Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Totally Explained

Everything about Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart totally explained

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (baptized Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart) (27 January 1756 – 5 December 1791) was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. His 600 compositions include works widely acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music. Mozart is among the most enduringly popular of classical composers, and many of his works are part of the standard concert repertoire.

Biography

Family and early years

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born to Leopold and Anna Maria Pertl Mozart in Getreidegasse 9 in Salzburg, the capital of the sovereign Archbishopric of Salzburg, in what is now Austria, then part of the Holy Roman Empire. His only sibling who survived past birth was his sister Maria Anna (1751–1829), called "Nannerl". Wolfgang was baptized the day after his birth at St. Rupert's Cathedral. The baptismal record gives his name in Latinized form as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart. Mozart generally called himself "Wolfgang Amadè Mozart" as an adult, but there were many variants.
   Mozart's father Leopold Mozart (1719–1787) was deputy Kapellmeister to the court orchestra of the Archbishop of Salzburg and a minor composer. He was also an experienced teacher; in the year of Mozart's birth he published a successful violin textbook, Versuch einer gründlichen Violinschule.
   When Nannerl was seven, Leopold began giving her keyboard lessons. The three-year old Mozart looked on, evidently with fascination: his sister later recorded that at this age "he often spent much time at the clavier [keyboard], picking out thirds, [...] and his pleasure showed it sounded good [tohim]." Nannerl continued: "in the fourth year of his age his father, for a game as it were, began to teach him a few minuets and pieces at the clavier. [...] he could play it faultlessly and with the greatest delicacy, and keeping exactly in time. [...] At the age of five he was already composing little pieces, which he played to his father who wrote them down." notes that while Leopold was a very devoted teacher to his children, there's evidence that Wolfgang was motivated to make progress even beyond what his father was teaching him. His first independent (and ink-spattered) composition, and his initial ability to play the violin, were both his own doing and were a great surprise to Leopold. The father and son seem to have been close; both of the precocious episodes just mentioned brought tears to Leopold's eyes.
   Leopold eventually gave up composing when his son's outstanding musical talents became evident. He was Wolfgang's only teacher in his earliest years. He taught his children languages and academic subjects as well as music.]]

1762–1773: Years of travel

During Mozart's formative years, his family made several European journeys in which the children were exhibited as child prodigies. These began with an exhibition in 1762 at the Court of the Elector of Bavaria in Munich, then in the same year at the Imperial Court in Vienna and Prague. A long concert tour spanning three and a half years followed, taking the family to the courts of Munich, Mannheim, Paris, London, The Hague, again to Paris, and back home via Zürich, Donaueschingen, and Munich. During this trip Mozart met a great number of musicians and acquainted himself with the works of other composers. A particularly important influence was Johann Christian Bach, who met Mozart in London in 1764–65. The family again went to Vienna in late 1767 and remained there until December 1768. On this trip Mozart contracted smallpox, but his father refused to have him inoculated, believing that it was God's will whether the boy live or die.
   After one year in Salzburg, three trips to Italy followed, this time with just Leopold, leaving Wolfgang's mother and sister at home. These took place from December 1769 to March 1771, from August to December 1771, and from October 1772 to March 1773. The first trip resembled the earlier journeys, with the purpose of displaying the now-teenaged Mozart's abilities as a performer and as a rapidly maturing composer. Mozart met G.B. Martini in Bologna, and was accepted as a member of the famous Accademia Filarmonica. In Rome he heard Gregorio Allegri's Miserere once in performance in the Sistine Chapel then wrote it out in its entirety from memory, only returning to correct minor errors; thus producing the first illegal copy of this closely-guarded property of the Vatican.
   In Milan, Mozart wrote the opera Mitridate Rè di Ponto (1770), performed with success. This led to further opera commissions, and Wolfgang and Leopold returned twice from Salzburg to Milan for the composition and premieres of Ascanio in Alba (1771) and Lucio Silla (1772).
   Toward the end of the final Italian journey Mozart wrote the first of his works that's still widely performed today, the solo cantata "Exsultate, jubilate", K. 165.

1773–1777: The Salzburg court

Following his final return with his father from Italy (13 March 1773), Mozart was employed as a court musician by the ruler of Salzburg Prince-Archbishop Hieronymus Colloredo. Mozart was a favorite son in Salzburg, where he'd a great number of friends and admirers, and he'd the opportunity to compose in many genres, including symphonies, sonatas, string quartets, serenades, and the occasional opera. Some of the works he produced during this early period are widely performed today. For instance, during the period between April and December of 1775, Mozart developed an enthusiasm for violin concertos, producing a series of five (the only ones he ever wrote), steadily increasing in their musical sophistication. The last three (K. 216, K. 218, K. 219) are now staples of the repertoire. In 1776 he produced a series of piano concertos, culminating in the E flat concerto K. 271 of early 1777, considered by critics to be a breakthrough work.
Despite these artistic successes, Mozart gradually grew more discontented with Salzburg and made increasingly strenuous efforts to find a position elsewhere. The reason seems to be in part his low salary, 150 florins per year. In addition, Mozart longed to compose operas, and Salzburg provided at best rare occasions for opera productions. The situation became worse in 1775 when the court theater was closed, and the other theater in Salzburg was largely reserved for visiting troupes.
Two long job-hunting expeditions interrupted this long Salzburg stay: Wolfgang and Leopold (they were both looking) visited Vienna from 14 July to 26 September 1773 and Munich from 6 December 1774 to March 1775. Neither visit was successful, though the Munich journey resulted in a popular success with the premiere of Mozart's opera La finta giardiniera.

1777–1778: Paris journey

On 23 September 1777, Mozart began yet another job-hunting tour, this time accompanied by his mother Anna Maria. The visit included Munich, Mannheim, and Paris. In Mannheim he became acquainted with members of the Mannheim orchestra, the best in Europe at the time. He also fell in love with Aloysia Weber, one of four daughters in a musical family. Mozart moved on to Paris and attempted to build his career there, but was unsuccessful (he did obtain a job offer as organist at Versailles, but it was a job he didn't want). The visit to Paris was an especially unhappy one because Mozart's mother took ill and died there, 23 June 1778.

1781: Departure to Vienna

In January 1781, Mozart's opera Idomeneo, premiered with "considerable success" (New Grove) in Munich. The following March, the composer was summoned to Vienna, where his employer, Prince-Archbishop Colloredo of Salzburg, was attending the celebrations for the installation of the Emperor Joseph II. Mozart, who had just experienced success in Munich, was offended when Colloredo treated him as a mere servant, and particularly when the Archbishop forbade him to perform before the Emperor at Countess Thun's (for a fee that would have been fully half of his Salzburg salary). In May the resulting quarrel intensified: Mozart attempted to resign, and was refused. The following month, however, the delayed permission was granted, but in a grossly insulting way: Mozart was dismissed literally "with a kick in the ass", administered by the Archbishop's steward, Count Arco. In the meantime, Mozart had been noticing opportunities to earn a good living in Vienna, and he felt he ought to settle there and develop his own freelance career.

Early Vienna years

Mozart's new career in Vienna began very well. He performed often as a pianist, notably in a competition before the Emperor with Muzio Clementi, 24 December 1781, and according to the New Grove, he soon "had established himself as the finest keyboard player in Vienna." Aloysia, who had earlier rejected Mozart's suit, was now married to the actor Joseph Lange, and Mozart's interest shifted to the third daughter, Constanze. The couple were married, with father Leopold's "grudging consent" (New Grove), on August 4, 1782. They had six children, of whom only two survived infancy: Karl Thomas (1784–1858) and Franz Xaver Wolfgang (1791–1844; later a minor composer himself).
   During 1782–1783, Mozart became closely acquainted with the work of J. S. Bach and G.F. Handel as a result of the influence of Baron Gottfried van Swieten, who owned many manuscripts of works by the Baroque masters. Mozart's study of these works led first to a number of works imitating Baroque style and later had a powerful influence on his own personal musical language, for example the fugal passages in Die Zauberflöte ("The Magic Flute"), and in the finale of Symphony No. 41.
   In 1783, Wolfgang and Constanze visited Wolfgang's family in Salzburg, but the visit wasn't a success, as Leopold and Nannerl were, at best, only polite to Constanze. However, the visit sparked the composition of one of Mozart's great liturgical pieces, the Mass in C Minor, which, though not completed, was premiered in Salzburg. Constanze sang in the premiere.
   Following his move to Vienna, Mozart met Joseph Haydn and the two composers became friends; see Haydn and Mozart. When Haydn visited Vienna, they sometimes played together in an impromptu string quartet. Mozart's six quartets dedicated to Haydn (K. 387, K. 421, K. 428, K. 458, K. 464, and K. 465) date from 1782–85, and are often judged to be his response to Haydn's Opus 33 set from 1781. Haydn stood in awe of Mozart; when he first heard the last three of Mozart's series, he told the visiting Leopold, "Before God and as an honest man I tell you that your son is the greatest composer known to me either in person or by name: He has taste, and, furthermore, the most profound knowledge of composition."
   During the years 1782–1785, Mozart put on a series of concerts in which he appeared as soloist in his own piano concertos. He wrote three or four concertos for each concert season, and since space in the theaters was scarce, he booked unconventional venues: a large room in the Trattnerhof, an apartment building; and the ballroom of the Mehlgrube, a restaurant. The concerts were very popular, and the concertos Mozart composed for them are considered among his finest works. Solomon writes that during this period Mozart created "a harmonious connection between an eager composer-performer and a delighted audience, which was given the opportunity of witnessing the transformation and perfection of a major musical genre". Mozart also bought a fine fortepiano from Anton Walter for about 900 florins, and a billiards table for about 300. and kept servants. These choices inhibited saving, and were the partial cause of a stressful financial situation for the Mozart family a few years later.
   On 14 December 1784, Mozart became a Freemason, admitted to the lodge "Zur Wohltätigkeit" ("Beneficence"). Freemasonry played an important role in the remainder of Mozart's life; he attended many meetings, a number of his friends were Masons, and on various occasions he composed Masonic music. For details see: Mozart and Freemasonry.

1786–1787: Return to opera

Despite the great success of Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Mozart did little writing of operas during the years that followed it, producing only two unfinished works and the one-act Der Schauspieldirektor. He focused instead on his career as a piano soloist and writer of concertos. However, around the end of 1785, Mozart reshifted his focus again. He ceased to write piano concertos on a regular basis, and began his famous operatic collaboration with the librettist Lorenzo da Ponte. 1786 saw the Vienna premiere of The Marriage of Figaro, which was quite successful in Vienna and even more so in a Prague production later the same year. The Prague success led to a commission for a second Mozart-Da Ponte opera, Don Giovanni, which premiered 1787 to acclaim in Prague and was also produced, with some success, in Vienna in 1788. Both operas are considered among Mozart's most important works and are mainstays of the operatic repertoire today; their musical complexity caused difficulty for both listeners and performers alike at their premieres.
In December 1787 Mozart finally obtained a steady post under aristocratic patronage. Emperor Joseph II appointed him as his "chamber composer", a post vacated the previous month when Gluck died. It wasn't a full-time job, however. It paid only 800 florins per year, and merely required Mozart to compose dances for the annual balls in the Redoutensaal. Mozart complained to Constanze that the pay was "too much for what I do, too little for what I could do".
In 1787, the young Ludwig van Beethoven traveled to Vienna for two weeks in hopes of studying with Mozart. The evidence for what happened during this visit is conflicting, and at least three hypotheses are in play: that Mozart heard Beethoven play and praised him, that Mozart rejected Beethoven as a student, and that they never even met. (See: Mozart and Beethoven.)

1788–1790

Toward the end of the decade, Mozart's career declined.
Around 1786 he'd ceased to appear frequently in public concerts, and his income dropped. This was in general a difficult time for musicians in Vienna because Austria was at war, and both the general level of prosperity and the ability of the aristocracy to support music had declined.
By mid-1788, Mozart and his family moved from central Vienna to cheaper lodgings in the suburb of Alsergrund. The major works of the period include the last three symphonies (1788: 39, 40, 41; it isn't certain whether these were performed in Mozart's lifetime), and the last of the three Da Ponte operas, Cosi fan tutte, premiered 1790.
During this time Mozart made long journeys hoping to improve his fortunes: a visit in spring of 1789 to Leipzig, Dresden, and Berlin (see: Mozart's Berlin journey), and a 1790 visit to Frankfurt, Mannheim, and other German cities. The trips produced only isolated success and didn't solve Mozart's financial problems.

1791

Mozart's last year was, until his final illness struck, one of great productivity and (in the view of Maynard Solomon) personal recovery. During this time Mozart wrote a great deal of music, including some of his most admired works: the opera The Magic Flute, the final piano concerto (K. 595 in B flat), the Clarinet Concerto K. 622, the last in his great series of string quintets (K. 614 in E flat), the motet Ave verum corpus K. 618, and the unfinished Requiem K. 626.
Mozart's financial situation, which in 1790 was the source of extreme anxiety to him, also began to improve. Although the evidence is uncertain it appears that admiring wealthy patrons in Hungary and in Amsterdam pledged annuities to Mozart, in return for the occasional composition. Mozart also probably made considerable money from the sale of dance music that he wrote for his job as Imperial chamber composer. and the Little Masonic Cantata K. 623, premiered 15 November 1791.

Final illness and death

6 September premiere of his opera La clemenza di Tito, written in 1791 on commission for the coronation festivities of the Emperor. He was able to continue his professional functions for some time, for instance conducting the premiere of The Magic Flute on September 30. The illness intensified on 20 November, at which point Mozart became bedridden, suffering from swelling, pain, and vomiting.
   Mozart was tended in his final illness by Constanze, her youngest sister Sophie, and the family doctor, Thomas Franz Closset. There is evidence that he was mentally occupied with the task of finishing his Requiem. However, the evidence that he actually dictated passages to Süssmayr is very slim.
   Mozart died at 1 in the morning on December 5. The New Grove describes his funeral thus: "Mozart was buried in a common grave, in accordance with contemporary Viennese custom, at the St Marx cemetery outside the city on 7 December. If, as later reports say, no mourners attended, that too is consistent with Viennese burial customs at the time; later Jahn (1856) wrote that Salieri, Süssmayr, van Swieten and two other musicians were present. The tale of a storm and snow is false; the day was calm and mild."
   Mozart's spare funeral didn't reflect his standing with the public as a composer: memorial services and concerts in Vienna and Prague were well attended. Indeed, during the period following his death, Mozart's musical reputation rose substantially; Solomon describes an "unprecedented wave of enthusiasm" for his work. Biographies were written (initially by Schlichtegroll, Niemetschek, and Nissen), and publishers vied to produce complete editions of his works.
   Mozart worked very hard, a great deal of the time, and finished works where necessary at a tremendous pace. When composing he often made sketches and drafts, though (unlike Beethoven's sketches) these are mostly not preserved, Constanze having destroyed them after his death.
   Mozart also enjoyed billiards and liked dancing. He kept pets (a canary, a starling and a dog), and kept a horse for recreational riding.
   He was raised Roman Catholic and remained a loyal member of the Catholic Church throughout his life.
   Mozart lived at the center of Viennese musical life, and knew a great number of people, including not just his fellow musicians, but also theatrical performers, fellow transplanted Salzburgers, and many aristocrats, including a fairly close acquaintance with the Emperor, Joseph II. Mozart had a considerable number of friends, of whom Solomon estimates the three closest were Gottfried Janequin, Count August Hatzfeld, and Sigmund Barisani. Others included the singers Franz Xaver Gerl and Benedikt Schack, Haydn (mentioned above), and the horn player Joseph Leutgeb. Leutgeb and Mozart carried on a curious kind of friendly mockery, often with Leutgeb as the butt of Mozart's practical jokes.
   Particularly in his youth, Mozart had a striking fondness for scatological and sexual humor, which is preserved in his many surviving letters, notably those written to his cousin Maria Anna Thekla Mozart around 1777–1778, but also in his correspondence with his sister Nannerl. Mozart even wrote scatological music, the canon "Leck mich im Arsch" (literally "Lick me in the arse", sometimes idiomatically translated "Kiss my arse" or "Get stuffed") K. 231.

Works, musical style, and innovations

Style Mozart's music, like Haydn's, stands as an archetypal example of the Classical style. His works spanned the period during which that style transformed from one exemplified by the style galant to one that began to incorporate some of the contrapuntal complexities of the late Baroque, complexities against which the galant style had been a reaction. Mozart's own stylistic development closely paralleled the development of the classical style as a whole. In addition, he was a versatile composer and wrote in almost every major genre, including symphony, opera, the solo concerto, chamber music including string quartet and string quintet, and the piano sonata. While none of these genres were new, the piano concerto was almost single-handedly developed and popularized by Mozart. He also wrote a great deal of religious music, including masses; and he composed many dances, divertimenti, serenades, and other forms of light entertainment.
   The central traits of the classical style can be identified in Mozart's music. Clarity, balance, and transparency are hallmarks of his work. A more simplistic notion of the delicacy of his music obscures the exceptional power of some of his finest masterpieces, such as the Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor, K. 491, the Symphony No. 40 in G minor, K. 550, and the opera Don Giovanni. Charles Rosen has written (1997): "It is only through recognizing the violence and sensuality at the center of Mozart's work that we can make a start towards a comprehension of his structures and an insight into his magnificence. In a paradoxical way, Schumann's superficial characterization of the G minor Symphony can help us to see Mozart's daemon more steadily. In all of Mozart's supreme expressions of suffering and terror, there's something shockingly voluptuous." Especially during his last decade, Mozart explored chromatic harmony to a degree rare at the time. The slow introduction to the "Dissonance" Quartet, K. 465 rapidly explodes a shallow understanding of Mozart's style as light and pleasant.
   From an early age, Mozart had a gift for imitating the music he heard. His travels provided him with a rare collection of experiences from which to create his unique compositional language. In London as a child, he met J.C. Bach and heard his music. In Paris, Mannheim, and Vienna, he heard the work of composers active there, as well as the Mannheim orchestra. In Italy, he encountered the Italian overture and opera buffa, both of which were to be hugely influential on his development. Both in London and Italy, the galant style was all the rage: simple, light music, with a mania for cadencing, an emphasis on tonic, dominant, and subdominant to the exclusion of other chords, symmetrical phrases, and clearly articulated structures. This style, out of which the classical style evolved, was a reaction against the complexity of late Baroque music. Some of Mozart's early symphonies are Italian overtures, with three movements running into each other; many are "homotonal" (each movement in the same key, with the slow movement in the parallel minor). Others mimic the works of J.C. Bach, and others show the simple rounded binary forms commonly being written by composers in Vienna. One of the most recognizable features of Mozart's works is a sequence of harmonies or modes that usually leads to a cadence in the dominant or tonic key. This sequence is essentially borrowed from Baroque music's Phrygian style, especially J. S. Bach. But Mozart shifted the sequence so that the cadence ended on the stronger half, for example, the first beat of the bar.
   As Mozart matured, he began to incorporate some more features of Baroque styles into his music. For example, the Symphony No. 29 in A Major K. 201 uses a contrapuntal main theme in its first movement, and experimentation with irregular phrase lengths. Some of his quartets from 1773 have fugal finales, probably influenced by Haydn, who included three such finales in his recently published Opus 20 set. The influence of the Sturm und Drang ("Storm and Stress") period in music, with its brief foreshadowing of the Romantic era to come, is evident in some of the music of both composers at that time. Mozart's Symphony No. 25 in G minor, K. 183 is another excellent example of this style.
   Over the course of his working life, Mozart switched his focus from instrumental music to operas, and back again. He wrote operas in each of the styles current in Europe: opera buffa, such as The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, or Così fan tutte; opera seria, such as Idomeneo; and Singspiel, of which Die Zauberflöte is probably the most famous example by a composer. In his later operas, he developed the use of subtle changes in instrumentation, orchestration, and tone colour to express or highlight psychological or emotional states and dramatic shifts. Here his advances in opera and instrumental composing interacted. His increasingly sophisticated use of the orchestra in the symphonies and concerti served as a resource in his operatic orchestration, and his developing subtlety in using the orchestra to psychological effect in his operas was reflected in his later non-operatic compositions.

Influence

Mozart's most famous pupil was probably Johann Nepomuk Hummel, a transitional figure between Classical and Romantic eras whom the Mozarts took into their Vienna home for two years as a child during his studies. Ludwig van Beethoven, whose life overlapped with Mozart's, seems to have been particularly strongly influenced by him. Beethoven became closely acquainted with Mozart's work as a teenager (he is thought to have played Mozart's operas in the court orchestra in Bonn). He traveled to Vienna in 1787 in the hope (unfulfilled) of studying with Mozart. It is thought that some of Beethoven's works have direct models in comparable works by Mozart. Beethoven also wrote (WoO 58) to Mozart's D minor piano concerto K. 466.
A number of composers have paid homage to Mozart by writing sets of variations on his themes. Beethoven wrote four such sets ((Op. 66, WoO 28, WoO 40, WoO 46. Others include Frédéric Chopin's variations for solo piano on "Là ci darem la mano" from Don Giovanni (1827) and Max Reger's Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Mozart (1914), based on the variation theme in the piano sonata K. 331. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky wrote his Orchestral Suite No. 4 in G "Mozartiana" (1887) in tribute to Mozart.

Köchel catalogue

Köchel catalogue number is used. This is a unique number assigned (on a chronological basis) to every known work by Mozart. The first edition of the Köchel catalogue was completed in 1862 by Ludwig von Köchel. It has repeatedly been updated since then, as scholarly research improves our knowledge of the dates and authenticity of individual works.

Mozart in fiction

Authors of fictional works have found Mozart's life a compelling source of raw material. An especially popular case is the supposed rivalry between Mozart and Antonio Salieri, particularly the idea that it was poison received from the latter that caused Mozart's death; this is the subject of Aleksandr Pushkin's play Mozart and Salieri and Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov's opera Mozart and Salieri. The idea receives no support at all from modern scholars.
Modern audiences have been gripped by the account of Mozart's life given in Peter Shaffer's play Amadeus, as well as the film based on the play. Shaffer seems to have been especially taken by the contrast between Mozart's enjoyment of vulgarity (noted above) and the sublime character of his music. The scene in Shaffer's work in which Mozart dictates music to Salieri on his deathbed is entirely an author's fancy; for the question of whether Mozart did any dictation on his deathbed at all see: Death of Mozart.

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