MOZART'S BAWDY CANONS, VULGARITY AND DEBAUCHERY AT THE WIEDNERTHEATER

ABSTRACT Mozart's bawdy canons and use of scatalogical parlance in his letters have been described as indicative of a personality given to crass expression. Moreover, his association with Emanuel Schikaneder's supposedly dissolute Theater auf der Wieden, a boisterous venue for German stage works, has been taken as further evidence of his profligate tendencies. A review of the original source materials reveals that these views are apocryphal, originating after Mozart's death and embellished in nineteenth-century commentary and scholarship. Examples of even raunchier canons, composed by musicians with connections to Mozart, Schikaneder and the Theater auf der Wieden, provide new insight into the genre. An examination of surviving bawdy Viennese canons in their social context, together with a reconsideration of the Mozart family letters and attitudes toward vulgarity in Viennese popular theatre, reveals that lewd expressions on the stage were relatively uncommon in this period, that Mozart's use of scatalogical language was relatively mild for the time and that accounts of the composer's debauchery in his last years have little evidentiary basis.

m o z a r t ' s b a w d y c a n o n s , v u l g a r i t y a n d d e b a u c h e r y a t t h e w i e d n e r t h e a t e r nineteenth-century editors and biographers, who consequently bowdlerized the texts. 7The restoration of the original texts in the Neue Ausgabe sämtlicher Werke allowed a reassessment of the canons, usually as the musical correlate to scatological humour in Mozart's letters. 8In recent decades, a number of writers have attempted to gain insight into the composer's personality, or to discover a medical abnormality (such as Tourette's syndrome), by examining the anal and fecal parlance of his canons and correspondence. 9Yet, as Alan Dundes has demonstrated, such expressions were not uncommon at the time in informal speech and writing. 10Moreover, there are even raunchier canons by Johann Baptist Henneberg and Friedrich Sebastian Mayer, two musicians with connections to Mozart, Schikaneder and the Theater auf der Wieden.These previously unknown works contextualize the scatalogical humour in Mozart's canons and letters and help us assess the putative vulgarity of contemporary Viennese theatre.In this article I discuss Henneberg's and Mayer's canons alongside similar pieces, examine attitudes toward ribald speech and song in Viennese popular theatre and evaluate views of Mozart as a debauchee.The evidence reveals that scatological expressions on the stage were relatively uncommon and that the evidence for Mozart as a profligate is scanty and ultimately unconvincing.

T H R E E ' L A S C I V I O U S ' C A N O N S F RO M M E M B E R S O F T H E W I E D N E RT H E AT E R C O M PA N Y
Three remarkably lewd canons are preserved in Berlin on two sides of single manuscript leaf with a cover page bearing a nineteenth-century inscription by Aloys Fuchs (Figures 1-3): 11   Theater kapellmeister Johann v Henneberg /: intimmer Freund von Mozart -componirt u geschrieben.2. der 3te Canon auf der Rückseite, ist von dem Hofopernsänger Sebastian Maÿer ( ) Schwager Mozarts.aufgeschrieben; und das Ganze höchst wahrscheinlich an einem lustigen Abend in Mozarts Beisein, improvisirt worden.
3 very lascivious canons not proper for everyone's perusalbut good for use in inebriated [literally 'wet'] company among men.________.________ 1. the two canons on the 1st page are composed and written out by the late theatre Kapellmeister Johann v Henneberg [born 5 December 1768 in Vienna; died 27 November 1822] /: intimate friend of Mozart.2. der 3rd canon on the reverse side is written out by the late court opera singer [Friedrich]  Sebastian Maÿer [also spelled Mayer, Meier and Meyer, born 1773; died May 1835], brother-in-law of Mozart; and the whole was most probably improvised on a merry evening in Mozart's presence.
All three canons have lewd texts written from a male perspective, and as such Fuchs found them inappropriate for mixed company.Fuchs adapted Henneberg's own inscription over his two canons: 'gut in d a v i d j .b u c h nassen Gesellschaften zu gebrauchen' (good for use in inebriated company).12Fuchs's statement that these canons were 'most probably improvised on a merry evening in Mozart's presence' is likely to be a figment of his imagination.Although the works may date from Mozart's lifetime, there is no evidence that he ever met Friedrich Sebastian Mayer, who started working at the Wiednertheater almost two years after the composer's death in 1791 and did not marry Mozart's sister-in-law Josepha Hofer until 1797. 13enneberg was the Kapellmeister or music director at the Theater auf der Wieden starting around 1789.He was a skilled organist, serving at Vienna's Schottenkirche, and a successful composer of both sacred and secular music.He collaborated with Mozart and others on the opera Der Stein der Weisen for the Wiednertheater in 1790, and rehearsed and later directed performances of Die Zauberflöte. 14The handwriting on the first page of the leaf containing the canons is clearly the same as that in Henneberg's other autograph manuscripts. 15Mayer's handwriting is more difficult to identify, since there are no readily available scores in his hand.But Mayer, who was Beethoven's first Pizarro in Fidelio, made an entry in one of Otto Hatwig's Stammbücher (personal albums) dated 12 February 1800 in Vienna, and the handwriting is very similar to that of the canon's text (Figure 4). 16Still, this identification cannot be considered definitive, for while Fuchs collected numerous autograph manuscripts and was considered an expert on Mozart in his lifetime and after, he occasionally made errors in identification, and his attributions should be independently verified. 17Moreover, Mayer is not otherwise known to have composed music.He sang, wrote and arranged librettos and later served as a stage manager, and in this instance may simply have been the copyist of the canon.
Here are the texts of the canons, in the original Viennese dialect and English translation.The music is realized in Examples 1-3.These three texts have a degree of vulgarity beyond anything attributed to Mozart.Moreover, the Mayer text is sexual, a topic not broached in Mozart's bawdy canons.Unlike Mozart's language, which mostly relies on trite expressions, the texts here seem not to be clichés but short, rhymed bawdy narratives, more puerile and perhaps intentionally shocking.This may be why Fuchs chose the adjective 'jocular' ('scherzhaft') to describe a late eighteenth-century copy of O du eselhafter Martin, k560b/560 (one of '2 Scherzhafte Canons'), rather than 'very lascivious' . 19Fuchs's suggestion that the Henneberg and Mayer canons were only for male company seems plausible, but we know that Mozart's mother, sister and cousin occasionally enjoyed scatological humour. 20In a letter of 17 October 1777 from Augsburg to his father in Salzburg, Mozart described a small gathering with his mother during which he spontaneously added vulgar words to a canon directed at his cousin Maria Anna Thekla (Bäsle): Ein gewisser P: Emilian ein hofärtiger Esel und ein einfältiger wizling seiner Profeßion war gar herzig.er wollte immer seinen spaß mit der bäsle haben, sie hatte aber ihren spaß mit ihm -endlich als er rauschig war (welches bald erfolgte) fieng er von der Musick an.er sang einen Canon, und sagte ich habe in meinem leben nichts schöners gehört.ich sagte, mir ist leid, ich kann nicht mitsingen, dann ich kann vonn Natur aus nicht intoniren.daß thut nichts, sagte er.er fing an.ich war der Dritte.ich machte aber einen ganz andern Text drauf, P: E: o du schwanz du, leck du mich im arsch.sotto voce: zu meiner base.dann lachten wir wieder eine halbe stunde. 21certain Father Emilian, a conceited ass and a sorry wit of his profession, was very sweet on Bäsle and wanted to jest with her, but she made fun of him -finally when he was a bit tipsy, which soon happened, he began to talk about music and sang a canon, saying: 'In my life I have never heard anything more beautiful.'I said: 'I am sorry that I cannot join in, but nature has not bestowed on me the gift of intoning.''That does not matter' , he said.He began.I took the third voice, but I invented quite a different text, 'Father Emilian, oh you prick, lick me in the ass'; this, sotto voce to my cousin.Then we laughed for another half hour.
Mozart added his vulgar line to this canon only when the singer became tipsy.Henneberg's own commentary, 'good for use in inebriated company' , is further evidence for the social context of these kinds of pieces, which might not be received well by sober companions.
As for the music, only Henneberg's pieces are strict canons, and the endings, with the third voice singing alone, may have enhanced the humorous effect (see Figure 2 and Examples 1-2).The music in Mayer's handwriting is not imitative; rather, the voices are coordinated in homorhythmic motion not unlike a chorale.Perhaps, then, the humour of this music resided in the music's ironically non-imitative texture (see Figure 3 and Example 3).
As already mentioned, Mozart's texts are tame in comparison to those of Henneberg and Mayer.The text of k231/382 c has only one line, 'Leck mich im Arsch' , a common expression that frequently occurs in Mozart's family circle.According to Georg Nissen's original manuscripts of his Mozart biography, the composer sang of Aloysia Weber 'Leck mich das Mensch im Arsch, das mich nicht will' (The one who doesn't want me can lick my ass) on the occasion of being romantically rejected by her. 22He was evidently singing an existing folk tune, not a song of his own invention. 23Grechtelt's enk (k556) uses only one mildly harsh expression, 'izt halt's Maul!I gib' d'ra Tetschen!' (now shut your trap, I'll give you a whack!).Likewise, Gehn wir im Prater (k558) has one crude line: 'Im Prater gibt's Gelsen und Haufen voll Dreck' (in the Prater there are gnats and heaps of muck).
Difficile lectu mihi Mars et jonicu difficile (k559) is somewhat exceptional in its cleverness; the text is disguised German in the form of pseudo-Latin.Jean-Victor Hocquard has pointed out that the words 'lectu mini Mars' resemble the Bavarian 'leck du mi im Arsch' . 24Another oddity is found in the strange word 'jonicu' .Emanuel Winternitz explains that when this word is sung repeatedly and rapidly (as in the canon), the syllables are liable to be heard rearranged as the taboo Italian word cujoni, which means balls or testicles, akin to Spanish cojones. 25Thus the sense of the entire line appears to be 'It is difficult to lick my ass and balls' .In 1824 Gottfried Weber published a facsimile of this canon and an account of its origin, claiming that Mozart wrote the piece during a social gathering to poke fun at a friend's poor Latin pronunciation.When that friend, a singer named Johann Nepomuk Peierl, sang the false Latin without understanding the joke, Mozart wrote another vulgar canon to ridicule his slow-witted reaction, O du eselhafter Peierl (Oh, you asinine Peierl), k560a/559a, which Mozart inscribed on the reverse side of the same sheet. 26While Weber's account may be apocryphal, the surviving autograph of these two canons in the British Museum (shelf mark Zweig MS. 58) places the pieces on opposite sides of a single page.Indeed, k560a/559a mocks Peierl, and uses crude language in the last lines along with an apology: O leck mich doch geschwind im Arsch!Ach lieber Freund, verzeihe mir, den Arsch, den Arsch petschier ich dir.Peierl!Nepomuck!Peierl! verzeihe mir! Oh quickly lick my ass! Oh dear friend, forgive me, the ass, I'll seal your ass.Peierl!Nepomuck!Peierl! forgive me!Mozart later recycled the canon by simply replacing Peierl's name with Martin, then with Jakob (k560b/560 of 1788).
Shit in bed, so that it makes a cracking sound good night, sleep soundly, good night, and stretch your arse to your mouth.
These rhymed verses are also found in the letters of the Mozart family.Anna Maria wrote a postscript to her son's letter to Leopold of 26 September 1777, including these rhymed verses: Adio ben mio, leb gesund Reck den arsch zum mund.Ich winsch ein guete nacht Scheiss ins beth das Kracht. 27d speed my dear, be healthy stretch your arse to your mouth.
waren jene wunderlichen lateinischen Worte aus Peierls Munde in der erwarteten komischen Weise zu allgemeinem Behagen gehört worden, so drehete Mozart das Blatt um, und liess nun die Gesellschaft, statt Applaus, den kanonischen Triumph-und Spottgesang anstimmen: O! du eselhafter Peierl!' [The story is as follows.The otherwise excellent Peierl had some strange peculiarities in his pronunciation, at which Mozart often poked fun in friendly exchanges with him and other friends.On one evening in such cheerful company Mozart came up with the idea to prepare a canon with a few Latin words 'Difficile lectu mihi' , etc., in which Peierl's pronunciation would, as the piece was sung, emerge in a comic light; and, in the expectation that Peierl would not notice his intent and instead fall into the trap, Mozart quickly wrote on the back of the same sheet the mocking canon: O! you ass-like Peierl!The joke succeeded, and hardly were those whimsical Latin words heard from Peierl's mouth in the expected comic way, to universal pleasure, when Mozart flipped over the sheet and the company, instead of applauding, broke into the canonic triumphal and mocking song: O! you ass-like Peierl!).27 Mozart, Briefe und Aufzeichnungen, volume 2, 14.
I wish you good night shit in bed, so that it makes a cracking sound.
And in a letter of 5 November 1777 to his cousin Bäsle, Mozart also rhymed the same ideas: Iezt wünsch ich eine gute nacht scheissen sie ins beet [Bett] dass es kracht schlafens gesund reckens den arsch zum mund 28 Now I wish you a good night shit into your bed so that it cracks sleep soundly, stretch your arse to your mouth The verb krachen has often been taken to refer to breaking the bed, but actually refers to the loud cracking sound associated with flatulence.This is clear in Mozart's letter of 31 January 1778 to his mother: Ich bin bei Leuten auch die tragen den Dreck im Bauch, doch lassen sie ihn auch hinaus So wohl vor, als nach dem Schmaus.Gefurzt wird allzeit auf die Nacht Und immer so, daß es brav kracht.Doch gestern war der Fürze König, deßen Fürze riechen wie Hönig.29I am also with people who carry their muck inside their belly, and let it out, if they are able, both before and after the feast.Farting all through the night and always with a good crack.The fart king came yesterday whose farts smelt like honey.
The meaning of the verb is also confirmed by the noun 'Kracher' in Henneberg's second canon, Brüderl laß kein schleichen thu ('Kracher' here is like the English 'cracker' in the word 'firecracker'): a Schleicher thut sticken a Kracher macht an Spaß[']gr!a silent one is stinky to let a loud one rip is more fun!As for the social context of Mozart's bawdy canons, the evidence suggests that they were for private humour and buffoonery in a closed, inebriated social circle.It may seem strange that Mozart made fair copies, entered these items into his personal works catalogue (in which he tended to omit ephemeral works) and allowed them to be copied.The reason he favored these small and crude pieces in ways similar to his more serious and important works remains a mystery.
Whether or not Henneberg and Mayer's canons date from Mozart's lifetime, it is clear that other contemporary composers wrote raunchy canons.Several of these works were falsely attributed to Mozart, including the anonymous canon Beim Arsch ists finster.Vivat Branntwein dich lieb ich allein (It's dark near the arse.Long live brandy, I love only you), k Anhang C 9.03, and Wenzel Müller's Die verdammten Heuraten, wenn's nur alleweil grathen thaten (The damned marriages, if only they would always turn out well), k Anhang C 10.01. 30The first Köchel catalogue (1862) claimed that Michael Haydn set the same text. 31One of his surviving canons employs more prominent scatological language: Scheiß nieder, armer Sünder!Armer Sünder scheiß nieder!Zum letztenmal da scheiß nieder, So scheiß, so scheiß, armer Sünder.Scheiß zum letztenmal. 32it low, poor sinner!Poor sinner, shit low!For the last time shit low here, so shit, so shit poor sinner.Shit for the last time.
Also probably by Michael Haydn, but attributed to both Mozart (k Anhang C 10.12) and Müller, is Hätt's nit 'dacht, daß Fischkraten dieß thaten, das thaten, daß sie an so stechen thaten, die verdammten Fischkraten (I wouldn't have thought that fishbones would do this and that, that they would prick like this, those damned fishbones).33Since all these vulgar canons are occasional pieces, it would stand to reason that they constitute only a fraction of what once existed.

V U LG A R I T Y I N T H E T H E AT E R AU F D E R W I E D E N
Although David Schroeder has linked Mozart's use of vulgar language to Viennese theatre and its roots in the commedia dell'arte, there is little direct evidence to support such an assertion. 34Most surviving semiimprovised Italian and German comedies do not include dialogues, and thus one cannot know the degree of vulgarity in general. 35Moreover, the nature of such plays allows for adjustments in language to fit the audience.None of the playbooks and librettos that I have examined has lewd language.36While bans on extemporized dialogue and action were often justified on moralistic grounds, the early Viennese censor Joseph von Sonnenfels was just as concerned with the potential for seditious expression that would undermine the authority of the state as he was with vulgarity.By the time Mozart moved to Vienna, improvised comedy no longer existed there, and theatrical sources from that time show no evidence of the kind of language found in his private letters or bawdy canons.
There is also no evidentiary basis for the idea that Emanuel Schikaneder's Viennese stage roles such as Papageno were latter-day versions of the vulgar Hanswurst comedian. 37Schikaneder himself specifically refuted this claim in his Preface to the printed libretto of his opera Der Spiegel von Arkadien (1795, with music by Franz Xaver Süssmayr): 'Ich wollte wünschen, man spielte meinen Papageno als einen launichten Menschen, nicht als einen Hannswurst, wie es leider auf so vielen Bühnen geschieht' (I would wish one played my Papageno as a capricious person, not as a Hanswurst, as unfortunately happens upon so many stages). 38However, the comic companion of a noble hero was a staple in musical and non-musical comedy during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.While such characters were often uneducated commoners, they generally did not use anal or sexual expletives.
As for sexual euphemism and mild sexual innuendo, these were apparently occasional elements until about 1800, when censorship of such expressions seems to have increased. 39Among the few such passages I have found in Viennese musical comedies is one in Schikaneder's successful comic opera Der dumme Gärtner aus dem Gebürge, oder Die verdeckten Sachen (1789), where one finds the following two lines in the comic aria 'Au weh'l, au weh'l, der Drache ist mein' , sung by the title character (played by Schikaneder) after discovering that his bride-to-be is a wizened hag: Wo diese Hexe ist, mag ich nicht seÿn, geh da ein andrer ins Brautbeth hinein. 40erever this witch is, I don't want to be, another man can go there into the bridal bed.
Metallio: Lad, I'd have to laugh if the two boys might be related to one of us.Ballamo: My heart is pure.Metallio: And so was mine.The many opera librettos and plays I have read from the Leopoldstadt, Josephstadt, Landstrasse and Kärntertor theatres are fairly consistent with those of the Wiednertheater in their absence of vulgar speech and light use of sexual innuendo.In all instances, the degree of vulgarity is mild compared to that found in bawdy canons, and thus the Viennese popular theatre of Mozart's time cannot be considered a corollary to them.Opera was the most public musical genre of the time, subject to the constraints of morality and censorship and to the scrutiny of reviewers, sometimes in places far removed from the work's point of origin.By contrast, bawdy canons were perhaps the most private of musical genres, and as such were virtually free of such constraints and scrutiny.
What of the possibility that scatalogical humour was a regular feature in improvised speech and gesture at the theatre?Schikaneder was acknowledged as a comic actor capable of improvisation, and he often played weak-willed individuals given to earthly pleasures, such as Papageno.Yet of some thirteen eyewitness reports of productions at the Wiednertheater from 1788 to 1799, not one makes specific mention of scatological humour. 47Neither do the various reports of productions given in contemporary journals. 48One witness, John Owen, even states that the 'stile of the composition, though perfectly unnatural, and even monstrous, was yet, by the ingenuity of the author [Schikaneder] neither uninteresting nor inelegant' . 49Most criticism refers to confusing, inferior librettos and bad performances, not to foul language.Only a report by Ernst Moritz Arndt refers to Schikaneder's 'vulgar jokes [Zoten] and swinishness' in an unspecified late production (1798-1799). 50everal reports, including the biography by Schikaneder's own actor nephew Carl, mention his numerous love affairs.Ignaz von Seyfried, a rather priggish type, attacked his former director as an incompetent writer, an uneducated spendthrift and a womanizer, but never mentioned a tendency toward smutty speech on stage or in texts. 51Rather, he praises Schikaneder for his 'richtiger Tact' (proper tact).Thus it seems possible that later writers conflated Schikaneder's apparently well-known marital infidelities, and the roles he played on stage, with the moral character of librettos they had not read and performances they had not witnessed.Another possible reason for the association of Schikaneder's theatre with low humour and speech was the reputation of the Wieden, along with other Viennese suburbs.The traveller Robert Towson described the area as housing 'those kinds of resorts, which serve as places of relaxation and debauch to the inferior ranks of life' . 52But Towson specifically exempts the Wiednertheater from this state of debauchery in his narration.While the language of Schikaneder's texts in Vienna was not generally lewd, the modern notion of a debauched Wiednertheater company contributed to an impression that it was.This notion can be directly traced to nineteenth-century commentary.

M O ZA RT ' S S U P P O S E D E XC E S S E S A N D D E BAU C H E RY AT T H E W I E D N E RT H E AT E R
The primary sources offer no evidence of debauchery or excessive revelry in Mozart's relations with Schikaneder and his theatrical company.Mozart's letters mention attending two performances at the theatre in May or June 1790 and in June 1791, along with two meals with Schikaneder in June and July 1791. 53There is nothing more before the premiere of Die Zauberflöte on 30 September 1791, and while the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, it is significant that no one who actually knew Mozart described him as man given to debauchery.The still frequently encountered picture of a dissolute Mozart was formed later from dubious secondary sources, integrated and elaborated upon by his first scholarly biographer, Otto Jahn. 54Although troubled by the contradictory reports he examined, Jahn ultimately wove a dramatic account of Mozart's profligacy at the Wiednertheater based on the speculation and second-hand innuendo detailed below.
For his description of Mozart's sensual and self-indulgent character, Jahn seems to have relied mostly on earlier publications that derive from a passage in Friedrich Schlichtegroll's Nekrolog of 1793, itself an elaboration of material supplied by the composer's sister Anna Maria, Baroness von Berchtold zu Sonnenburg, and someone else, probably the consistorial councillor from Salzburg, Albert von Mölk. 55Anna Maria wrote that Mozart's only fault was having a soft heart, so that he could not deal with money and was susceptible to flattery ('das er ein gutes Herz hatte, er das Geld nicht zu dirigiren wusste, wer ihm schmeichelte, der konnte alles von ihm erhalten').She declined to comment on the last ten years of her brother's life.The other writer (von Mölk?) added to her letter that the prevailing aspect of his 'shady side' ('schattigen Seite') was that all his life he remained a child in need of supervision and married a woman not suited to him against the will of his father, causing domestic disorder when he died and afterwards. 56From these statements Schlichtegroll embellished and exaggerated the account substantially, perhaps using other, unnamed sources: 57 Er lernte nie sich selbst regiren; für häusliche Ordnung, für gehörigen Gebrauch des Geldes, für Mäßigung und vernünftige Wahl im Genuß hatte er keinen Sinn.Immer bedurfte er eines Führers, eines Vormundes, der an seiner Statt die häuslichen Angelegenheiten besorgte, da sein eigener Geist beständig mit einer Menge ganz anderer Vorstellungen beschäfftigt war, und dadurch überhaupt alle Empfänglichkeit für andere ernsthafte Überlegung verlor. . . .In Wien verheirathete er sich mit Constanza Weber, und fand in ihr eine gute Mutter von zwey mit ihr erzeugten Kindern, und eine würdige Gattinn, die ihn noch von manchen Thorheiten und Ausschweifungen abzuhalten suchte.So beträchtlich sein Einkommen war, so hinterließ er doch, bey seiner überwiegenden Sinnlichkeit und häuslichen Unordnung, den Seinigen weiter nichts als den Ruhm seines Nahmens, und die Aufmerksamkeit eines großen Publicums auf sie. . . .Aber dieser immer zerstreute, immer tändelnde Mensch schien ein ganz anderes, ein höheres Wesen zu werden, sobald er sich an das Klavier setzte. 58 [Mozart] never learned self-control, and he had no sense of domestic order, the appropriate use of money, moderation and sensible choices in his pleasures.He always needed a leader, a guardian, who in his stead could take care of his domestic concerns because his own mind was constantly occupied with a mass of very different ideas, and thus was generally unresponsive to other serious matters. . . .In Vienna he married Constanze Weber, and found in her a good mother for their two children and a worthy spouse who tried to restrain him from many follies and excesses.As sizeable as his income was, he bequeathed to his family nothing but the glory of his name and the attention of a large public, owing to his overwhelming sensuality and domestic disorder. . . .But this always distracted, always trifling man seemed to be quite different, a higher being, as soon as he sat down at the piano.
Von Mölk and Mozart's sister had little or no direct contact with the composer in the last decade of his life, and their negative remarks seem to reflect the disapproval of Mozart's father and the Salzburg circle.Schlichtegroll too had no personal contact with Mozart or his Viennese circle.Thus these views should not be considered authoritative regarding the composer's later years in Vienna.Still, Jahn accepted them along with an unsubstantiated report of Friedrich Rochlitz in 1798, which recounts that during the composition of Die Zauberflöte 'day and night were the same to him [Mozart]  wenn ihn der Genius ergriff -in öftere Ermattung und minutenlange halbohnmächtige Bewußtlosigkeit'). 59Rochlitz appears to be following Schlichtegroll when he writes that 'Mozart was often condemned for his negligence, frivolity and recklessness in money matters.The matter is indeed as true as the fact that it cannot be separated from such a man's individuality' ('Man hat Mozarten oft seine Nachlässigkeit, seine Flüchtigkeit, seinen Leichtsinn in Anwendung des Geldes vorgeworfen.Die Sache ist freylich eben so wahr, als das ist, dass sie von der Individualität eines solchen Mannes nicht getrennet gedacht werden kann'). 60Schlichtegroll's use of the locution 'follies and excesses' ('Thorheiten und Ausschweiflungen') would have unintended consequences in the future.These terms in a necrology in 1793 do not necessarily mean debauchery of a self-destructive or sexual nature.Schlichtegroll almost certainly means extravagance or excessive exuberance and passion for entertainment and pastimes.
In his 1798 Mozart biography Franz Niemtschek defends the composer against charges attributed to his 'numerous irreconcilable enemies' who have disseminated 'tales of his frivolity and excesses' .He states that Mozart's faults were not excessive; his wife Constanze acted as a restraining influence ('ihn oft von Übereilungen abzuhalten') and forgave his 'small sins' ('kleinen Sünden'). 61This more favourable account, probably originating with Constanze (she sent her son Carl to live with the Niemtschek family in Prague), is the first of several by various writers asserting that Mozart's reputation for excess and folly was an unfair exaggeration.
We have examples of such exaggerations in early nineteenth-century biographies, most by authors with no direct connection to the Mozart circle or Vienna.Ignaz Arnold's biography of 1803 gives credence to reports of Mozart's galanteries with women, particularly lively actresses, which his wife tolerated ('auch ausser der Ehe gab es manche Galanterie mit artigen Schauspielerinnen, und sonstigen feinen Mädchen und Weibern, was ihm seine gute Frau gern übersah' (There were also many flirtations with skilled actresses outside of marriage, and also attractive girls and women, which his good wife readily overlooked)). 62Arnold was the first author to mention Mozart's excessive drinking and revelling ('Mozart betrank sich in Champagner und Tokayer, lebte locker' (Mozart imbibed champagne and Tokaji wine, lived loosely)), particularly with Schikaneder ('Man weiß, wie oft er in seine Gesundheit stürmte, wie manchen Morgen er mit Schikaneder verchampagnerte, wie manche Nacht er verpunschte' (We know how often he abused his health, how many mornings he drank champagne with Schikaneder, how many nights he drank punch)).The Irish tenor Michael Kelly wrote of Mozart's fondness for punch in 1826, the only mention of Mozart's preference by zahlreiche, unversöhnliche Feinde, die ihn auch nach seinem Tode noch verfolgten.Wie hätten ihm auch diese mangeln können, da er ein so großer Künstler und ein so gerader Mann war?Und diese sind die unlautere Quelle, aus welcher so viel häßliche Erzahlungen von seinem Leichtsinne, seinen Ausschweifungen gefloßen sind' (But Mozart also had enemies, numerous irreconcilable enemies, who attacked him even after his death.How could he be lacking in them, for he was such a great artist and upright man?And these are the dishonest sources from which flowed so many ugly tales of his levity, his debauchery).62 Ignaz Ferdinand Cajetan Arnold, Mozarts Geist: Seine kurze Biographie und ästhetische Darstellung seiner Werke.Ein Bildungsbuch für junge Tonkünstler (Erfurt: Hennin, 1803), 65-66.Arnold was a lawyer, organist and writer of fantastic fiction.
someone who knew the composer. 63In 1804 Jean-Baptiste-Antoine Suard in Paris reported an even more scandalous 'Anecdote' that Die Zauberflöte was composed for a 'woman of the theatre' with whom Mozart had fallen in love.Even Suard could not give credence to the rest of the tale in which Mozart died of a disease that he contracted from the same woman. 64wo decades later, anonymous and vague reports of Mozart's aberrant behaviour began appearing in Germany.One anecdote attributed the composer's poor health to 'strenuous work and fast living in poorly chosen company' ('angestrengtes Arbeiten und Geschwindleben in übelgewählter Gesellschaft'). 65In a 1827 obituary of the tenor Benedikt Schack (the first Tamino), the anonymous author states that Schack described the circumstances of Mozart's life during the years 1789-1791, when they worked together at the theatre, in the following way: 'One learned about which byways and wrong paths even the greatest talent wandered through the harsh reality of life' ('Man erfuhr, welche Wege und Irrwege auch das grösste Talent in der rauhen Wirklichkeit des Lebens zu durchwandern hat'). 66Another vague intimation of an ominous nature closes the obituary: Noch gegen Ende von 1825 hatte sich der bekannte Herr v. Nyssen von Salzburg aus mit vielen Anfragen und dringendem Ersuchen an Schack gewendet, um von ihm Aufsätze, Erörterungen, die ihm zu seiner grossen Mozart'schen Biographie noch fehlten, zu erhalten. . . .Der Schreiber dieses Artikels, der ihm die Papiere zugestellt, konnte ihn vorerst nicht bewegen, in jene Vorzeit zurückzukehren.Er hätte so Vieles berühren müssen, was er schon erzählt und man nicht immer wieder aufwärmen sollte. 67ward the end of 1825 the well-known Herr von Nissen of Salzburg turned to Schack with many questions and urgent requests for essays and explanations that he lacked for his great Mozart biography. . . .The writer of this article, who delivered the documents to him, could not persuade him to turn back momentarily to that time in the past.He would have had to touch upon so many things that he already had narrated, things that one should never again rehash.Like Mozart's 'wrong paths' , the nature of these 'things that one should never again rehash' is left to the imagination of the reader.Georg Nissen's biography of 1828 repeats Niemtschek's comments concerning Mozart's 'small sins' and forgiving wife. 68He cites Constanze's younger sister Sophie to refute the charge of Mozart's excessive drinking and to affirm his naive character, which led to manipulation by false friends and parasites ('falsche Freunde und Blutsauger ohne sein Wissen, werthlose Menschen; die ihm zu Tischnarren dienten').One oft-cited sentence attributed to Sophie in the biography has been used as evidence of debauchery: 'In order to keep him from awkward situations, she [Constanze] patiently attempted to do everything with him' ('Um ihn vom Umgange misslicher Art abzuhalten, versuchte seine Frau geduldig Alles mit ihm').Yet the previous sentence makes clear this refers to his passion for hobbies like riding and billiards ('In seinen Unterhaltungen war er für eine jede neue sehr passionirt, wie für's Reiten und auch für Billard').Nissen also repeats exact phrases from Arnold's 1803 biography, with its charges of galanteries with women, drinking and revelling with Schikaneder. 69Jahn expressed dismay that Nissen did not comment on this account, as it was an obvious contradiction of Niemtschek and Sophie. 70Similar problems in Nissen's biography are not uncommon, given that it was a patchwork of writings assembled by several editors after the death of the author, Constanze Mozart's second husband.
In 1831 Mozart's reputation was again defended, this time by his former student Johann Nepomuk Hummel: 'I declare it to be untrue that Mozart abandoned himself to excess, except on those rare occasions on which he was enticed by Schikaneder, which had chiefly to do with Die Zauberflöte' ('Daß Mozart sich Schwelgerei überlassen habe erkläre ich (außer den wenigen Gelegenheiten, zu denen Schikaneder ihn verlockte, dem es um die Zauberflöte zu thun war) als unwahr'). 71With regard to Schikaneder, Hummel cannot be relying on his first-hand experience, since he left Vienna in late 1788 and would have had no direct knowledge of the creation of Die Zauberflöte.Schikaneder arrived in Vienna to assume the direction of the Wiednertheater in the summer of 1789.
A fragmentary letter of 1840-1841 from Ignaz von Seyfried to Georg Friedrich Treischke mentions Mozart's revelry with the Wiednertheater circle in yet another second-hand account, attributed to Karl Ludwig Giesecke, an actor and author in Schikaneder's company and a member of Mozart's masonic lodge.Seyfried (1776-1841) had been a music director and composer at the Wiednertheater (and later at the Theater an der Wien), starting some six years after Mozart's death.He writes that: music and the many joys of a well-set table, as Giesecke often narrated to me. . . .He wrote most of [Die Zauberflöte] in Gerl's residence, or in Schikaneder's garden, just a few steps from the theatre; I myself was often a guest at this same table, and held many rehearsals in the same salon, or in German: wooden shack.This report contradicts everything we know about Mozart and Schikaneder's association with Viennese masonic lodges. 73Around the same time (a half-century after Mozart's death) another vague insinuation of Mozart's character flaws appeared in Caroline Pichler's autobiography, where the author wrote that Mozart led a 'frivolous life' ('ein leichtsinniges Leben'). 74n anonymous author recycled old assertions of carousing at the Freihaus auf der Wieden in an 1857 article on the origins of Die Zauberflöte, writing that the opera was composed in Mozart's house on Rauhensteingasse and in a half-ruined pavilion in the Freihaus garden: 'It was during lunch (it was high summer), which Mozart most often took there with Schikaneder, that he intrepidly worked, laughed and drank champagne.In these circumstances the great work Die Zauberflöte' originated ('Während des Mittagmahls (es war hoher Sommer), das Mozart meistens mit Schikaneder daselbst einnahm, ward wacker gearbeitet, gelacht und Champagner getrunken.Unter diesen Umständen entstand das große Werk: "Die Zauberflöte"'). 75While this account adds just a few details to Seyfried's letter, the author goes on to add a new vignette of a more promiscuous nature, namely that Barbara Gerl, the first Papagena and wife of the leading bass singer and first Sarastro Franz Xaver Gerl, helped Schikaneder to induce Mozart to compose the opera: Schikaneder . . .flog er von der Rauhensteingasse nach der Wieden in die Kapaunergasse zum sogenannten, damals bestandenen 'Kapäundl' .Da wohnte Mad.Gerl, welche sammt ihrem Gatten, dem Bassisten Gerl, bei Schikaneder engagirt war, und wie man sagte, großen Einfluß aus Mozart ausübte.Diese gewann der schlaue Schikaneder für sein Interesse . . . 76hikaneder . . .flew from Rauhensteingasse to Kapaunergasse [now Schäffergasse] in the Wieden district, to the so-called 'Kapäundl' house.There resided Madame Gerl, who along with her husband, the bass singer Gerl, was engaged in Schikaneder's company, and as has been said, exerted great influence on Mozart.The sly Schikaneder won her over for his interest . . .One wonders if this author was influenced by Arnold's and Suard's accounts of Mozart's involvement with actresses; perhaps Barbara Gerl's role as the first Papagena made her seem like a good candidate for a seductress.In reality she was an actress, singer, dancer and spouse of Mozart's friend Franz Gerl. 77ahn attempted to make sense of these intimations in devising a still more elaborate tale of Schikaneder seducing the vulnerable Mozart into his dissolute theatrical circle: Schikaneder war auch dafür besorgt seinen Componisten bei guter Laune zu erhalten.Nicht allein zu Mittag, wo gut gegessen und getrunken wurde, mußte er häufig sein Gast sein, er zog ihn überhaupt in das Genußleben der lockeren und leichten Gesellschaft, in welcher er verkehrte, . . .der sich Mozarts Nähe zu drängen wußte und seine Gutmüthigkeit auf so schmähliche Weise mißbrauchte.Man kann sich wohl erklären, wie der Druck der äußeren Verhältnisse, die wachsende Noth im Hause, die bittere Stimmung über die Erfolglosigkeit aller seiner Bestrebung den leicht erregbaren und für gesellige heitere Unterhaltung an sich empfänglichen Mozart für den Augenblick noch geneigter machen konnte sich in den Strudel des genußsüchtigen Lebens hineinziehen zu lassen, welchem die Gesellschaft, mit der er durch seine Oper näher zusammengeführt wurde, ergeben war, selbst die Abwesenheit seiner Frau, welch auch diesen Sommer in Baden zubrachte . . .mochte dazu beitragen.Und doch sind es diese Monate des Verkehrs mit Schikaneder, welche zu den übertriebenen Schilderungen von Mozarts lockerem Leben die Veranlassung gegeben und seinem Namen einen unverdienten Makel angehängt haben. 78hikaneder took care to keep his composer in good spirits.Not only by having him as a frequent supper guest, where fine eating and drinking were the rule, but also by drawing him into the pleasure-seeking life of the seductive and free-living society in which he himself moved . . . he knew how to take advantage of Mozart's proclivities and good nature in an ignominious manner.This can well explain how the pressure of external circumstances, of growing domestic troubles, and the bitter feeling of failure in all his aspirations, combined with his easily excitable nature, caused the susceptible Mozart to seek convivial and jovial diversion in the vortex of the pleasure-seeking life to which the company was addicted, and to which he, through his opera, would be drawn closer; even the absence of his wife who spent that summer in Baden . . .might have contributed to it.And yet these are the months of association with Schikaneder that gave inducement to the exaggerated accounts of Mozart's life of enticements and have attached an undeserved blemish to his name.
Jahn revised part of this passage for the 1867 second edition of his biography, adding even more vivid (and almost certainly imagined) details to the narrative, and using Schlichtegroll's locution 'follies and excesses' ('Thorheiten und Ausschweifungen') to suggest debauchery: Der Druck der äußeren Verhältnisse, die wachsende Noth im Hause, die bittere Stimmung über die Erfolglosigkeit aller seiner Bestrebungen wirkten mit, daß der leicht erregbare und für heitere Unterhaltung empfängliche Mozart sich in den Strudel dieses genußsüchtigen Lebens hineinziehen ließ.Seine Frau war in Baden, wo am 26.Juli der jüngste Sohn Wolfgang geboren wurde; ihre Abwesenheit machte seine häusliche Exitenz sehr unbehaglich und ließ ihn um so lieber die lustige Theatercompagnie aufsuchen.Thorheiten und Ausschweifungen, wie sie in diesem Verkehr nicht ausblieben konnten, drangen ins Publicum und übertriebene Schilderungen von dem lockeren Leben mit Schikaneder während einiger Monate haben Mozarts Namen einen so nicht verdienten Makel angehängt. 79e pressure of external circumstances, the growing indigence in the household, the bitter mood about the failure of all his strivings converged so that Mozart, easily excitable and susceptible to lively diversions, was drawn into the vortex of this pleasure-seeking life.His wife was in Baden, where on July 26 their youngest son Wolfgang was born.Her absence made his domestic existence very unhappy and allowed him to seek out the frolicsome theatre company.Follies and excesses, which could not fail to materialize in this circle, became public, and exaggerated accounts of the authority, and it is not particularly fair to Mozart, Schikaneder or Barbara Gerl. 85It was Jahn's account that provided a model for later depictions of debauchery at the theatre and of Mozart's libertine indulgence in the revelry, depictions that have retained a place in modern film, music literature and the popular imagination. 86O N C LU S I O N S Every member of Mozart's family engaged in formulaic scatological humour.Even the relatively straightlaced Leopold used the expression to 'shit bitter oranges' , meaning 'to get upset' , which he wrote to Lorenz Hagenauer on 13 September 1768 and to his wife on 3 November 1770.87 Wolfgang certainly took this family propensity further in his letters, combining scatology with wordplay.88 There is no evidence that such intimate epistolary writing was abnormal or even unusual.
Mozart's bawdy canons stand at the periphery of the composer's output, but are highlighted by those who want to emphasize Mozart's humanity and marginalized by those who are perhaps also embarrassed by them.But viewing these canons as indicative of Mozart's personality seems unwarranted in light of the evidence.Contemporaries composed canons with more vulgar texts, one of them, Johann Baptist Henneberg, a respected and established Viennese church musician and organist.Understanding the social function of such canons requires knowledge of their role in eighteenth-century society as a private form of musical recreation, as ribald songs in like company, as drinking songs to be sung when intoxicated.In comparison to other genres, their music is relatively primitive; they may even have been composed on the spot.The canons' use as a participatory, recreational kind of vocal music helps us understand the meaning of more elevated examples, such as those found in some opera scenes. 89hile no evidence exists of scatological humour in Wiednertheater performances, light sexual innuendo was present to a small degree in the dialogues of some comic characters, particularly before about 1800.Explicitly bawdy musical expression in Vienna was restricted mainly to certain private spheres in which lewd canons amused musicians, theatre people and their friends.Finally, there is no compelling evidence that Mozart engaged in any behaviour in his last year that one could consider dissolute or self-destructive.This idea appears to be an embellishment developed from vague assertions of missteps and character flaws made years after the composer's death, and at the same time that his bawdy canons were being provided with bowdlerized texts.The notion of a dissolute Mozart whose bawdy canons needed to be cleansed of their vulgar texts is not contradictory.In making Mozart a Byronic hero who produced elevated and pure art, his devotees had a more romantic view of the man than is apparent from the historical record.

A
final example comes from Schikaneder's 1798 sequel to Die Zauberflöte, Das Labyrinth, with music by Peter Winter.In the finale of Act 2 (Scene 22), Papageno and Papagena sing the line: 'Ich zeige dem Schwarzen die Feigen' (I show the black one the fig) in reference to giving Monostatos an obscene gesture (in 'showing the fig' , one's thumb is inserted between the second and third fingers). 46 when [he was] seized by inspiration,[and]he often fell into spells of exhaustion and blackouts lasting several minutes' ('dem Tag und Nacht gleich war, 56 See Anna Maria Mozart (and probably Albert von Mölk's) comments in letters of 1792 to Breitkopf & Härtel intended to help Schlichtegroll, in Mozart, Briefe und Aufzeichnungen, volume 4, 199-203: 'blieb er fast immer ein Kind; und dies ist ein HauptZug seines Charakters auf der schattigten Seite; immer hätte er eines Vatters, einer Mutter, oder eines Aufsehers bedarfen; er konnte das Geld nicht regieren, heyrathete ein für ihn gar nicht passendes Mädchen gegen den Willen seines Vaters, und daher die große häusliche Unordnung bei und nach seinem Tod. . . .er das Geld nicht zu dirigiren wusste, wer ihm schmeichelte, der konnte alles von ihm erhalten' (He was almost always a child, and this is a main feature of his character on the shady side; he always needed a father's or a mother's or a supervisor's care; he could not manage money, married a girl not at all suited for him against his father's will and thus [created] the greatest domestic chaos during and after his death. . . .He did not know how to manage money; whoever flattered him could get anything they wanted from him).57 Schlichtegroll had contacted the important official and writer Baron Joseph Friedrich von Retzer, who served as secretary to the court censor and was a member of the masonic lodge Zur wahren Eintracht.It does not appear that Retzer responded.For details on Retzer see Henry Hausner, 'Bemerkungen zu Schlichtegrolls Mozart-Biographie' , Mitteilungen der Internationalen Stiftung Mozarteum 26 (1978), 21-24.58 Schlichtegroll, Mozarts Leben, 30-31.

85
Schikaneder's character has been the subject of highly exaggerated claims as well.Schroeder, Mozart in Revolt, 180, states: 'It appears that he[Schikaneder]left a trail of illegitimate children across Germany and Austria to women of various social ranks from actresses to the highest nobility.'There are in fact only two documented illegitimate children, one with an actress and another with his maid.See Henry Price, 'Emanuel Schikaneder and Jakob Neukäufler: Family Affairs' , Mozart Studien 17 (2008), 347-358, and Lorenz, 'Neue Forschungsergebnisse' .86 For example, Maynard Solomon, Mozart: A Life (New York: HarperCollins, 1995), 479-481, accepts infidelity stories and refers to 'Mozart's driving sexuality [and his] apparent inability to remain faithful to Constanze' .87 Mozart, Briefe und Aufzeichnungen, volume 1, 275: 'Ich möchte vor Pomeranschen sch: ---' , and 400: 'das man Pomeranzen scheißen möchte' .88 Although examples of such word play are found in Mozart's intimate sexual references in letters to his wife (see, for example, Mozart, Briefe und Aufzeichnungen, volume 4, 80-81), these should not be considered in the same category as his bawdy remarks and canons.