The baptismal record
gives his name in Latinized form as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus
Theophilus Mozart. Of these names, the first two refer to John Chrysostom,
one of the Church Fathers, and they were names not employed in everyday
life, while the fourth, meaning "beloved of God", was
variously translated in Mozart's lifetime as Amadeus (Latin), Gottlieb
(German), and Amadé (French). Mozart's father Leopold announced
the birth of his son in a letter to the publisher Johann Jakob Lotter
with the words "...the boy is called Joannes Chrysostomus,
Wolfgang, Gottlieb". Mozart himself preferred the third name,
and he also took a fancy to "Amadeus" over the years.
Mozart's father Leopold (1719–1787) was one of Europe's leading
musical teachers. His influential textbook Versuch einer gründlichen
Violinschule, was published in 1756, the year of Mozart's birth
(English, as "A Treatise on the Fundamental Principles of Violin
Playing", transl. E.Knocker; Oxford-New York, 1948). He was
deputy kapellmeister to the court orchestra of the Archbishop of
Salzburg, and a prolific and successful composer of instrumental
music. Leopold gave up composing when his son's outstanding musical
talents became evident. They first came to light when Wolfgang was
about three years old, and Leopold, proud of Wolfgang's achievements,
gave him intensive musical training, including instruction in clavier,
violin, and organ. Leopold was Wolfgang's only teacher in his earliest
years. A note by Leopold in Nannerl's music book – the Nannerl Notenbuch
– records that little Wolfgang had learned several of the pieces
at the age of four. Mozart's first compositions, a small Andante
(K. 1a) and Allegro (K. 1b), were written in 1761, when he was five
years old.
The years of travel
During his formative years, Mozart made several European journeys,
beginning 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 him with his father to the courts of Munich,
Mannheim, Paris, London (where Wolfgang Amadeus played with the
famous Italian cellist Giovanni Battista Cirri), 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 great composers. A particularly
important influence was Johann Christian Bach, who befriended Mozart
in London in 1764–65. Bach's work is often taken to be an inspiration
for Mozart's music. They again went to Vienna in late 1767 and remained
there until December 1768. On this trip Mozart contracted smallpox,
and his healing was considered by Leopold as a proof of God's intentions
concerning the child.
After one year in Salzburg, three trips to Italy followed: from
December 1769 to March 1771, from August to December 1771, and from
October 1772 to March 1773. Mozart was commissioned to compose three
operas: "Mitridate Rè di Ponto" (1770), "Ascanio
in Alba" (1771), and "Lucio Silla" (1772), all three
of which were performed in Milan. During the first of these trips,
Mozart met Andrea Luchesi in Venice and G.B. Martini in Bologna,
and was accepted as a member of the famous Accademia Filarmonica.
A highlight of the Italian journey, now an almost legendary tale,
occurred when 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.
On September 23, 1777, accompanied by his mother, Mozart began a
tour of Europe that included Munich, Mannheim, and Paris. In Mannheim
he became acquainted with members of the Mannheim orchestra, the
best in Europe at the time. He fell in love with Aloysia Weber,
who later broke up the relationship with him. He was to marry her
sister Constanze some four years later in Vienna. During his unsuccessful
visit to Paris, his mother died (1778).
Mozart in Vienna
In 1780, Idomeneo, widely regarded as Mozart's first great opera,
premiered in Munich. The following year, he visited Vienna in the
company of his employer, the harsh Prince-Archbishop Colloredo.
When they returned to Salzburg, Mozart, who was then Konzertmeister,
became increasingly rebellious, not wanting to follow the whims
of the archbishop relating to musical affairs, and expressing these
views, soon fell out of favor with him. According to Mozart's own
testimony, he was dismissed – literally – "with a kick in the
arse".[3] Mozart chose to settle and develop his own freelance
career in Vienna after its aristocracy began to take an interest
in him.
On August 4, 1782, against his father's wishes, he married Constanze
Weber (1763–1842; her name is also spelled "Costanze");
her father Fridolin was a half-brother of Carl Maria von Weber's
father Franz Anton Weber. Although they had six children, only two
survived infancy. Neither of these two, Karl Thomas (1784–1858)
and Franz Xaver Wolfgang (1791–1844); later a minor composer himself),
married or had children who reached adulthood. Karl did father a
daughter, Constanza, who died in 1833.
The year 1782 was an auspicious one for Mozart's career: his opera
Die Entführung aus dem Serail ("The Abduction from the
Seraglio") was a great success and he began a series of concerts
at which he premiered his own piano concertos as director of the
ensemble and soloist.
During 1782–83, 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
Symphony No. 41.
In 1783, Wolfgang and Constanze visited Leopold in Salzburg, but
the visit was not a success, as his father did not open his heart
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, and is now one
of his best-known works. Wolfgang featured Constanze as the lead
female solo voice at the premiere of the work, hoping to endear
her to his father's affection.
In his early Vienna years, Mozart met Joseph Haydn and the two composers
became friends. When Haydn visited Vienna, they sometimes played
in an impromptu string quartet. Mozart's six quartets dedicated
to Haydn date from 1782–85, and are often judged to be his response
to Haydn's Opus 33 set from 1781. Haydn was soon in awe of Mozart,
and when he first heard the last three of Mozart's series he told
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 piano concertos, widely considered
among his greatest works. These concerts were financially successful.
After 1785 Mozart performed far less and wrote only a few concertos.
Maynard Solomon conjectures that he may have suffered from hand
injuries [citation needed]; another possibility is that the fickle
public ceased to attend the concerts in the same numbers.
Mozart was influenced by the ideas of the eighteenth century European
Enlightenment as an adult, and became a Freemason (1784). His lodge
was a specifically Catholic, rather than a deistic one, and he worked
fervently and successfully to convert his father before the latter's
death in 1787. Die Zauberflöte, his second last opera, includes
Masonic themes and allegory. He was in the same Masonic Lodge as
Haydn.
Mozart's life was occasionally fraught with financial difficulty.
Though the extent of this difficulty has often been romanticized
and exaggerated, he nonetheless did resort to borrowing money from
close friends, some debts remaining unpaid even to his death. During
the years 1784-1787 he lived in a lavish, seven-room apartment,
which may be visited today at Domgasse 5, behind St Stephen's Cathedral;
it was here, in 1786, that Mozart composed the opera Le nozze di
Figaro.
Mozart and Prague
Mozart had a special relationship with the city of Prague and its
people. The audience there celebrated the Figaro with the much-deserved
reverence he was missing in his hometown Vienna. His quotation "Meine
Prager verstehen mich" (My Praguers understand me) became very
famous in the Bohemian lands. Many tourists follow his tracks in
Prague and visit the Mozart Museum of the Villa Bertramka where
they can enjoy a chamber concert. In the later years of his life,
Prague provided Mozart with many financial resources from commissions
[citation needed]. In Prague, Don Giovanni premiered on October
29, 1787 at the Theatre of the Estates. Mozart wrote La clemenza
di Tito for the festivities accompanying Leopold II's coronation
in November 1790; Mozart obtained this commission after Antonio
Salieri had allegedly rejected it.
Final illness and death
Mozart's final illness and death are difficult topics for scholars,
obscured by romantic legends and replete with conflicting theories.
Scholars disagree about the course of decline in Mozart's health
– particularly at what point (or if at all) Mozart became aware
of his impending death and whether this awareness influenced his
final works. The romantic view holds that Mozart declined gradually
and that his outlook and compositions paralleled this decline. In
opposition to this, some present-day scholars point out correspondence
from Mozart's final year indicating that he was in good cheer, as
well as evidence that Mozart's death was sudden and a shock to his
family and friends. Mozart's attributed last words: "The taste
of death is upon my lips...I feel something, that is not of this
earth". The actual cause of Mozart's death is also a matter
of conjecture. His death record listed "hitziges Frieselfieber"
("severe miliary fever," referring to a rash that looks
like millet-seeds), a description that does not suffice to identify
the cause as it would be diagnosed in modern medicine. Dozens of
theories have been proposed, including trichinosis, mercury poisoning,
and rheumatic fever. The practice, common at that time, of bleeding
medical patients is also cited as a contributing cause.
Mozart died around 1 a.m. on December 5, 1791 in Vienna. Some days
earlier, with the onset of his illness, he had largely ceased work
on his final composition, the Requiem. Popular legend has it that
Mozart was thinking of his own impending death while writing this
piece, and even that a messenger from the afterworld commissioned
it. However, documentary evidence has established that the anonymous
commission came from one Count Franz Walsegg of Schloss Stuppach,
and that most if not all of the music had been written while Mozart
was still in good health. A younger composer, and Mozart's pupil
at the time, Franz Xaver Süssmayr, was engaged by Constanze
to complete the Requiem. However, he was not the first composer
asked to finish the Requiem, as the widow had first approached another
Mozart student, Joseph Eybler, who began work directly on the empty
staves of Mozart's manuscript but then abandoned it.
Because he was buried in an unmarked grave, it has been popularly
assumed that Mozart was penniless and forgotten when he died. In
fact, though he was no longer as fashionable in Vienna as before,
he continued to have a well-paid job at court and receive substantial
commissions from more distant parts of Europe, Prague in particular
[citation needed]. He earned about 10,000 florins per year[6], equivalent
to at least 42,000 US dollars in 2006, which places him within the
top 5% of late 18th century wage earners[6], but he could not manage
his own wealth. His mother wrote, "When Wolfgang makes new
acquaintances, he immediately wants to give his life and property
to them." His impulsive largesse and spending often put him
in the position of having to ask others for loans. Many of his begging
letters survive but they are evidence not so much of poverty as
of his habit of spending more than he earned. He was not buried
in a "mass grave" but in a regular communal grave according
to the 1784 laws in Austria.
Though the original grave in the St. Marx cemetery was lost, memorial
gravestones (or cenotaphs) have been placed there and in the Zentralfriedhof.
In 2005, new DNA testing was performed by Austria's University of
Innsbruck and the US Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory
in Rockville, Maryland, to determine if a skull in an Austrian Museum
was actually his, using DNA samples from the marked graves of his
grandmother and Mozart's niece. However, test results were inconclusive,
suggesting that none of the DNA samples were related to each other.
In 1809, Constanze married Danish diplomat Georg Nikolaus von Nissen
(1761–1826). Being a fanatical admirer of Mozart, he (and Constanze?)
edited vulgar passages out of many of the composer's letters and
wrote a Mozart biography. Nissen did not live to see his biography
printed, and Constanze finished it.
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 all be identified
in Mozart's music. Clarity, balance, and transparency are hallmarks,
though a simplistic notion of the delicacy of his music obscures
for us the exceptional and even demonic power of some of his finest
masterpieces, such as the Piano Concerto in C minor, K. 491, the
Symphony in G minor, K. 550, and the opera Don Giovanni. The famed
writer on music Charles Rosen has written (in The Classical Style):
"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 is something shockingly voluptuous." Especially during
his last decade, Mozart explored chromatic harmony to a degree rare
at the time. The slow introduction to the "Dissonant"
Quartet, K. 465, a work that Haydn greatly admired, rapidly explodes
a shallow understanding of Mozart's style as light and pleasant.
From his earliest years Mozart had a gift for imitating the music
he heard; since he travelled widely, he acquired a rare collection
of experiences from which to create his unique compositional language.
When he went to London[7] as a child, he met J.C. Bach and heard
his music; when he went to Paris, Mannheim, and Vienna, he heard
the work of composers active there, as well as the spectacular Mannheim
orchestra; when he went to Italy, he encountered the Italian overture
and the 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 tonic minor). Others mimic
the works of J.C. Bach, and others show the simple rounded binary
forms commonly being written by composers in Vienna.
As Mozart matured, he began to incorporate some 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
had just published his opus 20 set. The influence of the Sturm und
Drang ("Storm and Stress") period in German literature,
with its brief foreshadowing of the Romantic era to come, is evident
in some of the music of both composers at that time.
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 any 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 legacy to subsequent generations of composers (in all genres)
is immense.
Many important composers since Mozart's time have expressed profound
appreciation of Mozart. Rossini averred, "He is the only musician
who had as much knowledge as genius, and as much genius as knowledge."
Ludwig van Beethoven's admiration for Mozart is also quite clear.
Beethoven used Mozart as a model a number of times: for example,
Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major demonstrates a debt
to Mozart's Piano Concerto in C major, K. 503. A plausible story
– not corroborated – regards one of Beethoven's students who looked
through a pile of music in Beethoven's apartment. When the student
pulled out Mozart's A major Quartet, K. 464, Beethoven exclaimed
"Ah, that piece. That's Mozart saying 'here's what I could
do, if only you had ears to hear!' "; Beethoven's own Piano
Concerto No. 3 in C minor is an obvious tribute to Mozart's Piano
Concerto No. 24 in C minor, and yet another plausible – if unconfirmed
– story concerns Beethoven at a concert with his sometime-student
Ferdinand Ries. As they listened to Mozart's Piano Concerto No.
24, the orchestra reached the quite unusual coda of the last movement,
and Beethoven whispered to Ries: "We'll never think of anything
like that!" Beethoven's Quintet for Piano and Winds is another
obvious tribute to Mozart, similar to Mozart's own quintet for the
same ensemble. Beethoven also paid homage to Mozart by writing sets
of variations on several of his themes: for example, the two sets
of variations for cello and piano on themes from Mozart's Magic
Flute, and cadenzas to several of Mozart's piano concertos, most
notably the Piano Concerto No. 20 K. 466. A famous legend asserts
that, after the only meeting between the two composers, Mozart noted
that Beethoven would "give the world something to talk about."
However, it is not certain that the two ever met. Tchaikovsky wrote
his Mozartiana in praise of Mozart; and Mahler's final word was
alleged to have been simply "Mozart". The theme of the
opening movement of the Piano Sonata in A major K. 331 (itself a
set of variations on that theme) was used by Max Reger for his Variations
and Fugue on a Theme of Mozart, written in 1914 and among Reger's
best-known works.
In addition, Mozart received outstanding praise from several fellow
composers including Frédéric Chopin, Franz Schubert,
Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky, Robert Schumann, and many more.
Mozart has remained an influence in popular contemporary music in
varying genres ranging from Jazz to modern Rock and Heavy metal.
An example of this influence is the jazz pianist Chick Corea, who
has performed piano concertos of Mozart and was inspired by them
to write a concerto of his own.
The Köchel catalogue
In the decades after Mozart's death there were several attempts
to catalogue his compositions, but it was not until 1862 that Ludwig
von Köchel succeeded in this enterprise. Many of his famous
works are referred to by their Köchel catalogue number; for
example, the Piano Concerto in A major (Piano Concerto No. 23) is
often referred to simply as "K. 488" or "KV. 488".
The catalogue has undergone six revisions, labeling the works from
K. 1 to K. 626.
Myths and controversies
Mozart is unusual among composers for being the subject of an abundance
of legend, partly because none of his early biographers knew him
personally. They often resorted to fiction in order to produce a
work. Many myths began soon after Mozart died, but few have any
basis in fact. An example is the story that Mozart composed his
Requiem with the belief it was for himself. Sorting out fabrications
from real events is a vexing and continuous task for Mozart scholars
mainly because of the prevalence of legend in scholarship. Dramatists
and screenwriters, free from responsibilities of scholarship, have
found excellent material among these legends.
An especially popular case is the supposed rivalry between Mozart
and Antonio Salieri, and, in some versions, the tale 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, Nicolai
Rimsky-Korsakov's opera Mozart and Salieri, and Peter Shaffer's
play Amadeus. The last of these has been made into a feature-length
film of the same name. Shaffer's play attracted criticism for portraying
Mozart as vulgar and loutish, a characterization felt by many to
be unfairly exaggerated, but in fact frequently confirmed by the
composer's letters and other memorabilia. For example, Mozart wrote
canons on the words "Leck mich im Arsch" ("Lick my
arse") and "Leck mich im Arsch recht fein schön sauber"
("Lick my arse nice and clean") as party pieces for his
friends. The Köchel numbers of these canons are 231 and 233.
Another debate involves Mozart's alleged status as a kind of superhuman
prodigy, from childhood right up until his death. While some have
criticised his earlier works as simplistic or forgettable, others
revere even Mozart's juvenilia. In any case, several of his early
compositions remain very popular. The motet Exultate, jubilate (K.
165), for example, composed when Mozart was seventeen years old,
is among the most frequently recorded of his vocal compositions.
It is also mentioned that around the time when he was five or six
years old, he could play the piano blindfolded and with his hands
crossed over one another.
Benjamin Simkin, a medical doctor, argues in his book Medical and
Musical Byways of Mozartiana[9] that Mozart had Tourette syndrome.
However, no Tourette syndrome expert, organization, psychiatrist
or neurologist has stated that there is credible evidence that Mozart
had this syndrome, and several have stated now that they do not
believe there is enough evidence to substantiate the claim.
Amadeus (1984)
Milos Forman’s 1984 motion picture Amadeus, based on the play by
Peter Shaffer, won eight Academy Awards and was one of the year’s
most popular films. While the film did a great deal to popularize
Mozart’s work with the general public, it has been criticized for
its historical inaccuracies, and in particular for its portrayal
of Antonio Salieri’s intrigues against Mozart, for which little
historical evidence can be found. On the contrary, it is likely
that Mozart and Salieri regarded each other as friends and colleagues:
it is well documented, for instance, that Salieri frequently lent
Mozart musical scores from the court library, that he often chose
compositions by Mozart for performance at state occasions, and Salieri
taught Mozart's son, Franz Xaver.
The idea that he never revised his compositions, dramatized in the
film, is easily exploded by even a cursory examination of the autograph
manuscripts, which contain many revisions. Mozart was a studiously
hard worker, and by his own admission his extensive knowledge and
abilities developed out of many years' close study of the European
musical tradition. In fairness, Schaffer and Forman never claimed
that Amadeus was intended to be an accurate biographical portrait
of Mozart. Rather, as Shaffer reveals on the DVD release of the
film, the dramatic narrative was inspired by the biblical story
of Cain and Abel — one brother loved by God, and the other scorned.
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