{"id":1008,"date":"2015-08-18T03:29:29","date_gmt":"2015-08-18T03:29:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.candelalearning.com\/musicappreciation\/?post_type=chapter&p=1008"},"modified":"2015-09-11T21:48:11","modified_gmt":"2015-09-11T21:48:11","slug":"w-a-mozart-his-life-and-legacy","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-musicappreciationtheory\/chapter\/w-a-mozart-his-life-and-legacy\/","title":{"raw":"W. A. Mozart: His Life and Legacy","rendered":"W. A. Mozart: His Life and Legacy"},"content":{"raw":"

Introduction<\/h2>\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1519\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"225\"]\"Chocolate<\/a> Chocolate Mozartkugel[\/caption]\r\n\r\nWolfgang Amadeus Mozart\u00a0(27 January 1756\u20135 December 1791), baptized as Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart,\u00a0was a prolific and influential composer of the classical era.\u00a0Born in Salzburg, Mozart showed prodigious ability from his earliest childhood. Already competent on keyboard and violin, he composed from the age of five and performed before European royalty. At 17, he was engaged as a musician at the Salzburg court, but grew restless and travelled in search of a better position. While visiting Vienna in 1781, he was dismissed from his Salzburg position. He chose to stay in the capital, where he achieved fame but little financial security. During his final years in Vienna, he composed many of his best-known symphonies, concertos, and operas, and portions of the Requiem, which was largely unfinished at the time of his death. The circumstances of his early death have been much mythologized. He was survived by his wife Constanze and two sons.\r\n\r\nHe composed more than\u00a0600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, operatic, and choral music. He is among the most enduringly popular of classical composers, and his influence on subsequent Western art music is profound; Ludwig van Beethoven composed his own early works in the shadow of Mozart, and Joseph Haydn wrote that \"posterity will not see such a talent again in 100 years.\"\r\n

Early Life<\/span><\/h2>\r\n

Family and Childhood<\/span><\/h3>\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"170\"]\"Anonymous Anonymous portrait of the child Mozart, possibly by Pietro Antonio Lorenzoni; painted in 1763 on commission from Leopold Mozart[\/caption]\r\n\r\nWolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born on 27 January 1756 to Leopold Mozart (1719\u20131787) and Anna Maria, n\u00e9e Pertl (1720\u20131778), at 9\u00a0Getreidegassein Salzburg. This was the capital of the Archbishopric of Salzburg, an ecclesiastic principality in what is now Austria, then part of the Holy Roman Empire.\u00a0He was the youngest of seven children, five of whom died in infancy.\u00a0His elder sister was Maria Anna (1751\u20131829), nicknamed \"Nannerl.\" Mozart was baptized the day after his birth at St. Rupert's Cathedral. The baptismal record gives his name in Latinized form as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart<\/i>. He generally called himself \"Wolfgang Amad\u00e8 Mozart\"as an adult, but his name had many variants.\r\n\r\nLeopold Mozart, a native of Augsburg,\u00a0was a minor composer and an experienced teacher. In 1743, he was appointed as fourth violinist in the musical establishment of Count Leopold Anton von Firmian, the ruling Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg.\u00a0Four years later, he married Anna Maria in Salzburg. Leopold became the orchestra's deputy Kapellmeister in 1763. During the year of his son's birth, Leopold published a violin textbook, Versuch einer gr\u00fcndlichen Violinschule<\/i>, which achieved success.\r\n\r\nWhen Nannerl was seven, she began keyboard lessons with her father while her three-year-old brother looked on. Years later, after her brother's death, she reminisced:\r\n
He often spent much time at the clavier, picking out thirds, which he was ever striking, and his pleasure showed that it sounded good.... In the fourth year of his age his father, for a game as it were, began to teach him a few minuets and pieces at the clavier.... He could play it faultlessly and with the greatest delicacy, and keeping exactly in time.... At the age of five, he was already composing little pieces, which he played to his father who wrote them down.<\/blockquote>\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"220\"]\"Mozart's Mozart's birthplace at Getreidegasse 9, Salzburg[\/caption]\r\n\r\nThese early pieces, K. 1\u20135, were recorded in the Nannerl Notenbuch<\/i>.\r\n\r\nThere is some scholarly debate of whether Mozart was four or five years old when he created his first musical compositions, though there is little doubt that Mozart composed his first three pieces of music within a few weeks of each other: KVs 1a,\u00a01b\u00a0and 1c.\r\n\r\nSolomon notes that, while Leopold was a devoted teacher to his children, there is evidence that Mozart was keen to progress beyond what he was taught.\u00a0His first ink-spattered composition and his precocious efforts with the violin were of his own initiative and came as a surprise to his father.\u00a0Leopold eventually gave up composing when his son's musical talents became evident.\u00a0In his early years, Mozart's father was his only teacher. Along with music, he taught his children languages and academic subjects.\r\n

Travel (1762\u201373)<\/h3>\r\nDuring Mozart's youth, his family made several European journeys in which he and Nannerl performed as child prodigies. These began with an exhibition, in 1762, at the court of the Prince-elector Maximilian III of Bavaria in Munich, and at the Imperial Court in Vienna and Prague. A long concert tour spanning three and a half years followed, taking the family to the courts of Munich, Mannheim, Paris, London,\u00a0The Hague, again to Paris, and back home via Zurich, Donaueschingen, and Munich.\r\n\r\nMozart wrote his first symphony when he was eight years old. It is probable that his father transcribed most of it for him.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"170\"]\"The The Mozart family on tour: Leopold, Wolfgang, and Nannerl. Watercolor by Carmontelle, ca. 1763[\/caption]\r\n\r\nDuring this trip, Mozart met a number of musicians and acquainted himself with the works of other composers. A particularly important influence was Johann Christian Bach, whom Mozart visited in London in 1764 and 1765. The family again went to Vienna in late 1767 and remained there until December 1768.\r\n\r\nThese trips were often difficult and travel conditions were primitive.\u00a0The family had to wait for invitations and reimbursement from the nobility and they endured long, near-fatal illnesses far from home: first Leopold (London, summer 1764), then both children (The Hague, autumn 1765).\r\n\r\nAfter one year in Salzburg, Leopold and Mozart set off for Italy, leaving Mozart's mother and sister at home. This travel lasted from December 1769 to March 1771. As with earlier journeys, Leopold wanted to display his son's abilities as a performer and a rapidly maturing composer. Mozart met Josef Myslive\u010dek and Giovanni Battista Martini in Bologna and was accepted as a member of the famous Accademia Filarmonica<\/i>. In Rome, he heard Gregorio Allegri's Miserere<\/i> twice in performance in the Sistine Chapel and wrote it out from memory, thus producing the first unauthorized copy of this closely guarded property of the Vatican.\r\n\r\nIn Milan, Mozart wrote the opera Mitridate, re di Ponto<\/i> (1770), which was performed with success. This led to further opera commissions. He returned with his father later twice to Milan (August\u2013December 1771; October 1772\u00a0\u2013 March 1773) for the composition and premieres of Ascanio in Alba<\/i> (1771) and Lucio Silla<\/i> (1772). Leopold hoped these visits would result in a professional appointment for his son in Italy, but these hopes were never realized.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"170\"]\"Tanzmeisterhaus, Tanzmeisterhaus, Salzburg, Mozart family residence from 1773; reconstructed 1996[\/caption]\r\n\r\nToward the end of the final Italian journey, Mozart wrote the first of his works to be still widely performed today, the solo motet Exsultate, jubilate<\/i>, K.\u00a0165.\r\n

Employment at the Salzburg Court (1773\u201377)<\/h2>\r\nAfter finally returning with his father from Italy on 13 March 1773, Mozart was employed as a court musician by the ruler of Salzburg, Prince-Archbishop Hieronymus Colloredo. The composer had a great number of friends and admirers in Salzburg\u00a0and had the opportunity to work in many genres, including symphonies, sonatas, string quartets, masses, serenades, and a few minor operas. Between April and December 1775, Mozart developed an enthusiasm for violin concertos, producing a series of five (the only ones he ever wrote), which steadily increased in their musical sophistication. The last three\u2014K.\u00a0216, K.\u00a0218, K.\u00a0219\u2014are now staples of the repertoire.\r\n
\r\n

Listen: Mozart Violin Concerto<\/h3>\r\nPlease listen to Mozart's\u00a0Violin Concerto No. 3 in G<\/em> here<\/a>.\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\nIn 1776 Mozart turned his efforts to piano concertos, culminating in the E-flat concerto K.\u00a0271 of early 1777, considered by critics to be a breakthrough work.\r\n\r\nDespite these artistic successes, Mozart grew increasingly discontented with Salzburg and redoubled his efforts to find a position elsewhere. One reason was his low salary, 150 florins a year;\u00a0<\/span>Mozart longed to compose operas, and Salzburg provided only rare occasions for these. The situation worsened in 1775 when the court theater was closed, especially since the other theater in Salzburg was largely reserved for visiting troupes.\r\n\r\nTwo long expeditions in search of work interrupted this long Salzburg stay: Mozart and his father visited Vienna from 14 July to 26 September 1773, and Munich from 6 December 1774 to March 1775. Neither visit was successful, though the Munich journey resulted in a popular success with the premiere of Mozart's opera\u00a0La finta giardiniera<\/i>.\r\n

Journey to Paris (1777\u201378)<\/h2>\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"170\"]\"Portrait Portrait of Mozart wearing the Order of the Golden Spur, received in 1770 from Pope Clement XIV in Rome. The painting is a 1777 copy of a work now lost.[\/caption]\r\n\r\nIn August 1777, Mozart resigned his position at Salzburg and on 23 September ventured out once more in search of employment, with visits to Augsburg, Mannheim, Paris, and Munich.\r\n\r\nMozart became acquainted with members of the famous orchestra in Mannheim, the best in Europe at the time. He also fell in love with Aloysia Weber, one of four daughters of a musical family. There were prospects of employment in Mannheim, but they came to nothing,\u00a0and Mozart left for Paris on 14 March 1778\u00a0to continue his search. One of his letters from Paris hints at a possible post as an organist at Versailles, but Mozart was not interested in such an appointment.\u00a0He fell into debt and took to pawning valuables.\u00a0The nadir of the visit occurred when Mozart's mother was taken ill and died on 3 July 1778.\u00a0There had been delays in calling a doctor\u2014probably, according to Halliwell, because of a lack of funds.\u00a0Mozart stayed with Melchior Grimm, who, as personal secretary of the Duke d'Orl\u00e9ans, lived in his mansion.\r\n\r\nWhile Mozart was in Paris his father was pursuing opportunities of employment for him in Salzburg.\u00a0With the support of the local nobility, Mozart was offered a post as court organist and concertmaster. The annual salary was 450 florins,\u00a0but he was reluctant to accept.\u00a0By that time relations between Grimm and Mozart had cooled, and Mozart moved out. After leaving Paris in September 1778 for Strasbourg, he lingered in Mannheim and Munich, still hoping to obtain an appointment outside Salzburg. In Munich he again encountered Aloysia, now a very successful singer, but she was no longer interested in him.\u00a0Mozart finally returned to Salzburg on 15 January 1779 and took up his new appointment, but his discontent with Salzburg remained undiminished.\r\n\r\nAmong the better-known works that\u00a0Mozart wrote on the Paris journey are the A minor piano sonata, K.\u00a0310\/300d and the \"Paris\" Symphony (No.\u00a031), which were performed in Paris on 12 and 18 June 1778.\r\n

Vienna (1781\u201391)<\/h2>\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"220\"]\"The The Mozart family c. 1780. The portrait on the wall is of Mozart's mother.[\/caption]\r\n

Departure (1781)<\/h3>\r\nIn January 1781, Mozart's opera Idomeneo<\/i> premiered with \"considerable success\" in Munich.\u00a0The following March, Mozart was summoned to Vienna, where his employer, Archbishop Colloredo, was attending the celebrations for the accession of Joseph II to the Austrian throne. Fresh from the adulation he had earned in Munich, Mozart was offended when Colloredo treated him as a mere servant and particularly when the archbishop forbade him to perform before the Emperor at Countess Thun's for a fee equal to half of his yearly Salzburg salary. The resulting quarrel came to a head in May: Mozart attempted to resign and was refused. The following month, permission was granted but in a grossly insulting way: the composer was dismissed literally \"with a kick in the arse,\" administered by the archbishop's steward, Count Arco. Mozart decided to settle in Vienna as a freelance performer and composer.\r\n\r\nThe quarrel with the archbishop went harder for Mozart because his father sided against him. Hoping fervently that he would obediently follow Colloredo back to Salzburg, Mozart's father exchanged intense letters with his son, urging him to be reconciled with their employer. Mozart passionately defended his intention to pursue an independent career in Vienna. The debate ended when Mozart was dismissed by the archbishop, freeing himself both of his employer and his father's demands to return. Solomon characterizes Mozart's resignation as a \"revolutionary step,\" and it greatly altered the course of his life.\r\n

Early Years in Vienna<\/h3>\r\nMozart's new career in Vienna began well. He performed often as a pianist, notably in a competition before the Emperor with Muzio Clementi on 24 December 1781,\u00a0and he soon \"had established himself as the finest keyboard player in Vienna\".\u00a0He also prospered as a composer, and in 1782 completed the opera Die Entf\u00fchrung aus dem Serail<\/i> (\"The Abduction from the Seraglio\"), which premiered on 16 July 1782 and achieved a huge success. The work was soon being performed \"throughout German-speaking Europe,\"\u00a0and fully established Mozart's reputation as a composer.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"170\"]\"1782 1782 portrait of Constanze Mozart by her brother-in-law Joseph Lange[\/caption]\r\n\r\nNear the height of his quarrels with Colloredo, Mozart moved in with the Weber family, who had moved to Vienna from Mannheim. The father, Fridolin, had died, and the Webers were now taking in lodgers to make ends meet.\u00a0Aloysia, who had earlier rejected Mozart's suit, was now married to the actor and artist Joseph Lange. Mozart's interest shifted to the third Weber daughter, Constanze. The courtship did not go entirely smoothly; surviving correspondence indicates that Mozart and Constanze briefly separated in April 1782.\u00a0Mozart faced a very difficult task in getting his father's permission for the marriage.\u00a0The couple were finally married on 4 August 1782 in St. Stephen's Cathedral, the day before his father's consent arrived in the mail.\r\n\r\nThe couple had six children, of whom only two survived infancy:\r\n