Christie’s announced that it will auction in London next month a letter stating that Austrian composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was feeling “total panic” about his love life.
The two-page letter was written by the musician in the summer of 1782 and appears to have been seeking advice from a close friend after a “misunderstanding” arose with his soon-to-be-partner, reports Al-Rai daily quoting Reuters.
Thomas Vining, head of the Books and Manuscripts Department at Christie’s, said, “She was about to resort to the police to retrieve his fiancée, which would expose his reputation to dire consequences.”
He added, “He was in a major crisis and expresses what is inside him with full transparency.”
Mozart wrote many letters, but Fenning said that “it is rare for any of them to be offered for sale at auction, and it is rare to reach such depth of character and feelings at a crucial time in his life.”
Mozart wrote that speech at the age of 26, shortly after his arrival in Vienna.
While his career was in its infancy, after he had achieved a resounding success in his operatic debut, his love life was “getting a bit complicated” and he was keen to move forward with his later marriage to Constanze.
“That tells you something about Mozart as a revolutionary,” Fenning added. He is a character who does not obey the old rules.”
Mozart married Constanze shortly after writing the letter, and they remained together until his death in 1791 at the age of 35.
The speech is to be shown as part of Christie’s Week of Extraordinary Classics in July and is expected to fetch the highest price for a Mozart speech to date, with estimates ranging from 300,000 to 500,000 pounds ($380,490 to $634,150).