Maria Constanze Cäcilia Josepha Johanna Aloysia Mozart (née Weber; 5 January 1762 – 6 March 1842) was a trained Austrian singer. She was married twice, first to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart; then to Georg Nikolaus von Nissen. She and Mozart had six children: Karl Thomas Mozart, Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart, and four others who died in infancy. She became Mozart's biographer jointly with her second husband.
Early years
Constanze Weber was born in Zell im Wiesental, a town near Lörrach in Baden-Württemberg, in the southwest of Germany, then Further Austria. Her mother was Cäcilia Weber, née Stamm. Her father, Fridolin Weber, worked as a "double bass player, prompter, and music copyist". Fridolin's half-brother was the father of composer Carl Maria von Weber. Constanze had two older sisters, Josepha and Aloysia, and one younger one, Sophie. All four were trained as singers and Josepha and Aloysia both went on to distinguished musical careers, later on performing in the premieres of a number of Mozart's works.
During most of Constanze's upbringing, the family lived in her mother's hometown of Mannheim, an important cultural, intellectual and musical center. The 21-year-old Mozart visited Mannheim in 1777 on a job-hunting tour with his mother and developed a close relationship with the Weber family. He fell in love—not with 15-year-old Constanze, but with Aloysia. While he was in Paris, Aloysia obtained a position as a singer in Munich, and the family accompanied her there. She rejected Mozart when he passed through Munich on his way back to Salzburg.
The family moved to Vienna in 1779, again following Aloysia as she pursued her career. One month after their arrival, Fridolin died. By the time Mozart moved to Vienna in 1781, Aloysia had married Joseph Lange, who agreed to help Cäcilia Weber with an annual stipend; she also took in boarders to make ends meet. The house where the Webers lived (on the second floor) was at Am Peter 11, and bore a name (as houses often did at the time): Zum Auge Gottes ("God's Eye").
Marriage to Mozart
On first arriving in Vienna on 16 March 1781, Mozart stayed at the house of the Teutonic Order with the staff of his patron, Archbishop Colloredo. In May, he "was obliged to leave", and chose to board in the Weber household, originally intending "to stay there only a week".
After a while, it became apparent to Cäcilia Weber that Mozart was courting Constanze, now 19, and in the interest of propriety, she requested that he leave. Mozart moved out on 5 September to a third-floor room in the Graben.
The courtship continued, not entirely smoothly. Surviving correspondence indicates that Mozart and Constanze briefly broke up in April 1782, over an episode involving jealousy (Constanze had permitted another young man to measure her calves in a parlor game). Mozart also faced a very difficult task getting permission for the marriage from his father, Leopold.
The marriage finally took place in an atmosphere of crisis. Daniel Heartz suggests that eventually Constanze moved in with Mozart, which would have placed her in disgrace by the mores of the time. Mozart wrote to Leopold on 31 July 1782, "All the good and well-intentioned advice you have sent fails to address the case of a man who has already gone so far with a maiden. Further postponement is out of the question." Heartz relates, "Constanze's sister Sophie had tearfully declared that her mother would send the police after Constanze if she did not return home [presumably from Mozart's apartment]." On 4 August, Mozart wrote to Baroness von Waldstätten, asking: "Can the police here enter anyone's house in this way? Perhaps it is only a ruse of Madame Weber to get her daughter back. If not, I know no better remedy than to marry Constanze tomorrow morning or if possible today."
The marriage did indeed take place that day, 4 August 1782. In the marriage contract, Constanze "assigns to her bridegroom five hundred gulden which [...] the latter has promised to augment with one thousand gulden", with the total "to pass to the survivor". Further, all joint acquisitions during the marriage were to remain the common property of both. A day after the marriage took place, the consent of Wolfgang's father arrived in the mail.
The couple had six children, of whom only two survived infancy.
Raimund Leopold (17 June – 19 August 1783) Karl Thomas Mozart (21 September 1784 – 31 October 1858) Johann Thomas Leopold (18 October – 15 November 1786) Theresia Constanzia Adelheid Friedericke Maria Anna (27 December 1787 – 29 June 1788) Anna Maria (b/d 16 November 1789) Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart (26 July 1791 – 29 July 1844)