The letters from Mozart seem to portray a very amicable yet oddly imposing individual. Mozart writes to friends, his wife, and potential sponsors in a very friendly manner. There is no strict formality to his letters, except of course his letter King Leopold which was still intimate.

Personally, I found it odd when he addressed letters to his wife, Constantia, as  “Best little wife!”. This affectation seems to be on the hilarious side, if a bit of a mixed compliment. His relationship with his wife was clearly loving, and Mozart and his children also have had good rapport.

His own relationship with his own side of the family, father and sister, is less open. His father, Leopold, is very close to Amadeus in the father and son dynamic. Leopold offers to Amadeus to take care of the latter’s children, to which Amadeus refuses. It is understandable, since Amadeus doesn’t want to burden his aging father, who already gives effort to overseeing Amadeus’s success, as seen with Leopold’s exchanges to his daughter, Amadeus’s sister, which are always about Amadeus. There is possible resentment on the sister’s side in this case, when she did not send a letter to Amadeus herself informing him of their father’s death. Conditions withstanding, Amadeus still makes the effort to reconcile with his sister, and even assures her that he will be there for her in case she needed help, in spite of his own financial issues. After this, we see no more correspondence between the siblings.

Moving on to Mozart’s financial problems, which were plenty in his life. His lifetime debtor was a certain Michael Puchberg, a merchant he met when he joined the order of Freemasons. There are no letters from Puchberg to Mozart, but it could be inferred that Mozart was often overdue on his payments. Mozart is very desperate in this monetary pursuit, that he ends up promising to pay debts with as much interest as Puchberg wanted. Terrible money management on his part, which is probably why he spent his entire life in debt.

Mozart constantly uses references to the recipient’s family life, and his own, in an attempt to have them sympathize with his situation. It has served him well in his lifetime, enough to at least feed his family and place them in decent living space. Unfortunately, this was not enough to secure money for his family after his death. One has to wonder where his annual salary goes.