Mozart's Grand Tour in Italy

Introduction Back in the 17th and 18th centuries, people went on grand tours across Europe for a variety of reasons, but mainly to become cultured and cosmopolitan through exposure to classical antiquity, and the spread of new ideas. Perceived as the capital of music, Italy was the destination of young musicians on their grand tours (Sadie, 176). In many ways, Italy was a finishing school for musicians. As Mozart’s Grand Tour was his finishing school, my thesis on Mozart’s Grand Tour of Italy will conclude my studies here at this institution. I hope that this capstone will take the reader on a Grand Tour of Italy to trace the points in Mozart’s journey that were pivotal in his development as a traveler, student, composer, and individual. In a world dominated by social media, we tell our stories all the time, but we cover it in filters. Although Mozart’s story has long been told by generations of biographers, scholars, and musicologists, it too has been filtered. My capstone searches for what principles drive each revision of Mozart scholarship. There is a “long-standing biographical tradition that Mozart was fundamentally a ‘genius-in-isolation,’ largely untouched (except in negative ways) by the world around him” (Eisen, 3). Historically, we have fetishized the idea of a lone Mozart born with talents cultivated away from the public eye. While I can neither assert nor disregard his prodigious skills, I believe that we can somewhat trace Mozart’s development, or at the very least, find what may have influenced him during his Grand Tour. When we study history, we do so by looking through a lens of the present. This capstone will alternate between passages of my own narrative of present-day Italy and Mozart’s unfiltered narrative of eighteenth century Italy. While abroad, my primary method of study was observation. Over the course of my travels, I kept a detailed journal of my observations, experiences, and emerging questions. I searched for evidence that Mozart still has a place in Italy through displays, statues, or plaques. Based on my field notes, I wrote letters home, like Mozart, and excerpts of those letters are interspersed through the narrative. The letters composed by the Mozart family during the Grand Tours are particularly interesting because they include details on what eighteenth-century society was like. My intention is to present young Wolfgang as accurately as possible, and to gleam significance from the things that Mozart saw and did while in Italy. Up until now, in the vast collection of Mozart scholarship, the records of Mozart’s Grand Tour in Italy have been organized chronologically (Barenreiter). By researching his Grand Tour and organizing it by theme and location, I hope to gain a better sense of who Mozart was and what makes his image and music endure through time. Between 1769 and 1773, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and his father Leopold Mozart traveled to Italy three times. The first and longest trip, which I consider to be the Grand Tour, was about fifteen months and lasted from December 1769 to March 1771. This tour was largely paid for by nobility or public concerts and was more focused on Mozart’s growth as a musician and composer. The second and third visits were focused on securing a position in high society. The second trip to Italy was from August 1771 to December 1771, lasting about four months, and the third trip was from October 1772 to March 1773. When they first left Salzburg in December 1769, young Mozart was 13 years old. By the time they reached Milan in January 1770, he was about to turn 14, and this is where his grand tour truly began. Playing for Free in Milan On my Grand Tour, I arrived in Milan on June 26th, 2017 just in time to see the last performance of Mozart’s “Die Entführung aus dem Serail” or “The Abduction of the Seraglio” (figure 1) before the performance schedule switched back to the ever popular “La Bohème.” Both a museum and functioning opera house, La Scala is beautifully lined with red velvet and gold ornamentation everywhere (figure 2). In the center of the auditorium there was a large, ornate chandelier that glistened with hundreds of glittering crystals. When I visited the museum, I was in awe. Never changing, the lower floor contained thousands of historic relics like the portraits and batons of famous singers and conductors. There were beautiful costumes worn by opera singers on display and historic instruments behind glass cases. In contrast to the preservation and old style of the lower floor, the upper floor exhibit was equipped with monitors showing short documentaries, headphones playing samples of music, and interactive displays. There was a small section on the upper floor that listed famous figures at La Scala, and I noticed that Mozart was not there. On his first Grand Tour, Mozart arrived in Milan on January 23rd, 1770, and both Leopold and Wolfgang wrote home on the 26th. Leopold’s letter to his wife account of their first few days of travel and how nerve-wracking their finances seem. You must know, that neither this concert in Mantua nor the one in Verona were given for money, for everybody goes in free; in Verona this privilege belongs only to the nobles who alone keep up these concerts; but in Mantua the nobles, the military class and the eminent citizens may all attend them, because they are subsidized by Her Majesty the Empress. You will easily understand that we shall not become rich in Italy and you will admit that we shall do well enough if we earn our travelling expenses; and these I have always earned (Anderson, 108: Letter 77). Wolfgang’s letter to his sister (Anderson, 110: Letter 77a), gives a very detailed account of Demetrio, an opera he saw in Mantua. His lengthy letter gives a recap of every singer in the opera and his own appraisal of their talents. From it, I sense how excited Mozart is to take in opera, the music of Italy. Here we have a boy and his father traveling around Italy for quite a few different reasons. Leopold Mozart, while ever worrying about day-to-day finances, is also concerned with eventually finding Wolfgang a permanent position somewhere where his son can have financial security and well-being. Accordingly, he is always networking with the nobles, asking for an audience, giving free concerts, and taking commissions. Wolfgang is much more carefree. He is motivated to travel to hear and absorb as much as he can. Other than the occasional bad weather, the stresses of travel do not sit as heavily on Wolfgang’s shoulder as they do on his father. The pair stayed in Milan for two months, performing and composing for Count Firmian, governor of Lombardy, when on March 13th, Wolfgang received a commission to write his first Italian opera, Mitridate, Rè di Ponto (Anderson, 118: Letter 83). After the matter was set in stone, they set off with letters of introduction from Count Firmian for Parma, Florence, Rome, and Naples. They had to leave straightaway if they wanted to make it to Rome in time for Passion week. Pirating the Miserere in Rome On June 6th, 2017, I visited Saint Peter’s Basilica and the Vatican museum. I climbed the narrow staircase up to the top of Saint Peter’s Basilica, and from up there it seemed like I could see all of Rome (figure 3). I went back down to join the masses as we dawdled through the museum. When I reached the Sistine Chapel, the crowd was silent. Everyone stared at the walls and ceiling in awe. I craned my neck up to see Michelangelo’s paintings—images that changed the course of Western art history. The room felt heavy with soundless reverence. When a man dropped his notebook, all eyes were on him. It was hard to imagine what it must be like to hear mass in the Sistine Chapel. For four months, Rome had constant rain. Completely drenched, Leopold and Wolfgang had trudged through uncultivated country to attend mass two days in a row at the Sistine Chapel to hear the Miserere. On April 14th, 1770, Leopold wrote home to his wife (Anderson, 127: Letter 87). You have often heard of the famous Miserere in Rome, which is so greatly prized that the performers in the chapel are forbidden on pain of excommunication to take away a single part of it, to copy it or to give it to anyone. But we have it already. Wolfgang has written it down… as it is one of the secrets of Rome, we do not wish to let it fall into other hands, ut non incurramus mediate vel immediate in censuram Ecclesiae (so that we shall not incur the censure of the Church now or later). The Miserere of Gregorio Allegri (1582-1652) from Psalm 51 was commissioned by Pope Clement XIV in the 1630s as an exclusive hymn for use in the Sistine Chapel. For almost 140 years, that proclamation was honored, and only those attending services in the Sistine Chapel would hear the Miserere. With his talent, Wolfgang wrote down the entire piece note for note from memory. To be as accurate as possible, it must be emphasized that Wolfgang had the opportunity to attend mass a second time to hear the Miserere once more to compare his score with the sung version. The Miserere is a piece that stands out to most people, due to the soaring high C sung by the boy treble.

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