The Maras

[mildred_of_midgard]

selenak write-up:

Born Gertrud Elisabeth Schmeling in Kassel in the same year fellow Hessian Goethe was, 1749, she was the eighth daughter of a poor (and violent) town musician. Who had the same idea Leopold Mozart did when he saw his toddler kid grabbing a violin and hit the road with little Gertrud, presenting her as a musical Wunderkind in the Netherlands and various German cities. At first a violinist, but then this happened:

Schmeling Mara overview
People: so, your kid is getting taller. Soon she'll hit puberty. The sight of a woman violinist is unseemly. Just saying.
Dad Schmeling: Maybe if I dress her in male clothing?
People: Works for a while, but are those breasts she starts to have? You're about a century too early for George Sand, mate.
DS: Gertrud, enough with the violin. You have a nice singing voice. Maybe become a soprano instead? I still need cash.
Gertrud: turns out to have a spectacular singing range of nearly three octaves, going from little g to three-stroke f (I hope that's the right expression in English).
German public: goes wild
Young Goethe: like many a fanboy, writes a "you're divine, be mine!" type of love poem to her; the poem isn't important, but there's a lovely pay off for this decades later
British and Italian public: goes wild
(Dad Schmeling: spends to much of her earned money he ends up in British debtor's prison until she gets him out of same)

Gertrud: debuts in Berlin, listened to by one of Fritz' courtiers who hastens off to Sanssouci
Old Fritz: okay. I still think German voices sound like my horse, but I'll listen to her auditioning for my opera.
His dogs: bark, since they're not used to a woman anywhere near him at this point.
Gertrud: is fearless and tackles the aria he selects, a bravoura aria from Graun's Britannicus called "Mi parenti, il figlio indegno"
Fritz: has her sing for him every night the next six weeks
Dad Schmeling: So, cash?
Fritz: You strike me as a jerk. 3000 Thaler for a two years contract.
Gertrud: 6000 per year and a life time contract, and independence, that's what I'm thinking. Bye, Dad.
Fritz: I sort of sympathize with the Dad issue. You've got a contract. But that name has to go. It's so... German.
Gertrud: Christ. Okay, how about Elisabeth Schmeling instead? That's my middle name.
Fritz: Not much better, but a bit.

*Elisabeth Schmeling continues to wow Berlin; among many fans is a young guy named Zelter, which only becomes a plot point later*

Elisabeth: *falls in love with Prince Heinrich's drop dead gorgeous cellist Johann Mara, wants to marry him*
Fritz: He's my brother's boy toy. Normally I'd see this as hilarious, but I sort of like you. Don't do it.
Elisabeth: But I love him! He's the most beautiful man I've ever seen! You're just being a mean, controlling jerk, as per your reputation. I don't believe you.
Fritz: Not in this case I'm not. Don't do it.
Elisabeth: *runs away with Mara, marries him, is caught on route to England by Fritz' people*
Fritz: You have a life time contract, Missy. Ten weeks arrest for Heinrich's boy toy.
Elisabeth, now singing as Elisabeth Mara: I'm too young to make pointed remarks about people running away to England with their lovers and getting caught. Still. Can I at least guest star in a few German states?
Fritz: Mayyybeee. Okay. But none that belong to the Queen of Hungary.
Johann Mara: *spends Elisabeth's money, cheats on her*
Fritz: I'm just saying.
Elisabeth: He's still drop dead gorgeous and in my bed, jerk. Also, I'm off to Prague.
Fritz: Prague belongs to THAT WOMAN. You're fired!

Elisabeth: *gets rave reviews and audience adulation in Prague, Vienna, etc., then goes to Paris, where the French are divided between "Maraists" (her crowd) and "Todists" (fans of Luisa Modi, the other prima donna), goes to Britain and is fanboyed by the Prince of Wales, and has a distinct sense of deja vue as her husband gambles money away and has sex left right and center, until she separates from him*

Elisabeth: Okay, one more season in Paris to earn some money, then I'm off to Moscow. Haven't done Russia yet. It looks like an interesting place to retire. Also they'll pay me my star salary whereas here the younger crowd is eyeing my top position.

*one revolution and one Empire later*

Moscow in 1812: *gets invaded by Napoleon, burns*

Elisabeth: There go my retirement fund and my earthly possessions. FUCK YOU, WORLD CONQUERORS. Guess I'll have to go back on the road again. *goes back to England, Berlin, gives some concerts, teaches a bit, finally gets offered job as house teacher from Livonian family, takes it for lack of alternatives*

Zelter *has become Goethe's old age pen pal*: Dear JWG, recently heard the wonderful Gertrud Elisabeth Schmeling Mara has fallen on hard times. Remember how we loved her? I feel we should do something when you're both turning 83 this year.

Goethe: *writes a second poem, "To Madame Mara", which uses the same metre his youthful ditty did but says, in rhymed form: Your life was full of music, you are still the music of our lives; you've brought joy often when my life had been a drag, and now that we're both close to our final destination, I send love and adoration to you!

Hummel: *sets the second poem to music*

Zelter: *sends poem and score to La Mara in Livonia

(Goethe: *dies one and a half year later*)

Elisabeth Mara *dies two years later*

selenak write-up:

Schmeling Mara's memoirs
Just what I needed. I mean, it's also a bit sad, as she feels the need to defend her father and Mara a lot, but it's a goldmine for the musical side of Sanssouci, the concerts, and of Fritz, since she doesn't just describe her own contribution but Proporino's singing and Fritz's flute playing. (Three flute concerts every evening, together with two violins, one alto, one violincello and one piano.) "He did not play like a King but very good, had a strong, full tone and much technique.") Considering how things ended with her and Fritz, she has no reason to praise his ability unduly, so I believe her assessment.

Having read Lehndorff's diaries in which Mara doesn't described with any positive qualities other than his musical abilities and his good looks, Gertrud-Elisabeth's description of him as passionate but the perfect gentleman is, shall we say, a contrast, and knowing Mara will waste all her money, too, and drink like a fish I'm more inclined to believe Lehndorff, but I do believe her on Mara being charming, and the Rashomon effect of hearing the same story froma completely different perspective is fascinating. Remember, Mara/Schmeling first became a thing during Ulrike's visit at Rheinsberg:

There was supposed to be an evening concert, and the gentlemen of the court had made the suggestion to let it take place in the garden pavillon; Mara resented this fiercely, went to the Prince and said: "These gentlemen might enjoy themselves coming and going through the concert, but it will show no regard for the first singer of the realm!" I did not know about any of this. When I later took a stroll with Mara, we encountered the Prince. He said to me: "I heard you wouldn't have liked to sing in the pavillon, so I have ordered for the concert to take place inside the palace."

I wanted to reply to this, but Mara intervened and replied: "Mademoiselle doesn't know anything about this, I was the one who didn't think it was fitting." The Prince, who otherwise always called him "du", said: "Well, well, don't be rude" (using the Sie-form), and I tried to leave as not to witness the ending of this conversation. The concert took place in the palace, the Prince was extraordinarily kind to his favourite, and his court was angry about this.

Mara insisting that courtiers shouldn't come and go during a concert is actually a very sympathetic trait, and very believable. It's the rest that makes me raise a cynical eyebrow. Here's how she introduces her later husband to the narrative: After the Carneval 1774, I met the young famous violincellist Mara. He had returned from Paris where his master, Prince Heinrich of Prussia, the King's third brother, who was a great admirer of the French theatre had sent him in order to study with the famous Le Quin. He was a beautiful, well educated man, full of talent and excellent manners. This was only natural, as he'd been living in the Prince's household ever since he was fourteen. (When AW had died and Heinrich had taken over the musicians from AW's household.) It wasn't surprising, then, that I prefered such a man to all others when he was trying to win my heart. When he had played for the Prince for the first time after his return, the Prince - like anyone else in the audience - had been so delighted about his passionate performance that he provided him with a new budget, large rooms in the palace, kitchen and cellar at his service, wardrobe, carriage - in short, if he hadn't had caused jealousy before, he surely did thereafter.

So Ulrike's lengthy state visit with Rheinsberg finale happens. When the Queen left, she gave me a beautiful Crystal de Rochau watch, and a tobbaco box laid in gold, while Mara received a diamond ring of great worth. We all returned to Berlin, where Mara didn't leave me any time to think of anything other than him. In the morning at 9 am, he sent me a messenger to learn how I'd slept, at 10 a billet d'amour arrived, at 11 fresh fruits or flowers, and at 12 o'clock, he came himself. Through him, I made the aquaintance of his teacher, famous contrapunctist Joh. Ph. Kirnberger, he was kind enough to teach me in generalbasso, and without effort, I learned more in an hour from him than I had in 10 hours from others.

This musical idyll gets first interrupted by Dad (who is still around but gets paid off for good at this point), and then:

The Prince wasn't too keen on his favourites marrying - though, as I mentioned once, they all did, or were already married when they became his favourites - as he thought that the closeness usually faded, since husbands felt more love for their wives than for their lord. (Mara) assured me that he would never sacrifice his love to me for the Prince's favour; he was simply concerned that as soon as he wasn't in the Prince's service anymore, all those envious of him would seek to harm him, and as it turned out he was right to fear this; also, that if I became his wife as I had given him reason to hope I would and then would leave Berlin with him, the King, whose subject he was, might not permit him to leave.

These ponderings made me very sad. I, who had grown up in England where I had heard of nothing but liberty, and who was still seeking the laurels on my head, should waste my life as a prisoner between love and violence? I lost all my joy, I remained mostly at home, and Mara was always with me; this was interpreted as if we were plotting, which I did not think of, since I regarded myself as a free woman in any case as soon as my contract had expired. Meanwhile, the Prince was travelling, and the courtiers, having him for themselves, probably did not miss the opportunity to tell him that I supposedly was planning to leave Berlin and that Mara would come with me.

The Prince returned, and after a short conversation, he released Mara from his service. As one might imagine, there was much gossip, and his enemies used their opportunity. At last, rumor reached the King that I was intending to leave for Italy in Mara's company, that Mara had persuaded me to this because he had been dismissed, in short - the King, who had not liked a single one of the Prince's favourites, and didn't want to lose me, was glad for the opportunity to discipline the dismissed favourite somewhat. One evening, when Mara was with me, Polizeimeister B. (...) arrived with 12 men, in order to arrest Mara; one can imagine my shock. (..)

Mara is off to Marienburg, writes earnest letters, and our heroine pleads with Fritz. I asked the King to free him and promised to stay. When Mara arrived at Marienburg, the commandant told him: "I'm happy to tell you you're a free man." Shortly after his return, we were married, in the morning in my apartment by a Catholic priest, as Mara was a Catholic, and in the afternoon by a Calvinist clergymen, with the most noble citizens of the city as our witnesses.

Meanwhile, Lehndorff's account of the same story, as a reminder: Another matter which amazed me was that Prince Heinrich finally decided to fire the infamous Mara, who had such influence on him. He was the son of a local poor musician and was educated as a boy through the benevolence of the late Prince of Prussia who financed his study of music, at which he soon made great progress. After the death of this prince, Prince Heinrich took him into his service. Despite Mara playing pranks all the time, but Prince Heinrich in consideration of his great talents was lenient. Mara possesses a vivacious, passionate temper, and not fourteen days passed without him arguing with the Prince who nonetheless treated him leniently, which spoiled him completely. Four years ago, he already left the Prince once already and went to Paris, and the Prince not only paid for his journey but allowed him to come back upon his return. Last winter, Mara left him again, and in order to win him back, the Prince had to concede him the greatest privileges. Thus Mara was allowed to get as many meals as he wanted and for as many people as he wanted from the kitchen, he had a courtly equipage, he had a large apartment in the Prince's town residence, in which he was allowed to install Fräulein Schmeling, our first singer, of whom he is enamored. This still wasn't enough for him, and he behaved so badly that the prince finally sent him away.

mildred_of_midgard write-up:

The (Johann) Mara Stradivari
While researching Mara for "Lovers lying two and two", and not being able to admit I was researching Mara, I ran across this article about his cello.

High points:

- Made in 1711.
- Johann Mara its first known owner.
- Mara was accused by contemporaries of playing too fast.
- Also accused of beating his wife Schmeling when drunk.
- Apparently spilled some alcohol on the cello, which left streaks where the varnish was removed, still visible in 1902.
- Schmeling left him in 1799 (the year of Mara's visit to Heinrich).
- After she stopped paying his expenses, he was so short on money he had to sell his cello in 1802.
- He died 6 years later.
- The cello went down on a sinking ferry boat in Argentina in 1963, but it was miraculously retrieved in its case and reassembled from pieces.

You can see pictures of both the whole instrument and what it looked like in fragments in the article.

You can also listen to it here!

cahn comments:
Wow, that's beautiful! Poltera, and his cello, are amazing. (Also the Bach cello suites! :D )

Poltera actually plays in a modern way, which tends to use rather more vibrato (mildred, in case you don't know, vibrato is when he's, well, rapidly vibrating his finger back and forth, which makes a "sweeter" kind of sound), and also I believe the composition of the strings back then was different (gut core then vs. metal core now) and made a less "round," resonant sound (sorry, I am terrible at describing sounds, I don't know how to say it better than that). But anyway, that is a gorgeous cello.

Oh! Here is someone playing the same Bach suite movement Baroque style, with (I believe) gut strings. You can hear/see that although she does use vibrato, she uses less of it and more as ornamentation for specific notes at ends of phrases than the modern tendency to use it much more commonly as Poltera does. (Also the tuning is a little different!) Because I am a modern listener, I find his version more viscerally moving, but I also think hers is extremely impressive (probably more so; vibrato can cover small playing inconsistencies, so without it you really have to be Right On) and love it just as much. In any case it's no wonder Heinrich fell for that, I would too!

selenak comments:
Having just read the article, I have to add this re: Mara's playing: given his alcoholism, I can believe he was on a downslide in the later 1780s when the writer critiquing him heard him, but he must have been really good at first, because Heinrich (and Schmeling-Mara) weren't the only ones raving about his talent when besotted with him. The very much not besotted Lehndorff also thought he was superb. The first time Mara shows up in his diaries is as a 13 years old boy musician playing in the gardens of Oranienburg for AW and guests, just before the war, and Lehndorff remarks on his musical excellence even then. The next time Mara shows up in Lehndorff's diaries is many years later when he's an adult, back from Paris and Heinrich's favorite, and Lehndorff has a lot to say about his impudence, but he admits that Mara is a superb musician.

So: Gertrud Elisabeth in her public memoirs defending him might have been because she didn't want to admit she'd been taken in by someone who turned out to be a money wasting abuser and drunkard, but also not even that great a cellist. But Lehndorff in his personal diaries really has no reason to applaud one of Heinrich's boyfriends he can't stand as a person.

An additional write-up by selenak on more general music topics:

Fritz and Music
I got the "Fritz and Musik" book back from the library for two days since I wanted to transcribe some stuff for you. One particular beef of the author's is that she argues against the claim Fritz stopped going into the opera in his old age, lost interest in same or never liked opera buffa (as opposed to the tragic variation) to begin with, and she backs up her oounterarguments with letter quotes and notes from Berlin newspapers about the King being sighted in the opera; the very last opera he attended is documented by such a newspaper note and it was an opera buffa, on January 28th 1786, apropos the visit of none other than great nephew Carl August from Weimar. (No mention as to whether he brought Goethe along this time, too, which makes me assume he didn't.)

(That book has other musical factoids like Fritz telling EC to arrange Heinrich's birthday party, birthday meal and birthday opera for him on January 18th 1784. Fritz did attend, though.)

Oh, and remember that Elisabeth Mara/Gertrud Schmeling had after she left Fritz a glorious Paris season complete with rivalry with local soprano La Todi, with people declaring themselves Maraists or Todists? Well, guess whom Fritz hired to make up for the lack of a heroic female soprano in Berlin once that season was over? (Though she didn't stay for longer than one season. She had an offer from St. Petersburg, and Catherine paid better than Fritz.)

Also of possible interest to you - a list of musicians who did stay with Fritz either until his death or theirs, meaning that micromanaging boss or not, Fritz must have won their enduring loyalty:

Carl Heinrich Graun (1704 - 1759), from 1735 till his death (first as a singer, then since 1740 as Kapellmeister)

Violinists: Gohann Gottlieb Graun (1703 to 1771) from 1733 till his death, Franz Benda (1709 - 1786) till his death, Georg Czarth (1708 - 1780) from 1734 to 1758, Ems (or Ehmes, ? - 1764), Joseph Blume (1708 - 1782) from 1734 till his death and Johann Caspar Grundcke (? - 1787) from 1734 to 1786.
Viola: Johann Georg Benda (1713 - 1752) from 1734 till his death.
Violincello: Antonius Hock (no known life dates) between 1734 to 1758
Contraviolone: Johann Gottlieb Janitsch (1708 - 1762) between 1734 and his death.
Cembalo: Christoph Schaffrath 81709 to 1763) from 1734 till 1744
Theorbe: Ernst Gottlieb Baron (1696 - 1760) from 1735 till his death
Harp: Petrini (? - 1751) from 1735 till his death
Horn: Joseph Ignaz Horzizki (? - 1757) from 1735 till 1755

Most of these musicians were hired in Rheinsberg, i.e. during the "happiest time".

When Fritz and Joseph met at Neisse and Mährisch-Neustadt, there was ,of course, music, too. ("la ritornata di Londra" by Domenico Fischietti.) (They got the theatre decorations from Breslau.) A countess from Joseph's entourage kept notes: "The opera, which bears the name Il Ritorne de Londres, was better performed than yesterday. The two monarchs were listening very attentively, and the Emperor once laughed heartily. The opera took really long, though."

Opera content: Petronilla, a female singer, returns home to Bologna after having been a great success in London. On her way, she stops in Milan.She gets received by the noble house of Ridolfino. But she's greedy and not content with the cash she's made in London, so she cons her accidental fellow travelers, an Italian and a French noblemen, out of their fortune while pretending to love them. After a while, they smell a rat, one of the suitors pretends to be a castrato, and the lot uncover her duplicity. In the end, though, everyone reconciles and Petronilla continues her journey with the Marquis and the Baron in tow.

(Does "playing hard to get to two suitors" have symbolism for one of the two monarchs, enquiring minds want to know?)

And btw, the book's author quotes the letter to Joseph from Fritz afterwards. As opposed to Peter, Joseph is "Monsieur Mon Frere", and the letter in full goes, in my own translation into English, because I think cahn deserves the full flavour of rococo state correspondance and over the top-ness:

"Dear Sir and Brother,

after I enjoyed the unestimable pleasure of receiving your imperial majesty , nothing can be more precious to me than the letter you've kindly written to me. I can see the assured testimonies to your friendship and in general - which is most longed for by me - the complete reconciliation between two houses which have been torn apart for such a long time. Yes, my dear Sir, I repeat it in writing, that I find it impossible in my heart to be the enemy of such a man, and may heaven grant us that other steps should follow this first one, which will bring us closer to each other. I promise you with the word of a King and the promise of a gentleman that even in the case of a war breaking out between England and the House of Bourbon, I shall faithfully keep the peace so happily arranged now between us, and that I even in the case of another war, the cause of which is not yet forseeable, should remain neutral towards your current possessions, as long as you promise to similarly remain neutral towards mine. I shall say nothing more about the impression your majesty's presence has left on my soul and shall limit myself to the assurance of the great respect and admiration with which I shall remain

dear Sir, the good and faithful brother of your imperial highness
Federic

(Joseph: Mom! Mom! Just look at that. See how I kept my cool? I got a neutrality assurance and a peace promise out of him, even if we invade someone else!

MT: Oh for God's sake. *goes back to writing to Marie Antoinette about saying hello to Dubarry.)