February, 2006 - Nr. 2
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
1756 - 1791
Probably the greatest genius in Western musical history, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in Salzburg, Austria, Jan. 27,1756, the son of Leopold Mozart, a successful composer and violinist in his own right, and his wife, Anna Maria Pertl. Wolfgang was the second of seven children, only his older sister, Maria Anna ("Nannerl") and he survived infancy.
Wolfgang began composing minuets at the age of 5 and symphonies at 9. He played the keyboard ("Spinett"), but also became a violin virtuoso. In 1762 he played at court in Vienna, where the Empress Maria Theresa and her husband, Emperor Francis I, received him cordially. During 1763-66 he traveled to Paris, Germany and London, where he was profoundly influenced by Johann Christian Bach, and where he wrote his first symphonies. In 1768, at the age of 12, he wrote his first opera, La Finta Semplice, for Vienna, which was first presented a year later at Salzburg.
When
he returned to Salzburg in 1779 he was given the position of court organist
(1779) and produced a splendid series of church works, including the famous
Coronation Mass. He was commissioned to compose a new opera for
Munich, Idomeneo (1781), which proved that he was a consummate
master of opera seria. Summoned by Hieronimus von Colloredo to Vienna in
1781 he was dismissed after a series of arguments.
Mozart’s career in Vienna began promisingly with The Abduction from the Seraglio in 1782. His concerts were a great success, and the emperor, Joseph II, encouraged him, later (1787) engaging him as court composer. In 1782 the now-popular Mozart married Constanze Weber from Germany. The young pair visited Salzburg in 1783; there, the Kyrie and Gloria of Mozart’s great Mass in C Minor, composed in Vienna and never finished, were performed. Mozart’s greatest success was The Marriage of Figaro composed in 1786 for the Vienna Opera.
After The Marriage of Figaro, his next great operatic success was Don Giovanni, composed in 1787 for Prague, where Mozart’s art was especially appreciated. This was followed in 1790 by Cosi fan tutte, and in 1791 by The Magic Flute, produced by a suburban theatre in Vienna.
In 1791, Mozart was commissioned to write a requiem (unfinished). He was at the time quite ill and imagined that the work was for himself, which it proved to be. His death, on December 5, 1791, which gave rise to false rumours of poisoning, is thought to have resulted from kidney failure. After a cheap funeral at Saint Stephen’s Cathedral, he was buried in an unmarked grave at the cemetery of Saint Marx, a Viennese suburb, Much has been made of this, but at that time such burial was legally required for all Viennese except those of noble or aristocratic birth.
Mozart excelled in every form in which he composed. His contemporaries found the restless ambivalence and complicated emotional content of his music difficult to understand. Accustomed to the light, superficial style of rococo music, his aristocratic audiences could not accept the music’s complexity and depth. Yet, with Josef Haydn, Mozart perfected the grand forms of symphony, opera, string quartet, and concerto that marled the classical period in music.
In his operas Mozart’s uncanny psychological insight is unique in musical history. His music informed the work of the later Haydn and of the next generation of composers, most notably Ludwig van Beethoven. The brilliance of his work continued until the end, although darker themes of poignancy and isolation grew more marked in his last years, and his compositions continue to exert a particular fascination for musicians and music lovers.
