Mozart,
Wolfgang Amadeus
(1756-1791), Austrian composer, a centrally important composer of the Classical era, and
one of the most inspired composers in the Western musical tradition.
Born
on January 27, 1756, in Salzburg, and baptised Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus
Mozart, he was educated by his father, Leopold Mozart, who was leader of the court
orchestra of the Archbishop of Salzburg and a celebrated violinist, composer, and author.
Mozart's
Musically Precocious Childhood
By
the age of six Mozart had become an accomplished performer on the keyboard, violin, and
organ and was highly skilled in sight-reading and improvisation. Five short piano pieces
composed by Mozart when he was six years old are still frequently played. In 1762 Leopold
took Wolfgang on the first of many successful concert tours through the courts of Europe.
During this period Wolfgang composed sonatas
for the harpsichord and violin (1763), a symphony
(1764), an oratorio (Die Schuldigkeit des Ersten Gebots, 1766), and the opera
buffa (Italian, “comic opera”) La Finta Semplice (The Simple Pretence,
1768). In 1769 Mozart was appointed Konzertmeister to the Archbishop of Salzburg, and
later in the same year, at La
Scala,
Milan, he was made a chevalier of the Order of the Golden Spur by the pope. He also
composed his first Singspiel (a kind of light opera in German with some spoken dialogue), Bastien
und Bastienne, in the same year. At the age of 14 he was commissioned to write a
serious opera. This work, Mitridate, Rč di Ponto (Mithridates, King of Pontus,
1770), produced under his direction at Milan, completely established an already phenomenal
reputation.
The
Mozarts returned to Salzburg in 1771. Hieronymus, Count von Colloredo, the successor to
the Archbishop of Salzburg, who had died while the Mozarts were touring Italy, cared
little for music. Mozart's appointment at Salzburg, however, proved to be largely
honorary; it allowed ample time for a prodigious musical output during his next six years,
but afforded little financial security. In 1777 Mozart obtained a leave of absence for a
concert tour and left with his mother for Munich.
A
Difficult Later Life
The
courts of Europe ignored the 21-year-old composer in his search for a more congenial and
rewarding appointment. He travelled to Mannheim, then the musical centre of Europe because
of its famous orchestra, in hopes of a post, and there fell in love with Aloysia Weber.
Leopold promptly ordered his son and wife to Paris. His mother's death in Paris in July
1778, his rejection by Weber, and the neglect he suffered from the aristocrats whom he
courted made the two years from Mozart's arrival in Paris until his return to Salzburg in
1779 one of the most difficult periods in his life.
While
at home Mozart composed two masses and a number of sonatas, symphonies, serenades,
divertimentos,
and concertos;
these works reveal for the first time a distinctive style and a completely mature
understanding of musical media. The success of Mozart's Italian opera seria Idomeneo,
Rč di Creta (Idomeneo, King of Crete), composed in 1781, prompted the Archbishop of
Salzburg to invite Mozart to his palace at Vienna. A series of court intrigues and his
exploitation at the hands of the court soon forced Mozart to leave. In a house in Vienna
rented for him by friends, he hoped to sustain himself by teaching. During this period
Mozart composed a Singspiel called The Abduction from the Seraglio, which was
performed for Emperor Joseph II in 1782.
In
the same year Mozart married Constanze Weber, Aloysia's younger sister. Unending poverty
and illness harassed the family until Mozart's death. The Marriage of Figaro (1786)
and Don Giovanni (1787), with librettos by Lorenzo Da Ponte, while successful in
Prague, were partial failures in Vienna. From 1787 until the production of Cos? Fan Tutte
(All Women Do So, 1790, again with a libretto by Da Ponte), Mozart received no commissions
for operas. For the coronation of Emperor Leopold II in 1791 he wrote the opera seria La
Clemenza di Tito (The Clemency of Titus; libretto by Metastasio). His three great
symphonies of 1788—no. 39 in E-flat, no. 40 in G minor, and no. 41 in C (the Jupiter)—were
never performed under his direction. While Mozart was working on the Singspiel The
Magic Flute (1791, with a libretto by Emmanuel Schikaneder), an emissary of a Count
Walsegg mysteriously requested a requiem mass. This work, uncompleted at Mozart's death,
proved to be his last musical effort. It was completed after his death by Franz Süssmayr,
one of his pupils. He died in Vienna on December 5, 1791—recent research suggests the
cause was chronic kidney failure. His burial was attended by few friends. The place of his
grave is unmarked. The legend that the Italian composer Antonio Salieri murdered him is
unsupported by reputable scholars.
Evaluation
Mozart
had an unsuccessful career and died young, but he ranks as one of the great geniuses of
Western civilisation. His large output (more than 600 works) shows that even as a child he
possessed a thorough command of the technical resources of musical composition as well as
an original imagination. His instrumental works include symphonies, divertimentos,
sonatas, chamber
music
for a number of instrumental combinations, and concertos; his vocal works consist mainly
of church music and operas. Mozart's creative method was extraordinary, for his
manuscripts show that, although he made an occasional preliminary sketch of a difficult
passage, he almost invariably thought out a complete work before committing it to paper.
His music combines an Italian taste for clear and graceful melody with a German taste for
formal and contrapuntal ingenuity. Mozart thus epitomises the Classical style of the 18th
century, the goal of which was to be succinct, clear, and well balanced while at the same
time developing ideas to a point of emotionally satisfying fullness. These qualities are
perhaps best expressed in his concertos, with their dramatic contrasts between a solo
instrument and the orchestra, and in his operas, with their profound contrasts between
different personalities reacting to changing situations. His operas achieved a new unity
of vocal and instrumental writing; they are marked by subtle characterisation and an
unusual use of Classical symphonic style in large-scale ensembles.