I’m on the Street where You Live(d) – Maison Mozart – Thursday, 5 May

looking south on rue Sentier
 from in front of #8

Mozart’s mother Maria traveled with him on a concert trip in 1778.  He was 22 at the time, so didn’t really need a parent to accompany him, but perhaps she just wanted to hang out in Paris!  (Who wouldn’t?)  I recently learned that they stayed in a house just a few blocks north of my apartment, so I just had to make a pilgrimage to 8, rue Sentier.

OK, I know it’s sappy, but I just spontaneously started humming “I’m on the street where you live” as I was walking down rue Sentier.  The good news is that only some garbage men and one couple were around to hear me.  And I was humming very quietly!

Sadly, Maria died while they were in Paris.  Her funeral was at Église Saint-Eustache, just a couple blocks south of my apartment.  I’ve convinced myself that they must have walked down rue Montorgueil, between their house and the church, and perhaps even frequented the outdoor markets at Les Halles.  So I made a ceremonial journey in their footsteps.  You’ll be happy to know that I did stop humming once there were more people around!

My friend, the historian Nancy Blakestad, sent me this fascinating quote from a letter that Mozart's father Leopold wrote to Wolfgang and Maria when they were in Paris.  "My dear Wolfgang, you are young and do not worry much, for so far you have never had to bother about anything; you banish all serious thoughts, you have long since forgotten the Salzburg cross [i.e. the Archbishop's service] on which I am still hanging; you only listen to praises and flatteries and thus are becoming by degrees insensible and unable to realize our condition or to devise some means of relieving it. In short, you never think of the future. The present alone engulfs you completely, and sweeps you off your feet, although if you would only ponder the consequences of your actions and face them in good earnest, you would I know, be horrified. ..."  From The Letters of Mozart and His Family, Third Edition, ed. Emily Anderson, 1966 (reprint 1988 paperback).