DIE MOZARTIN

ANNA MARIA WALBURGA PERTL (1720 - 1778), who after marriage was called Anna Maria Mozart, was the mother of the famous composer.

When we think of Mozart, the prodigy boy who added musical juggling from an early age (at five he was already doing this, at six he was already composing , at seven he was already playing like that, and now with his eyes covered with a blindfold, and with his back to the instrument , etc etc etc), we invariably (and rightly) admire his genius. In the same measure, we forget, more or less voluntarily, the genius of her sister Maria Anna Walburga Ignatia, known as “Nannerl”, who as a child also added these musical skills in the same way, but who had to learn from an early age that much before of talent, to make a career what counted was gender!

When we think of Mozart, we often think also of the father, the composer and violinist Leopold Mozart, who took his children (later only his son) around Europe on tour, as it was like to do with these and other boys musically gifted, to play and amuse a whole host of aristocrats and wealthy people. About Leopold, who maintained a very close relationship with his son until the end of his life and whose correspondence with him has been widely published and scrutinized, we have an enormous bibliography, in which he is sometimes characterized as a calculating father who exposed his children as numbers from the circus and robbed them of their childhood for his own benefit, now as a loving father who, seeing the abilities of the little ones, tried in every way to ensure them a good future, aspiring to a good marriage for his daughter and, for his son, good graces from any patron who wanted him in his service.

But about Anna Maria, the children's mother, little or nothing is written or known. And yet, she too accompanied her children on tour; she too kept up with her son (and with her husband) a vast amount of correspondence, and it was she who, in her husband's time of absence, occupied herself with running Leopold's violin school.

Anna Maria Walburga Pertl was born in St. Gilgen on December 25, 1720. She was the daughter of Nicolas Pertl, high administrative official of the castle of Huettenstein, and his wife Euphrosina (or Eva Rosina) Altmann. At the age of 4, she lost her father, having gone to live with her mother and sisters in Salzburg, in a life marked by misery, a survival conquered every day with the alms that her mother received, and which cost a woman's life sister and almost hampered hers. In 1747, at the age of 27, she married Leopold, who was at the time a court chamber composer, and from then on became known as “die Mozartin” (the mozartina). Of the couple's seven children, only two survived the first year of life: Nannerl and Wolfgang.

Between 1762 and 1769, She accompanied his son on his trips to Munich, Vienna, Pressburg, Mannheim and several other cities in the German states, Belgium and the Netherlands. From the correspondence with her husband, several things emerge: first, that she knew how to read and write, which for a poor woman was not at all implied; second, that she loved to travel, despite all the many inconveniences that eighteenth-century travel entailed. Most amazing of all, she was the one in charge of organizing and managing the trips, many of them made without husband. In a time without internet, when tour guides were a mirage of what they are today and distances that now last a few hours implied days and weeks on the road, forcibly staying overnight at various intermediate points, this woman, who had a precarious childhood and was never able to enjoying a careful education, but one that was certainly endowed with a very strong practical sense, managed to take care of all aspects of family travel, from the inn to food and planning the scales and stages. And what is even more admirable: all in foreign countries and without Anna Maria having formally learned the respective languages.

The letters also reveal that she was a woman full of a sense of humor, with an active participation in the education of her children, a huge taste for nature and walking, very curious and interested in knowing the tourist attractions of the cities she visited, guiding her, if by them, armed with a map, with the greatest naturalness.

On the last trip, Anna Maria accompanied her son Wolfgang to Paris, so that he could once again try his luck by entering the service of some aristocrat. Leopold had not been allowed to accompany her son and so it was the mother who took it upon herself to accompany the prodigy, then a big boy in his twenties, taking care of all practical matters so that he could concentrate solely on music. The journey began on September 23, 1777 and arrived in Paris in March of the following year. At the end of June, Anna Maria felt suddenly ill and had to go to bed. Fever, headaches, delirium, sudden hearing loss are some of the symptoms described by the son in a letter to his father. On July 3, 1778, at 10:21 pm, aged 57, Anna Maria Mozart died, at 8 Rue du Gros Chenest, in Paris (now Rue du Sentier), in a modest hostel (today pompously nicknamed "Maison Mozart" ), accompanied only by the inconsolable son. She is thought to have been buried in the cemetery of the Church of Saint-Eustache, the exact location of the tomb being completely unknown.

My humble and deep respects for this remarkable woman who gave the world this remarkable genius