Noticing Talent that Goes Unnoticed

Sing it with me!
How do you solve a problem like Maria (Anna ‘Nannerl’ Mozart being left out)?

Given the context, I’m being playful with my more serious question, and we’ll come back to that.

I spent a day in Salzburg (yes, the place where The Sound of Music was filmed) and it was gorgeous. Walking around on cobblestone, in the old part of the city, you can find the birth house of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart where he lived until age 17 with the rest of his family. Then he moved to another location in the city. This birth house is 800 years old. Of course, there have been renovations over the centuries, but when he was born there in 1756, it was already more than 500 years old.

After seeing this, I’m grateful that a tour guide also asked us, “So do you know about Maria Mozart?” Most of us did not. “Come with me,” she said.

Then she showed us the home of Maria Anna Mozart, who was nicknamed “Nannerl.” She was the older sister of Wolfgang, and she, like her brother, was also a musical prodigy. She lived in this house pictured until she was in her 80s.

When Wolfgang and Maria were young, their father, Leopold, took them both on tours around Europe to showcase their tremendous talent. Maria was also a brilliant pianist, and she, too, was a composer, because as she aged, she and her brother would write letters back and forth and discuss their compositions. But sadly, none of her compositions can be found; likely, when Wolfgang died at age 35, much was taken from his home, and these may have included her compositions.

When Maria was 14 years old, her father Leopold, stopped taking her on the tours with younger Wolfgang. As she was getting older, it was seen as improper for her father to travel with her alone, so in order for her to come, they would have had to pay more money for her mother or a maid to travel with them. It was also expected that in the near future years, she would marry and have children. So with that, her recognition waned while Wolfgang’s blossomed.

And she did do exactly that; she married and had children. And she moved to St. Gilgen, a town about 30 kilometers away. But after the death of her husband, she returned to Salzburg, and from there, she became a renowned piano teacher and a soloist in the concerts of Prince Ernst von Schwarzenberg. Some of her students were women, including Anna Sick, who became the court pianist at Stuttgart.

So how do we reflect upon this change of expectations and this transition that allowed her brother to flourish in performances, opportunities, and appointments while hers became much more limited? There is no doubt that he deserved his recognition. But so did she, and here I am — a whole person with a music degree — and I knew very little about her. I knew she was an influence on him, but again, that story was presented with him at the center.

I am reminded that people in this world have great talent, intelligence, drive, and imagination. Some are held down by expectations, and some are oppressed by systems with barriers and narratives that say “this one,” or “these ones,” “do not matter very much.”

But they do, and so do these talents, forms of intelligence, passions, and great examples imagination. We should recognize this. And if we have doorways opened for us, we should also open doors for others.

— Renee Roederer