The Gift

In the fall of 1786, Nancy Storace announced to the Bergtheater management that she would be returning to London to fulfill a contract that her brother, Stephen, had arranged (without her knowledge), over the previous summer. When Mozart learned of this, he began immediately to make plans to travel with Nancy, Stephen, their mother, Elizabeth, Michael Kelly, his English pupil, Thomas Atwood, and the young English nobleman (who had been residing in Vienna during his grand tour), Harry Vane (Lord Barnard), with them to London, where he hoped to gain a commission for some operas at the King's Theater. His plans were thwarted, however, when his wife, Constanze, who was pregnant with their third child, refused to allow him to go without her. Mozart wrote to his father, Leopold, (who lived in Salzburg), and asked if he would take the two children until he and Constanze were settled in London. He promised to make arrangements for a wet nurse for the baby as well as a nanny for little Karl. The request was sent shortly after the birth of their son, Johann Thomas Leopold, however, before Mozart received Leopold's reply, little Thomas died of a choking cough. Leopold's reply was a cold, scathing refusal. So it was with a heart heavy with grief, disappointment and discouragement that Mozart delivered the news to Nancy and his other English friends that he would not be traveling back with them to London.

The following December (1786), Mozart composed an aria (a "Scena con Rondo"), for Nancy and presented it to her as a gift (presumably for Christmas). The text was taken from his beloved opera Idomeneo and was really a vocal/piano duet, the piano part composed for him to play. It was his intentions that Nancy sing it at her Viennese farewell concert, which was scheduled for the night before the group's departure in February of 1787. In his thematic catalog, dated 27 December 1786, Mozart made the following personal entry next to the musical incipit of the aria: Für Mlle. Storace und mich (For Mademoiselle Storace and me). This is the only personal reference found in Mozart's thematic catalog.

The following is the scene from So Faithful a Heart where Mozart presents his gift to Nancy:


After supper, they all retired to the salon for a special presentation, for Mozart announced upon his arrival that he had a gift to give Nancy before he left for Prague. He motioned Nancy to step forward and join him at the fortepiano, where he sat, opening the aria. Knowing her excellent sight singing capabilities, he invited her to read through it with him in front of the other guests.

As she quickly leafed through the manuscript, she immediately recognized the text, and turned to him with tears brimming in her eyes. “I can’t believe you did this,” she whispered to him.
Mozart smiled sheepishly and replied softly, “It’s everything I wish to say to you, Wanze.” He silently mouthed the words to her in English, “I adore you, little bug.” He then played the opening measures of the recitative and she began to sing.


You ask me to forget you?
You advise me calmly to forget you and love another
and want that I still live?
Ah, No! I would rather die!
Come death! I wait for it courageously!
To seek consolation from another,
to give my love to another only fills my heart with dread!
Cruel suggestion! Ah! My despair will kill me.
Do not fear, my love will never be changed.
Faithful I shall always remain.
But my affliction has caused me to falter
and now my soul from grief must flee.
Are you sighing? O woe outpouring?
But all is vain to one who is begging.
O Heaven, I cannot express it!
Pity me, Heaven, see my anguish,
see the grief due to my affection!
Has ever such torment plagued so faithful a heart?
Has such doom or dejection ever beset such a loyal heart?
Hateful galaxies! Vile constellations!
Why should you beset me with such sorrow? Ah, why?

She thought that when he’d composed the role of Susanna, it was the ultimate in his public expression of his affection for her, but now this. Not even the tender, Deh vieni non tardar, which they had always considered their special aria, could compare. The music was passionate and tender all at once, and the piano part that he had composed for himself to play as a duet with her vocal line, wrapped itself around the vocal melody as a lover wrapping himself around the object of his devotion. She could hardly wait for her concert when they would perform it with the orchestra and she would be able to hear his piano line standing out from the orchestral accompaniment, mingling with hers in a public, musical declaration of what had taken place in their hearts and in their most intimate moments, behind closed doors.

After they finished the last bars, he stood and handed her the manuscript. She read the dedication aloud, “From your servant and friend…” and she threw her arms around his neck. He wrapped her in his embrace, the two of them remaining in one another’s arms for several moments as the small group of onlookers sat silently and watched, many of them moved to tears by what they had just heard and seen.

Nancy Storace: A survivor of domestic violence

Since October is Domestic Violence Awareness month, I thought it appropriate to share a section from So Faithful a Heart which deals with the violence that Nancy suffered at the hands of her husband, John Fisher (a marriage that was arranged by her mother to supposedly further her career). Nancy was only 18 years old at the time. Nancy survived the ordeal, and eventually Fisher was banned from Vienna by Nancy's employer, Joseph II, the Emperor of Austria.



John Fisher was a tall, slender, handsome man with cool, slate blue eyes, a head full of dark, thick hair with slight graying at the temples, and an austere, almost noble bearing. He was forty-one years old when he came to Vienna, nearly three times Nancy’s age. An old friend of the Storaces from their theater days at Vauxhall, Fisher had served as the principal violinist when Stefano was the director of the orchestra there. When he came to Vienna on sabbatical from Oxford, he immediately found Nancy and her mother with the intent to re-establish ties with his old friends. Nancy’s fame, especially her good standing with the Emperor, could prove lucrative for him.

Nancy didn’t remember him, for she was far too young at the time that he and her parents were friends, but she’d heard her mother speak of him on several occasions, and always very fondly. She had mentioned that he had a tendency toward self-importance and pontification, believing everyone was entitled to his expert opinion whether or not they asked for it, but most generally people shrugged it off. What she didn’t know was that after he was widowed only shortly before he came to Vienna, he had taken to strong drink as well as to whoring and had earned a reputation in Oxford as a drunkard and a man of violent outbursts. What no one knew was that this sabbatical was forced by the university heads. Perhaps some time away would cool his temper and save his tenure.

It was a cruel stroke of fate that Nancy’s first passionate encounter, the one that would usher her into womanhood and leave her feeling beautiful, respected, and loved, would be followed by the most brutal and humiliating experiences of her life. The man whom Nancy promised wasn’t as bad as the gossipmongers claimed turned out to be her worst nightmare.

The abuse began immediately. In fact, Fisher turned into a different person the instant they took their vows. As soon as they arrived home he began barking out orders to the maids to have his things moved into Nancy’s bedroom.
“Schnell!” he shouted as the young maids went running, hauling his heavy belongings through the apartment. “Things are going to change around here! No more of your indolence, or your backtalk, you German swine!”

When one of the maids dared to raise an objection, he replied with a box on the ears, and it wasn’t unusual for him to pick up a nearby chair, a vase, or anything within his reach and hurl it at the offending girl. Elizabeth took to hiding in her room, never daring to raise an objection however much she regretted the match she had orchestrated. Of course he never laid a finger on her, but Nancy and her poor maids didn’t fare as well.

The first beating took place only two days after their wedding, when Nancy and Michael came back to the apartment after going to the Milano with other members of the company following a performance. They were laughing over his inebriated state and Michael, in a fit of drunken gaiety, buried his face in Nancy’s bosom. Nancy pushed him off of her, taking his arm and walking with him up to his own apartment, where she helped him get settled in for the night so he could sleep it off. When she returned to her own apartment, Fisher met her at the door with a leather strap in his hand and hit her with it, calling her a whore.

By the middle of April word of the beatings had gotten out to the Viennese gossipmongers, for Nancy had been taken out of several performances due to her injuries. They knew it was only a matter of time before Rosenberg grew impatient with Nancy’s frequent absences. She did the best she could to keep up with the grueling rehearsal and performance schedules, which were especially busy that spring and summer. She wasn’t going to allow herself to be replaced if she could help it. If nothing else, Nancy was determined.

Fortunately there were some weeks spent at Laxenburg, the Emperor’s summer palace and hunting grounds, where Fisher, being a spouse, wasn’t invited. Nancy enjoyed a little respite then and was grateful for the time away from both work and her husband. Upon her return to Vienna, however, she found the situation at home was as bad, or worse, than before.

She hadn’t seen Mozart the entire spring or summer, for after the night when she returned late with Michael, she was afraid to go out to the casino or to the Milano. It didn’t matter how early or late she returned, though, because Fisher always found a reason to be angry with her, so she was subject to his foul moods on a daily basis.

When he dragged her into their bed and forced her to submit to her conjugal duties—and unspeakably vile debaucheries—she closed her eyes and escaped to a place where she was loved and adored, and treated with respect and tenderness. She imagined being with Mozart in a lush, expansive garden with trees and a softly flowing river, lying in the grass. There, he made tender love to her on the daisy-strewn lawn, the birds and the breeze their only music, and the sky their only witness.

There were also times when she felt a sense of overwhelming guilt over her thoughts of him. What if she really was like other actresses and nothing but a common whore? Sometimes she believed that Fisher’s treatment of her was penance for her sin of loving a married man. Fisher always called her a whore; what if he was correct? And although she was neither a Catholic nor religious, she sometimes walked to St. Michael’s to sit in one of the back pews where no one would see her, and pray to God to forgive her for loving a man who belonged to someone else.

Foreword by S.K. Waller

The following is the foreword from So Faithful a Heart, written by my partner, S.K. Waller.

To read an historical fiction it is necessary to put aside our modern world. But that’s the easy part. The real difficulty lies in being willing to take off our modern goggles and see life as it was lived centuries in the past without judgments that come from several hundred years of social evolution. This isn’t easy, and there is so much we don’t know. Even writers who have spent years in research can only imagine life before mass media, women’s rights, the abolition of slavery, the overthrow of the monarchy, and the waning of theocratic governments.

This is a book that takes us to the eighteenth century to look at the life of a woman of the theater. At that time actresses were considered little better than prostitutes and few young women were encouraged to follow that path. Still, many did, not all of them women of loose moral character. Like women in our own time, many sought to be recognized and respected for their talents and hard work, stubbornly battling the stereotypes. However, also like modern women seeking acting or singing careers, some find themselves forced to acquiesce to the demands of the “casting couch” in order to find some small control over their lives. In the eighteenth century all women submitted to men, be they directors, fathers, brothers, or husbands. In this the wife was no different than the actress: she had a role to play, which was to see to the comfort and pleasure of a man. All women were held captive by this role, although the actress certainly appeared to have a more exciting life than the wife. While the wife may have looked at the actress with some envy for her supposed freedom, the actress probably looked at the wife, envying her security. Often, the pivot point between them was the husband, who required different things from the women in his life.

Which brings us to another problem when reading an historical fiction: that is the concept of marriage in an earlier time. In the eighteenth century a marriage was seldom made for love, especially between people of the noble, aristocratic, or educated working classes. The latter certainly had a little more access to romantic bonds, but the parents had the final say. After the ceremony it was back to life as usual; there was no honeymoon, and a steady parade of children usually followed, especially in those countries where the Catholic Church still held power.

With science teaching that a man needed regular sex to maintain his health, where was he to go when his wife was constantly pregnant, in post-partum confinement, or lactating? Men were expected to seek sexual release outside the marriage, something that few wives were threatened by. It was not his sexuality that made him loyal, but his sentiments. Falling into bed was not the sin, falling in love was, because that threatened the livelihood of the wife and her children. Therefore, men who could afford to do so kept mistresses and many wives were glad of it.

Likewise, the carrying, bearing, and raising of children were not the man’s concern. A man was not part of the birth of his children, nor was he part of the washing, feeding, or diaper-changing. He was expected to support his family and to be a good provider. He was to see to their religious instruction and their social grooming, and that was all. The children of a mistress, especially, were not his concern; only the generous, financially solvent man supported his bastards. Most men did not even acknowledge their illegitimate offspring, leaving it to the mistress to seek abortions or send the children into servitude as soon as they were able to work. Ideally, the mistress took care of what birth control was available at the time.

These things seem harsh to us today, but to see the eighteenth century clearly, without our modern sensibilities intruding, we must force ourselves to remember that where these social issues are concerned, people were not like we are. The roles of men and women were clearly defined in an attempt to keep society civilized. In our century such roles are looked down upon as we evolve socially, each of us toward our own personal fulfillment, regardless of gender. Death was always around the corner, most people were grossly uneducated, and Europeans, although largely dominated by the Church, were not religious in the way that people are today. There was no fear of global self-annihilation, no Freudian analysis, and no modern American fundamentalism, which didn’t take root until a hundred years later as a backlash to the liberal theology in both England and America. The world was a much larger place, and most people never traveled beyond their own city walls.

This is a book about two musicians who had seen most of Europe and had encountered other cultures, philosophies, and religious beliefs. They had been child prodigies, were worldly and educated, relatively tolerant, and unusually broad-minded. They were acquainted with many of the same people and had visited many of the same cities. When they met, they had to have recognized these similarities and they must have spent long hours in conversation about their mutual experiences. It is not difficult to imagine that they would have found these similarities comforting and even attractive.

As difficult as it is for us to slip beneath the skin of a person of the eighteenth century, it would be even harder for someone from that time to slip beneath ours. It is my hope that by reading this book you will truly get to know the characters and accept them for what they were, without modern bias.

S. K. Waller
Autumn 2009