Mozart: A Life in Letters: A Life in Letters Read Online Free

absolutely consistent between different regions of Austria and thalers could be either Reichsthalers
(1½
florins) or Konventionsthalers (2 florins). Currency conventions in Salzburg were slightly different – 1 Viennese florin was worth about 1 florin 12 kreuzer – and international conventions more complex still. The English pound was approximately 8 or 9 Viennese florins, the French louis d’or was about
7½
florins and the Venetian zecchino about 5 florins. Other currencies are mentioned in the Mozart familyletters as well, including the Bavarian max d’or (similar to the French louis d’or) and the Salzburg half-batzen, a small silver coin whose value cannot now be exactly determined. It is useful, when dealing with currencies, to bear in mind that during the 1760s Leopold Mozart’s basic annual salary in Salzburg was 300 florins and that when Mozart was reappointed to the Salzburg court music in 1779 his and his father’s joint salary was 1,000 florins, including a subsistence allowance. When Mozart was appointed imperial chamber musician in 1787 he received 800 florins salary; and the normal fee for composing an opera for the imperial theatres was 450 florins. To put these figures in perspective, Johann Pezzl, writing in Vienna in 1786, calculated that a single person could live ‘quite comfortably’ on 500 or 550 gulden. 3 It is likely, then, that Mozart and his family could have managed reasonably well, if they were not extravagant and remained healthy, on his income. The cost of living in Salzburg was less.
    I am grateful to Penguin Books for their help and advice in preparing this edition and in particular to Susan Kennedy, who copyedited the text and notes and made innumerable good suggestions for their improvement. I am also grateful to Stewart Spencer, who translated the text and pointed out numerous interesting details to me as well as answering all my questions and setting me straight on a number of matters. He also compiled the index. Finally, my wife, Katy, gave me invaluable advice, as always, and for that I am grateful.

Further Reading
     
Braunbehrens, Volkmar,
Mozart in Vienna
(New York, 1990)
Clive, Peter,
Mozart and his Circle
(New Haven, CT, 1993)
Einstein, Alfred,
Mozart: His Character, His Work
(New York, 1945)
Eisen, Cliff,
New Mozart Documents
(London, 1991)
Eisen, Cliff and Stanley Sadie, eds.,
The New Grove Mozart
(London, 2002)
Eisen, Cliff and Simon P. Keefe, eds.,
The Cambridge Mozart Encyclopedia
(Cambridge, 2005)
Halliwell, Ruth,
The Mozart Family: Four Lives in a Social Context
(Oxford, 1998)
Keefe, Simon P., ed.,
The Cambridge Companion to Mozart
(Cambridge, 2003)
Küster, Konrad,
Mozart: A Musical Biography
(Oxford, 1996)
Landon, H. C. Robbins,
Mozart’s Last Year
(London, 1988)
Schroder, David,
Mozart in Revolt
(London, 1999)

List of Important People
     
ADLGASSER, ANTON CAJETAN (1729—77) Court and cathedral organist in Salzburg from 1750 until his death, and a close friend of the Mozart family; Leopold was a witness at all three of his weddings. He was chiefly a composer of sacred music, and collaborated with Michael Haydn and Mozart on the oratorio
Die Schuldig-keit des ersten Gebots.
Adlgasser died after suffering a stroke while playing the organ; Leopold describedthe event in a letter of 22 December 1777. Mozart succeeded him as court and cathedral organist in 1779.
ARCO FAMILY Head of one of Salzburg’s most illustrious noble families, Georg Anton Felix, Count von Arco (1705—92), chief stewardin Salzburg from 1786, and his wife Maria Josepha Viktoria (née von Hardegg, 1710—75) were among the Mozarts’ greatest supporters at the archbishop’s court. Their son Joseph Adam (1733—1802), bishop of Koniggratz in Bohemia, helped secure Mozart’s appointment as organist at Salzburg in 1779. Another son, Karl Joseph Maria Felix (1743—1830), was a member of Archbishop Colloredo’s household and figured prominently in Mozart’s second departure from Colloredo’s