"Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791), one of the most amazing child prodigies in history, was born in Salzburg, Austria. By the age of four he could tell his father when his violin was one quarter of a note off. At six he could play the harpsichord and violin, improvise fugues, write minuets and read music perfectly at first sight. At age eight, he wrote a symphony; at eleven, an oratorio, at twelve, an opera."
Bill Parker writes in his book Building a Classical Music Library, "It is fashionable nowadays to sniff at the traditional epithet "Divine" applied to Mozart, to belittle or doubt his reported ability to compose great works in his head while playing billiards and to write them down at his later convenience, to emphasize his scatological language and love of roistering as if to prove he was scarcely deferent from you or I.
"Well, it won't wash. There is too much evidence that his talents, perceptions and inutions were light years beyond the ordinary. He seemed to know most of the basics of music by the age most of us are just learning to tell the big hand form the little hand. Melody, gorgeous melody, flowed from him like sparkling waters from an artesian well. At every turn in his works there are little subtleties and details about which critics have written whole books of analysis; if Mozart had taken time to ponder each of them he would have needed to live another thirty-five years. His music sounds effortless. With almost any other composer is a result of long, deep thinking and numberless revisions, art concealing art. With Mozart it is different. It is effortless! "
"Mozart's father, Leopold, a court musician, was eager to show him off. Between the ages of six and fifteen Mozart was continually on tour; he played for Empress Maria Theresa in Vienna, Louis XV at Versailles, George III in London, and innumerable aristocrats. On his trips to Italy he was able to master the current operatic style, which he later put to superb use.
"When he was fifteen, Mozart returned to Salzburg--then ruled by a prince-archbishop. The archbishop was a tyrant who did not appreciate Mozat's music and refused to grant him more than a subordinate seat in the court orchestra. With his father's help Mozart tried repeatedly but unsuccessfully over the next decade to find a position elsewhere.
"Ironically, and tragically, Mozart won more acclaim as a boy wonder than as an adult musician. Having begun his professional life as an international celebrity, he could not tolerate being treated like a servant; he became insubordinate when the archbishop forbade him to give concerts or to perform at the houses of the aristocracy, and his relations with his patron when from bad to worse. Moreover, his complete dependence on his father had given him little opportunity to develop initiative and a contemporary observed that he was 'too good-natured, not active enough, too easily taken in, too little concerned with the means that may lead him to good fortune.'
"When he was twenty-five, Mozart could stand it no more: he broke free of provincial Salzburg and became a free-lance musician in Vienna. His first few years there were very successful. His German opera Die Entfuh rung aus dem Serail (The Abduction from the Seraglia, 1782) was acclaimed; concerts of his own music were attended by the emperor and nobility; his compositions were published; pupils paid him high fees; and he formed a friendship with Haydn, who told Mozart's father, 'Your son is the greatest composer that I know; he has taste and, what is more , the most profound knowledge of composition.' In 1786 came his opera Le Nozze di Figaro ( The Marriage of Figaro). Vienna loved it, and Prague was even more enthusiastic; 'They talk of nothing but Figaro,' Mozart joyfully wrote. This success led an opera company in Prague to commission Don Giovanni the following year.
"Although Don Giovanni was a triumph in Prague, its dark qualities and dissonance did not appeal to the Viennese, and Mozart's popularity in Vienna began to decline. Vienna was a fickle city in any case, and it found Mozart's music complicated and hard to follow. His pupils dwindled, the elite snubbed his concerts. His last year of life -- 1791-- when he was in desperate financial straits and his health was failing, would make a grim opera plot. He received a commission for a comic opera, Die Zauberflute (The Magic Flute), and while working on it was visited by a mysterious stranger dressed all in gray who carried an anonymous letter commissioning a requiem, a mass for the dead. As Mozart's heath grew worse, he came to believe that the requiem was for himself and rushed to finish it while on his deathbed. (In fact, the stranger was the servant of a nobleman who intended to claim the requiem as his own composition.)
"The Magic Flute was premiered to resounding praise in Vienna, but its success came too late. Mozart died shortly before his thirty-sixth birthday. (The requiem was completed by his favorite pupil.) He turned was the poorest possible; and he was buried in a common grave for paupers.
MOZART'S MUSIC
"Mozart was among the most versatile of all composers and wrote masterpieces in all the musical forms of his time--symphonies, concertos, chamber music, operas. All his music sings and conveys a felling of ease, grace, and spontaneity as well as balance, restraint, and proportion. Yet mysterious harmonies contrast with its lyricism, and it fuses elegance with power. Not only do his compositions sound effortless, they were created with miraculous ease and rapidity--for example, he completed his last three symphonies in only six weeks.
"Many of Mozart's concertos are among his greatest works. His piano concertos-- composed mainly for his own performances--are particularly important; but he also wrote concertos for violin, horn, flute, bassoon, oboe, and clarinet.
"Mozart was also a master of opera, with a supreme ability to coordinate music and stage action, a keen sense of theater, an inexhaustible gift of melody, and a genius for creating characters through tone. Most of his operas are comedies, composed to German or Italian librettos.
" 'I am never happier,' Mozart once wrote, 'than when I have something to compose, for that , after all, is my sole delight and passion.' His delight and passion are communicated in his works, which represent late eighteenth-century musical style at its highest level of perfection."
The above is from Music an Appreciation by Roger Kamien, Brief Edition, McGraw Hill Companies, Inc. Pages 139-141..
Links
Ongoing project has biographical details, scholarly essays, a list of works categorized by form, and a bibliography with reviews.
The Mozart Experience
The life, times, and music of the prolific composer. Includes a wealth of information about this early classical genius
Mozart’s World
Dedicated to the rococo composer and musical genius, with pictures, biographical info, and links.
The Mozart Effect
Discover the so-called "Mozart effect" - the claim by one educator that Mozart's music can stimulate the mind and improve intelligence. Buy CDs.
