**** (4 stars)
“A Joy”
Maybe you only know of Mozart from the film Amadeus, or Peter Schaffer’s play of the same name, which makes great drama out of the [mostly fictional] rivalry between the young genius and Imperial Court Composer Salieri. Maybe you know more – of the many tours around Europe when he was a child prodigy, or about the man, his incredible music, his all-too-brief life.
Most people don’t know that Wolfgang Amadeus had an older sister – she’s there in the family portrait in the house in Salzburg where brother Wolfie was born. They’re seated side by side at the keyboard, with father Leopold standing magisterially beside the instrument, hand raised as he gives both siblings a lesson.
Anna Maria Mozart, known affectionately as Nannerl, was herself an accomplished musician, whose talent showed itself at an early age. Her brother’s talent became apparent even earlier, and canny Leopold took them both on extended tours round the courts of the great and good all over Europe, receiving lavish gifts but not the patronage or employment he so obviously hoped for. Wolfgang went on to make a name for himself, though never a fortune: Nannerl slips out of the picture in her teenage years, and most people know nothing more about her.
In The Other Mozart, created and written by Sylvia Milo, she and Daniela Galli alternate in the role of Nannerl, who stands centre stage, surrounded by a vast circle of fabric which is strewn with letters and sheets of manuscript paper. The story we hear is drawn from facts, stories, and extracts from the Mozart family’s letters to each other – copious amounts of letters, since they wrote constantly to each other while travelling between or living in different cities.
Just as Amadeus is narrated from the extremely jealous standpoint of supposedly talentless Salieri, the Other Mozart is a potentially very biased narrative from a jealous older sister. Potentially, I say – what comes over is Nannerl’s massive feeling of frustration. She, as I’ve said, demonstrated great musical talent from an early age, and her father was very happy to develop and encourage her: and then Wolfgang was born and everything changed.
I don’t know if Nannerl was jealous of her younger brother or loved him to bits: nor, indeed, do I know if her talent was less than his. What is known is that Nannerl and Wolfie were exhibited a bit like performing animals or talented pets – always with Wolfie getting to do the really showy bits – until his sister was in her mid-teens. And then it all stopped for Nannerl – she was sent home to be with her mother while her brother and father continued touring.
A constant thread running through this show is the outrageously low opinion of women prevalent in Europe in the 18th century. Women’s brains were lesser than men’s: thinking and reasoning would make them ill. Their function was simply to be decorative, to please and support their husband, and of course to reproduce. It was acceptable for them to play a keyboard instrument, but most definitely not an orchestral instrument. And of course, they were incapable of composition…. After a certain age, it was inappropriate for Nannerl to perform in public – it would seriously lessen her chances of making a suitable marriage. She could, however, continue to play – “music will be your ornament, with which you will please your husband”.
In Vienna, the Mozarts had met and been impressed by the musicality of Marianna Martines, an unmarried woman who was a pupil of Haydn’s. She played her own compositions in public, to loud acclaim. But Nannerl couldn’t hope to emulate her – Martines was of noble birth and had money, while Nannerl had neither. Back home in Salzburg, Nannerl endured lessons in ‘womanliness’ and housekeeping from her mother while continuing to receive letters from her father and brother telling of all the latter’s troubles and triumphs.
And the story goes on – very little detail about Wolfgang’s career and compositions, some really bitchy reactions to his marriage to Constance Weber, and virtually nothing about the deaths of her father and brother. We hear quite a lot about her unrealised hopes of marriage to ‘Franz’ and her subsequent marriage to a member of the nobility: as his third wife, which entailed looking after five stepchildren in addition to the three she bore herself. We also learn of the blossoming of her reputation later in her life, as she became the guardian of her brother’s reputation and works, and was appreciated for her own musical talents, only to be forgotten again after her death.
Today’s show, with Daniela Galli as Anna Maria Mozart and a vast range of other characters, kept the audience engaged, amused and thoroughly entertained. She paced around the set, drew props out of concealed pockets in the frills of the vast skirt covering the stage, picked up and read from some of the innumerable letters strewn around. Centre stage was a strange construction, which at first sight could have been the skeleton of a strange creature from a sci-fi movie. It turned out to be the framework for a corset and the support for the panniers of an eighteenth-century frock, into which at times Daniela strapped herself, mirroring the constricting conventions imprisoning women of the time. It was a joy to see her, at the end of the show, rise up from the floor and grow into the tall, graceful, whole, talented woman Nannerl Mozart should have been allowed to be.
The Other Mozart, Studio 2, Assembly George Square ( Venue 17), for more information go to: https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/the-other-mozart
ScotsGay Arts 