Listen to a translation of a 1770 letter from Mozart, at age fourteen to his friend and fellow prodigy Thomas Linley, the same age, read by actor Christopher Inman.
In 1770, during the first Italian journey, Mozart met Thomas Linley, Jr., then studying in Florence. Linley and Mozart were both fourteen years old and renowned musical prodigies. Charles Burney wrote in his contemporary travel diary: “‘The Tommasino,’ as he was called, and the little Mozart, are talked of all over Italy, as the most promising geniuses of this age.”
The two boys quickly became inseparable. As Leopold reported, they performed “one after the other throughout the whole evening, constantly embracing each other,” and for the next two days played together for many hours “not like boys, but like men! Little Tommaso . . . wept the bitterest tears, because we were leaving the next day…”
The two boys never met again. Linley went on to achieve considerable success as a composer and performer in London but tragically died in a boating accident at age twenty-two. According to the tenor Michael Kelly, Mozart never forgot his friend, speaking of Linley many years later “with great affection.”
WA Mozart (1756–1791)
Autograph Letter to Thomas Linley, Jr.
With postscript by Leopold Mozart
Bologna, September 10, 1770
Christopher J. Salmon Collection, New York, L2026.97.6
Dear Friend,
Here is a letter from me at last! I come late, indeed very late, to replying to the most courteous letter you sent to me in Naples, but which I did not receive until two months after you had written it to me. My father’s plan was to take the Loreto road to Bologna, from there to travel via Florence, Livorno, and Genoa to Milan, and thus to surprise you, arriving unexpectedly in Florence. But as my father had the misfortune to receive a severe blow on the shin: the shafthorse of the post-sedia having fallen, which injury not only necessitated his remaining in bed for three weeks, but held him up in Bologna for 7 weeks, this ugly accident forced us to change our plans and to go to Milan via Parma…
I would do everything possible to have the pleasure of embracing my dear friend…
Retain your dear friendship for me and believe firmly that I am always and remain,
with unchangeable affection,
Your most devoted servant and most affectionate friend,
Amadeo Wolfgango Mozart