Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart (Salzburg, January 27, 1756-Vienna, December 5, 1791), better known as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, was a composer, pianist, conductor and professor of the former Archbishopric of Salzburg (formerly part of the Holy Roman Empire, currently part of Austria), master of Classicism, considered one of the most influential and prominent musicians in history.
Mozart's work covers all the musical genres of his time and includes more than six hundred creations, mostly recognized as masterpieces of symphonic, concertante, chamber, fortepiano, opera and choral music, achieving popularity and diffusion international.
In his early childhood in Salzburg, Mozart displayed prodigious ability in mastering keyboard instruments and the violin. At just five years old, he was already composing musical works and his interpretations were appreciated by the European aristocracy and royalty. At seventeen he was hired as a musician at the Salzburg court, but his restlessness led him to travel in search of a better position, always composing prolifically. During his visit to Vienna in 1781, after being dismissed from his position at court, he decided to settle in this city, where he achieved fame that he maintained for the rest of his life, despite difficult financial situations.. In his final years, he composed many of his best-known symphonies, concertos, and operas, as well as his Requiem. The circumstances of his early death have been the subject of much speculation and elevated to the category of myth.
According to music critics such as Nicholas Till, Mozart was always voraciously learning from other musicians and developed a splendor and maturity of style that ranged from light and graceful to dark and passionate—all well-founded by a vision of humanity "redeemed by art, forgiven and reconciled with nature and the absolute" - His influence on all subsequent Western music is profound; Ludwig van Beethoven wrote his first compositions in the shadow of Mozart, of whom Joseph Haydn wrote that "posterity will not see such talent again for a hundred years."
Biography
Family and childhood
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born on January 27, 1756, in Salzburg, in present-day Austria, which at the time was an independent archbishopric of the Holy Roman Empire. He was the last son of Leopold Mozart, a musician in the service of the Prince Archbishop of Salzburg. Leopold was the second Kapellmeister at the Archbishop's court although he was an experienced teacher. His mother was called Anna Maria Pertl. Due to the very high infant mortality in Europe at the time, of the seven children the couple had, only Maria Anna, affectionately nicknamed Nannerl, and Wolfgang Amadeus survived. He was baptized in St. Rupert's Cathedral the day after his birth with the names Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart; Throughout his life he would sign various variations on his original name, one of the most recurring being "Wolfgang Amadè Mozart".
Mozart's birthplace is located on the Getreidegasse in the city of Salzburg. It is a house that currently has a large number of objects from the period and instruments that belonged to Mozart during his childhood. It is one of the most visited places in Salzburg and something of a sanctuary for musicians and music fans from all over the world.
Leopold composed and taught music. The year of Wolfgang's birth he published a successful treatise on violin performance entitled Versuch einer gründlichen Violinschule . After Wolfgang's birth, he abandoned everything, except the tasks of his office, to dedicate himself exclusively to the training of his son. He was demanding as a father and as a teacher and at all times he was aware of Wolfgang's training, to guide him as a man and as an artist.
Nannerl and Wolfgang Amadeus showed musical abilities from a very young age. Nannerl began taking keyboard lessons from her father when she was seven, and her brother, four and a half years her junior, was obviously fascinated. Years after her brother's death, she recalled:
He often spent a lot of time on the keyboard, choosing thirds, that he was always surprised and pleased to show that the sound liked him. [...] In his fourth year of age, his father began to teach him, like a game, to interpret some tiny pieces and other pieces on the keyboard. [...] I could touch it impeccably and with the greatest delicacy and keeping exactly the Tempo. [...] at the age of five he already composed small pieces, which he interpreted for his father, to which they were dedicated.
Among these small pieces are the Andante for keyboard in C major, Köchel Verzeichnis (KV) 1a, and the Allegro for keyboard in C major, KV 1b.
When Wolfgang Amadeus was four years old he played the clavichord and composed small works of considerable difficulty; at six, he was an adroit player on the harpsichord and violin. He could sight read music, he had a prodigious memory and an inexhaustible ability to improvise musical phrases.
Definitely not an ordinary child. His mother was an intelligent, proud and religious man. He believed that his son's musical gifts were a divine miracle that he, as a father, had an obligation to cultivate.When the boy was about to turn six years old, Leopold decided to display his sons' musical gifts before the main courts. of Europe. According to Wolfgang's early biographers, his father "wanted to share with the world the miraculous talent of his son...". Leopold believed that proclaiming this miracle to the world was a duty to his country, its prince and his God, so he had to show it to European high society, otherwise he would be the most ungrateful creature.
Biographer Maynard Solomon states that while Leopold was a faithful teacher to his children, there is evidence that Wolfgang worked hard to advance beyond what he was taught. His first printed composition and early efforts on the violin were for own initiative and Leopold was greatly surprised. Father and son were very close and these childhood achievements brought Leopold to tears of joy more than once.
Eventually Leopold stopped composing when his son's exceptional musical talent became apparent. He was Wolfgang's only teacher in his early years and taught him music as well as all other academic subjects.
Years of Travel
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During the years in which Mozart was forming his family, he made several trips through Europe, in which he and his sister Nannerl were shown as child prodigies. On January 12, 1762 the entire family left for Munich, beginning with an exhibition at the court of the Elector of Bavaria Maximilian III and later in the same year at the imperial court of Joseph II of Habsburg in Vienna and Prague. His stay in the city of Vienna, one of the main centers of music at that time, culminated in two recitals before the imperial family at Schönbrunn Palace. Little Wolfgang caused a sensation at every concert, although the money collected on this trip was not as much as the praise received. This was arguably a trial ride for Leopold. On January 5, 1763, the Mozart family returned to Salzburg; the journey had taken just under a year.
On June 9, 1763, they began a long concert tour that lasted three and a half years, in which the family traveled to the courts of Munich, Mannheim, Paris, London, The Hague, again to Paris and returned home via Zurich, Donaueschingen and Munich, reaping great success. During this trip Mozart met a large number of musicians and the works of other composers, in particular Johann Christian Bach, whom Mozart visited in London in 1764 and 1765. Bach was an important influence on the young composer. The family returned to Vienna at the end of 1767 and remained in the city until December of the following year. In Vienna they were summoned to the palace by the emperor's mother, Maria Theresa, who was enchanted by the boy Wolfgang Amadeus to the point that she even sat him on her lap and kissed him.
In Versailles the Mozarts performed before the monarch Louis XV. The anecdote was that on that occasion the king's mistress, the haughty Madame de Pompadour, did not allow the boy Wolfgang to hug her for fear that his suit would be damaged. In London they caused the admiration of King George III and during this trip the young musician composed his First Symphony (in E flat major, KV 16). In the Netherlands he dazzled himself playing the organ and composed his first oratorio (Die Schuldigkeit des ersten Gebotes, KV 35) at nine years old.
Often these journeys were hard due to the rudimentary means of transportation of the time, the need to wait patiently for invitations and payment for performances by the nobility, and the long illnesses, some near fatalities, suffered away from home: first Leopold fell ill in the summer of 1764 while in London, and then both children fell ill in The Hague in the autumn of 1765.
The family returned to Salzburg on November 30, 1766. After a year in the city, Leopold and Wolfgang traveled to Italy, leaving Wolfgang's mother and sister at home. These voyages lasted from December 1769 to March 1771 and, like the early voyages they took, were aimed at showcasing the young man's capabilities as a performer and as a rapidly maturing composer. Mozart met Giovanni Battista Martini in Bologna, an important music theorist at the time and for whom Mozart always had great affection, and was accepted as a member of the Bologna Philharmonic Academy, considered the center of musical scholarship of the time. Mozart's entry into the Academy was extraordinary, since he was still a long way from twenty years of age, the minimum age required by the regulations.
They arrived in Rome on April 11, 1770, where he heard Gregorio Allegri's Miserere once during a performance in the Sistine Chapel. This work was of a secret nature, since it could only be performed in that place and the publication of its score was prohibited under penalty of excommunication. However, no sooner had he arrived at the inn where he was staying than the young composer demonstrated that he could write from memory a very approximate version of the complete score. Pope Clement XIV, admired the talent of the 14-year-old musician, not only did not excommunicate him, but named him a Knight of the Order of the Golden Spur.
In Milan Mozart wrote the opera Mitridate, re di Ponto (KV 87, 1770), which was performed successfully. This entailed the commissioning of two new operas and Wolfgang and Leopold returned twice more to Milan (from December 1771 to August 1772 and from October of that same year to March 1773) for the composition and premieres of Ascanio in Alba (KV 111, 1771) and Lucio Silla (KV 135, 1772). Leopold hoped that these visits would secure a professional engagement for his son in Italy, but his hopes were never fulfilled. Towards the end of the last trip to Italy, Mozart wrote the first of his most famous works and it is still widely performed today., the motet Exsultate, jubilate, KV 165.
Each performance of the young Wolfgang Amadeus was an exhibition of his virtuosity on the harpsichord and violin (it is said that even at that time he could play the keyboard blindfolded), and he amazed the audience by improvising on any subject that he wanted. they proposed.
The Salzburg Court
Mozart and his father returned to Salzburg for good on March 13, 1773. There they learned of the death of Prince-Archbishop Sigismund von Schrattenbach, who had always supported them. Then began a new stage, much more difficult, in which Hieronymus von Colloredo, the new prince-archbishop of Salzburg, was authoritarian and inflexible with the fulfillment of the obligations imposed on his subordinates. Mozart was a favorite son of the city, where he had many friends and admirers, and had the opportunity to work in numerous musical genres, including symphonies, sonatas, string quartets, serenades, divertimentos, much sacred music, and some minor operas. Several of these early works are still performed. Between April and December 1775, Mozart developed an enthusiasm for violin concertos, producing a series of five concertos (the only ones he would write in his lifetime), steadily increasing his musical sophistication. The last three (KV 216, KV 218 and KV 219) are now basics in the repertoire of this instrument. In 1776 he focused his efforts on concertos for piano and orchestra (of which he would compose a total of 27), culminating in Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 9 in E flat major (KV 271, called Jeunehomme) in early 1777, considered by critics the turning point of his work.
Despite these musical successes and being confirmed in his position as concertmaster (Konzertmeister), Mozart grew increasingly discontented with his situation in Salzburg and redoubled his efforts to establish himself elsewhere. other site. One of the reasons for such discontent was his low salary, 150 guilders per year, but he also needed a lot of time to compose his operas and the city rarely allowed him. The situation worsened in 1775 when the court theater was closed, especially since Salzburg's other theater was reserved mainly for visiting companies.
Leopold and Wolfgang went on two long expeditions in search of work during their long stay in Salzburg. They visited Vienna from July 14 to September 26, 1773, and Munich from December 6, 1774, to March, 1775. These visits were unsuccessful, although the trip to Munich met with great popular reception with the premiere of the opera The giardiniera feint (KV 196) and the trip to Vienna was positive for his art, since he got to know the new Viennese style through the music of Joseph Haydn.
Trip to Paris
Mozart became involved with the members of the famous Mannheim orchestra, the best in Europe at the time. This orchestra was known for, in a very characteristic and special way, very explicitly exaggerating the difference between soft and loud passages. This style spread as the "Mannheim style" and a few decades later it would be a main characteristic of the music of Romanticism. He also fell in love with Aloysia Weber, one of the four daughters of the Weber family, whom he met during a stopover in Munich. In Mannheim there was some prospect of employment, but nothing was found and the Mozarts left for Paris on March 14, 1778 to continue their search. There his luck hardly improved. In one of his letters home he hinted at the possibility of establishing himself as an organist in Versailles, but Mozart was not too interested in this appointment. His financial situation was delicate to the point that due to debts he had to pawn valuables. The worst moment of their trip was when Mozart's mother fell ill and passed away on July 3, 1778. They probably took too long to call a doctor, according to Halliwell, due to lack of funds.
During Wolfgang's stay in Paris, Leopold continued to vigorously pursue opportunities for his son's return to Salzburg and with the support of the local nobility secure a better position for him as court organist and first violinist. The annual salary amounted to 450 guilders, but Wolfgang was reluctant to accept it and after leaving Paris on September 26, 1778 he stopped at Mannheim and Munich, still hoping for an appointment outside of Salzburg. In Munich he met Aloysia again, now a successful singer, but she made it clear that she was not interested in him.
Finally, Wolfgang returned home on January 15, 1779, and accepted the new post, but his discontent with Salzburg had not abated. The Piano Sonata No. 8 in A minor (KV 310) and the Symphony No. 31 in D major (KV 297, called Paris) are among the best known works from Mozart's stay in Paris, where they were performed on June 12 and 18, 1778, respectively.
March to Vienna
In January 1781, Mozart's opera Idomeneo, re di Creta (KV 366) premiered in Munich to "considerable success" and in March, the composer was recalled to Vienna, where his patron Archbishop Colloredo attended the celebrations of Joseph II of Habsburg's accession to the Austrian throne as Emperor. Mozart, strengthened by the praise he received in Munich, was offended when Colloredo treated him as a mere servant and particularly when the The archbishop forbade him to play before the Emperor at the home of Countess Maria Wilhelmine Thun, a performance for which he would have received a fee equal to half the annual salary he earned in Salzburg.
The confrontation came in May, when Mozart refused to take a package sent by Colloredo to Salzburg. Faced with his refusal to become a messenger, Mozart is insulted by his patron and the composer boldly interrupts him in the midst of his anger: "Is your Grace of him not satisfied with me?" Colloredo's response was more expletive and closed with a "go now!". Mozart tried to resign from his position by presenting his resignation to the archbishop's assistant, Count Arco, but the archbishop rejected it. They granted him a permit the following month, but in an insulting way. Days later, when Mozart tried to personally deliver one last "memorial" to Colloredo, Count Arco blocked his way into the archbishop's antechamber, causing another violent scene, and the composer was literally kicked out "with a kick in the ass".
The argument with the archbishop was very hard for Mozart because his father took a position against him, since he fervently expected him to obediently follow Colloredo on his return to Salzburg. Leopold exchanged letters with his misguided son, urging her to reconcile with his employer, but Wolfgang passionately defended his intentions to pursue an independent career in Vienna. The debate ended when Mozart resigned from his position, freeing himself from the demands of an oppressive employer and an overly caring father. Solomon characterizes Mozart's resignation as a "revolutionary step" that greatly altered the course of his life.In Vienna, Mozart had noticed some good opportunities and decided to settle there as a freelance performer and composer.
Early years in Vienna
Mozart's new career in Vienna got off to a good start. He often performed as a pianist, excelling in a competition before the Emperor with Muzio Clementi on 24 December 1781 and soon "established himself as the best keyboard player in Vienna". He also prospered as a composer and in 1782 completed the opera The Kidnapping from the Seraglio (Die Entführung aus dem Serail, KV 384), which was released on July 16 of that same year to great acclaim. He would also start the operatic genre known as singspiel or German opera, at a time when Italian was the most common language for opera. The work was soon performed "throughout German-speaking Europe" and fully cemented Mozart's reputation as a composer. As an anecdote, Emperor Joseph II commented at the end of the opera's premiere: "Wonderful music for our ears, I truly believe it has too many notes", to which the composer replied: "Exactly how many are necessary?"
Although Mozart had not yet achieved his definitive maturity and depth, perhaps for the first time this work expresses the dramatic dimension that can be seen in the later operas of the Salzburg composer. This opera gave Mozart the greatest theatrical success that he would know in life.
At the time when his disputes with Archbishop Colloredo were at their height, Mozart moved in with the Weber family, who had moved to Vienna from Mannheim. His father, Fridolin, had passed away and the rest of the family was now taking in boarders as a means of subsistence.After his romantic failure with Aloysa Weber, who was now married to actor Joseph Lange, he found solace in Constanze, the younger sister. But he knew that his father Leopold did not appreciate that family since, not without reason, he believed that they (mainly the mother) wanted to take advantage of his son's success. However, there is enough evidence that Constanze truly loved Mozart and never shared her mother's machinations. As the consent of her father was essential for Mozart, she wanted to travel to Salzburg to formally present the bride to him, but various events postponed the feared trip to face his father.
Finally, on August 4, 1782, without parental consent, Wolfgang Amadeus and Constanze were married in Vienna. To celebrate the union and to calm his father, Mozart composed the unfinished Great Mass in C minor (KV 427). He planned to premiere it in Salzburg with Constanze as the first soprano soloist. He could only do it in August 1783, but he did not achieve his goal. He wanted to show his family that he had made the choice, but Leopold and Nannerl would never accept Constanze. In the marriage contract, Constanze "assigns her fiancee five hundred guilders which she... she has promised to increase after her by one thousand guilders," "in order to survive" on the total. In addition, all joint acquisitions during the marriage had to be the common property of both. October 31, 1858), Johann Thomas Leopold (October 18, 1786-November 15 of that year), Theresia Constanzia Adelheid Friedericke Maria Anna (December 27, 1787-June 29, 1788), Anna Maria (October 25, December 1789, died shortly after birth) and Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart (July 26, 1791 – July 29, 1844), of whom only two survived, Karl Thomas and Franz Xaver Wolfgang.
During the years 1782 and 1783, he became acquainted with the work of Georg Friedrich Händel and Johann Sebastian Bach through Baron Gottfried Van Swieten, a collector and musical aficionado who had in his possession a library with a large number of works by Baroque composers. Among the works he studied were Handel's oratorios and Bach's The Well-Tempered Clavier. Mozart assimilated the modes of composition of both, fusing it with his own, giving most of the works of this period a contrapuntal touch, appreciable in the transcriptions he made of some fugues from The Well-Tempered Clavier KV 405, the fugues for piano KV 394, KV 401 and KV 426 (the latter later transcribed for strings under the catalog number KV 546). But, above all, the influence of Händel and Bach can be appreciated in the fugal passages of The Magic Flute and the end of the Jupiter Symphony. The study of these authors was so important for Mozart that he came to make arrangements for works such as The Messiah (Der Messias, KV 572) or Alexander's Feast (KV 591), both oratorios by Handel.
In 1783, Mozart and Constanze visited Mozart's family in Salzburg. Leopold and Nannerl were, at best, only courteous to Constanze but the visit at least prompted the composition of one of Mozart's great liturgical works, the aforementioned Great Mass in C minor (KV 427).. Although not completed, it was premiered in Salzburg with Constanze singing the solo parts.
Mozart met Joseph Haydn in Vienna. When Haydn visited the city, they would sometimes perform together in an impromptu string quartet. Mozart's six quartets dedicated to Haydn (KV 387, KV 421, KV 428, KV 458, KV 464 and KV 465) date from the period 1782 to 1785 and are a carefully considered response to the Russian String Quartets Opus 33 that Haydn had composed in 1781. Hearing them, Haydn stood up as a mark of respect for Mozart and, as his sister later recalled, told Leopold about Wolfgang: "I say to you before God, and as an honest man, that his son is the greatest composer known to me in person and by reputation, has taste, and, moreover, the greatest skill in composition."
From 1782 to 1785, Mozart organized concerts in which he performed as a soloist, presenting three or four new piano concertos each season. Since space in theaters was at a premium, he reserved unconventional venues for his concerts, such as a large room in the Trattnerhof (an apartment building) and the ballroom at the Mehlgrube (a restaurant), among others. they were very popular and some of those that he premiered are still basic works in his repertoire. Solomon writes that during this period Mozart created "a harmonious connection between an impatient performer-composer and a delighted audience, providing an opportunity to witness the transformation and perfection of a major musical genre".
With the substantial earnings from their concerts and other performances, the Mozarts adopted a rather lavish lifestyle. They moved into an expensive apartment, with an annual rent of 460 guilders. Mozart also bought an excellent fortepiano from Anton Walter for about 900 guilders, a pool table for about 300 guilders, sent his son Karl Thomas to an expensive boarding school. and they hired servants. Thus, with this way of life, thrift was impossible and the short period of financial success did nothing to cushion the difficulties Mozart would later experience.
On December 14, 1784, Mozart became a freemason and was admitted to the lodge Zur Wohltätigkeit. Freemasonry played an important role in the rest of the composer's life, as he attended many meetings, many of his friends were Freemasons and on several occasions he composed Masonic music.
Mozart yearned for social reforms in the sense of progress but not to the point of supporting the social demands that Pierre-Augustin de Beaumarchais defended in the original piece The Marriage of Figaro. Mozart was in the spirit of the Masonic ideal completely opposite to that of the Jacobins. The status of "domestic" or "lackey" did not seem dishonorable to him.
Back to the opera
Despite the great success of The Kidnapping from the Seraglio in 1782, Mozart composed little operatic literature for the next four years, producing only two unfinished works (L'oca del Cairo, KV 422, and Lo sposo deluso, KV 430) and the one-act comedy Der Schauspieldirektor (KV 486). He focused primarily on his career as a solo pianist and as a concert composer. However, around 1785, Mozart abandoned the composition of keyboard works and began his famous operatic collaboration with the librettist Lorenzo da Ponte.
In 1786, the successful premiere of the opera The Marriage of Figaro (KV 492) took place in Vienna, based on the homonymous work by Pierre-Augustin de Beaumarchais and which was not without controversy due to to its political content. However, Mozart and Da Ponte managed to exclude from it anything that could "make the Viennese authorities nervous" and managed to pass the censorship. The Emperor's concern was that the work suggested class struggle and in France had already caused some disturbances to his sister Marie Antoinette. In Figaro's aria "Se vuol ballare" part of that content that wanted to be minimized is noticeable (Figaro, with fine but intense irony, sings a cavatina addressed to his patron, the Count of Almaviva).
Its reception in Prague later in the year was even warmer and this led to a second collaboration with Da Ponte: the opera Don Giovanni (KV 527), which was premiered in Prague in October 1787 with a resounding success, as it happened at its premiere in Vienna in 1788. This work, which narrates the adventures of Don Juan, had been a recurring theme in literature and theater and, therefore, Da Ponte it is not based on a particular text, but collects information from multiple sources. The opera was cataloged by Mozart as a dramma giocoso and its original title was Il dissoluto punito o sia Il D. Giovanni. The dramatic content of this work is present from the beginning, with the death of the commander, to the end and contains some of the most beautiful passages in Mozart's work.
The two operas are among the most important works of Mozart and are basic in the current operatic repertoire, although in their premieres their musical complexity caused difficulties for both listeners and performers. The composer's father, Leopold, could not witness these events, since he had died on May 28, 1787. This plunged the son into great grief, since his father had been his best adviser and friend (a fact documented in the numerous correspondence between the two).
In December 1787, Mozart finally obtained a stable position under aristocratic patronage. Emperor Joseph II appointed him as his "chamber composer" (Kammermusicus), a post that had become vacant the previous month following the death of Christoph Willibald Gluck. This was a part-time appointment, receiving only 800 guilders per year and requiring only Mozart to compose works for the annual balls at the imperial palace. Mozart complained to Constanze that the pay was "too much for what I do, too little for what I could do". However, modest as this income was, it was important to Mozart when hard times came. Court records show that the Emperor's goal was to prevent his esteemed composer from leaving Vienna in search of better prospects.
In 1787, the young Ludwig van Beethoven spent two weeks in Vienna, hoping to study with Mozart. Existing documents on this meeting are contradictory and there are at least three current hypotheses: that Mozart heard Beethoven's performance and praised him, that Mozart rejected Beethoven as a student, and that they were never found.
Financial difficulties
Towards the end of the 1780s Mozart's financial situation worsened. Around 1786 he stopped appearing frequently in public concerts, so his income dwindled. of the aristocracy, which financed them, had been reduced.
The city of Vienna would gradually lose musical interest in Mozart due to the advent of other pianists with a much more seasoned technique, as in the case of Muzio Clementi, with scales in thirds and louder chords ideal for English-built pianos with a more robust sonority (contrary to those with a delicate Viennese sonority, suitable for the scales and subtleties of Mozartian pianism). His Academies or subscription concerts, which had been one of the best sources of income throughout his stay in Vienna (in addition to being the inspiration and reason for the composition of his concertos for piano and orchestra from no. º 11, KV 413), began to lose audience, so they no longer brought economic benefits.
In mid-1788, Mozart and his family moved from the center of Vienna to cheaper accommodation in the suburb of Alsergrund. Mozart began to borrow money, increasingly from Johann Michael Puchberg, a friend and brother of the same Masonic lodge, documented by a "regrettable sequence of letters begging for loans". Maynard Solomon and others have suggested that Mozart was suffering from a depression and that his financial recovery seemed to be slowing down. The major works of this period include the last three symphonies (no. 39 in E flat major, KV 543, no. 40 in G minor, KV 550, and no. 41 in D major, KV 551 Jupiter), all from 1788, and the last of the three operas written in collaboration with Da Ponte, Così fan tutte (KV 588), premiered in 1790.
At about this time, Mozart made a series of long trips in the hope of increasing his income: to Leipzig, Dresden, and Berlin in the spring of 1789, and to Frankfurt, Mannheim, and other German cities in 1790. These trips produced nothing but hits. isolated and did not alleviate the economic suffering of the family.
In 1789 he received an offer from the English businessman Johann Peter Salomon, who proposed that he and Haydn go on a concert tour of England. It was agreed that Haydn would be the first to go, during the 1791-1792 season, and Mozart would go after him, which he could not do due to his death.
Last year of life
The last year of Mozart's life, 1791, was, until his final illness, a time of great productivity and, in a sense, a time of personal recuperation. He produced numerous compositions, including some of his most admired works: the opera The Magic Flute (Die Zauberflöte, KV 620), the last concerto for piano and orchestra (no. 27 in B flat major, KV 595), the Clarinet Concerto in A major KV 622, the last of his great series of string quintets (KV 614 in E flat major), the motet Ave verum corpus KV 618 and the unfinished Requiem in D minor KV 626.
Mozart's financial situation, a source of extreme anxiety in the 1790s, finally began to improve, as, although the evidence is inconclusive, wealthy patrons appeared in Hungary and Amsterdam promising Mozart annuities in exchange for occasional compositions. He probably also profited from the sale of dance music composed in his role as imperial chamber composer.Mozart no longer borrowed money from Puchberg and began paying off his debts.
He experienced great satisfaction from the public success of some of his works, highlighting The Magic Flute (performed numerous times in the short period between its premiere and the composer's death) and Little Masonic Cantata KV 623, premiered on November 15, 1791.
In March 1791, Mozart gave one of his last public concerts in Vienna; he played the concerto for piano and orchestra KV 595. his last child, Franz Xaver, was born on July 26.
Final illness and death
The composer's health began to decline and his concentration waned. Mozart felt ill during his stay in Prague on September 6 during the premiere of his opera La clemenza di Tito (KV 621), composed in that year as a commission for Leopold's coronation festivities. II as emperor. The work was received coldly by the public. Upon returning to Vienna, Mozart set to work on the Requiem and prepared, in the company of the theater manager and singer Emanuel Schikaneder, the rehearsals for The Magic Flute. This premiered with enormous success on September 30, with Mozart himself as director.
At that time Mozart wrote the Concerto in A major for clarinet (KV 622), composed for the clarinetist Anton Stadler. In October his health worsened; he was walking with his wife through the Prater when he suddenly sat down on a bench and very agitated he commented to Constanze that someone had poisoned him. On November 20, the illness intensified and he became bedridden, suffering from swelling, pain and vomiting.
Mozart was cared for by his wife Constanze and his younger sister Sophie during his final illness and was attended by Dr. Nicolaus Closset. It is a proven fact that he was mentally engaged in the completion of his Requiem . However, the evidence that he actually dictated passages to his disciple Franz Xaver Süssmayr is very remote.
On December 5, 1791, at about midnight, Dr. Closset arrived from the opera and ordered cold compresses of water and vinegar to be placed on her forehead to bring down her fever (although Sophie was reluctant to do so). to do so, since he thought that such a sudden change in temperature would not be good for the patient). This had such an effect on him that he lost consciousness and did not recover until his death. According to Sophie, Mozart's last breaths were "as if he had wanted, with his mouth, to imitate the timpani of his Requiem ".
At 0:55 a.m., Mozart passed away in Vienna at the age of 35 years, 10 months, and 8 days, and his funeral took place in St. Stephen's Cathedral (where he had previously married Constanze), on December 6. He was shrouded according to the Masonic ritual (black cloak with hood).
Mozart's burial was third-rate, costing 8 guilders fifty-six kreutzer (plus a three florin supplement to pay for the hearse), the usual for members of the middle class. He was buried at dusk, the coffin being carried by horse-drawn carriage to the St. Marx Cemetery in Vienna, where he was buried in a simple communal grave (similar to a mass grave). The weather that night was mild and calm, and with frequent mists, not stormy or blizzard as has been mistakenly thought. Biographer Otto Jahn claimed in 1856 that the funeral was attended by Antonio Salieri, Süssmayr, Gottfried Van Swieten and two other musicians.
The low attendance at Mozart's funeral did not reflect his status as a composer, as funerals and concerts in Vienna and Prague were well attended. Indeed, in the immediate aftermath of his death Mozart's reputation was increased considerably: Solomon describes it as "an unprecedented wave of enthusiasm" for his works. Several writers wrote biographies about the composer, such as Friedrich Schlichtegroll, Franz Xaver Niemetschek and Georg Nikolaus von Nissen, among others; and publishers competed to publish complete editions of his works.
Hypothesis about his death
The unexpected and mysterious death of Mozart has aroused great interest from the beginning. The official death certificate stated that the Austrian composer had died of hitziges Frieselfieber ("acute prickly heat", referring to a skin rash resembling millet seeds), a description that is not enough to identify the cause in modern medicine and that it is too broad and inaccurate, since the autopsy was not carried out due to the advanced state of decomposition in which the corpse was found.
A multitude of theories have been advanced as to the composer's death, including trichinosis, influenza, mercury poisoning, and a rare kidney ailment. Bloodletting of patients was common at the time and is also cited as a possible contributing factor in his death. However, the most widely accepted version is death from acute rheumatic fever. It is known that he had three or even four attacks since his childhood and this disease is recurrent, with increasingly serious consequences with each attack, such as uncontrolled infection or damage to the heart valves.
Physical appearance and personality
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Mozart's physical appearance was described by the tenor Michael Kelly, in his Reminiscences as «a remarkable little man, very thin and pale, with a prominent head of light hair, for which he He was very vain." As Franz Xaver Niemetschek, one of his early biographers, wrote, “there was nothing special about [his] physicality about him. [...] he was small and his countenance, except his large and intense eyes, showed no sign of his genius ». His facial complexion was pockmarked, a sequel to the smallpox he suffered in his childhood. He liked fancy clothes; Kelly recalled him in rehearsal as follows: "He was on the stage in his crimson fur coat and gold-laced bicorne hat, giving the tempo of the music to the orchestra." On his side, Constanze later wrote that "he was a tenor, rather soft in speech and delicate in singing, but when something excited him, or exertion was necessary, he was as powerful as he was energetic."
Mozart usually worked long and energetically, finishing compositions at a great pace due to tight deadlines. He often made sketches and sketches although, unlike Ludwig van Beethoven, they have not survived as Constanze destroyed them after his death.
He was raised in Catholic morality and was a loyal member of the Church at all stages of his life.
Mozart lived at the center of the Viennese musical world and knew a great number and variety of people: fellow musicians, theater performers, friends who had moved from Salzburg like him, and many aristocrats, including some acquaintance of Emperor Joseph II. Solomon considers that the three closest friends of his may have been Gottfried Janequin, Count August Hatzfeld, and Sigmund Barisani. Many others included among his friends his old colleague Joseph Haydn, the singers Franz Xaver Gerl and Benedikt Schack, and the horn player Joseph Leutgeb. Leutgeb and Mozart engaged in a curious kind of friendly banter, often with Leutgeb being the butt of Mozart's practical jokes.
He enjoyed playing billiards and dancing and kept several pets: a canary, a starling, a dog, and also a horse for playful riding. Particularly in his youth, Mozart had an astonishing penchant for scatological humor (not so unusual in his time), which can be seen in many of his surviving letters, especially those written to his cousin Maria Anna Thekla Mozart around 1777-1778, but also in his correspondence with his sister Nannerl and their parents. Mozart he even wrote scatological music, such as the canon Leck mich im Arsch KV 231 (literally "Lick my ass", sometimes idiomatically translated as "Kiss my ass" or "Get stuck").
Work
Musical style and appreciation
Mozart appears today as one of the greatest musical geniuses in history. He was an excellent fortepianist, organist, violinist and director, he stood out for his improvisations, which he used to perform in his concerts and recitals.
Mozart's music, like that of Joseph Haydn, is presented as an archetypal example of the classical style. At the time he began to compose, the dominant style in European music was the gallant style, a reaction against the highly developed complexity of Baroque music. But increasingly, and largely at the hands of Mozart himself, the complexities of late Baroque counterpoint emerged once more, tempered and disciplined by new forms and adapted to a new aesthetic and social environment. Mozart was a versatile composer, composing works for each of the major musical genres of the day, including symphony, opera, solo concerto, and chamber music. Within this latter genre, he composed compositions for various ensembles of instruments, including the string quartet and quintet, and the piano sonata. These forms were not new, but Mozart made advances in the technical sophistication and emotional range of all of them. Almost single-handedly he developed and popularized the classical piano concerto. He composed numerous works of religious music, including a large number of masses; but also many dances, diversions, serenades and other light musical forms of entertainment. He also composed for any type of instrument.
The central features of the classical style are all present in Mozart's music. Clarity, balance, and transparency are hallmarks of his work, but any simplistic notion of his delicacy masks the exceptional power of his finest masterpieces, such as Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor KV 491, the Symphony No. 40 in G minor KV 550 and the opera buffa Don Giovanni. Charles Rosen emphasizes this point:
It is only for the recognition of violence and sensuality at the center of Mozart's work so we can turn towards an understanding of his structures and make us an idea of his magnificence. Paradoxically, the superficial characterization of the Symphony in lower sun Schumann can help us see Mozart's demon more regularly. In all the supreme expressions of Mozart's suffering and terror, there is something terribly voluptuous.
Especially during his last decade, Mozart exploited chromatic harmony to an unusual extreme, with remarkable confidence and great artistic effect.
Mozart always had a gift for absorbing and adapting the most valuable features of the music of other composers. His travels surely helped him forge a unique compositional language.In London as a child, he met Johann Christian Bach and listened to his music. In Paris, Mannheim and Vienna he found many other compositional influences, as well as the avant-garde abilities of the Mannheim orchestra. In Italy he was introduced to the Italian overture and opera buffa, both of which profoundly affected the evolution of his own practice. In both London and Italy, the gallant style was on the rise: simple, brilliant music with a penchant for cadence; an emphasis on the tonic, dominant and subdominant and the exclusion of other types of chords, symmetrical phrases and clearly articulated partitions in the overall form of the movements. Some of Mozart's early symphonies are Italian overtures, with three movements penetrating a few in others; many are homotonal (each movement in the same key signature, with the slowest movement in the relative minor key). Other works imitate those of Bach and still others display the simple rounded binary forms commonly written by Viennese composers.
As Mozart matured, he incorporated more features adapted from the Baroque into his compositions. For example, the Symphony No. 29 in A major KV 201 has a counterpoint main theme in its first movement and experiments with irregular phrase lengths. Some of his quartets from 1773 have fugal endings: probably under the influence of Haydn, who had included three endings in that form in his Opus 20 that he had published around this time. The influence of the Sturm und Drang (Storm and Impetus) movement on music, with its harbinger of the coming of the Romantic era, is evident in the music of both composers in that time and Mozart's Symphony No. 25 in G minor KV 183 is another good example of this.
Mozart would sometimes switch his focus between opera and instrumental music. He composed operas in each of the predominant styles: opera buffa, such as The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni and Così fan tutte; opera seria, such as Idomeneo and La clemencia de Tito; and the singspiel, such as The Kidnapping in the Seraglio and The Magic Flute. In his later operas, he employed subtle changes in instrumentation, orchestral texture, and timbre, to provide greater emotional depth and emphasize dramatic movements. Some of his advances in the operatic genre and instrumental composition are: his increasingly sophisticated use of the orchestra in symphonies and concertos, which influenced his operatic orchestration, and the development of his subtlety in using the orchestra for psychological effect. in his operas, which was a change reflected in his later non-operatic compositions.
Compositions
Mozart's work was cataloged by Ludwig von Köchel in 1862, in a catalog comprising 626 opus coded with a number from 1 to 626 preceded by the suffix KV.
Mozart's symphonic and instrumental output consists of: 41 symphonies, including No. 25 in G minor, KV 183 (1773), Symphony No. 31, in d major, KV 297, Paris (1778), No. 35, in d major, KV 385, Haffner (1782); No. 36, in C major, KV 425, Linz (1783); No. 38, in D major, KV 504, Prague (1786); and the last three (#39, in my ♭ major, KV 543, No. 40 in G minor, KV 550, and No. 41 in C major, KV 551, Jupiter), composed in 1788; several concertos (27 for piano, 5 for violin and several for other instruments); 18 sonatas for piano, 36 for piano and violin and for other instruments, which constitute key pieces of Mozartian music; chamber music (duos, trios, quartets and quintets); adagios, 61 entertainments, serenades, marches.
Mozart began writing his first symphony in 1764, when he was 8 years old. This work is influenced by Italian music, as are all the symphonies he composed up to the mid-1770s, when he reached full stylistic maturity. Mozart's symphonic cycle concludes with a trilogy of masterpieces consisting of Symphonies No. 39 in my ♭ major, No. 40 in G minor and No. 41 in C major, composed in 1788.
Regarding his operatic production (22 operas), after some «minor» works, his major titles came from 1781: Idomeneo king of Crete (1781); The Kidnapping in the Seraglio (1782), the first great German comic opera; The Marriage of Figaro (1786), Don Giovanni (1787) and Così fan tutte (1790), the last three written in Italian with libretti of Lorenzo da Ponte; The Magic Flute (1791), in which Masonic rites and ideals are reflected, and The clemency of Tito (1791).
Most of the religious music he wrote is from the Salzburg period, where there are a large number of masses, such as the Coronation Mass, KV 317, 17 sonatas da chiesa and other pieces for the various offices of the Catholic Church. In the Viennese period the sacred production of him decreases. However, the few works of a religious nature from this period are clear examples of the maturity of the Mozartian style. He composed the Mass in C minor KV 427 (which was left unfinished, as was the Requiem), the motet Ave verum corpus KV 618 and the Requiem in D minor, KV 626.
He also wrote beautiful songs, such as Abendempfindung an Laura KV 523, among others. He composed numerous concert arias of high quality, many of which were used in operas by other composers on a commission basis. Of his concert arias we can highlight, for their quality and charm: Popoli di Tessaglia...Io non chiedo, eterni dei KV 316, Vorrei spiegarvi, oh Dio! KV 418, both for soprano, or Per pietà KV 420, for tenor.
At the beginning of 2012 the work Allegro Molto, 84 bars and three minutes long, was discovered in an attic in Tyrol. The work is estimated to have been composed in 1767.
Instruments
Although some of Mozart's earliest pieces were written for the harpsichord, in his early years he also became familiar with pianos made by the Regensburg builder Franz Jakob Späth. Later, when Mozart was visiting Augsburg, he was impressed by the Stein pianos and shared this in a letter to his father. On October 22, 1777, Mozart had premiered his Triple Piano Concerto (K.242) with instruments provided by Stein. The Augsburg Cathedral organist, Demmler, was playing the first part, Mozart the second, and Stein the third. In 1783, while living in Vienna, he bought an instrument from Walter. Leopold Mozart confirmed the link Mozart had with his Walter fortepiano: «It is impossible to describe the hustle and bustle. His brother's piano has been moved at least twelve times from his house to the theater or to someone else's house ».
Influence and legacy
Mozart's best-known disciple was probably Johann Nepomuk Hummel, whom Mozart took under his wing in his Vienna home for two years when he was a child. He was a transitional figure between Classicism and Romanticism.
More important is the influence Mozart had on composers of later generations. After the rise in his reputation after his death, the study of his sheet music has been a common part of the education of classical musicians.
Ludwig van Beethoven, fourteen years younger than Mozart, appreciated and was deeply influenced by the works of the latter, whom he met as a teenager. As is widely believed, Beethoven performed Mozart's operas in the Bonn court orchestra and traveled to Vienna in 1787 to study with Mozart. Some of Beethoven's works are directly comparable to Mozart's works and he composed cadenzas (WoO 58) of Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor KV 466.
Several composers have paid homage to Mozart by composing sets of variations on his themes. Beethoven wrote four sets (Op. 66, WoO 28, WoO 40, and WoO 46). Other examples are the Variations for piano and orchestra Op. 2 by Frédéric Chopin on «Là ci darem la mano» from Don Giovanni (1827) and the Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Mozart by Max Reger (1914), based on the Piano Sonata No. 11 KV 331. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky composed his Orchestral Suite no. º 4 in G, called "Mozartiana" (1887), as a tribute to the Salzburg composer. There is a Waltz by the composer Josef Lanner on themes from Mozart's operas, called "Die Mozartisten" ("The Mozartists", op. 196).
Mozart in popular culture
Since Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart had a dramatic life in many ways, including his extraordinary career as a child prodigy, his struggles to achieve personal independence and develop his career, his financial problems, and his somewhat mysterious death while trying to finish his Requiem, many artists have found in Mozart a source of inspiration for their works. Such works have included novels, operas, films—most notably Miloš Forman's Amadeus—and games. His image has also been used in the minting of coins or in the issuance of postage stamps, in many cases on the occasion of his birth or death anniversaries.
The asteroid (1034) Mozartia, discovered on September 7, 1924 by Vladimir Aleksandrovich Albitsky, and the Mozart ice piedmont on Alexander I Island in Antarctica are named in his honour. The nunatak Figaro, located near it, takes its name from the character Figaro in his opera The Marriage of Figaro.