The Grand Mass in C Minor – A Love Story

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Constanze Weber married on August 4, 1782, but their courtship was not an easy one. When he was 21, Mozart met the musical Weber family (pater familias Fridolin was a double bass player, singer, and music copyist; his four daughters were well-educated musicians and very talented coloratura sopranos; his nephew was the composer Carl Maria von Weber) in Mannheim and promptly fell in love with the second eldest Weber daughter, Aloysia. The relationship didn’t go far (Alyosia was a more successful musician at the time than Mozart, and presumably felt he was too immature). Mozart met up with the family again in Vienna four years later. Fridolin had died, and his widow was taking in boarders for extra income. Mozart moved in, fell in love with the third daughter, Constanze, and stayed until Frau Weber learned of the entanglement and asked Mozart to leave for propriety’s sake. Wolfgang moved out but continued to woo Constanze over a tumultuous period of flirtations, jealousies, and even a short breakup; however, the couple finally decided to wed.

Now Wolfgang’s father, Leopold—always a controlling influence—made his objections known.  Despite Constanze’s excellent education and musical accomplishments, Leopold opposed the marriage, and a series of testy letters were exchanged between father and son. Wolfgang and Constanze went ahead with the marriage (and perhaps anticipated their vows in order to force Leopold’s hand); the very next day Leopold’s letter of consent arrived.

Mozart began composing the Mass in C Minor in 1782 after his marriage. Based on a letter to Leopold written in January 1783, it appears that Mozart had vowed to write a mass for the occasion of introducing Constanze to his family—possibly as an olive branch to Leopold, whose opposition to the match still stung. (By this time Mozart had largely finished writing the liturgical music that had been his bread and butter as a very young man). He wrote the vocal tour-de-force soprano solo Et incarnatus est for Constanze—one can speculate that Mozart hoped to win over his father with proof of his young wife’s talent; and the fugues and movements for double chorus, which show so much influence of Bach and Handel, may have been inspired by Constanze’s love of baroque counterpoint.

Mozart’s mass premiered with the Kyrie, Gloria, Sanctus and Benedictus in the church of St. Peter’s Abbey in Salzburg on October 26, 1783. Constanze sang the soprano solos in the Kyrie and Et incarnatus est, and the couple returned to Vienna having apparently received a less than warm welcome.

Mozart was never to finish his Grand Mass in C Minor, and his strained relationship with his family also never fully mended. Mozart never saw his sister Nannerl (Maria Anna) again, and Leopold visited the younger Mozarts in Vienna only once. Wolfgang and Constanze remained devoted to each other throughout their marriage despite persistent financial difficulties, the death in infancy of four of their six children, and other tribulations. A postscript to a letter from September 1790, just months before Mozart’s sudden death reveals the composer’s still ardent love for his wife: “…while I was writing the last page, tear after tear fell on the paper. But I must cheer up — catch — An astonishing number of kisses are flying about — The deuce! — I see a whole crowd of them. Ha! Ha!… I have just caught three — They are delicious… I kiss you millions of times.” Only 29 years old when her husband died, Constanze devoted the rest of her life to burnishing Mozart’s reputation and memory. The unfinished Mass in C Minor in all its brilliance, drama, joy, and solemnity stands testament to the genius and unrealized potential of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and to the love affair—tragically cut short after nine years—that inspired this great work.