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Mozart. ...improvise!
Sezione 1
Sezione 2
At the Court of Orange
The Hague, a stop on Mozart's tour with his family. 1765
PLAY ME
No, no way! My father did not want to go to the
Dutch Republic at all. However, an envoy of Princess Caroline
of Orange-Nassau had stroked his fatherly pride and convinced him to take us to The Hague. <<The children would be a success>>, she had assured him.
After disembarking in Calais, we stayed in Lille for a month, first because of my annoying tonsillitis and then because of my father's repeated attacks of vertigo. But that wasn't all...Upon arrival, my sister, due to a severe cold, could not attend the first concerts in front of the princess, nor a performance in front of the prince.
But my fearless father was so confident of Nannerl's recovery that he announced that we would both attend a concert in the Oude Doelen hall for Governor William V of Orange-Nassau. In the meantime, however, Nannerl's cold had turned into a fever and her condition continued to worsen, so much so that she was given the anointing of the sick.
The intervention of the court doctor was providential, and by the end of the month she was on the mend, to the immense relief of myself and my desperate father, who had begun to tear his hair out.... We were both able to perform at the Oude Doelen, where my new symphony in B flat major, which I had composed there in Holland, was performed publicly for the first time.
Sezione 3
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