Constanze Mozart

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Constanze Mozart
Carl Thomas and Franz Xaver Mozart, sons of Mozart

Maria Constanze Caecilia Josepha Johanna Aloisia Mozart née Constanze Weber; (* 5. January 1762 in Zell im Wiesental , † 6. March 1842 in Salzburg ) was an Austrian soprano and executor of the works of her husband Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart . She was the cousin of Carl Maria von Weber .

Life

Constanze Mozart was the third of four daughters of Franz Fridolin Weber and Maria Cäcilia Cordula Stamm. The family had lived in Mannheim since July 1764 , where the father was the bassist and copyist at the theater and the second oldest sister Aloisia was a coloratura soprano . It was there that Mozart and Constanze Weber met in 1777. However, Mozart initially fell in love with her sister Aloisia. In 1781 Mozart met the Weber family, who had meanwhile moved to Vienna . Aloisia had meanwhile married Joseph Lange . In Vienna Mozart lived with the Webers for a while, but had to change his apartment “because of the talk of the people”.

On 4 August 1782, the two were married with dispensation from the three-time squad . Judging from Mozart's letters, it was a happy marriage. She gave him the inspiration he needed for his compositions. Several works have been written for her, including the soprano part of the Great C minor Mass , which she was supposed to sing at the premiere in the St. Petersburg Church in Salzburg . She also accompanied him on most of his travels.

During her marriage to Mozart, Constanze was pregnant six times in eight years, which drained her strength to such an extent that she was repeatedly confined to bed. Four of the children Raimund Leopold (1783), Carl Thomas (1784–1858), Johann Leopold (1786), Theresia (1787), Anna (1789) and Franz Xaver Wolfgang (1791–1844) died as infants. She was also burdened by frequent moves and the lack of money in recent years.

After Mozart's death in 1791, Constanze was left alone with her two children and her husband's debts. In order to support herself and the children, she and her sister Aloisia organized several benefit concerts and in 1795/96 a concert tour with Mozart's works. She brought the children to the Vila Bertramka estate belonging to the befriended couple Josepha and Franz Xaver showerk near Prague . She did not sell the remaining autographs by Mozart immediately, but only at the turn of the year 1799/1800 to the Offenbach music publisher Johann Anton André . Ten years later, in 1809, married Constanze in Bratislava Georg Nikolaus Nissen , a Danish legation secretary and diplomat, with whom she in 1810 after Copenhagen moved. The couple traveled to Germany between 1820 and 1824 before moving to Salzburg in August 1824. Here at the latest, she and her husband began working on one of the first biographies about W. A. ​​Mozart. Nissen died in 1826. Constanze published the biography in 1828.

Gravestone of Constantia Nissen in the inner courtyard of the Sankt Sebastian cemetery in Salzburg

In 1826 her widowed sister Sophie moved in with her and looked after her until her death. The remains of Constanze are buried in the grave of the Nissen / Mozart family in the Sankt Sebastian cemetery in Salzburg. Her father-in-law Leopold Mozart is not buried in this grave, but his bones lie in the communal crypt of Sankt Sebastian.

Allegedly Constanze Mozart 1840

In 2005 a copy of a daguerreotype allegedly from 1840 was found in Altötting , on which the 78-year-old Constanze is supposed to be shown together with the family of the composer Max Keller . The authenticity was questioned because the daguerreotype had only been invented a year earlier and no other open-air group pictures from this time have survived ( Carl Ferdinand Stelzner's recording of the Hamburg Artists' Association dates from 1843). An investigation by the Bavarian State Criminal Police Office came to the conclusion that several features on the old lady's face can also be found in earlier portraits of Constanze. The photo was probably taken by the Burghausen artist Karl Klemens della Croce , a grandson of Johann Nepomuk della Croce .

reception

2006 was the "musical comedy" The Weberischen of Felix Mitterer , which tells the story of Constanze Mozart and her family, premiered by the United Stages of Vienna.

In 2006, Heidi Knoblich published the biographical novel Constanze Mozart nee Weber . On her initiative, a new floribunda rose from the breeding company W. Kordes' sons Constanze Mozart was named and christened by Countess Bettina Bernadotte on July 13, 2012 . On July 29th, a flower bed planted with Constanze Mozart was ceremoniously unveiled in the city park of Constanze's birthplace, Zell.

literature

Web links

Commons : Constanze Mozart  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Wedding book - 02-074 | 01., Vienna - St. Stephan | Vienna, rk. Archdiocese (eastern Lower Austria and Vienna) | Austria | Matricula Online. Retrieved October 25, 2017 .
  2. Georg Nikolaus von Nissen : WA Mozart’s biography . Ed .: Constanze, widow von Nissen, formerly widow Mozart. Breitkopf and Härtel, Leipzig 1828, urn : nbn: de: bvb: 12-bsb10600192-7 .
  3. ^ Haibel (Haibl), Sophie. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 2, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 1959, p. 148.
  4. Photo discovery: Mozart's widow Constanze is in the picture . In: Spiegel Online . July 6, 2006
  5. Constanze Mozart poses for a photo . In: Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger . July 19, 2006
  6. The riddle about the Constanze photo . In: Badische Zeitung . March 1, 2012
  7. ^ Alfred Zeller: Early photography in Altötting: 1840 to 1934 . Sutton Verlag GmbH, 2013, ISBN 978-3-95400-298-6 ( google.de [accessed January 1, 2020]).
  8. Rose "Constanze Mozart". In: Tourismus-BW. Retrieved October 12, 2019 .
  9. Roswitha Frey: "Constanze Mozart" blossoms in Zell. In: Badische Zeitung . July 31, 2012, accessed October 12, 2019 .