~ Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus ~
Born: 1756 in Salzburg (Austria)
Died: 1791 in Vienna (Austria)
Like J. S. Bach, Mozart had little interest in establishing new
forms within Classical music: he was more committed to the idea of synthesis
and the perfection of forms already in existence. Thus it is only in the
area of the concerto that he could be said to have moved the music forward
in any substantial way. However, again like Bach, the supreme quality he
brought to previously defined forms places him in the front rank of musical
geniuses.
Baptized Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus, Mozart was
the seventh-born child of a musically gifted and personally ambitious father,
Leopold, the son of an Augsburg bookbinder. By dint of his determined character,
Leopold eventually attained the positions of Court composer and vice-Kapellmeister
to the Salzburg establishment of Count Thurn und Taxis, Canon of Salzburg.
Leopold was an able composer, and his Toy Symphony is still regularly performed,
but the accomplishment most admired during his lifetime was a treatise
on violin playing published in 1756, the year of Wolfgang's birth.
Both Wolfgang and his elder sister, Maria Anna (nicknamed Nannerl),
were child prodigies. Wolfgang was given lessons by his father from the
age of four, and within a year he was not only duetting with his sister,
but composing little minuets in imitation of the pieces his father set
him. His annual progress continued to be prodigious and by early 1762 Leopold
believed the two children were ready to be shown to the world. All three
Mozarts were presented at the Court of the Elector of Munich and later
in the same year their burgeoning reputations led to an appearance at the
Emperor's Viennese Court at Schönbrunn, where little Wolfgang's talent
and artless behaviour (which included jumping into the Empress's lap and
kissing her) made him the object of everyone's indulgence.
Over the next few years the Mozart family followed a pattern of
increasingly ambitious tours to various cities throughout Europe, including
Paris, London, Amsterdam, Utrecht and Munich, as well as giving concerts
to the aristocracy of Salzburg and Vienna. Another pattern which emerged
from the tours, however, was not so propitious: the regular illnesses suffered
by all the family, but by the two children in particular. It has since
been speculated that these illnesses had a generally weakening effect on
the boy's constitution, leaving him vulnerable in later life, although
Nannerl outlived Wolfgang by 28 years.
In 1768, and by imperial command, Wolfgang composed a full-length
opera, La finta semplice (The Simple Pretense) (K51) to words by Coltellini,
and also saw a private production of his short operatic work Bastien und
Bastienne (K50). He was now aged 12. An extended tour of Italy (1769-71)
by father and son met with unprecedented success: Wolfgang was given a
private audience with the Pope in Rome and was awarded the Order of the
Golden Spur. In Bologna he was admitted to the ranks of compositore by
the Accademica Filarmonica—a position normally denied to anyone under 20.
At this stage Wolfgang was still very much a child, writing to his sister
from Milan: 'Lest you should think I am unwell I am sending you these few
lines. I kiss Mamma's hand. My greetings to all our good friends. I have
seen four rascals hanged here in the Piazza del Duomo. They hang them just
as they do in Lyon. Wolfgang'. Less than a year after their return to Salzburg
(where Wolfgang was again seriously ill) the Mozarts were back in Milan
where the opera Lucia Silla (K135) was completed. Austria beckoned once
more, and a Viennese visit in the late spring of 1773 brought Mozart into
contact with the work of Joseph Haydn, specifically his String Quartets
Op. 20, the so-called Sun Quartets, from which Mozart later claimed to
have learned vital lessons in form and development.
The Munich Carnival of 1775 prompted a commission for a new opera;
the result was La finta giardiniera (K196), which made a deep impression
on the German composer Christian Schubart, a wild and dissipated man but
a great judge of musical talent, who commented: "Unless Mozart should prove
to be a mere overgrown product of the forcing-house, he will be the greatest
composer that ever lived".
Now approaching the end of his teenage years, Mozart was committed
to composing in the fashionable style of the time, the 'gallant' style,
which emphasized brilliance and display and which would keep him enthralled
for at least the next two years. He was also kicking at the boundaries
of life in Salzburg, a city which, for all its pride in its cultural accomplishments,
was deeply parochial. For Mozart, who had already seen the most sophisticated
cities in Europe, this must have been doubly hard to bear, especially when
his father's employer at the Cathedral, Archbishop Colloredo, was utterly
out of sympathy with his aims and outlook on life.
In September 1777 Mozart left for Paris with his mother, leaving
Leopold and Nannerl in Salzburg: the tour was to be financed solely by
fees earned while travelling. The pair had reached Mannheim when an event
occurred which decisively shaped his future: Wolfgang fell in love with
Aloysia, the second daughter of the impecunious prompter and copyist, Fridolin
Weber. As the girl, who was a talented singer, returned his affections,
Mozart hatched a hare-brained scheme to take her to Italy and make her
a prima donna. He wrote to his father to inform him but Leopold saw only
catastrophe ahead; after a series of bullying and wheedling letters, he
eventually persuaded Wolfgang out of the idea.
Mozart and his mother finally arrived in Paris in March 1778, but
she was ill on arrival; her condition worsened and in early July she died
in Mozart's arms. The distraught son remained sensitive to his father's
feelings throughout this terrible experience, asking a mutual friend to
prepare Leopold for bad news before writing to him himself. In a letter
to a friend, Mozart wrote: 'She was constantly delirious, and today at
twenty-one minutes past five o'clock the death agony began and she lost
all sensation and consciousness. I pressed her hand and spoke to her, but
she did not see me, did not hear me and all feeling was gone'. He left
Paris soon after, travelling back via Munich, now the home of the Weber
family, but Aloysia had married and affected to retain no feelings for
him. By January 1779 he was back in Salzburg where he took up the position
of Konzertmeister to the Court and Cathedral. His life had irreversibly
altered.
A brief and pleasant interlude in Munich, which included the première
at the 1781 Munich Carnival of Idomeneo, Rè di Creta (Idomeneo,
King of Crete) (K367)—one of his greatest opera serias—was brought to a
close by an urgent summons from the Salzburg Archibishop for Wolfgang to
join his party in Vienna. He was treated by the Archbishop as a possession,
shown off to the aristocracy of Vienna but made to eat and live with the
domestic servants. Mozart's anger over his employer's arrogant attitude
led to a row and subsequently to Mozart being literally kicked out of the
Archibishop's residence, pursued by a string of expletives from his secretary,
Count Arco. Braving his father's anger, Wolfgang refused to attempt a reconciliation,
knowing that the time for such things was past. He had high hopes for an
independent career in Vienna.
Leopold's anger turned to paroxysm of rage when Wolfgang moved
into lodgings in Vienna with the Weber family with whom he had had such
curious relations in Mannheim a few years previously. Herr Weber had died,
leaving the family relatively poor. Wolfgang now fell for the third sister,
Constanze. Young and still gullible, he was put under pressure by Constanze's
mother and agreed to sign a marriage contract of intent This nearly drove
Leopold to distraction, but by now his son's mind was fixed. Amidst the
chaos of his personal life, Mozart enjoyed the successful première
of Die Entführung aus dem Serail (K384), and in all probability met
Haydn for the first time in the late autumn of 1781, when the older man
was visiting Vienna. From the beginning the admiration between the two
composers was mutual. Mozart was only 26 while Haydn was nearly 50, but
both learned a good deal from each other, Mozart in the realm of structure
and expressive dignity, Haydn in colourization and richer melody.
The year 1782 began with a series of subscription concerts for
which Mozart often prepared new piano concertos or symphonies, and which
were regularly attended by the Austrian nobility, but the hoped-for Court
appointments failed to materialize. When he and Constanze finally married
late that summer (against the wishes of his father and sister), the newly-married
couple looked forward to a precarious existence, sustained in part by private
music lessons, for which Mozart was singularly ill-suited. The first child
arrived the following summer, and in 1783 Mozart and his wife visited Leopold
in Salzburg. But the relationship between father and son could never be
the same, even though Leopold returned the visit in 1785. This was to be
their last meeting, and was fortunately a happy one: Leopold met Mozart's
friend Haydn and was told by the older composer that Wolfgang had "the
most consummate knowledge of the art of composition". The father's return
to Salzburg was accompanied by ill-health, and he was dead within two years.
Another major development in Mozart's life began when he joined
the Freemasons, a powerful secret society. This was no passing fancy on
Mozart's part, as was demonstrated by the constant undertone of Masonic
thought which can be traced in so many of the works composed in his remaining
years. A more artistically important event occurred in 1785 when Mozart
became acquainted with the newly-appointed Imperial Court Poet, the Jewish
Italian Lorenzo da Ponte. He invited da Ponte to compose a libretto, and
together they created Le nozze di Figaro (K492) based on Beaumarchais'
anti-establishment satire. Produced in Vienna on the first day of May 1786,
after surviving vicious Court intrigues against it, the opera became the
hit of the season. A subsequent production in Prague (to which Mozart was
invited) was an even greater success, and Mozart wrote to a friend: 'Here
they talk about nothing but Figaro. Nothing is played, sung or whistled
but Figaro. No opera is drawing like Figaro. Nothing, nothing but Figaro.
Certainly a great honour for me!'
Before leaving Prague Mozart was commissioned by a local entrepreneur
to provide a new opera for the following season: the result was his next
collaboration with da Ponte, Don Giovanni (K527). This was given its première
in Prague in October 1787 and was a fantastic success; Mozart was given
a trumpet fanfare even as he arrived at the theatre. But even with such
public acclaim, the composer was by no means financially secure; as copyright
did not yet exist in the theatre, he had nothing to show for his operatic
triumphs but the initial fee paid to him. Compounded by their unworldly
approach to domestic economy the Mozarts were constantly on the edge of
a financial crisis, alleviated only by the generosity of friends or the
occasional windfall of some profitable concert or commission.
The composer Gluck's death in November 1787 cleared the way for
a long-overdue appointment to the Emperor's Court, although only as Kammercompositor,
which came with a paltry salary; Mozart could hardly conceal his contempt
when writing to accept the offer. Around the same time his letters reveal
that he was borrowing consistently from a Masonic colleague, the wealthy
merchant Michael Puchberg. Despite being in desperate financial need, the
quality of Mozart's artistic output is staggeringly consistent—it was at
this time that he completed his last three symphonies, including the most
famous of all, the Jupiter (K551).
With no alleviation of his condition, in 1786 he accepted the invitation
of his friend and pupil Prince Karl Lichnowsky to travel with him to Berlin
with the object of playing at the Court of Frederick William II. The tour
was a considerable success, with Mozart being well-received in towns along
the route. He also managed to please the King enough to be commissioned
to write a series of quartets. Yet he returned to Vienna in early summer
with little money, and was immediately plunged back into the familiar cycle
of penury and his wife's constant ill-health (perhaps resulting from her
almost perpetual state of pregnancy). The Emperor commissioned a new opera,
for which Mozart once again collaborated with da Ponte, the result, Cosi
fan tutte (All Woman do so) (K586), had a short but successful run in 1790
before being suspended due to the death of the Emperor. The bad timing
which had dogged Mozart for so much of the 1780s seemed set to continue.
The new Emperor; Leopold II, cared little for music or for the advancement
of an insignificant commoner like Mozart. Wolfgang's attempts to improve
his position at Court only resulted in an agreement that he should become
Kapellmeister at St Stephen's Cathedral on the death of the incumbent,
Hoffman. Needless to say, Hoffman outlived him.
A tour of parts of Germany in autumn 1790 was Mozart's last (he
had consistently turned down offers of tours in England), and he had to
pawn the family silver to mount it. In Munich, he appeared at the Elector's
Court before the King of Naples, who was a member of the Hapsburg dynasty—a
cruel irony for Mozart who had been denied the opportunity of playing to
the King in Vienna. As he commented: "It is greatly to the credit of the
Viennese Court that the King has to hear me in a foreign country".
By now Mozart was showing signs of fatigue and illness which proved
permanent. His phenomenal rate of composition had slowed markedly in 1790,
and it was only through a supreme effort of will that he raised his creative
tempo again in 1791. A commission from an old friend, Emmanuel Schikaneder,
to write music to a libretto of his, gradually evolved into the sublime
Die Zauberflöte (K620), a work with strong Masonic imagery throughout
as well as an unending supply of immortal melodies. It was premièred
at a theatre in the grounds of Prince Starhemberg's house in the Viennese
suburb of Wieden in the same month that his last opera seria, La Clemenza
di Tito (The Clemency of Titus) (K621), was given its première at
the National Theatre in Prague on the eve of the coronation of the new
emperor.
Mozart's last months were spent in a spiral of increasing illness,
financial worries and a rising fear that he would not complete his final
commission—his Requiem (K626). This had been requested by a messenger who
refused to divulge either his own name or that of the patron who wanted
the work. Mozart became convinced that the messenger had been other-worldly,
and that he was composing his own requiem. The truth was more prosaic:
the Viennese nobleman who had commissioned it was in the practice of commissioning
works from established composers and then passing them off as his own to
his friends. This was not to be the case with Mozart, as he left the work
uncompleted at his death, his last days largely taken up with detailed
instructions to his friend and acolyte Süssmayer as to how it should
be completed after his death.
Mozart died in December 1791, aged just 36, his funeral service
held in the open air at St Stephen's Cathedral. With a violent snowstorm
raging, the coffin was taken in the pallbearer's wagon unaccompanied to
a common graveyard, where Mozart's body was consigned to an unmarked pauper's
grave: a fitting epitaph to his life in Vienna.
During his short life, Mozart wrote sublimely for every known musical
form, creating a vast array of masterpieces both great and small. Of the
23 original piano concertos (the first four are arrangements of works by
other composers), the works from 1782 Concerto No. II in F (K413) onwards
are generally regarded as completely mature, exhibiting a wholly remarkable
balance between melody and harmony, soloist and orchestra. The soloist
is a leader amongst equals and the listener can be forgiven for feeling
he is in a musical heaven when these works are played by the right musicians.
The flute/oboe concertos (K313/314) have been particularly popular
in recent years, as has been the Concerto for Flute and Harp (K299), and
the four bravura horn concertos—written, it would seem, with the intent
of testing the soloist—have never ceased to be in demand. But perhaps the
most fully-realized of all the wind concertos is the late Concerto for
Clarinet in A (K622), written in 1791 and exhibiting Mozart's deep love
of the instrument. It explores the instrument's range and tonal qualities
so successfully as to be a complete exposition of its musical qualities
within the Classical style. The five violin concertos come from his Salzburg
period and, while offering plenty to enjoy, lack the depth of his later
concertos.
As far as the symphony is concerned, there is little reason initially
to go beyond the last four (Nos. 38-41), all written in 1786, to find the
perfect introduction to all the greatest qualities his symphonies can exhibit.
Each is written in a contrasting manner and mood to the other, and each
in its own way represents a summation of style and content which repays
years of study. Of the numerous serenades, nocturnes, dances and marches,
the former group represent the most substantial musical contribution, but
each grouping brings its own felicities; the dances and marches, for example,
have such a degree of élan and skill that they give much pleasure
to the listener not looking for the utmost profundity. The two famous serenades,
Eine kleine Nachtmusik (K525) and Gran Partita (K361) are irresistible.
Mozart's achievement in every area of classical music is staggering;
it would be unwise, therefore, to overlook either his chamber music or
his keyboard music, although no-one would claim for the keyboard sonatas
the pre-eminent place enjoyed by his successor, Beethoven, in this field.
Of the chamber music, the two marvellous String Quintets, (K515 and 516),
are unsurpassable in their own very different ways, while the Clarinet
Quintet (K581) has the warmth and dexterity of its concerted equivalent
plus a special intimacy endemic to the smaller forces. Of the string quartets,
those dedicated to Haydn (the six quartets K387, 421,428, 458 Hunt, 464
and Dissonance 465), written between 1783 and 1785, are the most famous
and frequently performed. They show both his great debt to Haydn and his
complete ease with the quartet format.
Finally, the vocal works: of a vast quantity written for religious
occasions, the unfinished Requiem (K626) is by far the most famous, and
stands as one of his supreme creations. Also eternally popular are the
Coronation Mass (K317) and the C minor Mass (Great) (K427), while the beautiful
Exsultate, jubilate (K165) and Ave verum corpus (K618) are a favourite
with every singer and represent Mozart at his most affecting. Also not
to be overlooked is the aptly named Vesperae solennes de confessare (K339).
Of the operas, the essential works if a listener is to grasp the range
and depth of Mozart's theatrical genius would have to include all three
da Ponte operas (Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni and Cosi fan tutte),
Die Zauberflöte and quite probably the delightful Die Entführung
ous dem Serail. Some would also claim a place for Idomeneo and La Clemenza
di Tito, but these fine examples of the opera seria form are something
of an acquired taste for a modern audience. They are best arrived at after
a thorough assimilation of the five mentioned above.
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