Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
(1756-1791)
A remarkable musician and composer whose
legend continues to grow more than two centuries after his death,
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in Salzburg, Austria in 1756.
Before the age of four, he had exhibited such extraordinary
powers of musical memory and ear-sophistication that his father,
Leopold (a highly esteemed violinist and composer in his own
right) decided to sign young Wolfgang up for harpsichord lessons.
Almost from day one, the boy's reputation as an unexampled
musical prodigy grew faster than wildfire. At five, he was
composing music; at six, he was a keyboard virtuoso, so much so
that Leopold took Wolfgang and his sister Maria Anna on a
performance tour of Munich and Vienna.
From that time on, young Mozart was constantly performing and
writing music. He was the toast of Austria, and gave many
concerts of prepared works and improvisation. Wherever he
appeared, people gaped in awe at his divine gifts. By his early
teens, he had mastered the piano, violin and harpsichord, and was
writing keyboard pieces, oratorios, symphonies and operas. His
first major opera, Mitridate, was performed in Milan in 1770
(when he was still only fourteen!), to such unqualified raves
that critics compared him to Handel.
At fifteen, Mozart was installed as the concertmaster in the
orchestra of the Archbishop of Salzburg. Things did not go very
well; Mozart didn't get along with the Archbishop, and relations
deteriorated to the point where, in 1781, he quit this lofty
position and headed for Vienna - quite against his father's
wishes.
Now a grown man, Mozart initially thrived in Vienna. He was in
great demand as a performer and composition teacher, and his
first opera, The Abduction from the Seraglio, was a hit. But life
was not easy. He was a poor businessman, and finances were always
tight, especially after his marriage to Constanze Weber.
Political infighting at the Vienna court kept him from the
patronage that composers of the period so relied upon, and he
descended to a life of genteel poverty. His music from the next
decade - and it came at a blisteringly prolific rate - was only
sporadically popular, and he eventually fell back on his teaching
jobs and on the charity of friends to make ends meet. In 1788 he
stopped performing in public, preferring to compose. But fortune
never turned, and when he died in 1791 at the age of thirty-five,
he was buried in a pauper's grave.
To say that Mozart was a composer of unequalled genius is
scarcely scratching the surface of this man's remarkable gifts.
He wrote music - complete and perfect, down to the last accent
and inflection - as fast as he could think, and this astonishing
rate of production continues to stupefy scholars today. In his
short life, he composed over 600 works, including 21 stage and
opera works, 15 Masses, over 50 symphonies, 25 piano concertos,
12 violin concertos, 27 concert arias, 17 piano sonatas, 26
string quartets...the list is endless. And what makes these
numbers doubly unfathomable is the peerless craft with which each
piece of music was created. Mozart was a master of counterpoint,
fugue, and the other traditional compositional devices of his
day; more than this, he was perhaps the greatest melody writer
the world has ever known. His operas range from comic baubles to
tragic masterpieces. His Requiem, composed not long before his
own death, stands with Bach's St. Matthew Passion as the supreme
example of vocal music.
In recent years, Mozart's fame has reached new heights on the
popularity of the film Amadeus. Music scholars love to poke holes
in what is admittedly a fantastical portrait of Mozart's life,
and ensuing arguments over his relationship with his musical
"rival" Salieri, his method of composing, and the
events surrounding his death have created more public
misunderstandings about this divine figure than ever existed
before. What the recent Mozart vogue has created for the good,
however, is increased awareness of his music, which must be
counted among the absolute wonders of the world.