Mozart's Sister (9 page)

But this time I did not move to pull him safely inside.

The logistics of our journey kept my mind off the inequities of
being female. For the most part.

Yet by the very nature of the different people, traditions, and
lands we experienced along the way, I found myself gaining hope
that somehow, in some place, life could be different. I could become
a great woman of music. I could do what no woman had done
before. I could challenge the system and change society for the
better.

Couldn't I?

Perhaps. But first I had to learn all that I could on our travels
and become the best musician I could be. So help me God.

Ludwig burg had been unlike Augsburg, Heidelberg unlike Lud-
wigburg, and Mannheim unlike Heidelberg. As the month of July
passed, we discovered that every locale had its own unique flavor.

For one thing, the religious customs along the journey were
very different to us. Catholics, Lutherans, Calvinists, and Jews, all
living together. It was quite extraordinary. There were no fonts for
holy water in our rooms. Nor crucifixes. We found this more interesting than distressing. Our own Salzburg had expelled all the
Lutherans back in 1730, so we'd never known anything but what
the archbishop decreed from his Residenz. To see that there were
other ways of living, of thinking, of worshiping ...

And dressing. In one inn we met a man from England whose
trouser-waist was high under his arms with a coat that hung down
to the middle of his calves. Add to this, old-fashioned narrow boot
sleeves. The man bathed every other day in the Main River, just
before the dining hour, coming to the table looking very much like
a baptized mouse.

But in spite of our mocking in private about the odd fashion
and customs, Papa bought a new pair of boots and I got a broad-
brinmied English hat. How I loved walking the streets in it. I felt
quite grown-up and worldly, as if I could be a new kind of woman.
In Salzburg I would have received taunts. Oh, how large the world
had become.

Although we missed the duke, we did get to play in a few towns
along the way to Mannheim, where we heard the most luscious
orchestra. There was a saying that "Prussian tactics and Mannheim
music place the Germans in the van of all nations" We found that
to be true. The people of Mannheim employed impeccable musicians, who looked upon their conductor as a musical emperor, yielding to his every wish.

The orchestra employed a new phenomenon called cresceudo and
decrescendo, where the music's volume swelled and faded, forcing the
audience into alternating moments of ecstasy and straining to hear
the music. Such interpretation made my heart swell and pound. If
only I could attain such variations on the keyboard. But there I had
little control. Once depressed, the key of a clavier pressed the string
at one volume. Perhaps someday some brilliant inventor would cre ate a way to monitor the loud and soft for keyboards too.

Unlike Ulm, Papa liked the look of Mannheim-especially at
night. He found nothing more beautiful than one of Mannheim's
illuminated prospects. And the terraces, waterways, and fountains ... it was a lovely place, one that was difficult to leave.

And yet, we had no other choice.

We traveled next to Frankfurt, where Papa decided to advertise
a public concert. He appealed to "all those who took pleasure in
extraordinary things" and promised that I, a girl of twelve, and my
brother, a boy of seven, would play concertos and sonatas, and that
Wolfie would play both the violin and keyboard. But then Papa titillated the audience with our importance by adding, "Further, be it
known that this will be the only concert inasmuch as immediately
afterward they are to continue their journey to France and England."

Mama made a tsk-tsk sound when she saw the announcement,
because we didn't have any pressing engagements in France and
England and he made it sound as if people were waiting for us with
bated breath.

But it worked. And after we'd done our first concert, Papa
advertised that, because of the request of "several great connoisseurs
and amateurs," we'd been convinced to stay on and do additional
concerts. Through five public concerts, Papa had Wolfie do the note
game, where he would name notes that people sounded-in singular, or in chords, on any instrument, or even clocks. Wolfie also did
the covered-keys trick and improvised for extended lengths of time.
He was very talented. I would never take anything away from my
brother's prowess.

And I did well too-actually my very best toward my effort to
become a musician who could not be ignored in spite of her gender.
I heard Papa say, "Nannerl can be compared with the boy, for she
plays in such a way that everyone speaks of her and admires her
fluency." It was a victory that made me want to try even harder.

Wolfie's penchant for saying whatever came into his head nearly
got him in trouble in Mainz. The violin virtuoso Karl Michael Esser
played the clavier, and Wolfie told him that he did well, but he did
too much, and it would be better to play just what was written. Actually, my brother was right. Esser wasn't that good at improvising and thus should not have attempted it. But for Wolfie to say so ... we
all hoped he would gain discretion with his years.

Along the way, Wolfie got the Schnupfen, the sniffles, and we
had to slow down, taking an expensive riverboat up the Rhine
because the roads were so drenched. The river towns were less than
clean. Papa had feared we would have carriage trouble and opted to
put the carriage on the boat and go that way. So many castles-on
nearly every crest of every hill, on either side of the river, there was
a castle looming down on us. Wolfie and I chose which ones we
liked the best and claimed them as our own. I preferred the ones
facing west, the ones that were bathed in the colors of the sunset. I
would have a Castle Nannerl. I would share it with a husband and
many children. But there would also be a grand music room with
space for a large audience. And I would have my very own workroom in a parapet that would offer a glorious view of the Rhine,
inspiring me to achieve great heights of music-music that would
provide us with a good living. After all, I did need to be practical.

We all did. Money was always an issue: earning it and dealing
with it. For even the smallest principality had its own coins, and
Papa had trouble getting a good exchange rate for Bavarian money.
He also received a few letters from Herr Hagenauer suggesting we
not spend so much and not stay in such nice places. We'd already
spent over a thousand gulden, but Papa said other people had paid
for the expenditure. And we had to keep our health and our reputation in mind. We had to travel like nobles if we were to be associated with them. Every time I played I wondered how much we
would receive-and when. The presents were very nice-we
received a beautiful set of bottles valued at four ducats, a snuff box,
a toothpick case, a ring, and a piece of embroidery (Papa said we
would soon have enough items to rig out a stall). But money was
always best. Money eased the wrinkles in Papa's brow

Some places were profitable, and others were not. In one concert given to a small group of nobles, they were more interested in
eating and drinking than in our music. But most audiences were
very appreciative.

By the end of September we were in Cologne, but we found
the cathedral there in a horrible state, like a stable. The pulpit that Martin Luther had preached from was held up by a brick, and the
furniture was in disrepair. We tried to go into the choir area, but it
was closed to visitors. Yet what was worse was when we were met
by a drunken priest, who greeted us and was eager to show off a
display of the cathedral's treasures.

Papa wondered if it wouldn't be more edifying to get the house
of God into a clean condition rather than to have jewels, gold, and
silver-with which numerous saints' bones were thickly encasedlying in iron chests and shown for money. And the boys' choir
shrieked more than sang. All this put Papa in a mood. I reminded
Wolfie to be especially good.

Along the next leg of the journey, traveling west toward Brussels
by way of Aachen, we met Princess Amalia, the sister of the king of
Prussia. Yet even though she was a princess, she didn't have any
money. Her traveling party was quite Spartan, not royal at all. Yet if
the kisses she gave us could have been transferred to gulden, we
would have been rich. But neither the innkeeper nor the postmaster
was paid in kisses. She even tried to get us to not go to Paris but to
Berlin instead. Papa thought this ridiculous, for Paris was to be the
jewel in our tour.

And there was more that the princess offered Papa... .
Although Papa spoke of it in hushed tones to Mama, there were
implications that one of her proposals was of a more intimate kind.
I thought less of her because of that. And yet, for her to be intrigued
with Papa ... he was a handsome man. So tall. So proud. He had a
way of holding himself that made a person believe anything he said,
that made a person want to be whatever he wanted them to be.
Whatever kind of person I wanted myself to be.

How I strived to be that person as we continued on our Grand
Tour.

Oh, to be alone, to have five minutes to myself.

Cramped quarters, cramped carriages, being together every hour
of every day ...

One autumn afternoon in Brussels, while we were waiting for
Prince Charles to summon us for a concert (weeks we waited),
Mama needed some black headache powder from the apothecary,
so I offered to go. Alone. At first Papa objected, worrying that I
would feel uncomfortable venturing out on my own in such a
strange place.

He was correct, of course, but my discomfort was eclipsed by
my desire-alas, even my need-to be away from family. To walk
among strangers, where nothing was expected of me except to stay
on my side of the street, was akin to taking a cure. It was a refreshment, and as I walked I felt my nerves ease back beneath my skin.
When my lungs filled with deep breaths of tranquility, I realized
how short and constrained my breathing had become of late, mimicking the jerks of the carriage or the hurry-hurry as Papa herded
us toward our next performance.

Since Brussels was such a large city, I blended in. I was interested
in the wooden shoes. How awkward to walk on a surface that did
not give way, and yet ... the wood might have been a good buffer
against the cobblestones. My leather shoes felt every stone, every
juncture.

I walked past the shops and stalls selling lace and tapestries, and
saw interesting vegetables called Brussels sprouts. So many vendors
plied their trade and called out to me as I passed: coopers, fowlers,
thatchers, bakers, smiths. The ships that took their wares to faraway
places came up the canals in the center of the city on their way to
the sea. The sea. I had never seen the sea....

Or sea gulls. When I first saw the white birds diving and soaring
I had no name for them, but Mama told me what they were. Sea
gulls. Nannerl from landlocked Salzburg was seeing a bird of the sea!

A gothic cathedral loomed ahead. If Papa and Mama had been
along, we would have gone inside. But I'd seen enough cathedrals,
spent enough time in their cold halls. We'd already gone sightseeing
at other churches and museums here. At one, Papa had stood transfixed in front of a Last Supper altarpiece by Dirk Bouts. His interest
surprised me because I didn't like the piece. At all. The disciples
were too lean and stilted, the perspective odd. I much preferred the
movement of the Bruegel paintings we'd seen at museums that captured the life of the people around me, eating, laughing, playing
games. They told a story that continued, while the Bouts work only
captured a moment that seemed to have no future.

Papa would get after me for saying such a thing about a scene
depicting Jesus, yet it's not the subject I objected to but the cold way
it was portrayed. Even at age twelve I was quite full of opinions.
Taking after Papa, I suppose.