Things are no longer going well for Mozart in Vienna. Interest in him is waning, commissions are becoming scarce, and his debts are mounting. On top of that, his wife Constanze is ill, and caring for her is costly. Mozart desperately needs money. And he knows that the Prussian King Frederick William II in Berlin is a great patron of the arts…
Mozart travels to Berlin with high hopes
Mozart gets into the carriage and travels to the court. He has even composed pieces specifically for the cello, which the king loves very much, and hopes for a permanent position. He performs and actually impresses the king. The king awards him several commissions.
But a permanent position? The king’s loosely translated response: “Forget about it.” With that, the trip ends in failure before it even begins, and all expectations are dashed. At a loss, Mozart wanders through the dreary streets of Berlin. There he discovers that the National Theater on Gendarmenmarkt is performing his opera *The Abduction from the Seraglio*.
Mozart Undercover in the Audience
Mozart takes a seat in the audience, unrecognized. All around him, people are laughing and clapping. But the string players keep playing the wrong notes. Mozart tries to ignore it. He can’t. Anger wells up inside him until he jumps to his feet and shouts, “Will you please play that damned D!”
The audience gasps, recognizes the furious composer—and bursts into cheers.
Whether this really happened cannot be proven. The story goes back to Friedrich Rochlitz, whose Mozart anecdotes are notoriously unreliable. It’s a lovely story nonetheless!
Much honor, little money
Disappointed, Mozart leaves Berlin. His conclusion: much honor, hardly any money. What remains of his visit are the Prussian Quartets, timeless masterpieces that would never have been composed without the trip to Berlin.
Are you interested in the story of Mozart in Berlin? We’ve illustrated his story in this Instagram post:
