Cecilia Weber

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Silhouette of Cäcilia Weber (undated) with handwritten note by Constanze Mozart

Maria Cäcilia Cordula Weber, née Stamm, (born October 23, 1727 in Mannheim , † August 22, 1793 in Vienna ) was the mother of Constanze Weber and thus the mother-in-law of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart .

She was born in Mannheim as the daughter of a secretary to the electoral government in Mannheim Johann Otto Stamm and Sophia Elisabeth Wimmer. Her brothers were Dagobert Stamm, who became a priest, and Johann Arnold Stamm, who became the elector's secret secretary in Munich. One of her brothers brought Cecilia together with her future husband.

She married Franz Fridolin Weber on September 14, 1756 . The two first lived in Zell im Wiesental , the birthplace of their husband. Her four daughters Josepha , Aloysia , Constanze, and Sophie and their son Johann Nepomuk were born there. In 1764 the family moved to Mannheim, where her husband worked as a prompter , court singer and copyist . In Mannheim, Cäcilia gave birth to two other sons, but they only lived a few years.

Cäcilia first met Mozart in 1777 when he came to Mannheim looking for a job. During this stay he fell in love with their daughter Aloysia and mentions her profusely in his letters to his father. This asked him to move away from Mannheim and the Weber family. In March 1778, Mozart traveled to Paris with his mother after he had not found a permanent job in Mannheim.

With the relocation of the electoral residence of Karl Theodor from Mannheim to Munich, most of the staff of the court theater also moved there. The Weber family later also moved to Munich , where both Aloysia and Fridolin had found work at the Deutsches Theater. Here Mozart met them again on his way home to Salzburg and was turned away by Aloysia.

The Weber family moved to Vienna in September 1779 , following Aloysia as her career at the Deutsche Oper there continued. Fridolin died the following month, and Cäcilia struggled with her small widow's pension and Aloysia's earnings to keep her family afloat. In addition, she began to sublet rooms in the apartment, especially to guest musicians.

Aloysia's admirer Joseph Lange asked for her hand at Cäcilia, which also meant a loss of this income. He agreed to support the family with an annual maintenance fee of 600 guilders. Cäcilia later regretted this trade and tried to prevent the marriage. The subsequent lawsuit at the Oberhofmarschallsamt von Lange was granted, but the annual maintenance payments of 700 guilders were heard. On October 31, 1779, the two married in St. Stephen's Cathedral .

Mozart settled in Vienna in 1781, hoping to continue his career there. On May 2, 1781, he moved into Weber's house (in a building called “Zum Auge Gottes”) as a subtenant. Mozart's father urged him to find a new place to stay, but Mozart felt at home with the Webers. He went to the Prater several times with Constanze , but always accompanied by his mother Cecilia. When the talk about Mozart and Constanze increased, Cäcilia asked him to move out of decency. In a letter to his father, Mozart then confessed his love for Constanze. During the engagement, the relationship between Wolfgang and his father, who did not want to give his consent to the marriage, was difficult, as was the relationship between Constanze and her mother Cäcilia. Constanze sought refuge several times with the Baroness von Waldstätten . Wolfgang and Constanze finally married on August 4, 1782 in a small group. The young couple did not move in with Cäcilia as she had wished, but avoided her.

With the birth of Constanze's first child in 1783, the couple began to reconcile with Cäcilia. Constanze's sister Sophie recalled in a letter from 1825:

“Mozarten was always more dear to our blessed mother, and she too; therefore Mozart often came running in a hurry to the Wieden (where our blessed mother and I were staying in the Goldnen Pflug) with a little bag under his arm, which contained coffee and sugar, handed it to our good mother and said: Here, dear Mama, you have it a little snack! She was happy about this like a child. This happened very often. In short, Mozart never came to us empty. "

- Sophie Haibel (née Weber)

Cäcilia died in Wieden (Vienna) .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The genealogical table of the Weber family. Archive of the University of Düsseldorf, accessed on April 4, 2020 .
  2. ↑ a b c d e f Viveca Servatius: Constanze Mozart: A biography . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, August 13, 2018 ( google.de ).
  3. ^ Frank Ziegler: Family Tables for Carl Maria von Weber. October 2012, accessed April 4, 2020 .
  4. ^ German 1965, 172
  5. ^ Johanna Countess Hartenau: Mozart's mother-in-law . In: Central Committee of the Mozart Community in Salzburg (Hrsg.): Mozarteums Mitteilungen . tape 1 , no. 1 . Salzburg November 1918, p. 9–12 , urn : nbn: at: at-moz: 2-64554 ( mozarteum.at [PDF]).
  6. ^ German 1965, 189
  7. ↑ Solomon 1995, 253
  8. ↑ Solomon 1995, 255
  9. ^ Letter from Ms. Sophie Haibel née Weber in Diakovar (Hungary), Mozart's sister-in-law, to Nikolaus von Nissen in Salzburg . In: Arthur Schurig (Ed.): Mozart, Constanze: Letters, Records, Documents 1782 to 1842 . Dresden 1922, p. 159-162 ( zeno.org ).

literature

  • Deutsch, Otto Erich (1965) Mozart: A Documentary Biography . Stanford: Stanford University Press.
  • Solomon, Maynard (1995) Mozart: A Life . Harper Perennial.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Weber, Cecilia
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Weber, Maria Cäcilia Cordula (full name); Tribe, Cäcilia (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Mother-in-law of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
DATE OF BIRTH October 23, 1727
PLACE OF BIRTH Mannheim
DATE OF DEATH August 22, 1793
Place of death Vienna