A Letter To Anyone
To Frau Waldron, The Authoress of Mozart’s Wife
I shall begin kindly, by saying I am very flattered to be your inspiration the topic of your story. It is not often that I am put into a kind light, for Historians leap at every chance to prove that I was everything from a whore to a murderer. I thank you, profusely, for trying to show me as something more, for attempting to show me as the loving woman and wife that I am, for defending me against a biased history whom would rather believe that I was such a wicked thing as opposed to even entertaining the idea that maybe Wolfgang truly loved me and I him.
However, you do not really defend me at all. You simply turn the stories about and make my husband the villain. How dare you! I must say that I am simply appalled at this. I should much rather be viewed as I am than for you to tarnish my husband’s reputation with your lies! And you call yourself a historical writer? You should be positively ashamed of yourself for printing such things.
My husband was a gentle man (not a gentleman, but gentle just the same), a trusting man, a kind man and he was nothing like the man in your story. The man who beat our precious dog with a walking stick, the man who publicly accused me of being unfaithful, the man who crushed that poor child? That man is not my husband. That man is not Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
I wonder if you really believe the things you write? Do you believe that my husband would force himself upon me? Do you truly believe that I would lust after a man like your Chevalier Casanova a man who was, in your own words, “my great-grandfather”? Do you really believe that Wolfie and I had the money to employ a caretaker for Karl?
If you truly believe half of the rubbish you have printed, I truly pity you. Oh! And you did not even have the courtesy to write from a third-person viewpoint. You have made these lies my words! You little shit!
What I find, perhaps, the most offending is the temper the man whom is supposed to be my husband took with Johann Nepomuk Hummel, who you undoubtedly know was a student of my husband’s for two years. My Wolfie would never have threatened to throw dear Johann out of the house for something so trivial as ruining his billiards table-- on accident. My husband would have laughed in amusement, and perhaps you were unaware but the billiards table was set in the bedroom I share with Wolfie, at the foot of the bed-- How do you think that Johann got to the table to ruin it when his teacher kept it in his room, and the room was kept locked?
I find your work “absolute rubbish” as my husband would say, inaccurate and I was frightened to see the title and summary of your work-in-progress. My Mozart I believe you called it. Told from the view of little Anna Gottlieb, who is not much more than a child, apparently you are under the impression that she and my husband were involved romantically?
I have a problem with this. Being as how I am the wife of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and I have been since the year 1782, and I like to think I have been the only woman he has lain with since, and he assures me it is so.
In conclusion-- I don’t like you. I don’t like you a bit. You have wrongly portrayed my husband, and in doing so you have wrongly portrayed me. This is a crime that I cannot forgive, I do not think I have ever been so furious in my life! It is something indeed when I would rather be seen as the whore and murderess that history believes me to be rather than to be the Constanze Mozart of your story, it is something indeed when I would rather be seen as a whore and murderess rather than Mozart’s Wife.
I suggest that you go back and do your research properly, and not even consider publishing your second book on the subject of my husband.
And so I leave you with these words--
Ui kcuf.*
Regards,
Constanze Marie Mozart (nee Constanze Weber)
The Wife of W. A. Mozart
*Ui kcuf- “Fuck you” in Mozart’s backwards speak. See Chapter 5 “The Badly Behaved Voice of God” in the movie Amadeus for more information on how the backwards speech works.
((To read excerpts of the book Mozart‘s Wife by Juliet Waldron which butchers the lives of Wolfgang and Constanze Mozart, see HERE. Perhaps you can see why the muse was so terribly upset?))
I shall begin kindly, by saying I am very flattered to be your inspiration the topic of your story. It is not often that I am put into a kind light, for Historians leap at every chance to prove that I was everything from a whore to a murderer. I thank you, profusely, for trying to show me as something more, for attempting to show me as the loving woman and wife that I am, for defending me against a biased history whom would rather believe that I was such a wicked thing as opposed to even entertaining the idea that maybe Wolfgang truly loved me and I him.
However, you do not really defend me at all. You simply turn the stories about and make my husband the villain. How dare you! I must say that I am simply appalled at this. I should much rather be viewed as I am than for you to tarnish my husband’s reputation with your lies! And you call yourself a historical writer? You should be positively ashamed of yourself for printing such things.
My husband was a gentle man (not a gentleman, but gentle just the same), a trusting man, a kind man and he was nothing like the man in your story. The man who beat our precious dog with a walking stick, the man who publicly accused me of being unfaithful, the man who crushed that poor child? That man is not my husband. That man is not Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
I wonder if you really believe the things you write? Do you believe that my husband would force himself upon me? Do you truly believe that I would lust after a man like your Chevalier Casanova a man who was, in your own words, “my great-grandfather”? Do you really believe that Wolfie and I had the money to employ a caretaker for Karl?
If you truly believe half of the rubbish you have printed, I truly pity you. Oh! And you did not even have the courtesy to write from a third-person viewpoint. You have made these lies my words! You little shit!
What I find, perhaps, the most offending is the temper the man whom is supposed to be my husband took with Johann Nepomuk Hummel, who you undoubtedly know was a student of my husband’s for two years. My Wolfie would never have threatened to throw dear Johann out of the house for something so trivial as ruining his billiards table-- on accident. My husband would have laughed in amusement, and perhaps you were unaware but the billiards table was set in the bedroom I share with Wolfie, at the foot of the bed-- How do you think that Johann got to the table to ruin it when his teacher kept it in his room, and the room was kept locked?
I find your work “absolute rubbish” as my husband would say, inaccurate and I was frightened to see the title and summary of your work-in-progress. My Mozart I believe you called it. Told from the view of little Anna Gottlieb, who is not much more than a child, apparently you are under the impression that she and my husband were involved romantically?
I have a problem with this. Being as how I am the wife of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and I have been since the year 1782, and I like to think I have been the only woman he has lain with since, and he assures me it is so.
In conclusion-- I don’t like you. I don’t like you a bit. You have wrongly portrayed my husband, and in doing so you have wrongly portrayed me. This is a crime that I cannot forgive, I do not think I have ever been so furious in my life! It is something indeed when I would rather be seen as the whore and murderess that history believes me to be rather than to be the Constanze Mozart of your story, it is something indeed when I would rather be seen as a whore and murderess rather than Mozart’s Wife.
I suggest that you go back and do your research properly, and not even consider publishing your second book on the subject of my husband.
And so I leave you with these words--
Ui kcuf.*
Regards,
Constanze Marie Mozart (nee Constanze Weber)
The Wife of W. A. Mozart
*Ui kcuf- “Fuck you” in Mozart’s backwards speak. See Chapter 5 “The Badly Behaved Voice of God” in the movie Amadeus for more information on how the backwards speech works.
((To read excerpts of the book Mozart‘s Wife by Juliet Waldron which butchers the lives of Wolfgang and Constanze Mozart, see HERE. Perhaps you can see why the muse was so terribly upset?))