Mozart's Sister by Nancy Moser Page A

I could become
a great woman of music. I could do what no woman had done
before. I could challenge the system and change society for the
better.
    Couldn't I?
    Perhaps. But first I had to learn all that I could on our travels
and become the best musician I could be. So help me God.

    Ludwig burg had been unlike Augsburg, Heidelberg unlike Lud-
wigburg, and Mannheim unlike Heidelberg. As the month of July
passed, we discovered that every locale had its own unique flavor.
    For one thing, the religious customs along the journey were
very different to us. Catholics, Lutherans, Calvinists, and Jews, all
living together. It was quite extraordinary. There were no fonts for
holy water in our rooms. Nor crucifixes. We found this more interesting than distressing. Our own Salzburg had expelled all the
Lutherans back in 1730, so we'd never known anything but what
the archbishop decreed from his Residenz. To see that there were
other ways of living, of thinking, of worshiping ...
    And dressing. In one inn we met a man from England whose
trouser-waist was high under his arms with a coat that hung down
to the middle of his calves. Add to this, old-fashioned narrow boot
sleeves. The man bathed every other day in the Main River, just
before the dining hour, coming to the table looking very much like
a baptized mouse.
    But in spite of our mocking in private about the odd fashion
and customs, Papa bought a new pair of boots and I got a broad-
brinmied English hat. How I loved walking the streets in it. I felt
quite grown-up and worldly, as if I could be a new kind of woman.
In Salzburg I would have received taunts. Oh, how large the world
had become.
    Although we missed the duke, we did get to play in a few towns
along the way to Mannheim, where we heard the most luscious
orchestra. There was a saying that "Prussian tactics and Mannheim
music place the Germans in the van of all nations" We found that
to be true. The people of Mannheim employed impeccable musicians, who looked upon their conductor as a musical emperor, yielding to his every wish.
    The orchestra employed a new phenomenon called cresceudo and
decrescendo, where the music's volume swelled and faded, forcing the
audience into alternating moments of ecstasy and straining to hear
the music. Such interpretation made my heart swell and pound. If
only I could attain such variations on the keyboard. But there I had
little control. Once depressed, the key of a clavier pressed the string
at one volume. Perhaps someday some brilliant inventor would cre ate a way to monitor the loud and soft for keyboards too.

    Unlike Ulm, Papa liked the look of Mannheim-especially at
night. He found nothing more beautiful than one of Mannheim's
illuminated prospects. And the terraces, waterways, and fountains ... it was a lovely place, one that was difficult to leave.
    And yet, we had no other choice.
    We traveled next to Frankfurt, where Papa decided to advertise
a public concert. He appealed to "all those who took pleasure in
extraordinary things" and promised that I, a girl of twelve, and my
brother, a boy of seven, would play concertos and sonatas, and that
Wolfie would play both the violin and keyboard. But then Papa titillated the audience with our importance by adding, "Further, be it
known that this will be the only concert inasmuch as immediately
afterward they are to continue their journey to France and England."
    Mama made a tsk-tsk sound when she saw the announcement,
because we didn't have any pressing engagements in France and
England and he made it sound as if people were waiting for us with
bated breath.
    But it worked. And after we'd done our first concert, Papa
advertised that, because of the request of "several great connoisseurs
and amateurs," we'd been convinced to stay on and do additional
concerts. Through five public concerts, Papa had Wolfie do the note
game, where he would name notes that people sounded-in singular, or in chords, on any