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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
1756 – 1791
Johannes Chrystostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart was arguably the most naturally gifted musician in history.
Life and Music
- His inspiration is often described as 'divine', but he worked assiduously, not only to become the great composer he was, but also a conductor, virtuoso pianist, organist and violinist.
- His compositions (more than 600 of them) embrace opera, symphony, concerto, chamber, choral, instrumental and vocal music, revealing an astonishing number of imperishable masterpieces.
- It comes as a relief to know that Mozart was mere flesh and blood - tactless, arrogant, impulsive and with a scatological sense of humour.
- Mozart's father, Leopold, was an ambitious composer and violinist. Wolfgang and his sister Maria Anna were the only two of Leopold's seven children to survive infancy.
- Mozart's first opera, La finta semplice, was produced in Vienna in 1767.
- Returning to Salzburg in 1772, Mozart found that, as a now fully mature musician, he had lost the capacity to captivate an audience and was compelled to enter the service of the Archbishop of Salzburg.
- On a commission from the Emperor, Mozart wrote and produced his opera, The Abduction from the Seraglio. Its success gave him the confidence to marry Constanze Weber, in August 1782.
- The Mozarts' marriage seems to have been a genuinely happy one. Constanze was easy going, free spending and usually pregnant (though only two of the couple's six children survived).
- Post-marriage, a string of fine works appeared - the 'Haffner' and 'Linz' symphonies, five string quartets dedicated to Haydn and, in 1786, The Marriage of Figaro.
- Between 1784 and 1786, he composed nine of the greatest piano concertos in the literature and, in his last year, was writing three of these concurrently with The Marriage of Figaro! He could score a complicated piece while planning another in his head, a gift that is beyond the comprehension of most of us.
- The year 1787 saw the death of his father and the premiere (in Prague) of his second operatic masterpiece, Don Giovanni.
- The keyboard (harpsichord, and then piano) was Mozart's main instrument and it is in the later piano concertos that we hear him express himself more personally than any composer up to that time. His writing for the voice has rarely been matched.
- The succession of immortal works Mozart composed in the last four years of his life is almost beyond comprehension: Eine Kleine Nachtmusik and the Clarinet Quintet in A, the final three of his 41 symphonies, each highly contrasted with the other; Cosí fan tutte, three piano trios, the 'Coronation' piano concerto, two piano sonatas and three string quartets.
- His health began to fail and his phenomenal work rate slowed in 1790. He rallied and in 1791 alone composed La clemenza di Tito and The Magic Flute, the Requiem (unfinished), the autumnal final piano concerto (No.27 in B flat), the String Quintet in E flat and the clarinet concerto.
- Mozart did not live long enough to complete his requiem, but succumbed, a few weeks before his 36th birthday, to streptococcal infection and renal failure, which led to fever, polyarthritis, swelling of the limbs, vomiting, cerebral haemorrhage and broncho-pneumonia.
- The result is that the precise final resting place of one of music's greatest geniuses is unknown.
Did you know?
Mozart started playing the keyboard when he was three years old, and was composing music by the age of four!
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