The Mozart season on BBC R3 continues to enthrall. This morning there was an excellent programme in which Jane Glover spoke about the various women in Mozart's life, including his wife Constanze. It turns out that she was quite unlike the slut in the Peter Shaffer version of Mozart's life, enjoyable though the film Amadeus was. In a Guardian article from 2005, Jane Glover wrote of the Shaffer version that Constanze was 'portrayed as a vulgar, bubble-headed sex kitten, lacking any appreciation of her husband's phenomenal gifts'. In reality Constanze was intelligent, talented, a determined and shrewd business woman and their marriage was 'unquestionably a success'. Jane Glover's description of Mozart's final moments as he tried to finish the Requiem with Constanze present at his bedside was incredibly moving. The music when it came brought me close to tears. 
The picture above is probably a fairly accurate likeness of Constanze. The photograph, taken in the 1840s, is more controversial but it seems likely that the woman seated at the far left is Constanze Mozart. I always find it hard to interpret character from portraits and I am reminded of a comment made by a pathologist that in death it is of course impossible to tell the intelligent from the dim-witted, the kind from the cruel, the talented from the wastrel. There's always the temptation to ascribe to portraits character traits you know already know to be present in a personality from other sources. Speaking of which, I now need to add Jane Glover's book, 'Mozart's Women', to my 2011 reading list and I do believe there is a copy sitting next door in the book room.
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