Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 9 K 271, “Jeunehomme”

Mozart in 1777, the year of the Concerto. The portrait was painted in Bologna, by an anonymous artist.

I mention various pieces by Mozart in my novel, Mozart’s Sister, but only two of them have any real bearing on the story: one is the Fantasia in D minor K 397, the other is the Piano Concerto No. 9 in E flat major K 271, ‘Jeunehomme’.

The term in French means ‘young man’ but it actually refers to a woman, because that was the name of the famous French pianist who arrived in Salzburg in 1777, fresh “from the big world outside, to make the city reel with the scent of high society” – according to one of Mozart’s biographers, Bernhard Paumgartner. Mozart was born in 1756. He therefore wrote this magnificent Concerto when he was little more than twenty years of age, inspired by a foreign “muse”.

Information regarding Jeunehomme stops here unfortunately: we know little else about her. In other works we find other references but most of it is hypothesis and little is known for certain. Who was this mysterious young woman? Was there some kind of romantic attachment between her and Mozart? Was she blind? And was she really called Jeunehomme or Jenamy as some academics have claimed? We almost wonder whether she really existed at all?

Sicily – a mix of ancient and modern

The Fountain of Arethusa, in the Ortygia island. Photo by Leandro's World Tour.

It was twenty years ago that I first set foot in Sicily. I had passed the auditions and managed to get into the School of Classic Theatre which is in Syracuse. My idea of what Ortygia might be like was a bit far-fetched: people had told me that it was like a little island joined to the city by a bridge which, for some reason, I had pictured as a wooden drawbridge. Young and defenceless, with a rather bizarre imagination, I was convinced the place was going to be lush and green, a kind of savanna landscape complete with monkeys and baobab trees. The reality was much more exciting.

I started wandering round the baroque buildings and historical landmarks, enjoying these echoes of the ancient, sophisticated society that inspired them, and digging deep for memories of the myths this civilization produced. Myths which, as you know, responded to man’s need to control the uncontrollable aspects of nature – thus a natural spring, emerging near the sea, became a nymph that managed to escape the clutches of an over-insistent god. And that nymph was there, in front of me, living in peace. I swam in the sea nearby and was amazed at the cold water that came up from underneath. I thought of the story of Arethusa which is a lovely metaphor for the way lovers each have to change before they can become a couple.

Mozart’s sister and Shakespeare’s sister

Portrait of Virginia Woolf by George Charles Beresford (1864-1938), Victorian studio photographer.

Virginia Woolf wrote her famous essay, A Room of One’s Own in 1928 / 1929, reworking ideas from two lectures she had given to her students at Cambridge on the subject of women and literature. One of the most interesting aspects for me was the part about William Shakespeare’s imaginary sister-poetess.

Woolf states that there is a very close link between any artistic creation and the artist’s everyday life. The creative process is fed by sentiment much more than any mathematical or logical process. A scientist can work and get results regardless of his / her state of mind, whereas a work of art clings like a spider’s web to what its creator does – what time they get up, what their preoccupations or problems are – and the way they feel while working on the piece.

Woolf uses this to explain why there are fewer women artists than men, and far fewer women writers. She takes as her example the poet and playwright William Shakespeare and an imaginary sister of his who she decides to call Judith. She analyses the family, social and cultural context that this sister, who was born with the same talent and the same creative desire as him, would have found herself living in.