We explain who Mozart was, why he is considered the musical genius of the 18th century and what his best-known pieces are.
Despite having lived only 35 years, Mozart was one of the greatest exponents of musical classicism.
Who was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart?
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, known simply as Mozart, was one of the most important and recognized musicians in historyconsidered the father of European musical classicism and the most important composer of the 18th century. He is known for more than six hundred musical creations in all genres of his time.
Celebrated since childhood for his enormous talent with the keyboard and violin, Mozart lived a short but intense lifewhere he rubbed shoulders with royalty and endured turbulent times. Along with Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) and Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827), his work constitutes the high point of the Austrian classical music tradition.
He was an outstanding student of prestigious composers such as Johann Christian Bach (1735-1782), son and disciple of Johann Sebastian Bach (1635-1750), or Father Giovanni Battista Martini (1706-1784), but his own fame far surpassed that of his greatest teachers. During his lifetime He composed several central pieces of the Western musical traditionand left many others unfinished, which were made known after his death.
Eccentric and capricious, Mozart was hated and admired by those who knew him, and His death remains a mystery that has long been the subject of speculation.His work, however, survives the centuries and constitutes today one of the pinnacles of classical or academic music.
The birth of a musical genius
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Born on January 27, 1756 in the city of Salzburg, now Austriawhich at that time was an independent principality-archbishopric attached to the Holy Roman Empire. He was the seventh child of Anna Maria Pertl and Leopold Mozart, and the only one along with his sister Maria Anna to reach adulthood, due to the high infant mortality rate at that time.
His father was a court musician and second chapel master, but above all a music teacher. In the year of Wolfgang’s birth he successfully published a musical treatise entitled “Complete Treatise on Violin Teaching” ((See a general violin school)which was widely used during the 18th century. However, As soon as Leopold had evidence of his son’s incredible musical talent, he gave up his own career and devoted himself entirely to teaching him..
Since they were children, Mozart and his sister, who was nicknamed Nannerldemonstrated great musical ability. But young Wolfgang’s talent was frankly extraordinary: At the age of three he played the harpsichord and at the age of five he composed his first pieces.. At the age of six, he played the violin. He was an affable and sensitive child who read music at first sight and had a prodigious memory.
Already in his teens, young Mozart was considered a musical prodigy throughout Europe.
Convinced that young Mozart’s talent was a divine gift, His father considered that he should play in the main cultural centers of Europe. Thus, when he was barely six years old, Wolfgang found himself at the Bavarian court in Munich and then in Vienna. The family tour continued to Augsburg, Stuttgart, Mannheim, Mainz, Brussels, Paris, Lyon, London, The Hague, Amsterdam and Switzerland.
When they finally returned home in 1766, the young prodigy was already known throughout most of Europe.. He had appeared before the kings of France and England, published his first sonatas for keyboard and violin, and had been introduced to Johann Christian Bach, leader of the London music scene, under whose tutelage he composed his first symphonies (K 16, K 19, K19a, and then K 22 and K45a). Three years later, Mozart was appointed concertmaster (Konzertmeister) honorary at the court of Salzburg.
Mozart’s musical pieces are often identified by a code consisting of the letter K or KV followed by a specific number. This is a response to the compilation of his works by the Austrian Ludwig von Köchel (1800-1877), one of his greatest admirers and scholars. Since Mozart did not always name or date his pieces, von Köchel devoted a good part of his life to collecting, organizing and identifying them in the “Chronological and Thematic Catalogue of All the Musical Works of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart” (Chronological-thematic publications similar to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s works) which he published in 1862. This catalogue was later updated and expanded by other scholars of Mozart’s work, and today constitutes the main bibliographical source available on the subject.
The trip to Italy and his first compositions
The father’s dedication to Mozart’s talent led them to Italy in 1769. There father and son visited the major musical centers, stopping wherever a nobleman wished to delight in the young prodigy’s talent.
Mozart’s successes were not lacking in Italy: In Verona he had a successful audition at the Accademia Filarmonica and in Milan he was commissioned to compose the first opera of the carnival season. In Bologna he met Giovanni Battista Martini, a music scholar, better known as “Padre Martini”, whom he impressed with his talent.
They finally headed to Florence and then to Rome, during Holy Week, where Mozart heard the famous Mercy me, God. by Gregorio Allegri (1582-1652), performed by the Sistine Chapel Choir. This work, of profound religious value, could only be performed in that place and the reproduction of its score was prohibited. Mozart, however, upon returning to the pension, He proceeded to transcribe it entirely from memory, something that dazzled Pope Clement XIV.who named him a knight of the Order of the Golden Spur.
Before returning to Salzburg, Mozart wrote a new opera, Mithridates, King of Pontus (KV 87), which was performed with notable success at the Teatro Regio Ducal in 1770. New operas and commissions were entrusted to him, which necessitated new and successive trips to Italy.. In this way, the young man composed the operas The liberated Betulia (“Betulia liberated”, K 118) and Ascanio in dawn (“Ascanius at dawn”, KV 111) in 1771, Lucius Chair (KV 135) at the Milan carnivals of 1772, and one of his most famous and still performed works, the religious motet Rejoice, jubilate (“Rejoice, be glad”, K 165) in 1773, among other works of notable success.
Mozart composed Rejoice, jubilate when he was just 17 years old. This version is performed by Catherine Trottmann of the Orchestre du Palais Royal.
When Mozart and his father returned to Salzburg in March 1773, they learned that their protector, Prince and Archbishop Sigismund von Schrattenbach (1698-1771), had died. And his replacement, Hieronymus von Colloredo (1732-1812), was much more severe and inflexible with his subjects. For this reason, Mozart’s father decided to travel to Vienna to seek greater recognition for his son’s talent..
The change of scenery suited the young Mozart well. There he produced new pieces, in dialogue with the tradition inaugurated by Haydn, thus demonstrating a more conscious approach to music. Among the works he composed during this period are his Symphony 25 in G minor (K 183), his Symphony 29 in A major (K 201) and its Piano Concerto No. 5 (K 175).
Goodbye, Salzburg
At 21 years of age, Mozart was already formally a court musician in Salzburg and received a rather meager salary of 150 florins. He had had the opportunity to produce new pieces in all the musical genres of the time, including a comic opera for the Munich carnivals, entitled The garden feint (“The Pretend Gardener”, KV 196), a religious piece named Litany of the venerable altars of the sacrament (“Eucharistic Litanies”, K 243) and a theatrical action in honor of the new prince-archbishop, Scipione’s dream (“Scipio’s Dream”, KV 126).
The atmosphere in Salzburg, however, soon became insufficient. for someone of Mozart’s talent. Especially after the Court Theatre closed in 1775. So in 1777 the young genius set out to seek new horizons. This time accompanied by his mother, he set off initially for Munich, then Augsburg and finally Mannheim, where they stayed for almost four months.
In that city, Mozart fell in love for the first time with the soprano Aloysia Weberthe daughter of a well-known music copyist. Determined to travel with her and his family to Italy, Mozart wrote to his father about the matter and received a resounding refusal: he should stop this nonsense and go to Paris, where he would take his place among the greats. And although he did so, from then on the young musician began to resent his father’s authority.
Mozart and his mother Anna Maria arrived in Paris at the end of 1778, where the young man continued his fruitless search for employment. On June 18th, the famous film had its first open premiere in France: Symphony No. 31 in D Major, Paris (K 297)which was very well received by the public. However, her mother was unable to attend the premiere because she was seriously ill. And weeks later, on July 3, she died.
At the age of 22, Mozart decided to retire to live out his mourning in the company of his German friend, Baron von Grimm, Friedrich Melchior (1723-1807). There he wrote to his friend and private tutor, Abbot Franz Joseph Bullinger (1744-1810) in Salzburg to inform his father of the bad news. Finally, the absence of major opportunities in Paris and His father’s offer to renegotiate his engagement at the Salzburg court brought the young musician back home in 1779..
Mozart had a relationship of continuous discontent with Salzburg, his hometown, even though it was there that he had the most stable work, before his final departure for Vienna. This is what he expressed in his letter of 1778 to Abbot Joseph Bullinger:
“You know, my dear friend, how hateful Salzburg is to me! Not only because of the injustices which my dear father and I have suffered there, which are reason enough for me to forget that place and eradicate it entirely from my memory… It will always be my greatest pleasure to embrace my beloved father and my beloved sister, and the sooner the better; but I cannot deny that my pleasure and my happiness would be greater if it were somewhere else, for I trust more to live fully and happily anywhere else. Is it possible that you misunderstand me and think that Salzburg is a small thing for me? In that you would be mistaken; I have already written to my father some of the reasons for my opinion. Let it suffice for you for now to know that Salzburg is no place for my talent! First, because those employed in music receive no respect, and secondly because there is nothing to listen to: there is no theatre, no opera!”
Taken from Digital Mozart Edition (https://dme.mozarteum.at/en/). Translated by Etecé.
The trip to Vienna
In 1782…