An amateur composer once asked Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart how he thought of his lovely music and — for one performance only — the maestro told him.
In April 1789, Mozart quitted Vienna and embarked on a tour that took him to Prague, Berlin, Leipzig, Potsdam and Dresden. In the course of his travels he made the acquaintance of Baron V—, an amateur musician who subsequently sent him a song, a symphony and a bottle of wine. The Baron also asked him how he thought up his own wonderful music, and Mozart, most unusually, told him.
Leopold Mozart was eager to win the hearts of the English, and thought he knew just the way to do it.
In 1763-64, Leopold Mozart spent fifteen months in England with his daughter Maria Anna (‘Nannerl’) and son Wolfgang, who turned nine during the visit. Leopold was much taken with King George III and Queen Charlotte, who treated the Mozarts like family, and he told his friend Johann Lorenz von Hagenauer, an Austrian businessman, that he was eager to win the affection of the English people too.