Mozart Minute: Mozart's Broken Heart

On his trip from Paris back home to Salzburg in late 1778, Mozart journeyed through Mannheim and Kaysersheim to Munich, the new home of the soprano Aloysia Weber, for whom Mozart had something of a love jones. Four years later, Mozart ended up marrying Aloysia's sister, Constanze. So, how did the Aloysia subplot come unraveled? Mozart arrived in Munich to find that Aloysia, who at one time at least somewhat reciprocated Mozart's affections, had, in that sense, moved on. Mozart was bereft. He wrote to his father on December 29, 1778: "I am saving up everything until our happy and joyous meeting, for today I can only weep. I have far too sensitive a heart." He added later, "I have naturally a bad handwriting, as you know, for I never learnt to write; but all my life I have never written anything worse than this letter; for I really cannot write - my heart is too full of tears. I hope you will write to me soon and comfort me." (Translation by Emily Anderson) Leopold did write to his son on December 31, and reminded him that he and others had provisionally secured for Wolfgang an appointment as court organist in Salzburg and that Wolfgang - four months later - had yet to accept the position. The situation, however, was apparently nothing a paternal guilt trip couldn't salvage. "You will understand me when I tell you," Leopold wrote, "that people are saying to my face that you are treating the Prince - and, what is worse, your own father, as a fool; and that I could not say anything if the prince were to take back" the appointment. The official certificate of Mozart's appointment as court organist was signed on January 17, 1779. Nothing else was said on the subject of Mozart's broken heart.