For August’s “Salute to the Quarter,” we measure the worth of the lowly quarter note. A quarter note, also known as a crotchet, is a musical note that has a value of one beat in a common time signature like 4/4.
In his book, Quarter Notes & Bank Notes, F. M. Scherer examines the financial lives of composers in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. He makes a case for Mozart’s career marking a shift from muscians relying on patronage to becoming freelancers.
For the rare breed who loves both financial history and classical music, Scherer’s book makes for a fascinating read that shows how seemingly unrelated issues, such as new modes of transportation, affected musicians’ earnings.
Interestingly, a crotchet, according to Miriam-Webster, can also be defined as: a perverse or unfounded belief or notion. And there may be some crotchets attached to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s legacy.
In Miloš Forman’s Oscar-winning movie Amadeus, the composer is portrayed as a manic genius and his wife Constanze as a fluttery distraction. In truth, Mozart, a prolific composer, with upwards of 800 compositions to his name, was devoted to his wife, caring for her during a serious illness. While he kept the truth of their chaotic finances from her to protect her health, as she recovered so did the family’s finances.
The movie suggests that Mozart was driven to his death by debt. However, his financial situation was on the rise at the time of his death, due in large part to his wife.
When the composer died at age 35, Constanze was only 29. Widowed, with two young children, she organized benefit concerts in her late husband’s name, collected his papers and wrote his biography, and secured a pension from the Emperor for herself and her children.
I don’t know about you, but I think a movie about her might be called for.
In keeping with this month’s theme, let us close with a musical interlude: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1-TrAvp_xs
WayWord’s second season mystery, Murder in Milan, is alive with music, not Mozart, but J.S. Bach, often called the “father of Baroque music” and the “father of all harmonies.” Even more prolific than Mozart, he composed more than 1000 pieces of music, he once said, “I play the notes as they are written, but it is God who makes the music.”
Murder in Milan is our second season’s second offering. It will be followed by a Bohemian memoir, circa 1899, and will wrap up with the most fantastical take on fairy tales you’ve ever seen! Subscribe here to enjoy!