Anna Maria Pertl, later Anna Maria Mozart, was born on Christmas Day 1720 in the picturesque village of St. Gilgen, thirty kilometres from Salzburg.

From unassuming origins, she grew up to become the mother of one of the most famous composers to ever live.

Today, we’re looking at Anna Maria Mozart’s tragic childhood, her marriage to the famously difficult Leopold Mozart, and her wholehearted support of her son Wolfgang.

Anna Maria Mozart’s Family

Anna Maria Mozart

Her parents were Wolfgang Nicolaus Pertl and Eva Rosina, who had married in 1712. He was a city administrator and a talented amateur musician, while Eva’s father was a church musician, so musicianship ran in her family.

Unfortunately, two years after their marriage, health problems forced Wolfgang Pertl to take a less demanding job with a smaller salary.

Despite their reduced circumstances, in 1719, the Pertls had a daughter named Maria Rosina. Anna Maria arrived a year later.

Unthinkable Childhood Tragedies

Wolfgang Pertl fell deeper and deeper into debt, eventually owing an amount equivalent to four years of his salary. His health kept deteriorating, and he died in 1724, before Anna Maria’s fourth birthday.

His possessions had to be sold to pay his outstanding debts, leaving his widow and children homeless and destitute.

The little family moved to Salzburg and was forced to subsist on eight monthly florins in charity payments. It is possible that mother and daughter worked to supplement their income, perhaps as lace-makers.

Tragedy struck in 1728 when nine-year-old Maria Rosina died. It seemed that Anna Maria might be next; documents indicate that she was sick as a child and often bedridden.

But she survived. Their shared losses drew mother and daughter close together.

Anna Maria’s Marriage and Starting a Family

Anna Maria Mozart’s birthplace

We don’t know when exactly Anna Maria met Leopold Mozart, but we do know that because of Anna Maria’s poverty, they delayed their marriage several years until Leopold was making enough money to support both of them.

They married in November 1747, when Anna Maria was 27 and Leopold was 28. Historian Hermann Abert wrote that “the two were regarded at the time as the handsomest couple in Salzburg.”

Their first three children, born between 1748 and 1750, all died in infancy.

But in July 1751, she finally gave birth to a girl who lived. They called her Maria Anna Walburga Ignatia, nicknaming her Nannerl.

The Arrival of Wolfgang

Leopold Mozart

Two more infants were born and died before Anna Maria found out she was pregnant yet again in mid-1755.

Tragically, her beloved mother, Eva Rosina, died while she was still pregnant, so Eva never got to meet her only grandson: a little boy by the name of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

Leopold was not a particularly supportive or outwardly loving husband. Two weeks after Wolfgang was born, he wrote to a friend:

I can assure you I have so much to do that I sometimes do not know where my head is… And you know as well as I do, when the wife is in childbed, there is always someone turning up to rob you of time. Things like that cost you time and money.

His strict practicality, obsession with money, need for control, and obliviousness to other family members’ emotions would continue throughout the rest of their marriage.

Touring with Two Prodigies

Nannerl Mozart: Sonata in C for piano 4 hands (K.19d) (1765)

Both Nannerl and Wolfgang were prodigies. Leopold soon decided that the family could get wealthy if they showcased Nannerl and Mozart’s blossoming musical gifts on tour.

Anna Maria agreed to the tour, and in 1762, the four Mozarts embarked on a long trip, traveling to Munich, Vienna, London, and Holland.

Anna Maria appeared to enjoy the travels or at least the scenery. Leopold wrote in a letter, “My wife takes the greatest pleasure in the countryside.”

She also loved the doors to the halls of power that Nannerl and Wolfgang’s talent opened. When the family was received by Emperor Joseph II and his mother, Maria Theresa, the children performed for Joseph II while Anna Maria visited with Maria Theresa.

Leopold wrote to a friend:

You cannot possibly conceive with what familiarity Her Majesty the Empress conversed with my wife, talking to her partly of my children’s smallpox and partly of the events of our grand tour; nor can you imagine how she stroked my wife’s cheeks and pressed her hands.

Along with her son and daughter, she was showered with gifts. When they stopped in France, Anna Maria was given a red satin dress by writer Madame d’Epinay.

Mozart: First symphony, written in 1764

After traveling to London, the children got sick with intestinal typhoid. The situation was so dire that Leopold and his wife had to have a conversation with Nannerl about why children shouldn’t need to be afraid to die.

Anna Maria nursed her daughter overnight (Leopold took the day shift), and fortunately, both Nannerl and Wolfgang survived.

The family stayed on the road until 1768.

Staying Home

Once Nannerl became an adult, she was unable to be marketed as a child prodigy. Not to mention, it was considered unladylike for a middle-class or upper-class woman to perform on the piano publicly. She wasn’t allowed back on tour.

Between 1769 and 1773, Leopold and Wolfgang traveled to Italy. The entire time, both Anna Maria and Nannerl held down the fort at home, all while being lectured at by Leopold from afar about their ability to manage a household.

In 1777, it was decided that Wolfgang should embark on a job-hunting trip. His father didn’t want to anger his employers in Salzburg by taking more time off (he’d already been fired once before for spending so much time traveling with his son), so 21-year-old Wolfgang decided to look for positions outside of Salzburg. He set off with his mother to Munich, Augsburg, Mannheim, and Paris.

Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 6 in B-flat major, K. 238)

Traveling to Mannheim and Crazy Ideas

Aloysia Weber; anonymous portrait © Wikipedia

In Mannheim, Wolfgang developed a crush on a singer named Aloysia Weber. He floated the idea of scrapping his job search and accompanying her to Italy instead so that he could promote her career.

Unfortunately, Wolfgang’s announcement of his plan crossed with a letter in the mail from Leopold, in which he admonished Wolfgang to find a paying position as soon as possible to support the entire family.

The timing was awful. The family erupted into an argument, with the self-pitying Leopold painting himself as the victim. Anna Maria, on the other hand, was the practical and calming influence and the broker of the uneasy peace that followed.

Traveling to Paris

Mozart’s Symphony No. 31, “Paris Symphony”, composed in 1778

During the trip, Anna Maria became incredibly homesick and lonely, especially since Wolfgang spent all his spare time networking. But in order to keep the family peace, she agreed to accompany him to oversee an additional Parisian leg of his trip.

Once in Paris, she wrote back home to her daughter about new fashions (she recommended that Nannerl buy a walking stick) and the complicated politics of the day.

But there was a dark side to her stay, too…literally. She wrote:

As for my own life, it is not at all a pleasant one. I sit alone in our room the whole day long as if I were in gaol, and as the room is very dark… I cannot see the sun all day long, and I don’t even know what the weather is like. With great difficulty, I manage to knit a little by the daylight that struggles in.

Anna Maria’s Final Illness and Death

In May 1778, Anna Maria developed a “toothache, sore throat, and earache.” However, understanding how prickly Leopold was about finances, she decided not to go to the expense of seeing a doctor.

Unfortunately, her condition deteriorated rapidly. She developed a headache and diarrhoea, then lost her voice and her hearing. She made her final confession on June 30th and died on July 3. Mozart oversaw her burial the following day.

Understandably blindsided, he panicked and wrote a letter to his father acknowledging only that she was ill, and instructed a family friend to ease Leopold and Nannerl into the news gradually. It took him a full week to write a letter to Leopold with the truth.

Until the end of his life, Leopold (irrationally) blamed his twenty-one-year-old son for his wife’s death. After Anna Maria’s death, the Mozart family was never the same again.

Learn more about Anna Maria’s death.

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