did not or could not visit Salzburg somehow. Then I believe that Mozart must have sent more letters to Leopold all the more. However, curiously enough, we only can find his letter on April 4,1787.

On the other hand, how did Leopold respond after reading his son's letter on April 4, 1787 ?
Though he was in death bed, he had enough energy to spare for writing a letter considering the fact that Leopold's last letter to her daughter was written May 10 in the same year.
What Leopold in death bed wrote to his son excites our interest. However, to our regret, we can not read such letter too. This letter also might have been destroyed together with another Leopold's letters.

Leopold passed away on May 28,1787. It was not Nannerl but Franz d'Yppold who let Mozart know his father's death by mail on the same day. Nannerl herself did not inform it to Mozart probably because she must have gotten so angry with her brother's attitude not to come back home
Mozart received Franz's letter and replied him, of which letter was enveloped in his letter to Nannerl on June 2,1787.
However, both d'Yppold's letter and Mozart's reply were not kept to date.

We know that Mozart did not attend his father's funeral, but we do not know the reason why he did not. If we could read Mozart's reply to d'Yppold, we might have known the reason.why Mozart did not attend the funeral. But we can not get any clue now.

We can thus notice that important letters over Leopold's death have entirely been lost. We should be sorry for these missing letters. Who had done such stupid deed ?
No need to say it was Constanze who destroyed all the letters relating to Leopold's death between Mozart and Nannerl, Mozart and Leopold, Mozart and d'Yppold.
Probably it was cold hearted Constanze who refused Mozart to come back to Salzburg upon Leopold's death.
We should remember here her coldness that she did not write a letter of condolence to Nannerl that time, and at the time of Mozart death she did not inform it to Nannerl.

(3) Lost Nannerl's letters

As described before, the correspondence between Leopold and Nannerl began from August 1784.
It continued as long as Leopold was alive, till May 1787.
During the term, 109 letters written by Leopold were kept to posterity. However, all Nannerl's letters to his father have completely been lost.
We may be able to blame this not for Constanze but for Leopold.
We can not know the exact reason why Leopold had destroyed all letters from Nannerl to him. But it probably was because he might have considered that Nannerl's letters to him were of little use for Mozart's biography.

It is well known that Leopold once had a mind to write Mozart's biography by himself in future.
Then he asked Maria Anna and Nannerl as early as their first trip to Italy that all the letters from Leopold and Mozart on their journey should rigidly be kept. He thought those letters would be useful information when he writes the biography.
Therefore the letters from Leopold and Mozart during their frequent travels in his Salzburg era were completely kept thanks to Maria Anna's and Nannerl's careful reservation.
However, we can not find any letter from Maria Anna and Nannerl to Leopold on their journey. Probably Leopold had destroyed all those letters by himself since he must have considered that they were of little use for writing the biography.

Thus many Nannerl's letters were supposed to be destroyed by Leopold's discretion.
However things were different with the letters between Nannerl and Mozart in Vienna years.
We can read Nannerl's letters to Mozart during his Mannheim-Paris travel and Munich travel. However, we can not find any Nannerl's letter after Mozart moved to Vienna.
As long as we check Mozart's letters, we can know he wrote to his sister every year from 1781 to 1788 except for 1785 and 1786.
No doubt Nannerl replied to Mozart, but we can not find her letters at all.
Her letters were of course in Mozart hand. And then the criminal of letter destruction were thought to be Mozart himself or Constanze.

There was a great possibility that Constanze had destroyed them all after Mozart's death since she had disgusting feelings to Nannerl, too.
As I described earlier, Nannerl was the lady who could not admit Constanze as a member of Mozart family. She was so cold to Constanze as describing in her diary " my sister-in-law" or "my brother's wife" instead of writing her formal name" Constanze" or popular name " Stanzel"
And she was the lady who accused Constanze as a girl quite unsuited to Mozart in her reminiscences published in 1792.
As a result, there was a great possibility that Constanze might have paid off her old grudge by destroying Nannerl's letters to pieces.

(4) Lost Constanze's Letters

The exchanges of letters between Mozart and Constanze began after 1789 when Mozart went out for travel leaving Constanze alone in Vienna. The number of their letters exchanged up to Mozart's death by year can be seen below.

(Table-4) Letters between Mozart and Constanze

The numbers of lost letters above table are based on my research, by reading Mozart's letters to Constanze. This number will be the minimum of the lost letters between the two.

During his trip to Sachsen, Mozart wrote twelve letters to his wife and Constanze sent 6 letters to her husband. As to these eighteen letters in total, we can clearly know the exact date of each letter since Mozart listed all of the dates in his letter on May 23, 1789
According to his description, his consecutive 4 letters to Constanze, dated on April 22, April 28, May 5, and May 9 were lost.
We can not blame this for the postal delivery those days since the delivery was very reliable even those days. It was evident that Constanze had destroyed them all. Then why had she destroyed them ? In short, I think that their trouble caused by Mozart's illicit love affair and Mozart's excuses were written there, which Constanze would not like posterity to know.

Analyzing Mozart's letters that time, we can know that he wrote his first letter to Constanze on April 8 ( the very day he departed !) on the way to Prague.
Constanze replied to Mozart on April 13 after reading his first letter. It reached to Mozart in Leipzig on April 21. Then he wrote the reply on April 22, but this became the first lost letter.
The reason why his letter on April 22 was destroyed can be explained as follows.

Though it is my personal opinion, his illicit love affair with Aloisia was disclosed just before his trip, which was already mentioned in Mozart's Real Marital Relationship. I myself am convinced that the missing of these four consecutive Mozart's letters had close connection with the disclosure of his illicit love affair.

Mozart was beside himself with worry for Constanze's angry at that time. Then he sent his first letter on the very day he departed to ease her.
He described in that letter he wrote this letter in tears. Why he was in tears ? Wasn't it the expression for his repentance or remorse ?
In that letter he showed full of his attentiveness, his loving words to Constanze and his longing for her love, with the humble ending words " your servant-servant- Mozart ". I believe that he wanted to ease her by these flattering expressions.

However, even after reading Mozart's letter on April 8, Constanze did never fall for his sweet talk and his apple polishing attitude. She would have criticized his illicit love affair this and that and might have shown her anger and refusal to his apology in her reply letter on April 13.
Mozart received this letter on April 21 and was frightened to know the depth of her anger. Then he soon replied next day. In his letter on April 22, he might have written more in details about his excuses, his regrets and his apologies concretely.
However, she was never eased by such letter. Probably she soon tore down his letter with her disgusting feelings after reading.
After that Mozart sent two letters, on April 28 and May 5, in succession to Constanze though he had not gotten any letter from Constanze till May 8. These letters were probably written to ease her too.

On the other hand, Constanze's next letter on April 24 reached to him on May 8 in Leipzig.
We can not know the content of her letter. But I guess that her letter was again full of bitter criticism on Mozart's illicit love affair, without showing any sign of her forgiveness.

After reading her letter on April 24, Mozart perceived that it was impossible to persuade her only by letter. Then he wrote in his letter on May 9 not to write ( about it) any more. ( Though his letter on May 9 was lost, he wrote in his next letter on May 16 that " In my last letter, I wrote to you not to write any more - it is to be sure the safest method.")

Thus I myself guess that Mozart's excuses, regrets and apologies with regard to his illicit love affair with Aloisia were written in his four consecutive letters that time.
Such letters can by no means be kept to posterity, of course. And then Constanze destroyed them all with her furious anger.

Mozart did not write about the trouble any longer after his letters on May16, and then his letters to Constanze after that were safe and kept to posterity.


On the other hand, as shown in above table, all Constanze's letters to Mozart were completely destroyed. Why was that ?
That might have mainly been because her letters were full of criticisms to Mozart on his illicit love affair with her sister. Yes, too many bitter sentences which revealed their quarrels and discord might have been included in her letters.
Constanze herself would like to pretend to posterity as if she was the beloved wife and they were at the same time the happy couple without any conflict. To pretend so she destroyed all her letters completely.


As explained thus far, so many letters were destroyed by Constanze.
As a result, we can not know the exact background about the following.

1.The real background of Mozart's engagement with Aloisia and the breakdown in Munich.
2.The real background of his marriage to Constanze.
3.The real character of Constanze.
4.The real state of their daily life in Vienna.
5.The true marital relationship between Mozart and Constanze.
6.The true relationship between Mozart and Leopold, Mozart and Nannerl during his Vienna years.


By the extinction of many letters, she hid the truth and largely twisted the facts. And after that she told eloquently to the biographers the things only advantageous to her.
In other words, we have been obliged to read letters related to Mozart after skillful information control by Constanze. Then entire review of Mozart issue from the bottom would be essential, I think.

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Bibliography


1. Stafford, William
The Mozart Myths ( Stanford University Press, 2002)
2. Nissen, Georg Nikolaus
Biographie W.A.Mozarts ( Georg Olms Verlag, 1991)
3. Jane Glover
Mozart's Women (HarperCollins Publisher,2005)
4. op.cit
MOZART, Briefe und Aufzeichnungen Gesamtausgabe, Weiterer Nachtrag
5. op.cit
Musik und Freimaurerei, Mozart und die königliche Kunst
6..op.cit
To gange fuldkommen lykkelig
7. op.cit
Mozart A Documentary Biography

Author : Shuji Fujisawa
e-mail : ssfuji@mbj.nifty.com
First published : November 1, 2005
Updated : December 4, 2008

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