Anna Maria Mozart - Biography

Biography

She was born in St. Gilgen, Archbishopric of Salzburg, to Eva Rosina (1681–1755) and Wolfgang Nicolaus Pertl (1667–1724), deputy prefect of Hildenstein. Nicolaus had a university degree in jurisprudence from the Benedictine University in Salzburg, and held a number of positions of responsibility, including district superintendent in St. Andrae. He was apparently a skilled musician. He suffered a severe illness in 1714 and had to change positions to one with a fairly low salary (250 florins per year) as deputy superintendent of Hüttenstein. During the last portion of his life he fell deeply into debt, and he died 7 March 1724.

Nicolaus's possessions were liquidated to help pay the debt, and his remaining family (Anna Maria's mother and her older sister Maria Rosina, born 24 August 1719) lapsed into poverty. They moved to Salzburg, not far away, and lived on a charity pension of just eight (later nine) florins per month, perhaps supplemented by low-level employment. Anna Maria's older sister died in 1728, aged nine. Anna Maria herself was not well when she was young: legal documents from the time describe her as "constantly ill" (1733) and "the constantly ill bedridden daughter" (1739).

She married Leopold Mozart in Salzburg in 1747. The couple moved (perhaps with the mother) into an apartment on the third floor of Getreidegasse 9. Their landlord was Lorenz Hagenauer, who was a close friend of Leopold's and a frequent correspondent on the family's later travels.

They had seven children, of whom only two survived infancy:

• Johann Leopold Joachim (born 1748, died 1749)
• Maria Anna Cordula (born and died 1749)
• Maria Anna Nepomucena Walpurgis (born and died 1750)
• Maria Anna Walburga Ignatia (30 July 1751 – 29 October 1829)
• Johann Karl Amadeus (born 1752, died 1753)
• Maria Crescentia Francisca de Paula (born 1753, died 1754)
• Johann Chrysostomus Wolfgang Amadeus (27 January 1756 – 5 December 1791)

The two surviving children achieved fame. The daughter Maria Anna was called "Nannerl" as a child. She was a talented musician who performed with her brother on tour, but whose later life was very limited in its experiences and possibilities. The son, Wolfgang Amadeus, born 27 January 1756, achieved distinction first as a child prodigy, later as one of the most celebrated of all composers.

Anna Maria nearly died giving birth to Wolfgang: her womb retained the placenta, and forced removal of it which at the time posed extreme risk of fatal infection.

Anna Maria went on the series of tours (1762–1768) through Europe, during which the two children were exhibited as prodigies. She stayed home (unwillingly) with Nannerl during the tours of Italy that Wolfgang and Leopold took during 1769–1773. In 1777, she accompanied the now-adult Wolfgang (again unwillingly) on a job-hunting tour that took him to Augsburg, Mannheim, and Paris. While in Paris she took ill and died on 3 July 1778 of an undiagnosed illness. She was buried in the cemetery of Saint-Eustache.