Wolfgang Amadeus wasn’t the only talented child in the Mozart family. He had an older sister, Maria Anna, who also toured Europe as a child prodigy.
Maria Anna, known as Nannerl to her family, was the only one of Wolfgang’s siblings to survive infancy. Their parents, Leopold and Anna Maria had had seven children altogether, and had lost five of them when they were infants. The two were exceptionally close as children, even inventing a secret language and a secret, imaginary kingdom of which they were the king and queen.
Their father, Leopold, had always loved music. His parents had intended for him to become a priest, and he received an education appropriate for the calling, but he had other ideas. After receiving his Bachelor of Philosophy degree, he continued his studies but was soon expelled from the Benedictine University for poor attendance, especially in his class in Natural Science. From then on he was free to devote his life to music.
At the time of Maria’s birth, Leopold was fourth violinist for the Count Leopold Anton von Firmian in Salzburg. He was expected to also teach violin and piano to the choirboys of the Salzburg Cathedral, and he did some composition. His compositional work was adequate, but not inspirational. His work as a teacher was exceptional, however, and he published a treatise on violin playing that made his name known throughout Europe.
Given his background, it is natural that Leopold taught music to his own children. He began with Maria Anna when she was seven years old, teaching her to play the harpsichord. Three-year-old Wolfgang watched her play, and then started playing himself, by imitating his sister.
Soon both children were talented musicians and composers, and in 1763, their father took them on their first tour of Europe. Maria Anna was 11 years old then, and Wolfgang was just seven. Leopold has secured a leave of absence from his job (he was now Kapellmeister) and the family visited Munich, Frankfort, Brussels, Paris, London, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. Leopold had hoped that the trip would be financially rewarding, but although the monetary rewards were sometimes great, it cost almost as much to travel as their performances earned. Leopold’s greater incentive was the desire to share with the world the miracle of his son’s talent.
Naturally, since he was so young, Wolfgang received the greater share of attention on the trip, but Maria Anna was praised highly too. She, also, was hailed as a prodigy and genius. Her technique was said to be perfect. Like Wolfgang, she composed music, and it is likely that she collaborated on some of his early compositions. Her little brother was composing music before he could write it down — his earliest works were transcribed by his father.
By the time Maria Anna was 18, she was no longer part of the tours. Although she had been hailed as a child prodigy to the approval of her father, once she became a woman, it was unthinkable that she should perform as a professional musician. Composing, too, was out of the question. Once, when her brother announced at a concert that the piece he had just played had been written by his sister, their father forbade Maria to ever compose music again.
From that time on, she remained at home when the family went on tour. Sometimes Leopold toured with Wolfgang, and Maria remained at home with her mother. At other times, Anna Marie took her son on tour, and Maria stayed with her father. She was allowed to give music lessons, however, and the income she earned from teaching piano was used to help finance Wolfgang’s road trips.
While she was still a young woman, Maria Anna fell in love with a captain named Franz d’Ippold, but her father forbade her to marry him. Leopold apparently chased away several suitors — it was convenient to have Maria Anna at home. Eventually, she did marry. At the age of 32 (quite old for a woman in those times) she married Johann Baptist von Berchtold, a wealthy widower with five children from his two previous marriages. Maria helped raise these children, and eventually bore three of her own.
Maria Anna’s first child was a boy, named Leopold after his grandfather. She returned to her family home to give birth, and, when she returned to her husband, she left the infant behind with her father. (Her mother had died several years before.) Leopold sent a letter to his son-in-law, stating that he would prefer to raise the infant himself for the first few months. The following year, he arranged to take on the child indefinitely.
Maria had always been one to acquiesce to her father’s wishes; in fact, her brother had often urged her to stand up for herself. Still, allowing her father to raise her only child does seem a extreme, even for a dutiful daughter. Leopold seems to have been genuinely fond of the child, however. Letters from him were filled with delightful anecdotes about the child. It was said that he persuaded Little Leopold to go to sleep by pretending to sleep himself in the child’s bed. Little Leopold would then turn him out and insist on going to bed himself.
It may be that Leopold hoped to raise another child prodigy. He certainly did begin giving him the fundamentals of a musical education. On the other hand, it may have been that the other five children in the von Berchtold household were as many as Maria Anna could handle — she was sometimes in bad health, and occasionally seemed to suffer from depression.
Although Maria and Wolfgang had been very close as children, as adults they seem to have lost track of each other, and were rarely in contact. After 1783 (when Wolfgang made a visit to his father that was unpleasant for all concerned), the two never saw each other again, and barely corresponded.
Maria Anna found herself a widow in 1801 and returned to Salzburg, accompanied by two of her children and four step-children. She earned her living as a music teacher for as long as she was able, and died — blind, feeble, and lonely — in 1829.
Sources: Chase’s Calendar of Events, 2011 Edition: The Ultimate Go-To Guide for Special Days, Weeks and Months, Editors of Chase’s Calendar of Events; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_30; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Anna_Mozart; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopold_Mozart; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozart_family_Grand_Tour; “Maria Anna Mozart: The Family’s First Prodigy,” Smithsonian.com; http://www.historyandwomen.com/2010/08/maria-anna-mozart.html; http://www.mozartways.com/content.php?id=1184&m;_id=1184&m;=3; http://www.mozartproject.org/biography/mozart_n.html.
