0:01

Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class,

0:03

a production of I Heart Radio. Hello,

0:12

and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly Fry

0:14

and I'm Tracy V. Wilson, and

0:16

today we're going to talk about Maria Anna

0:18

Mozart, who went by the neural

0:21

Marianna Mariandel within

0:23

the family, but she has often

0:26

kind of left out of if you read a brief account

0:28

of her brother's life, every biographical

0:30

sketch of Wolfgang Mozart

0:33

mentions that he was a touring musician when he

0:35

was still a child. A lot of those

0:37

neglect to mention that his sister was literally

0:40

sitting on the bench with him and

0:42

was also considered an accomplished musician

0:45

and uh, you know, a genius

0:47

of her age. Her

0:49

biography kind of gets pieced together

0:51

by looking at the documentation of Wolfgang's

0:54

life. She left some diaries, but

0:56

not really anything that's like a comprehensive

0:58

account of either are the events of her life

1:01

or her thoughts and feelings about them. We'll

1:03

talk about several points in the show where there are

1:05

big things that happen that we don't really understand

1:08

what the logic was or the discussion that led

1:10

to them. Um there are some letters

1:12

also written by a number of family members, including

1:15

her brother and father, both too and mentioning

1:18

Maria Anna. And some records

1:20

also remain, like public records, birth records,

1:22

etcetera, as well as mentions in papers

1:24

of the day or diaries of people

1:26

who saw her perform as a girl. And

1:28

I want to make one note on her name because you

1:31

will often see her referred to by

1:33

her nickname of Nenural when people

1:35

are talking about her life story. But

1:37

that was really a name that was reserved for

1:39

family and close friends. So Tracy and I

1:41

decided we are not going that route. We are going to

1:43

be sticking with calling her Maria Anna

1:46

for today's show. So Maria Anna

1:48

was born Maria Anna Valpurga

1:50

Ignacia Mozart on July thirty

1:53

one of seventeen fifty one in Salzburg

1:56

and her mother on A.

1:58

Maria had grown up in pretty Her father,

2:01

Leopold Mozart, was a musician.

2:04

That was not what his family had wanted him to

2:06

do. They had wanted him to enter the priesthood,

2:09

and when Marianna was born, he was still

2:12

estranged from his mother over

2:14

his choice. In this. Leopold

2:16

and Anna Maria had a total of seven

2:19

children, including Maria Anna and her

2:21

very famous brother Wolfgang, but

2:23

the other five children all died when they were

2:25

still babies. When Maria was eight,

2:28

Leopold started giving her harpsichord

2:30

lessons, and she was really good. She

2:32

developed what was called a perfect technique,

2:35

and her brother Wolfgang would

2:37

have been about three at this point. He often

2:39

sat next to her and watched and listened

2:42

as she was learning and playing. The

2:44

two of them were very close,

2:47

and they're said to have invented kind of

2:49

an imaginary kingdom for themselves. Yeah,

2:52

there's a whole story there about their imaginative

2:55

life that is largely extrapolation because

2:57

they were children, not recording this in any sort

2:59

of formal way, but people love

3:01

to talk about it. And once Maria

3:03

Anna started taking harp score

3:05

lessons from her father, little brother

3:08

Wolfgang, who adored his sister

3:10

and sat next to her on the bench, as Tracy

3:12

just said, while she took these lessons, soon

3:15

started playing as well to emulate

3:17

her. And there's a music

3:19

book where their father, Leopold had been keeping

3:21

notes on Maria Anna's progress, and he

3:23

started including in that

3:25

notebook mentions of his son's aptitude

3:28

as well as Maria Anna's progress. That

3:31

notebook, Incidentally, at least what is left

3:33

of it, is a museum piece today, known

3:35

colloquially as than a neural not in book.

3:38

It's more accurate to describe it as museum

3:40

pieces plural, as there are pages

3:42

from it in museums around the globe, although

3:45

the bulk of it is still in Salzburg. The

3:47

notebook contained some compositions

3:49

that were written for Maria Anna's study

3:51

by her father, as well as pieces

3:54

written by a very young Mozart and pieces

3:56

written by additional composers that have

3:58

not been conclusively identified. Wolfgang

4:02

was pretty quick at picking up on his sister's

4:04

lessons, so Leopold decided to teach

4:06

him as well. He started learning

4:08

through his own formal lessons at the age

4:10

of five. This meant that he was getting

4:13

lessons from his father and undoubtedly

4:15

helped from his sister as well, in effect

4:17

having a private tutor in addition to having

4:20

a teacher. Yeah, one article

4:22

I was reading about this was talking about how

4:24

beneficial this probably was to his development,

4:27

because not only did he have someone

4:29

who could explain all of the lessons in

4:32

kids speak to him, but it was someone

4:34

he trusted that had just done those lessons,

4:36

and it probably really gave

4:38

him like an extra boost in terms of learning

4:41

quickly. When Maria Anna was eleven

4:43

and Volfgang was six, the two children began

4:45

playing together for audiences. Maximilian

4:49

the third Joseph, Elector of Bavaria was

4:51

one of the first people to hear this duo

4:53

play at a private performance in Munich.

4:56

Another attendee, Count Karl von Zinzendorff,

4:59

noted this of in his diary

5:01

The Tiny Boy with the Big Personality. He

5:04

noted as playing quote marvelous lee,

5:06

and the Count wrote that quote his sister's

5:09

playing is masterly. This

5:11

was really the beginning of a career as

5:13

child performers. For the next

5:15

three years, the Mozart siblings and

5:18

their parents were on tour and they played

5:20

in eighty eight different cities. Considering

5:23

that this was in the eighteenth century, this involved

5:26

just arduous travel. Yeah.

5:28

This was not like a really glamorous,

5:31

sexy music tour where

5:34

they got to stay at great places and they

5:36

were in you know, private, beautiful

5:38

um traveling conveyances.

5:41

This was really hard work. So when you consider

5:44

two kids being kind of carted all

5:46

over Europe in that way, that's a lot to put children through.

5:49

In seventeen sixty four, Leopold

5:51

Mozart wrote a letter about his daughter, who

5:53

was twelve at the time, and after a long

5:55

recounting of her various feats

5:57

that her talent enabled her to perform as a

6:00

musician, he summated with quote, what

6:02

it all amounts to is this that my little

6:04

girl, although she is only twelve years old,

6:07

is one of the most skillful players in

6:09

Europe. It was during this first

6:11

multi year tour that Wolfgang

6:13

wrote his first symphony. The

6:15

family was in London at the time. Leopold

6:18

was ill and the children were

6:20

forbidden from playing instruments. Their

6:23

mother did not want them to disturb their father,

6:25

so they sat down with pen and paper. Maria

6:28

Anna took dictation of Symphony

6:30

number one in E Flatin major, which

6:32

is listed in the Colhole catalog as

6:34

K sixteen. Whether or not Maria

6:36

Anna offered any kind of collaboration

6:39

on this piece is really not known. Yeah,

6:41

some speculation happens around that, but

6:43

we'll never really know. So the

6:46

Mozart kids toured together until

6:48

seventeen sixty nine, and the end of

6:50

their time as a performing duo was

6:52

brought about by Maria's eighteenth birthday.

6:55

She had actually stopped touring when she was

6:57

still sixteen because the family was taking a little

6:59

bit of break for all of this travel that we just

7:01

mentioned was really very taxing. But

7:03

after reaching a team, she was considered

7:06

marriageable. And while it was fine

7:08

for a girl to be touring with her brother,

7:11

it would have been unseemly for a young woman

7:13

to continue doing it, and it may have diminished

7:15

her chances to ever get married. So

7:18

Leopold decided that she should stay in Salzburg

7:21

while he continued to tour with Volfgang,

7:23

who he famously called quote the

7:25

miracle which God let be born in

7:27

Salzburg. So, to be clear,

7:30

there was no groom waiting

7:32

to marry Maria Anna. She just was

7:34

moved out of the spotlight. Regardless

7:37

of her talent and her skill, any

7:40

kind of performing work she might have

7:42

been doing would have been a potential scandal

7:45

that was, of course, simply not an issue

7:47

for her male sibling. There have

7:49

been some additional theories about Leopold's

7:52

decision to send his talented daughter home

7:54

while continuing to trot his son around

7:56

Europe. There's a distinct difference

7:58

in how Leopold encouraged people

8:01

to infantilize his son as part

8:03

of the packaging of his talent for the stage.

8:05

I mean, even today people think of Mozart

8:08

as a child prodigy. He very clearly

8:10

though, flipped his own mental switch regarding

8:12

Maria Anna. She was now an adult.

8:15

Well, her brother continued to be, in his

8:17

mind a child. Yeah,

8:19

Maria Anna composed music during this time

8:21

while she lived at home. Her brother actually

8:24

wrote her a letter praising her work and encouraging

8:26

her to keep going. But unfortunately

8:29

we have no surviving record of her

8:31

compositions. It's not something that she pursued,

8:33

certainly at the level of her brother. And

8:35

we also don't know what Leopold thought of

8:37

the pieces that maria Anna composed. He

8:39

did not mention it ever in any of his

8:42

writing. Although brother and sister were

8:44

separated a lot of the time, they still remained

8:46

very close. Either their mother or

8:49

their father would tour with Wolfgang

8:51

and then Maria Anna would stay home with the other

8:53

parents. Two siblings wrote

8:55

letters, and their relationship in these letters

8:58

as one of a lot of teasing and Jaz he

9:00

likes to call her horse space and tease her

9:03

about the young men who were interested in her.

9:05

He also talks about her horrible singing,

9:08

while also praising her as a queen. The

9:11

two of them really shared a love of theater and

9:13

music, and Wolfgang wrote music

9:15

that he dedicated to his sister. In

9:18

a moment, we're going to talk about a period of years

9:20

where a lot of changes happened

9:22

for the family. But first we're gonna stop

9:25

and we're going to take a quick sponsor break.

9:34

In seventy eight, Maria Anna

9:36

and Wolf's mother, Anna Maria died.

9:39

This was a sudden tragedy. She

9:42

was in Paris with Wolfgang, who had resigned

9:44

from his job working as a court musician in Salzburg

9:47

was something he had been very unhappy with for a while,

9:49

and he was looking for more lucrative employment.

9:52

And while he and his mother were in Paris

9:55

chasing down possible job leads, Anna

9:57

Maria became sick and she died on July

10:00

third, seventeen seventy eight. Volfgang

10:03

stayed in Paris until September and

10:05

then moved on to Mannheim and Munich

10:07

while his father lobbied for him to be given

10:09

a better job in court. Back

10:12

in Salzburg, Leopold really wanted

10:14

the family all back together. After

10:16

Anna Maria's death, Leopold relied

10:19

on Maria Anna as the woman of the household.

10:21

She took care of the home, managed his schedule

10:24

of students at any meetings he had. She

10:27

also taught piano lessons herself to bring

10:29

in some additional money for the family. She

10:31

had been doing a lot of these tasks already

10:33

whenever Anna Maria would be traveling with

10:35

Wolfgang, but they became entirely

10:38

her responsibility once her father had

10:40

been widowed in seventeen

10:42

eighty one. After moving to Vienna, Volfgang

10:45

became involved with Constanza viber

10:47

and when rumors arose that the two were

10:49

going to be married, Wolfgang initially

10:52

denied it to his father because he knew

10:54

he was going to disapprove, but the

10:56

two of them did get married in August

10:58

of seventeen eighty two, and Leopold

11:01

eventually did give his blessing, although

11:03

apparently the word that he was okay with the marriage

11:05

arrived the day after the weddings, so they

11:07

were going to do it either way. The

11:09

friction over the marriage, as well as

11:11

a lot of conflicts that had developed over the

11:14

choices of Gang, was making with his career

11:16

had kind of taken a toll on the father

11:18

son relationship. Wolf Gang

11:21

and his new wife Constant's, visited

11:23

Salzburg in seventy three,

11:25

and this marks the beginning of a shift in the

11:27

sibling relationship that's been characterized

11:30

really differently by different historians. It

11:33

seems that after this time, Wolfgang

11:35

and Maria Anna didn't really write to each

11:38

other as often, they weren't as actively involved

11:40

in each other's lives, and in some

11:42

cases this has been pointed to as evidence

11:45

that Maria Anna, like their father Leopold,

11:47

was not really enthusiastic

11:49

about her brother's new wife. The

11:51

case can also be made, though, that they were

11:54

both reaching turning points in their

11:56

lives where their time were just occupied

11:58

by other things, so there may

12:00

have been a rift between them, maybe

12:03

not, No evidence really

12:05

exists. Yeah, it appears that probably

12:08

something happened, because it is kind of an abrupt

12:10

gear shift, but it's not clear

12:13

what exactly may have taken place among

12:15

them. And we're about to get

12:17

to Maria Anna's next big change in life.

12:19

But it's worth mentioning here that

12:22

one of the real tragedies of this drop off

12:24

in communication between brother and sister

12:26

who had been so very very

12:28

close, meant that Maria Anna was completely

12:31

unaware of the darker periods that were

12:33

happening in Wolfgang's life after this,

12:36

several years after his death, his sister

12:39

read a biography of her brother written by Czech

12:41

music critic franzavereign Nemitic,

12:43

which revealed a great deal about

12:46

her brother's difficulties with finances

12:48

and his mental health, and, according to her

12:50

own account, reading this for the first

12:52

time moved her to tears. While

12:55

Wolfgang's romance with Constanza

12:57

had been developing, Maria Anna had also

12:59

been folling in love. This was with an

13:01

educator named Franz Deepled,

13:04

and the two of them also wanted to get married, but

13:06

as the story goes, Leopold

13:09

was not keen on this. This would

13:11

have been in part because Wolfgang had already

13:13

disregarded his father's opinion and

13:16

married a woman that didn't come with a great fortune.

13:19

So Leopold was allegedly vehement

13:22

that Maria Anna could not similarly

13:24

marry without creating some kind of

13:26

financial cushion for the family. Wolf

13:29

And encouraged his sister to go after what

13:31

she wanted and to follow her heart in these

13:33

matters. And there's some doubt about

13:35

this version of the story because there's also not

13:38

really any evidence to back it up. So

13:40

we don't know with any certainty

13:42

how or why the romance

13:44

between Maria Anna and Franz. Ended.

13:47

But it did. Yeah,

13:50

yeah, yeah, Maria Anna

13:52

did get married, but not to Franz.

13:55

She had a lot of admirers, We should be

13:57

clear. It wasn't like she was a quiet spinster

13:59

that no one paid attention to. A lot

14:01

of men were very interested in her. But

14:03

the man that she married was Johann Baptiste

14:06

von Berchtold Dusaunberg in

14:08

seventeen eighty four. And this was a

14:10

marriage that made sense to Maria

14:13

Anna's father, Leopold anyway, who

14:15

chose his daughter's husband for her. Berchtold

14:18

was a sensible choice on paper. He was

14:20

a magistrate of social standing and he

14:23

was a widower twice over. Maria

14:25

Anna was thirty three at the time and kind

14:27

of getting past the age where she would be considered

14:29

a good candidate for marriage. Berchtold

14:33

was forty seven, and most importantly,

14:35

he was financially stable. Berchtold

14:38

had five children already, and maria

14:40

Anna took on the task of raising them.

14:43

She and Johan had three more children

14:45

together, Leopold Aloys Pantaleon

14:48

born in seve and

14:50

then two daughters, Jeannette in seventeen

14:52

eighty nine and Maria Babette in

14:54

seventeen ninety, but Maria Babbett

14:57

died in infancy. Once Maria

14:59

Anna became a if she was occupied

15:01

entirely as a parent and a homemaker, she

15:04

had moved to San Gilgen, where Berkto had

15:06

lived, which meant that she had left Salzburg

15:08

in her entire life behind. Today

15:11

you can take a train from Salzburg to send

15:13

Gilgan and it only takes about half an hour

15:15

to travel the twenty eight point two kilometers

15:18

or roughly seventeen miles. But

15:20

in the seventeen eighties that trip took like six

15:22

hours, and to Maria on a it

15:25

just seemed like she was stuck in the middle of nowhere.

15:27

When Maria Anna was living in Sanden

15:30

with her husband and children, Wulfagang

15:32

sent her all of its piano concertos

15:34

and she made copies of them be those

15:36

they're in the music archive in St. Peter's

15:39

Abbey in Salzburg today.

15:41

While she wasn't teaching or pursuing

15:43

a career as a musician at this time, she

15:45

still wanted these pieces so that she

15:47

could play them at home, which I find

15:49

to be very sweet. It is, and thank

15:51

goodness because those copies that

15:53

she made are like some of the only

15:56

copies of those pieces that existed

15:58

for a long time. UH. And when

16:00

she turned them over to the St. Peter's

16:02

Abbey archive. Uh, they basically

16:04

have been safeguarding them ever since.

16:07

UH. And we need to go back to talking

16:10

about Maria Anna's children, specifically

16:12

her firstborn. So she traveled

16:15

to Salzburg for the birth, and on July Leopold's

16:19

grandson was born, and of course named

16:22

after him, and we're calling

16:24

him Leopold's grandson. They're quite purposely

16:26

because when Maria Anna left Salzburg

16:29

and returned home six weeks after giving

16:31

birth, the baby did not travel

16:33

with her. Leopold Mozart

16:35

stated that he would like the baby to stay

16:37

with him for the first few months, so

16:40

little Leopold lived with his grandfather

16:43

and was cared for by him and several maids

16:45

who worked in the home. In seventeen

16:48

eighty six, the elder Leopold stated

16:50

that he wanted this arrangement to be indefinite,

16:53

and Maria Anna accepted that. The

16:55

reasons for this arrangement have really

16:57

garnered a lot of speculation, but nobody

17:00

knows for sure what kind of discussions

17:02

went on or what understanding passed

17:04

between the elder Leopold and his daughter.

17:07

It's obvious that Maria Anna was

17:10

really incredibly obedient to her father,

17:12

and that included everything from giving

17:15

up her musical career to marrying her

17:17

father's selected groom, and so

17:19

do some biographers. Letting

17:22

him raise her son just seems like another

17:24

aspect of the ways that Leopold

17:26

was controlling her life. Yeah, it's

17:28

a very complicated relationship, and that

17:30

certainly may have been an aspect of it, but

17:33

there are multiple factors that may have also

17:36

influenced this situation. For

17:38

one, Leopold the elder at

17:40

this point, was despondent at the loss of

17:42

influence over his son's life. He

17:45

kind of felt abandoned by Wolfgang, and

17:47

Maria Anna may have acquiesced to her father's

17:50

desire to raise her child as

17:52

a means to help him cope with his sadness.

17:55

Marianna had also been her father's caretaker

17:57

after her mother's death, and she may have seen turning

17:59

her on over to him as a way to soothe him,

18:02

maybe helped smooth over the rift between

18:04

father and son with the introduction of a baby,

18:07

and also to offer her father someone

18:09

to keep him company now that she was also

18:11

moved out and living on her own. She also

18:13

may have just felt that with five children at

18:15

home already, her son would be better

18:18

off and get more attention with

18:20

his grandfather. It's very possible

18:22

that marian Anna, who found life in San Gilgan's

18:25

just be too remote, thought that having

18:27

a direct tie to Salzburg would

18:30

get her to go home more often than

18:32

she had been really able to do before her son

18:34

was born. Yeah, and uh, little

18:37

Lampold was also sick when he was first born,

18:39

but he did recover. So there

18:41

are some theories that like it was because the baby

18:43

was sick and she didn't want to take him home

18:45

on the trip, but clearly

18:47

her dad really wanted to keep this child.

18:50

But all of these reasons about it

18:52

are still speculation that various historians

18:55

have put forward over the years. But there is

18:57

one thing that is incredibly clear, and that is

18:59

that Leopold Mozart genuinely

19:02

adored his grandson. He

19:04

wrote Marianna detailed missives

19:07

describing the baby's development and gross.

19:09

He gave her updates on his health, and

19:11

he also talked about what a solace this child

19:13

was to him. And another aspect

19:16

of this whole very unusual situation

19:18

that has been speculated on was whether

19:20

or not Leopold Mozart thought that he could

19:22

train his grandson to be another

19:25

child prodigy like Wolfgang, and

19:27

he did start giving the child very

19:29

early music training before he was even

19:32

a toddler. In just a moment, we'll

19:34

talk about how the situation ended, but

19:36

first we'll have a word from sponsors

19:38

who keeps stuffy miss and history class going.

19:48

Maria Anna's arrangement regarding her

19:50

father and her son went on for two years

19:53

and it ended when her father Leopold

19:55

died in and

19:57

then two year old little Leopold went

19:59

to say Gilgen to live with his parents and step

20:02

siblings. Leopold's death sparked

20:04

a minor conflict in the family, as doth

20:06

softened do. This has often been

20:08

characterized as a fight between the Mozart

20:10

siblings over how the estate would be handled.

20:13

Volfgang asked for an exact copy

20:16

of the will. Some people point to that and say

20:18

because he didn't trust maria Anna to tell him

20:20

what was in it. We don't know, though, and

20:22

Wolfgang thought that they were settled on selling

20:24

the most valuable assets of their

20:27

father's estate and splitting the money. But Marie

20:29

Anna didn't think that Wolfgang should

20:31

get any of it. So for Wolfgang that's

20:33

really stung. His sister had

20:35

married a man of means, she really wanted

20:38

for nothing. He, on the other hand,

20:40

struggled financially to support his family,

20:43

in part because he was not great at managing

20:45

his finances. But the real

20:47

friction appears to have been between

20:50

Wolfgang and maria Anna's husband.

20:52

Burke told who took over the negotiations

20:55

and then haggled over who got what the

20:58

correspondence bet. Wolfgang

21:01

and maria Anna became really strained

21:03

after that, and then it stopped completely.

21:05

Yeah, there's such a marked difference, particularly

21:07

if you watch the progression of their letters.

21:10

Wolfgang's letters to his sister, they're so

21:12

florid when they're younger and even into their early

21:14

adulthood, and it's all about how much

21:16

he loves her and how great she is. And

21:18

after their mother died, he wrote this really beautiful

21:21

letter about how much he treasures his sister, and

21:23

then they kind of become very like Kurt

21:26

and you know, like here here the

21:28

details you need to know about what's going on. Thank

21:31

you Wolfgang. And there's

21:33

a suggestion of why she thought that her

21:35

brother has shouldn't have any of the inheritance.

21:37

It's not clear. It seems like part

21:40

of it is that she had been taking

21:42

care of the house and like managing all

21:44

of that stuff, whereas Wolfgang had gone

21:46

off. Also, remember they weren't as close, so

21:48

I don't think she really realized

21:50

how dire his finances were.

21:53

So it's a I'm

21:56

telling you, uh will

21:58

will break up a family today,

22:01

just as it did the But

22:03

this period was another really where

22:06

the two siblings likely had no idea that the other

22:08

was struggling. Maria Anna

22:10

was without her father, who had continued

22:12

to be both a support and a controlling influence

22:15

well into her adult life and even after

22:17

she was married, so this is kind of the first

22:19

time she's sort of on her own, even though

22:21

she has a husband. But really, like Leopold

22:25

was handling so much of her life up

22:27

to this point, and of course both Gang

22:29

was nearing the end of his short, intense

22:32

life at the time both gang

22:34

Amineus Mozart died on December

22:36

five. This

22:38

was after a period where both his physical

22:40

and mental health really declined,

22:43

and his cause of death was recorded

22:45

as severe miliary fever.

22:48

It was a name for a combination of a high

22:50

fever and a skin rash that resembled

22:53

millet. What he really

22:55

died from has been hotly

22:57

debated in the centuries since then. You do

23:00

not have to look very hard to find all

23:02

kinds of medical papers, all

23:05

speculating on various things

23:07

the actual cause of death might have been. Yeah.

23:10

Also, uh, you know, keep

23:12

in mind, should you love

23:16

the play or film on a dais it's

23:18

very good, uh,

23:21

dramatized, just not

23:23

not a source of historical back.

23:26

I was talking to someone about this and they're like, yeah, the

23:28

movie this, and I'm like, I know, but that's in the movie.

23:30

It's not uh, this whole

23:32

soliary thing not quite what that portrays.

23:35

Makes though it's a lovely play. Uh.

23:38

Maria Anna wrote about her brother in

23:41

after his death for Frederick schlichtge Grohl,

23:43

who became the first biographer of Mozart.

23:46

With a short version of the Virtuoso's life

23:48

story. This is kind of an indirect

23:50

assist that she gave. The request

23:52

for Maria on his writing had actually been made

23:55

by Albert von Mulk, who was a friend of

23:57

the family. Von Mulk's involvement

23:59

in the project caused some confusion as

24:01

well. What Maria Anna didn't

24:03

know was that after she handed her

24:05

written memories of her brother over

24:07

to him, he added to the work

24:10

in a way that made it seem like Maria Anna

24:12

had a low opinion of her sister

24:14

in law Constanza and thought that she was

24:16

not a suitable match for her gifted brother.

24:19

A closer examination years later, though,

24:21

revealed that that part was written in

24:24

von Malk's handwriting. Yeah,

24:26

I don't I think it's safe to say that

24:28

Maria Anna and Constanza

24:30

were never close, But I

24:32

also don't think she would have publicly

24:35

said anything negative like that anyway.

24:38

But after her brother's death, Maria Anna

24:40

in many ways also became a steward of his

24:42

legacy, and she ended up working with Constanza

24:45

in that regard. After Marianna's

24:48

husband Johann died in eighteen o one, she

24:50

moved back to Salzburg, and one of her

24:52

occupations during this stage of her life was actually

24:54

helping publishers track down

24:57

works from her brother that had gone missing,

24:59

and she also started offering piano lessons

25:01

once again. Eighteen years

25:04

after Wolfgang's death, Constanza

25:06

remarried to George Nicolaus van

25:08

Nissen, who she had known

25:10

for more than a decade. In eighteen twenty

25:12

they moved to Salzburg. George was planning

25:15

to write a comprehensive Mozart

25:17

biography, and they worked with Maria Anna

25:19

to get information for this. She not

25:21

only shared the writings she had done for

25:23

that earlier biography, but also turned

25:26

over all the family letters and records

25:28

she had to assist in this project. In

25:31

eighteen twenty one, Maria Anna was

25:33

visited for the first time by her nephew,

25:36

franz Zaver Mozart. This

25:38

was an event of complete delight

25:41

for her, and she later wrote that despite her

25:43

advancing years, quote, I still

25:45

enjoyed the inexpressible joy of

25:47

seeing the son of my unforgettable brother

25:49

for the first time. And she introduced

25:51

her nephew around to all of her friends

25:54

and like friends of the family that had known Mozart

25:56

when he was a boy in Salzburg.

25:59

Uh basically just like wanted to tell

26:01

him everything about his father. When

26:03

Maria Anna was seventy, she

26:06

was visited by the writer Mary Novello,

26:09

who noted that Maria Anna seemed

26:11

to be in bad straits. She

26:13

appeared to be very poor. She had lost her

26:15

eyesight, which had happened three years before.

26:18

Novella wrote that Maria Anna was quote

26:20

blind, languid, exhausted,

26:22

feeble, and nearly speechless. Novella's

26:25

assessment about Maria Anna's finances,

26:27

though, was not correct, a fact that was made

26:29

plain when Maria Anna died later

26:31

that year and left a fortune behind. The

26:34

fact that she took piano students

26:36

well into her seventies suddenly was not,

26:39

as it had appeared to so many people,

26:41

something she did to make ends meet. It

26:44

became evident on her death that her husband had

26:46

left her well set financially. She

26:49

was taking students simply because she wanted

26:51

to. Maria on a mozart known

26:53

to friends and family as the Neural, was

26:56

buried in her hometown of Salzburg at

26:58

the Abbey of St. Peter. Sometimes

27:00

the story of Marianna and kind of the headline

27:03

version is opened with this idea that

27:05

had she not been moved aside, so

27:08

Leopold could promote her brother both gang.

27:10

She could have been Mozart's equal,

27:13

but most historians don't really frame

27:15

it that way. She was a very skilled

27:17

musician, without a doubt, but she did not,

27:19

have, for example, the massive output

27:22

as a composer that her brother did. She

27:24

didn't have the range he did in terms

27:26

of picking things up really quickly. He

27:28

outpaced her in their learning. It's one of those things

27:31

where, if you know when they were children, he

27:33

pretty quickly like got to her level and

27:35

then kept moving on. But

27:37

even so, uh, it comes up

27:39

people like to speculate about just what her

27:41

impact on her little brother was, particularly

27:44

in his formative years. So she becomes

27:46

a really important part of the Mozart story.

27:49

Do you have some listener mail for us? I

27:52

actually have a couple of pieces of listener

27:54

mail, and they're about Poppy.

27:59

Uh. We had a couple of people write us, particularly

28:01

about our our Friday behind

28:03

the Scenes minis episode

28:06

that we did right after the Hellhounds Halloween

28:08

episode, because we talked about

28:10

black dogs specifically on that one. And so I have

28:12

two pieces of adorable male. One

28:15

is from Brianna or Brianna. I don't

28:17

know how she pronounces it. She writes high

28:19

Holly and Tracy. I was excited to hear you, maybe

28:21

Holly point out that black dogs and cats

28:23

often aren't adopted at shelters. I

28:25

initially thought, oh, I should write in to tell you about

28:27

my black dog, Bob, a Rott Wilder mix, who

28:30

I adopted in as a senior

28:32

pet and who was the very best boy

28:34

until last June when we lost him to kidney disease.

28:36

I was hesitating, though, until yesterday, when

28:39

my husband and I found a wonderful dog

28:41

at the local Humane Society. When

28:43

you know he is also black, his name is

28:45

Roger Daltery. He came with Roger, we added

28:47

the adultery, and he is a very sweet senior

28:49

dog. I work from home all my husband

28:51

works with the post office, so Roger and I are enjoying

28:54

our first day together. I attached two photos,

28:56

one of us the day we adopted Bob and

28:58

one from yesterday with Roger. You can tell

29:00

which one is from yesterday because of our masks.

29:03

I just wanted to thank you for the reminder that black dogs

29:05

are great. Senior dogs are also

29:07

great. Shelter dogs are great too, I hope

29:09

you're doing well and staying well. Um

29:11

Bob was beautiful. I love Rottweiler's

29:15

and Roger Daltry is the cutest dog

29:18

maybe ever. I'm gonna say that, but I say that about all

29:20

the dogs. Uh there, He's so

29:22

cute and they look so happy together. So thank

29:25

you for adopting him, because now I know he's

29:27

got a loving home and I love it. And

29:29

then we have another cute black dog email.

29:32

This is from our listener Kathy, who writes,

29:34

Hello, Tracy and Holly. Thanks for such a fun and informative

29:36

podcast. I've learned so much I never knew. I

29:38

never knew. I listened to all of your

29:41

Halloween week episodes today, and I loved when

29:43

you talked about adopting black dogs and cats in

29:45

the Friday piece. I have had only two dogs

29:47

in my life, but both of them have been black.

29:49

Black dogs hold a special place in my heart. But

29:52

especially fitting as I listened to your Tarot Card

29:54

episodes was my current puppy dog's

29:56

costume. He dressed up as a jester today

29:58

or a fool. So here's a picture of my adopted

30:01

baby, DJ Dark Jedi.

30:03

Okay, like everything about this is stuff.

30:05

I love. It's a dog in a costume and his name

30:07

is dark Jedillo. Um also

30:10

adorable. Thank you, thank you, thank you for

30:12

sending us your dog pictures, Kathy

30:15

and Brianna. I love it and I it

30:17

is one of those things where people that love to

30:19

adopt black animals really love to adopt

30:21

black animals. Um,

30:24

I'm one of them. You, as we talked about,

30:26

have too, so clearly you're kind of one of them

30:28

as well. Uh, those are not your first

30:30

black cats, I will disclose they're not.

30:33

Uh So. Yeah. I love seeing

30:35

these and thank you guys for giving them great homes

30:37

and also just sharing your stories with us. I'm

30:39

glad you enjoyed our hellhound

30:41

and black dog discussions. I will follow up

30:44

and say my Ruegaru Fest

30:46

t shirt and poster came yesterday and they

30:48

are awesome. I'm

30:51

so ready. H come on next

30:53

year. Let it be safe. Uh. If

30:55

you would like to write to us, you should absolutely do that. You

30:57

can do that at History Podcast at i

30:59

heeart radio dot com. You can also find

31:01

us on the internet on social media at

31:03

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31:05

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31:07

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31:19

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