Leopold

Most people who have a hankering for classical music have seen That Movie.  You know the one.  The one starring a young Tom Hulce, that guy with an obnoxious laugh?  Play by Peter Shaffer?  Yeah, that movie.

Amadeus.

It contains more than a few inaccuracies, of course.  Mozart was not the giggling "eternal child" portrayed in the movie - although he certainly did have a particular fondness for bathroom humor.  Salieri may have spent the last year and a half of his life in a mental institution, but he didn't poison Mozart.  Nor was he responsible for Mozart's death.

But the really sad thing is, the movie leaves out so much.  Mozart's childhood.  His travels around Europe.  But most importantly - it leaves out the story of the man who made Wolfgang Mozart who he was.  His teacher.  His coach.  His tour manager.

His father.

So who was Leopold Mozart, anyway?

Leopold Mozart was born in Augsberg, in what is now Bavaria, in 1719.  Leopold was one of these characters born into a family that was anything *but* musical.  The Mozart family, in Augsberg, was known as a family of artisans and masons.  Leopold's father, Johann Georg Mozart, was a master bookbinder by trade; his father, Franz Mozart, was a master mason.  

Johann may have decided on a different career path from his father, but he was no dummy.  When his guild master died, Johann somehow managed to be the one to marry his widow, thus giving him his old master's guild license.  After his first wife died in 1718, he met Anna Maria Sulzer and married her the next year.  Leopold was the first of eight children, five of whom survived to adulthood.

Being devout Catholics, Johann Mozart sent his son Leopold to school at the local Jesuit gymnasium, St. Salvator, for his early education.  The idea his parents had, apparently, was that young Leopold should become a priest.  While at St. Salvator, Leopold studied logic, science, and theology, and appeared in no fewer than eight student productions as a singer and actor.  He was, initially, a good student: he graduated from St. Salvator in 1735, at the age of 16, magna cum laude.  It appears, however, that Leopold was held back from graduation for one, possibly two years.  We don't quite know why, but his graduation was behind schedule.

In 1736, Johann Mozart died, leaving behind a widow with five hungry mouths to feed.  At this point, young Leopold had a choice to make.  He could do the responsible thing: take up his father's trade as a bookbinder, make a living, and do his duty as man of the household to support his mother and five siblings.  He could choose to try to make a living doing what he loved to do - make music.  Or, he could go back to school and continue his studies.

So what did he do?  Did he follow his dreams?  Well…  no.

Leopold went back to school.  He did not go back to the Lycaeum at St. Salvator, where he had withdrawn from after the death of his father.  Rather, he enrolled at the Benedictine University in Salzburg the next year, in 1737, as a student of philosophy and jurisprudence.  However, everything came to a screeching halt in 1739.  Young Leopold, you see, had simply had enough.

Leopold Mozart, a Swabian of Augsburg, has from the beginning of the civil year hardly attended Natural Science more than once or twice, and has thereby rendered himself unworthy of the name of student.  A few days before the examination he was called before the Dean and informed that henceforth he would no longer be numbered among the students.  Having heard this sentence, he offered no appeals, accepted the sentence, and departed as if indifferent: therefore he was not called for further examination.

Now Herr Mozart decided it was time to follow his dream.  He was about to become a musician for real!  Leopold Mozart found employment as a chamberlain and musician for a member of the local Salzburg nobility, Count John Baptiste Thurn-Valsassina et Taxis.  The next year, in 1740, he published his first work: a set of six trio sonatas, Op. 1, who he dedicated to his new boss, a man who had saved him from "the harsh darkness of necessity and smoothed the path to the horizon of good fortune."

All was not well in Augsberg.  Momma Mozart?  Let's just say, she was *not* happy.

It's not that she was doing poorly.  Two of Leopold's brothers had chosen to take up their father's bookbinding business, and Anna Mozart herself came into an inheritance in 1744 that gave her some financial comfort.  It was the principle of the thing.  Leopold Mozart?  Leave Augsberg, defy his own father's wishes that he become a priest, refuse to carry on the family business, all so that he can become some…  MUSICIAN????  The rascal!!!

Karma has a way of being a harsh mistress.

Leopold Mozart married his wife, Anna Maria Pertl, in 1747.  Shortly after the wedding, Mozart petitioned the city of Augsberg for, and had received, renewal of his citizenship status with the city of Augsberg in hopes of convincing his dear old mum that he might someday return.  You see, his mother had given each of his siblings a dowry, and Leopold wanted his.  In 1755, Leopold wrote a plaintive letter to his publisher:

All of my brothers and sisters have now married; and each has received 300 florins as an advance upon my mother's future legacy.  I have not received anything.

Leopold made several attempts to collect on his dowry, but each one was met with failure.  He and his mother never spoke again.  Even when Leopold would travel to Augsberg to give public performances, his mother refused to come.

In the meantime, Leopold's career was busy going nowhere.  In 1743, Leopold had gained employment in the court of Salzburgs' Prince-Archbishops as a 4th violinist.  (Bet you didn't know there was such a thing, did you?)  In 1758 - fifteen years later - he received a promotion.  To 2nd violinist.  In 1763, he finally obtained the position of deputy kapellmeister - but from that point on, he was passed over for promotion time and time again.  He rose no higher.

But by this time, Leopold had another project he was working on.  His daughter, Nannerl, and his son, Wolfgang.

For what it's worth, you know how in the movie Saliere claims that the Commendatore, in Mozart's opera Don Giovanni, is  Mozart's dead father Leopold, come back from the grave to accuse his son?

Wrong.  The Commendatore came back to haunt Don Giovanni because the Commendatore had walked in on Don Giovanni having his way with the Commendatore's daughter - for which Don Giovanni shoved a sword through his gut.  The libretto for Don Giovanni was written by an Italian by the name of Lorenzo da Ponte.  A man whose destiny it would someday be to become... a greengrocer in Astoria, New York.

But that's a story for another day.