Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in Salzburg m
Austria, the son of Leopold, Kapellmeister to the
Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg. By the age of three he could play
the piano, and he was composing by the time he was five; minuets
from this period show a remarkable understanding of form. Mozart's
elder sister Maria Anna (known as Nannerl) was also a gifted
keyboard player, and in 1762 their father took the two prodigies
on a short performing tour, of the courts at Vienna and Munich.
Encouraged by their reception, they embarked the next year on a
longer tour, including two weeks at Versailles, where the children
enchanted Louis XV. In 1764 they arrived in London. Here Mozart
wrote his first three symphonies, under the influence of Johann
Christian Bach, youngest son of Johann Sebastian, who lived in the
city.
After their return to Salzburg there followed
three trips to Italy between 1769 and 1773. In Rome Mozart heard a
performance of Allegri's Miserere; the score of this work
was closely guarded, but Mozart managed to transcribe the music
almost perfectly from memory. On Mozart's first
visit to Milan, his
opera Mitridate, re di ponto was successfully produced,
followed on a subsequent visit by Lucia Silla. The latter
showed signs of the rich, full orchestration that characterizes
his later operas.
A trip to Vienna in 1773 failed to produce the
court appointment that both Mozart and his father wished for him,
but did introduce Mozart to the influence of Haydn, whose Sturm
uud Drang string quartets (Opus 20) had recently been
published. The influence is clear in Mozart's six string quartets,
K I68—173, and in his Symphony in G minor, K183. Another
trip in search of patronage ended less happily. Accompanied by his
mother, Mozart left Salzburg in 1777, travelling through Mannheim
to Pans. But in July 1778 his mother died. Nor was the trip a
professional success: no longer able to pass for a prodigy,
Mozart's reception there was muted and hopes of a job саmе to
nothing.
Back in Salzburg Mozart worked for two years as
a church organist for the new archbishop. His employer was less
kindly disposed to the Mozart family than his predecessor had
been, but the composer nonetheless produced some of his earliest
masterpieces. The famous Sinfonia concertante for violin,
viola, and orchestra was written in 1780, and the following year
Mozart's first great stage work, the opera Idomeneo, was
produced in Munich, where Mozart also wrote his Serenade for
13 wind instruments, K361. On his return from Munich,
however, the hostility brewing between him and the archbishop came
to a head, and Mozart resigned. On delivering his resignation he
was verbally abused and eventually physically ejected from the
archbishop's residence.
Without patronage, Mozart was forced to confront
the perils of a freelance existence. Initially his efforts met
with some success. He took up residence in Vienna and in 1782 his
opera Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail (The Abduction from the
Seraglio) was produced in the city and rapturously received. The
same year in Vienna's St Stephen's Cathedral Mozart married
Constanze Weber. Soon afterwards he initiated a series of
subscription concerts at which he performed his piano concertos
and improvised at the keyboard. Most of Mozart's great piano
concertos were written for these concerts, including those in С,
К467, A, K488, and С minor, K491. In these concertos Mozart
brought to the genre a unity and diversity it had not nobleman
receives his comeuppance and descends into the fiery regions of
hell. The third and last da Ponte opera was Cosi fan
tutte (Women are all the same), commissioned by Emperor Joseph
II and produced at Vienna's Burgtheater in 1790. Its cynical
treatment of the theme of sexual infidelity may have been
responsible for its relative lack of success with the Viennese,
who responded with such enthusiasm to the comedy
of Figaro.
Mozart wrote two more operas: the opera seria
La demenza di Tito (The Mercy of Tito) and Die Zauberflote
(The Magic flute). The latter was commissioned by
actor-manager Emanuel Schikaneder to his own libretto. Its plot, a
fairy tale combined with strong Masonic elements (Mozart was a
devoted Freemason), is bizarre, but drew from Mozart some of his
greatest music. When produced in 1791, two months before Mozart's
death, the opera survived an initially cool reception and
gradually won audiences over.
The year 1788 saw the composition of Mozart's
two finest symphonies. Symphony No. 40, in the tragic key
of G minor, contrasts strikingly with the affirmatory Symphony
No. 41 (Jupiter). Neither helped alleviate his financial
plight, however, which after 1789 became critical. An extensive
concert tour of Europe failed to earn significant sums. A new
emperor came to the Austrian throne but Mozart was unsuccessful in
his bid to become Kapellmeister. He was deeply in debt when in
July 1791 he received an anonymous commission to write a Requiem.
(The author of the commission was in fact Count Franz von Walsegg,
who wished to pass off the work as his own.) Mozart did not live
to finish the Requiem. He became ill in autumn 1791 and
died on December 5; his burial the next day was attended only by a
gravedigger. Rumours that Mozart had been poisoned abounded in
Vienna after his death, many suggesting that rival composer
Antonio Salieri was responsible. Many now believe a heart weakened
by bouts of rheumatic fever caused his death.
Mozart's legacy is inestimable. A master of
every form in which he worked, lie set standards of excellence
that have inspired generations of composers.
