Mozart Essay, Research Paper

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart ( 1756-1791 )

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in Salzburg in Austria, the boy of Leopold, Kapellmeister to the Prince-Archbishop of

Salzburg. By the age of three he could play the piano, and he was composing by the clip he was five ; minuets from this period

show singular apprehension of signifier. Mozart & # 8217 ; s elder sister Maria Anna ( best known as Nannerl ) was besides a talented keyboard

participant, and in 1762 their male parent took the two prodigies on a short acting circuit, of the tribunals at Vienna and Munich.

Encouraged by their response, they embarked the following twelvemonth on a longer circuit, including two hebdomads at Versailles, where the

kids enchanted Louis XV. In 1764 they arrived in London. Here Mozart wrote his first three symphonic musics, under the

influence of Johann Christian Bach, youngest boy of Johann Sebastian, who lived in the metropolis. After their return to Salzburg there

followed three trips to Italy between 1769 and 1773. In Rome Mozart heard a public presentation of Allegri & # 8217 ; s Misere ; the mark of

this work was closely restrained, but Mozart managed to transcribe the music about absolutely from memory. On Mozart & # 8217 ; s foremost

visit to Milan, his opera Mitridate, R? di Ponto was successfully produced, followed on a subsequent visit by Lucia Silla. The

latter showed marks of the rich, full orchestration that characterizes his ulterior operas.

A trip to Vienna in 1773 failed to bring forth the tribunal assignment that both Mozart and his male parent wished for him, but did

present Mozart to the influence of Haydn, whose Sturm und Drang threading fours ( Opus 20 ) had late been published.

The influence is clear in Mozart & # 8217 ; s six threading fours, K168-173, and in his Symphony in G child, K183. Another trip in hunt

of backing ended less merrily. Accompanied by his female parent, Mozart left Salzburg in 1777, going through Mannheim to

Paris. But in July 1778 his female parent died. Nor was the trip a professional success: no longer able to go through for a prodigy, Mozart & # 8217 ; s

response there was muted and hopes of a occupation came nil.

Back in Salzburg Mozart worked for two old ages as a church organist for the new archbishop. His employer was less kindly

disposed to the Mozart household than his predecessor had been, but the composer however produced some of his earliest

chef-d’oeuvres. The celebrated Sinfonia concertante for fiddle, violo and orchestra was written in 1780, and the undermentioned twelvemonth

Mozart & # 8217 ; s first great phase work, the opera Idomeneo, was produced in Munich, where Mozart besides wrote his Divertimento for 13

air current instruments, K361. On his return from Munich, nevertheless, the ill will brewing between him and the archbishop came to a

caput, and Mozart resigned. On presenting his surrender he was verbally abused and finally, physically ejected from the

archbishop & # 8217 ; s abode.

Without backing, Mozart was forced to face the hazards of a free-lance being. Initially his attempts met with some success.

He took up abode in Vienna and in 1782 his opera Die Entf? hrung gold dem Serail ( The stepping down from the Seraglio ) was

produced in the metropolis and ecstatically received. The same twelvemonth in Vienna & # 8217 ; s St Stephen & # 8217 ; s Cathedral Mozart married Constanze

Weber. Soon afterwards he initiated a series of subscription concerts at which he performed his piano concertos and

improvised at the keyboard. Most of Mozart & # 8217 ; s great piano concertos were written for these concerts, including those in C,

K467, A, K488 and C minor, K491. In these concertos Mozart brought to the genre a integrity and diverseness it had non had

before, uniting bold symphonic profusion with transitions of elusive daintiness.

In 1758 Mozart dedicated to Haydn the six threading fours that now bear Haydn & # 8217 ; s name. Including in this group are the fours

known as the Hunt, which make usage of runing calls, and the Dissonance, which opens with an eerie sequence of dissonant

chords. Overwhelmed by their quality, Haydn confessed to Leopold Mozart, & # 8216 ; Before God and as an honest adult male I tell you that

your boy is the greatest composer known to me either in individual or by name. & # 8217 ; The pieces are matched in excellence in Mozart & # 8217 ; s

chamber music end product merely by his Stringing Quintets, outstanding among which are those in C, K515, G child, K516 and D,

K593.

Besides in 178 Mozart and Lorenzo da Ponte collaborated on the first of a series of operatic chef-d’oeuvres. Le nozze di Figaro

( The Marriage of Figaro ) was begun that twelvemonth and performed in 1786 to an enthusiastic audience in Vienna and even greater

acclamation subsequently in Prague. In 1787 Prague? s National Theatre saw the premiere of Don Giovanni, a moralising version of the Don

Juan fable in which the licentious Lord receives his deserts and descends into the ardent parts of snake pit. The 3rd

and last district attorney Ponte opera was Cos? fan tutte ( Women are all the same ) , commissioned by Emperor Joseph II and produced at

Vienna & # 8217 ; s Burgtheater in 1790. Its misanthropic intervention of the subject of sexual unfaithfulness may hold been responsible for its relation

deficiency of success with the Viennese, who responded with such enthusiasm to the comedy of Figaro.

Mozart wrote two more operas: the opera seria La clemenza di Tito ( The Mercy of Tito ) and Die Zauberfl? Te ( The Magic

Flute ) . The latter was commissioned by actor-manager Emanuel Schikaneder to his ain libretto. Its secret plan, a fairy narrative combined

with strong Masonic elements ( Mozart was a devoted Freemason ) , is eccentric, but drew from Mozart some of his greatest

music. When produced in 1791, two months before Mozart & # 8217 ; s decease, the opera survived an ab initio cool response and bit by bit

won audiences over.

The twelvemonth 1788 saw the composing of Mozart & # 8217 ; s two finest symphonic musics. Symphony No.40, in the tragic key of G child,

contrasts strikingly with the affirmatory Symphony No.41 Jupiter. Neither helped relieve his fiscal predicament, nevertheless, which

after 1789 became critical. An extended concert circuit of Europe failed to gain important amounts. A new emperor came to the

Austrian throne but Mozart was unsuccessful in his command to go Kapellmeister. He was profoundly in debt when in July 1791 he

received an

anon. committee to compose a Requiem. ( The writer of the committee was in fact Count Franz von Walsegg,

who wished to go through off the work as his ain. ) Mozart did non populate to complete the Requiem. He became badly in fall 1791 and died

on December 5 ; his entombment the following twenty-four hours was attended merely by a gravedigger. Rumours that Mozart had been poisoned

abounded in Vienna after his decease, many proposing that rival composer Antonio Salieri was responsible. Many now believe a

bosom weakened by turns of arthritic febrility caused his decease.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in Salzburg, Austria in January of 1756. By the age of four,

he had exhibited such extraordinary powers of musical memory and ear-sophistication that his

male parent, Leopold ( a extremely honored fiddler and composer in his ain right ) decided to subscribe immature

Wolfgang up for cembalo lessons. At five, he was composing music ; at six, he was a keyboard

ace, so much so that Leopold took Wolfgang and his sister Maria Anna on a public presentation

circuit of Munich and Vienna.

From that clip on, immature Mozart was invariably executing and

composing music. Wherever he appeared, people gaped in awe at

his Godhead gifts. By his early teens, he had mastered the piano, fiddle and cembalo, and was composing keyboard pieces,

cantatas, symphonic musics and operas. His first major opera,

Mitridate, was performed in Milan in 1770 to such unqualified

raves that critics compared him to Handel.

At 15, Mozart was installed as the concertmaster in the

orchestra of the Archbishop of Salzburg. Thingss did non travel really

good ; Mozart didn & # 8217 ; t acquire along with the Archbishop, and dealingss

deteriorated to the point where, in 1781, he quit this lofty

place and headed for Vienna & # 8211 ; rather against his male parent & # 8217 ; s wants.

It has been told that Mozart one time said, & # 8216 ; Since I could non hold

one sister, I married the other. & # 8217 ; Whether or non this quotation mark is true, the facts remain the same. Three

and a half old ages after a immature instrumentalist named Aloysia Weber refused Mozart & # 8217 ; s matrimony proposal,

he married her younger sister Constanze, on August 4, 1782.

What kind of individual was Constanze Weber?

Mozart, who nicknamed his bride Stanzerl,

described her this manner, & # 8216 ; She is non ugly, but at the

same clip, far from beautiful. Her full beauty

consists of two small black eyes and a nice figure.

She isn & # 8217 ; t witty, but has adequate common sense to

do her a good married woman and female parent & # 8230 ; . She

understands housekeeping and has the kindest

bosom in the universe. I love her and she loves me & # 8230 ; . & # 8217 ; .

Constanze Mozart & # 8217 ; s life was far from easy. From

June 1783 to July 1791, she bore six kids. The

Mozarts & # 8217 ; first kid, Raimund Leopold, died at the

age of two months of an & # 8216 ; enteric spasm & # 8217 ; while his

parents were off on a visit to Salzburg. Their

3rd, Johann Thomas Leopold, lived less than a

month, their 4th, Theresia, six months, and their

fifth, Anna Maria, merely one hr. The Mozarts were left with merely two lasting kids, whom

Wolfgang hardly had clip to cognize. When he died, the eldest was seven old ages old, and the

younger merely six months. After Mozart & # 8217 ; s decease, Constanze met and evetually married Nikolaus von

Nissen, an functionary in the Danish Embassy, and it was he who raised Mozart & # 8217 ; s boies. von Nissen

died in 1826, and Constanze in 1842.

The two male childs led reasonably uneventful lives. The senior, Karl Thomas ( B. 1784 ) , ended up as a child

functionary on the staff of the vicereine of Naples in Milan. He died in 1858. The younger, Franz Xaver

Wolfgang, inherited his male parent & # 8217 ; s musical dispositions, if non all of his endowment. He composed and

conducted extensively throught Europe, but possibly the last word on this & # 8216 ; Wolfgang Amadeus

Mozart the Younger & # 8217 ; was best spoken by George Bernard Shaw in a missive he wrote in 1897. & # 8216 ; Make

you remember the obscureness of Mozart & # 8217 ; s boy? An good-humored adult male, a clever instrumentalist, an excellent

participant, but hopelessly extinguished by his male parent & # 8217 ; s repute. How could any adult male do what was

expected from Mozart & # 8217 ; s boy? Not Mozart himself even. & # 8217 ;

Wolfgang and his male parent, Leopold had ne’er regained the intimacy they had shared in earlier yearss,

but they reached a peace with each other, and maintained a steady corresponence. Leopold died

in Salzburg on May 28, 1787, at the age of 67. Wolfgang had intelligence of his male parent & # 8217 ; s unwellness in April,

at which clip Constanze was ailing every bit good. This bend of events left him greatly depressed, and his

ain wellness took a bend for the worse. His music from the predating decennary was merely periodically

popular, and he finally fell back on his instruction occupations and on the charity of friends to do terminals

meet. In 1788 he stopped executing in public, preferring to compose.

Mozart may hold died of a figure of unwellnesss. The official diagnosing was miliary febrility, but the

truth is that the doctors who attended him were ne’er rather certain what Mozart died of. He

suffered from arthritic hurting, concerns, odontalgias, skin eruptions, and lassitude. A common

theory today is that Mozart died of uraemia following chronic kidney disease. Another possibility is

arthritic febrility. Regardless of the cause, Mozart became bedfast for the last two hebdomads of his

life. He died at shortly after midnight on December 5th, 1791, aged 35 old ages, eleven

months, and nine yearss.

Mozart & # 8217 ; s bequest is incestimalbe. A maestro of every signifier in which he worked, he set criterions of excellence that have inspired

coevalss of composers.

Some of his representative plants

Symphonies Nos. 25, 29, 38, 39, 40 41 Jupiter

Piano Concertos Nos. 19, 20 & A ; 27

sinfonia concertante for fiddle and viola

Stringing Fours: the Hunt, the Disagreement

Stringing Quintet No.4 in G child, K516

Le Nozze di Figaro

Bibliography

www.ida.his.se/

encarta 98

members.tripod.com/~wamozart/bio.html