A Lawsuit Discovered - Lichnowsky Versus Mozart
(c) By Agnes Selby, Guest Writer-Friend
(This article is posted with the kind permission of "Quadrant", first published in January 1992. It is re-printed here in its entirety.)
(c) By Agnes Selby, Guest Writer-Friend
(This article is posted with the kind permission of "Quadrant", first published in January 1992. It is re-printed here in its entirety.)
In 1991 new information surfaced regarding hitherto unknown debt Mozart owed Prince Karl Lichnowsky, which provides another puzzling link with Mozart's elusive past. There is no doubt that a whole new generation of scholars will spend researching and writing about it, changing once again our concept of the great master. Quite recently W. Brauneis came across significant information in a Logbook of the special Court of Aristocrats in Vienna. This entry reminded the Imperial Court Chamber of Vienna on 9th November 1791 to enforce an Order of Attachment of Mozart's possessions and half his salary as Court composer to the amount of 1,435 gulden and 32 kreutzer. Included also were court costs of 24 gulden. The debt was owed to Prince Karl Lichnowsky and was found uncollectable. The research into this new discovery at the time of writing [1992], is still in its infancy. Most of the "Lichnowsky Archives" had been destroyed during the Second World War but an article by Jaroslav Celeda, "Mozart, Beethoven and Lichnowsky" published in Prague in 1967 may reveal some information regarding this matter. Unfortunately this article has so far not been made available to Western scholars by the Czech Music Foundation.
Nothing of the debt is mentioned in any other Mozart literature nor do Constanze Mozart and her second husband Georg Nicolaus Nissen make any reference to it in Nissen's Mozart biography. It does not appear in the list of debts left by Mozart and it is not known whether Lichnowsky waived the debt after Mozart's death. Sophie Haibel, Mozart's sister-in-law, who witnessed his death and gave a vivid description of Mozart's last days to Nissen does not mention Mozart's concern over any such debt nor do other witnesses who surrounded him during his last hours. Until now, no information had surfaced, nor an inkling of such a large amount of money owed to a prince, nor have any papers emerged among the huge amount of literature published about Mozart. He is certainly the most written about composer and among the many scholarly works written about him, there appeared not a single article even suggesting such a possibility. The scandal that this lawsuit would have caused was obviously supressed by the event of Mozart's death less than a month after the verdict. It is possible that the Freemasons suppressed the information and settled the debt quietly to enable Constanze to apply for her widow's pension. It is also possible that Constanze settled the debt from the proceeds of the benefit concerts she organised and the ones organised for her. All these questions may well be answered if and when any exisiting Lichnowsky archives at Castle Hradec (Prague) are made available to interested scholars.
What motivated this litigation is not known and neither is the origin of such a debt. So far we have no information when the debt was incurred. Lichnowsky was Mozart's pupil in composition and a fellow Mason. He was the same age as Mozart and his obsession with music is well documented. When Beethoven first arrived in Vienna he lived with the Lichnowskys in an apartment made available to him in their palace and he received a stipend of 600 gulden a year until he became self-supporting. Many years later after they quarrelled, Lichnowsky would sit in Beethoven's hallway for hours waiting to catch a glimpse of the master. It is difficult therefore to understand why a wealthy prince would go to such lengths to recover a sum of money he could easily have lost in one night, unless it was a debt of honour incurred by gambling. Mozart's income for the year 1791, according to Volkmar Braunbehrens, was between 3,725 and 4,000 gulden. Why was this debt not settled?
The disorder in Mozart's financial affairs is well documented but the time when he was considered a pauper is long gone given the evidence of his excellent income. During the last five years of his life his total recorded earnings (not counting the monies he received at private concerts) amounted to 12,366 gulden, averaging 2,473 gulden annually. Added to this were sums of money earned through recitals and publications bringing his income between 1782 and 1791 to a healthy 4,000 gulden annually. An orchestral player and his family could live comfortably in Vienna on 400 gulden annually. A school teacher received between 150 and 200 gulden and a physician at a major Viennese hospital received the princely sum of 600 gulden a year. Leopold Mozart received 400 gulden annually and managed to live in great comfort, although living expenses were lower in Salzburg.
How did Mozart spend his earnings? According to Leopold Mozart, the household was run very frugally by Constanze and he was not often given to complimenting her. Although Mozart coveted expensive clothes and liked to live in luxury, household expenses did not eat up his earnings.
Constanze's illnesses and pregnancies during the last three years of Mozart's life were costly but the expenses incurred during her visits to Baden, where she was seeking a cure for her ulcerated varicose veins were small. Mozart's letter to Choirmaster Stoll in Baden dated early June 1791 reveals the economy of her stay there: "Will you please find a small apartment for my wife? The rooms I should prefer are those Goldhahn used to occupy on the ground floor at the butcher's." At the time, Constanze was pregnant, her limbs painful from the weight of the child, her body tired from repeated pregnancies and her ulcerated legs would not carry her beyond ground floor accommodation. This puts to rest the theory of the "spendthrift, frivolous wife", courted by numerous men and spending her time and money at the Baden casino. No woman, who had given birth to a child, could invent such a story about an eight months pregnant woman.
Mozart's famous letters to his fellow Mason, Michael Puchberg began in June 1788. The begging nature of the letters makes distressing reading. Again and again he begs for loans. "Your true friendship and brotherly love emboldens me to ask a great favour of you. I still owe you eight ducats. Apart from the fact that at the moment I am not in a position to pay back this sum, my confidence in you is so boundless that I dare to implore you to help me out with a hundred gulden until next week..."
On 17th June 1788 barely two weeks after the above letter he writes: "If you have sufficient regard and friendship for me to assist me for a year or two with one or two thousand gulden, at a suitable rate of interest, you will help me enormously".
On 27th June 1788 he writes: "I am unavoidably obliged to raise money somehow. But good God, in whom can I confide? In no other but you, my best friend!...I should like a fairly substantial sum for a somewhat longer period".
In March 1789 Mozart turned to Franz Hofdemel, the husband of his pupil Magdalena Hofdemel, for a loan of 100 gulden. Shortly thereafter, Prince Karl Lichnowsky amd Mozart departed for Germany. At first many writers believed that this unplanned journey was undertaken by Lichnowsky in order to help Mozart and make his works better known in Prussia. Lately some have suggested that the journey was undertaken with the express purpose for Mozart to earn sufficient money to repay his debt to the Prince. It seems, however, that the purpose of the journey was defeated by the Prince's lavish lifestyle and the unplanned nature of the concert tour. The concerts were badly attended and the cost of staging them exceeded box office takings. In addition, Mozart and Lichnowsky stayed at expensive lodgings They parted in mid-May in Leipzig and Lichnowsky's funds were depleted to such an extent that Mozart had to "lend" him 100 gulden, the very sum he borrowed from Hofdemel before his departure.
It is difficult to imagine that a man of Lichnowsky's wealth would need to "borrow" 100 gulden from Mozart unless it was part payment of Mozart's debt.
Mozart's letter to Constanze of 23rd May 1789 takes on a different meaning when viewed with this debt in mind: "Lichnowsky left me here and so I had to pay for my keep in Podsdam, which is an expensive place. I had to lend him a hundred gulden, as his purse was getting empty. I could not well refuse him; you will know why".
Gambling debts were not discussed openly but were regarded as family secrets. The proverbial "skeleton in the cupboard" often referred to gambling debts. Mozart's addiction led him into shallow friendships and was an antidote to loneliness. During his journey to Mainz in October 1790, we find him lodging directly opposite a casino. (Davies).
The debt remained unpaid and Mozart's begging letters to Puchberg continued. In April 1790 he writes to Puchberg: "Now, however - once more, but for the last time - I call upon you to stand by me to the utmost of your power in this most urgent matter which is going to determine my whole happiness. You know how my present circumstances, were they to become known, would damage the chances of my application to the court, and how necessary it is that they should remain a secret". Puchberg noted on this letter "sent 150 gulden". On 17th May 1790 it appears that Puchberg was "not at home" when Mozart called on him to ask for another loan. In 1790 before his departure for Frankfurt, Mozart pawned all the family valuables, including household furniture.
Mozart's inability to visit Constanze in Baden during 1791 and his constant worry about a "business venture" for which so far there has been no explanation take on a new significance. Equally, his letters to her appear in a new light. Constanze now in her last stages of pregnancy was apparently distressed, as shown in Mozart's letters to her dated 9th July 1791: "Your letter of yesterday made me feel so depressed that I almost made up my mind to let the business slide and drive out to you. But what good would it have done? I should only have had to drive in again at once or, instead of being happy, I should have been most dreadfully worried. The affair must be concluded in a few days, for "Z's" promises were really serious and solemn".
We have no tangible evidence that Mozart gambled but it is remarkable that his friends during the last years of his life were all well-known gamblers.
Schikaneder, the librettist of The Magic Flute, who made a fortune out of this opera alone, died in poverty due to excessive gambling. Hofdemel apparently gambled heavily, requesting a payment of 4,400 gulden from Count Gottfied von Walldorf of Brun in March 1791. Hodemel's shocking suicide may well have been caused by gambling debts. Lichnowsky spent money beyond his means and faced financial ruin during the Napoleonic wars. This in itself provides no evidence that Mozart gambled. The haunting question of what happened to all his earnings, however, remains unanswered.
After his death, Constanze carefully recorded the unpaid bills amounting to a total of 918 gulden and 16 kreutzer; 282 gulden, the largest bill on the list, was owed to Georg Dummer, tailor. There were no debts incurred on behalf of Constanze who obviously continued making her own clothes with the help of a maid. On the other hand, 800 gulden was owed Mozart, monies Constanze was never able to recover.
Lichnowsky continued to live a dissipated life. In the memoirs of the Countess Lulu Thurheim he is described as a "cynical lecher" and a "shameless coward". Be that as it may, his life was embittered due to the rejection by his wife, the Countess Christina Thun-Hohenstein, an excellent pianist and a pupil of Haydn. They continued living together but the Countess made no secret of her utter dislike of her husband and of her revulsion to his sexual advances. It is no wonder that Lichnowsky was described as "the enlightened patron of music and patron saint of the bordellos".
Constanze inheritted Mozart's debts but by 1797 her financial situation was in such fine order that she was able to lend 3,500 gulden mortgage money at six per cent interest to her husband's old friends the Duseks on the Villa Bertramka in Prague. Long before her marriage to Nissen, this able woman was not only surviving but was living in comfort. If Mozart's disastrous finances were caused by gambling, Constanze took this secret to her grave 50 years after Mozart's death.
Agnes Selby.
March 13, 2007, CM Lounge
(Note: Mrs. Agnes Selby is author of Constanze, Mozart's Beloved. Thank you very much, dear Agnes. / Tel)
(c) March 13, 2007. Inspired PenWeb. All rights reserved.
Nothing of the debt is mentioned in any other Mozart literature nor do Constanze Mozart and her second husband Georg Nicolaus Nissen make any reference to it in Nissen's Mozart biography. It does not appear in the list of debts left by Mozart and it is not known whether Lichnowsky waived the debt after Mozart's death. Sophie Haibel, Mozart's sister-in-law, who witnessed his death and gave a vivid description of Mozart's last days to Nissen does not mention Mozart's concern over any such debt nor do other witnesses who surrounded him during his last hours. Until now, no information had surfaced, nor an inkling of such a large amount of money owed to a prince, nor have any papers emerged among the huge amount of literature published about Mozart. He is certainly the most written about composer and among the many scholarly works written about him, there appeared not a single article even suggesting such a possibility. The scandal that this lawsuit would have caused was obviously supressed by the event of Mozart's death less than a month after the verdict. It is possible that the Freemasons suppressed the information and settled the debt quietly to enable Constanze to apply for her widow's pension. It is also possible that Constanze settled the debt from the proceeds of the benefit concerts she organised and the ones organised for her. All these questions may well be answered if and when any exisiting Lichnowsky archives at Castle Hradec (Prague) are made available to interested scholars.
What motivated this litigation is not known and neither is the origin of such a debt. So far we have no information when the debt was incurred. Lichnowsky was Mozart's pupil in composition and a fellow Mason. He was the same age as Mozart and his obsession with music is well documented. When Beethoven first arrived in Vienna he lived with the Lichnowskys in an apartment made available to him in their palace and he received a stipend of 600 gulden a year until he became self-supporting. Many years later after they quarrelled, Lichnowsky would sit in Beethoven's hallway for hours waiting to catch a glimpse of the master. It is difficult therefore to understand why a wealthy prince would go to such lengths to recover a sum of money he could easily have lost in one night, unless it was a debt of honour incurred by gambling. Mozart's income for the year 1791, according to Volkmar Braunbehrens, was between 3,725 and 4,000 gulden. Why was this debt not settled?
The disorder in Mozart's financial affairs is well documented but the time when he was considered a pauper is long gone given the evidence of his excellent income. During the last five years of his life his total recorded earnings (not counting the monies he received at private concerts) amounted to 12,366 gulden, averaging 2,473 gulden annually. Added to this were sums of money earned through recitals and publications bringing his income between 1782 and 1791 to a healthy 4,000 gulden annually. An orchestral player and his family could live comfortably in Vienna on 400 gulden annually. A school teacher received between 150 and 200 gulden and a physician at a major Viennese hospital received the princely sum of 600 gulden a year. Leopold Mozart received 400 gulden annually and managed to live in great comfort, although living expenses were lower in Salzburg.
How did Mozart spend his earnings? According to Leopold Mozart, the household was run very frugally by Constanze and he was not often given to complimenting her. Although Mozart coveted expensive clothes and liked to live in luxury, household expenses did not eat up his earnings.
Constanze's illnesses and pregnancies during the last three years of Mozart's life were costly but the expenses incurred during her visits to Baden, where she was seeking a cure for her ulcerated varicose veins were small. Mozart's letter to Choirmaster Stoll in Baden dated early June 1791 reveals the economy of her stay there: "Will you please find a small apartment for my wife? The rooms I should prefer are those Goldhahn used to occupy on the ground floor at the butcher's." At the time, Constanze was pregnant, her limbs painful from the weight of the child, her body tired from repeated pregnancies and her ulcerated legs would not carry her beyond ground floor accommodation. This puts to rest the theory of the "spendthrift, frivolous wife", courted by numerous men and spending her time and money at the Baden casino. No woman, who had given birth to a child, could invent such a story about an eight months pregnant woman.
Mozart's famous letters to his fellow Mason, Michael Puchberg began in June 1788. The begging nature of the letters makes distressing reading. Again and again he begs for loans. "Your true friendship and brotherly love emboldens me to ask a great favour of you. I still owe you eight ducats. Apart from the fact that at the moment I am not in a position to pay back this sum, my confidence in you is so boundless that I dare to implore you to help me out with a hundred gulden until next week..."
On 17th June 1788 barely two weeks after the above letter he writes: "If you have sufficient regard and friendship for me to assist me for a year or two with one or two thousand gulden, at a suitable rate of interest, you will help me enormously".
On 27th June 1788 he writes: "I am unavoidably obliged to raise money somehow. But good God, in whom can I confide? In no other but you, my best friend!...I should like a fairly substantial sum for a somewhat longer period".
In March 1789 Mozart turned to Franz Hofdemel, the husband of his pupil Magdalena Hofdemel, for a loan of 100 gulden. Shortly thereafter, Prince Karl Lichnowsky amd Mozart departed for Germany. At first many writers believed that this unplanned journey was undertaken by Lichnowsky in order to help Mozart and make his works better known in Prussia. Lately some have suggested that the journey was undertaken with the express purpose for Mozart to earn sufficient money to repay his debt to the Prince. It seems, however, that the purpose of the journey was defeated by the Prince's lavish lifestyle and the unplanned nature of the concert tour. The concerts were badly attended and the cost of staging them exceeded box office takings. In addition, Mozart and Lichnowsky stayed at expensive lodgings They parted in mid-May in Leipzig and Lichnowsky's funds were depleted to such an extent that Mozart had to "lend" him 100 gulden, the very sum he borrowed from Hofdemel before his departure.
It is difficult to imagine that a man of Lichnowsky's wealth would need to "borrow" 100 gulden from Mozart unless it was part payment of Mozart's debt.
Mozart's letter to Constanze of 23rd May 1789 takes on a different meaning when viewed with this debt in mind: "Lichnowsky left me here and so I had to pay for my keep in Podsdam, which is an expensive place. I had to lend him a hundred gulden, as his purse was getting empty. I could not well refuse him; you will know why".
Gambling debts were not discussed openly but were regarded as family secrets. The proverbial "skeleton in the cupboard" often referred to gambling debts. Mozart's addiction led him into shallow friendships and was an antidote to loneliness. During his journey to Mainz in October 1790, we find him lodging directly opposite a casino. (Davies).
The debt remained unpaid and Mozart's begging letters to Puchberg continued. In April 1790 he writes to Puchberg: "Now, however - once more, but for the last time - I call upon you to stand by me to the utmost of your power in this most urgent matter which is going to determine my whole happiness. You know how my present circumstances, were they to become known, would damage the chances of my application to the court, and how necessary it is that they should remain a secret". Puchberg noted on this letter "sent 150 gulden". On 17th May 1790 it appears that Puchberg was "not at home" when Mozart called on him to ask for another loan. In 1790 before his departure for Frankfurt, Mozart pawned all the family valuables, including household furniture.
Mozart's inability to visit Constanze in Baden during 1791 and his constant worry about a "business venture" for which so far there has been no explanation take on a new significance. Equally, his letters to her appear in a new light. Constanze now in her last stages of pregnancy was apparently distressed, as shown in Mozart's letters to her dated 9th July 1791: "Your letter of yesterday made me feel so depressed that I almost made up my mind to let the business slide and drive out to you. But what good would it have done? I should only have had to drive in again at once or, instead of being happy, I should have been most dreadfully worried. The affair must be concluded in a few days, for "Z's" promises were really serious and solemn".
We have no tangible evidence that Mozart gambled but it is remarkable that his friends during the last years of his life were all well-known gamblers.
Schikaneder, the librettist of The Magic Flute, who made a fortune out of this opera alone, died in poverty due to excessive gambling. Hofdemel apparently gambled heavily, requesting a payment of 4,400 gulden from Count Gottfied von Walldorf of Brun in March 1791. Hodemel's shocking suicide may well have been caused by gambling debts. Lichnowsky spent money beyond his means and faced financial ruin during the Napoleonic wars. This in itself provides no evidence that Mozart gambled. The haunting question of what happened to all his earnings, however, remains unanswered.
After his death, Constanze carefully recorded the unpaid bills amounting to a total of 918 gulden and 16 kreutzer; 282 gulden, the largest bill on the list, was owed to Georg Dummer, tailor. There were no debts incurred on behalf of Constanze who obviously continued making her own clothes with the help of a maid. On the other hand, 800 gulden was owed Mozart, monies Constanze was never able to recover.
Lichnowsky continued to live a dissipated life. In the memoirs of the Countess Lulu Thurheim he is described as a "cynical lecher" and a "shameless coward". Be that as it may, his life was embittered due to the rejection by his wife, the Countess Christina Thun-Hohenstein, an excellent pianist and a pupil of Haydn. They continued living together but the Countess made no secret of her utter dislike of her husband and of her revulsion to his sexual advances. It is no wonder that Lichnowsky was described as "the enlightened patron of music and patron saint of the bordellos".
Constanze inheritted Mozart's debts but by 1797 her financial situation was in such fine order that she was able to lend 3,500 gulden mortgage money at six per cent interest to her husband's old friends the Duseks on the Villa Bertramka in Prague. Long before her marriage to Nissen, this able woman was not only surviving but was living in comfort. If Mozart's disastrous finances were caused by gambling, Constanze took this secret to her grave 50 years after Mozart's death.
Agnes Selby.
March 13, 2007, CM Lounge
(Note: Mrs. Agnes Selby is author of Constanze, Mozart's Beloved. Thank you very much, dear Agnes. / Tel)
(c) March 13, 2007. Inspired PenWeb. All rights reserved.
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