Biography of mozart wolfgang amadeus music

His father, Leopold Mozart, a noted composer and pedagogue and the author of a famous treatise on violin playing, was then in the service of the archbishop of Salzburg. Together with his sister, Nannerl, Wolfgang received such intensive musical training that by the age of 6 he was a budding composer and an accomplished keyboard performer.

In Leopold presented his son as performer at the imperial court in Vienna, and from to he escorted both children on a continuous musical tour across Europe, which included long stays in Paris and London as well as visits to many other cities, with appearances before the French and English royal families. Mozart was the most celebrated child prodigy of this time as a keyboard performer and made a great impression, too, as composer and improviser.

In London he won the admiration of so eminent a musician as Johann Christian Bach , and he was exposed from an early age to an unusual variety of musical styles and tastes across the Continent. From his tenth to his seventeenth year Mozart grew in stature as a composer to a degree of maturity equal to that of his most eminent older contemporaries; as he continued to expand his conquest of current musical styles, he outstripped them.

He spent the years at Salzburg writing instrumental works and music for school dramas in German and Latin, and in he produced his first real operas: the German Singspiel that is, with spoken dialogue Bastien und Bastienne and the opera buffa La finta semplice. Artless and naive as La finta semplice is when compared to his later Italian operas, it nevertheless shows a latent sense of character portrayal and fine accuracy of Italian text setting.

Despite his reputation as a prodigy, Mozart found no suitable post open to him; and with his father once more as escort Mozart at age 14 set off for Italy to try to make his way as an opera composer, the field in which he openly declared his ambition to succeed and which offered higher financial rewards than other forms of composition at this time.

In Italy, Mozart was well received: at Milan he obtained a commission for an opera; at Rome he was made a member of an honorary knightly order by the Pope; and at Bologna the Accademia Filarmonica awarded him membership despite a rule normally requiring candidates to be 20 years old. During these years of travel in Italy and returns to Salzburg between journeys, he produced his first large-scale settings of opera seria that is, court opera on serious subjects : Mitridate , Ascanio in Alba , and Lucio Silla , as well as his first String Quartets.

At Salzburg in late he renewed his writing of Symphonies Nos. In these operatic works Mozart displays a complete mastery of the varied styles of aria required for the great virtuoso singers of the day especially large-scale da capo arias , this being the sole authentic requirement of this type of opera. The strong leaning of these works toward the singers' virtuosity rather than toward dramatic content made the opera seria a rapidly dying form by Mozart's time, but in Lucio Silla he nonetheless shows clear evidence of his power of dramatic expression within individual scenes.

In this period Mozart remained primarily in Salzburg, employed as concertmaster of the archbishop's court musicians. In a new archbishop took office, Hieronymus Colloredo, who was a newcomer to Salzburg and its provincial ways. Unwilling to countenance the frequent absences of the Mozarts, he declined to promote Leopold to the post of chapel master that he had long coveted.

The archbishop showed equally little understanding of young Mozart's special gifts. In turn Mozart abhorred Salzburg, but he could find no better post. In he went off to Munich, where he produced the opera buffa La finta giardiniera with great success but without tangible consequences. In this period at Salzburg he wrote nine Symphonies Nos.

Despite his continued productivity, Mozart was wholly dissatisfied with provincial Austria, and in he set off for new destinations: Munich, Augsburg, and prolonged stays in Mannheim and Paris. Mannheim was the seat of a famous court orchestra, along with a fine opera house. He wrote a number of attractive works while there including his three Flute Quartets and five of his Violin Sonatas , but he was not offered a post.

Paris was a vastly larger theater for Mozart's talents his father urged him to go there, for "from Paris the fame of a man of great talent echoes through the whole world," he wrote his son. But after 9 difficult months in Paris, from March to January , Mozart returned once more to Salzburg, having been unable to secure a foot-hold and depressed by the entire experience, which had included the death of his mother in the midst of his stay in Paris.

Unable to get a commission for an opera still his chief ambition , he wrote music to order in Paris, again mainly for wind instruments: the Sinfonia Concertante for four solo wind instruments and orchestra, the Concerto for flute and harp, other chamber music , and the ballet music Les Petits riens. In addition, he was compelled to give lessons to make money.

In his poignant letters from Paris, Mozart described his life in detail, but he also told his father letter of July 31, , "You know that I am, so to speak, soaked in music, that I am immersed in it all day long, and that I love to plan works, study, and meditate. Returning to Salzburg once more, Mozart took up a post as court conductor and violinist.

He chafed again at the constraints of local life and his menial role under the archbishop. In Salzburg, as he wrote in a letter, "one hears nothing, there is no theater, no opera. In Mozart received a long-awaited commission from Munich for the opera seria Idomeneo, musically one of the greatest of his works despite its unwieldy libretto and one of the great turning points in his musical development as he moved from his peregrinations of the s to his Vienna sojourn in the s.

Idomeneo is, effectively, the last and greatest work in the entire tradition of dynastic opera seria, an art form that was decaying at the same time that the great European courts, which had for decades spent their substance on it as entertainment, were themselves beginning to sense the winds of social and political revolution.

Mozart's only other work in this genre, the opera seria La clemenza di Tito , was a hurriedly written work composed on demand for a coronation at Prague—and it is significantly not cast in the traditional large dimensions of old-fashioned opera seria, with its long arias, but is cut to two acts like an opera buffa and has many features of the new operatic design Mozart evolved after Idomeneo.

Mozart's years in Vienna, from age 25 to his death at 35, encompass one of the most prodigious developments in so short a span in the history of music. While up to now he had demonstrated a complete and fertile grasp of the techniques of his time, his music had been largely within the range of the higher levels of the common language of the time.

But in these 10 years Mozart's music grew rapidly beyond the comprehension of many of his contemporaries; it exhibited both ideas and methods of elaboration that few could follow, and to many the late Mozart seemed a difficult composer. Franz Joseph Haydn 's constant praise of him came from his only true peer, and Haydn harped again and again on the problem of Mozart's obtaining a good and secure position, a problem no doubt compounded by the jealousy of Viennese rivals.

Mozart disparaged many of his less gifted contemporaries in scathing terms; Leopold often entreated him to write in a simple and pleasing style "What is slight can still be great". Replying to such a plea, Mozart letter of Dec. The major instrumental works of this period encompass all the fields of Mozart's earlier activity and some new ones: six symphonies, including the famous last three: No.

He finished these three works within 6 weeks during the summer of , a remarkable feat even for him. In the field of the string quartet Mozart produced two important groups of works that completely overshadowed any he had written before in he published the six Quartets dedicated to Haydn K. In he wrote the last three Quartets K. The six Quartets dedicated to Haydn undoubtedly owe something to Mozart's study of the earlier work of Haydn, perhaps most to the self-asserted "new and special manner" of Haydn's Op.

Mozart's works entirely meet the standards set by Haydn up to now, and surpass it. Other chamber music on the highest level of imagination and craftsmanship from Mozart's Vienna years includes the two Piano Quartets, seven late Violin Sonatas, the last Piano Trios, and the Piano Quintet with winds; and in the last five years of his life, the last String Quintets and the Clarinet Quintet.

This decade also saw the composition of the last 17 of Mozart's Piano Concertos, almost all written for his own performance. They represent the high point in the literature of the classical concerto, and in the following generation only Ludwig van Beethoven was able to match them. A considerable influence upon Mozart's music during this decade was his increasing acquaintance with the music of Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frederick Handel, which in Vienna of the s was scarcely known or appreciated.

Through the private intermediacy of an enthusiast for Bach and Handel, Baron Gottfried van Swieten, Mozart came to know Bach's Well-tempered Clavier, from which he made arrangements of several fugues for strings with new preludes of his own. But in a more subtle sense much of his late work, even where it does not make direct use of fugal textures, reveals a subtlety of contrapuntal organization that doubtless owed something to his deepened experience of the music of Bach and Handel.

Mozart's evolution as an opera composer between and his death is even more remarkable, perhaps, since the problems of opera were more far-ranging than those of the larger instrumental forms and provided less adequate models. In opera Mozart instinctively set about raising the perfunctory dramatic and musical conventions of his time to the status of genuine art forms.

A reform of opera from triviality had been successfully achieved by Christoph Willibald Gluck, but Gluck cannot stand comparison with Mozart in pure musical invention. Although Idomeneo may indeed owe a good deal to Gluck, Mozart was immediately thereafter to turn away entirely from opera seria. Instead he sought German or Italian librettos that would provide stage material adequate to stimulate his powers of dramatic expression and dramatic timing through music.

Not only does it have an immense variety of expressive portrayals through its arias, but what is new in the work are its moments of authentic dramatic interaction between characters in ensembles. Following this bent, Mozart turned to Italian opera, and he was fortunate enough to find a librettist of genuine ability, a true literary craftsman, Lorenzo da Ponte.

Figaro is based on a play by Pierre Caron de Beaumarchais, adapted skillfully by Da Ponte to the requirements of opera. In Figaro the ensembles become even more important than the arias, and the considerable profusion of action in the plot is managed with a skill beyond even the best of Mozart's competitors. Not only is every character convincingly portrayed, but the work shows a blending of dramatic action and musical articulation that is probably unprecedented in opera, at least of these dimensions.

In Figaro and other late Mozart operas the singers cannot help enacting the roles conceived by the composer, since the means of characterization and dramatic expression have been built into the arias and ensembles. This principle, grasped by only a few composers in the history of music, was evolved by Mozart in these years, and, like everything he touched, totally mastered as a technique.

It is this that gives these works the quality of perfection that opera audiences have attributed to them, together with their absolute mastery of musical design. In Don Giovanni elements of wit and pathos are blended with the representation of the supernatural onstage, a rare occurrence at this time. In Cosi fan tutte the very idea of "operatic" expression—including the exaggerated venting of sentiment—is itself made the subject of an ironic comedy on fidelity between two pairs of lovers, aided by two manipulators.

In his last opera, The Magic Flute , Mozart turned back to German opera, and he produced a work combining many strands of popular theater but with means of musical expression ranging from quasi- folk song to Italianate coloratura. The plot, put together by the actor and impresario Emanuel Schikaneder, is partly based on a fairy tale but is heavily impregnated with elements of Freemasonry and possibly with contemporary political overtones.

On concluding The Magic Flute, Mozart turned to work on what was to be his last project, the Requiem. This Mass had been commissioned by a benefactor said to have been unknown to Mozart, and he is supposed to have become obsessed with the belief that he was, in effect, writing it for himself. Ill and exhausted, he managed to finish the first two movements and sketches for several more, but the last three sections were entirely lacking when he died.

Biography of mozart wolfgang amadeus music

He was given a third-class funeral. Studies of individual works or groups of works include Edward J. Robbins Landon and Donald Mitchell For analyses of his works see Felix Salzer, Structural Hearing 2 vols. Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus — , Austrian composer. Mozart's mastery of the whole range of contemporary instrumental and vocal forms—including the symphony, concerto, chamber music , and especially the opera—was unrivaled in his own time and perhaps in any other.

Salzburg and Italy, — He spent the years — at Salzburg writing instrumental works and music for school dramas in German and Latin, and in he produced his first real operas: the German Singspiel that is, with spoken dialogue Bastien und Bastienne and the opera buffa La finta semplice. Salzburg, — In this period Mozart remained primarily in Salzburg, employed as concert-master of the archbishop's court musicians.

Mannheim and Paris, — Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart [ a ] [ b ] 27 January — 5 December was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period. Despite his short life, his rapid pace of composition and proficiency from an early age resulted in more than works representing virtually every Western classical genre of his time. Many of these compositions are acknowledged as pinnacles of the symphonic , concertante , chamber , operatic, and choral repertoire.

Mozart is widely regarded as one of the greatest composers in the history of Western music, [ 1 ] with his music admired for its "melodic beauty, its formal elegance and its richness of harmony and texture". Born in Salzburg , Mozart showed prodigious ability from his earliest childhood. At age five, he was already competent on keyboard and violin, had begun to compose, and performed before European royalty.

His father took him on a grand tour of Europe and then three trips to Italy. At 17, he was a musician at the Salzburg court but grew restless and travelled in search of a better position. Mozart's search for employment led to positions in Paris , Mannheim , Munich , and again in Salzburg, during which he wrote his five violin concertos, Sinfonia Concertante , and Concerto for Flute and Harp , as well as sacred pieces and masses , the motet Exsultate Jubilate , and the opera Idomeneo , among other works.

While visiting Vienna in , Mozart was dismissed from his Salzburg position. He stayed in Vienna, where he achieved fame but little financial security. Throughout his Vienna years, Mozart composed over a dozen piano concertos , many considered some of his greatest achievements. The Requiem was largely unfinished at the time of his death at age 35, the circumstances of which are uncertain and much mythologised.

His elder sister was Maria Anna Mozart , nicknamed "Nannerl". Mozart was baptised the day after his birth, at St. Rupert's Cathedral in Salzburg. In , he was appointed as the fourth violinist in the musical establishment of Count Leopold Anton von Firmian , the ruling Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg. Leopold became the orchestra's deputy Kapellmeister in When Nannerl was seven, she began keyboard lessons with her father, while her three-year-old brother looked on.

Years later, after her brother's death, she reminisced:. He often spent much time at the clavier , picking out thirds, which he was ever striking, and his pleasure showed that it sounded good. In the fourth year of his age his father, for a game as it were, began to teach him a few minuets and pieces at the clavier. He could play it faultlessly and with the greatest delicacy, and keeping exactly in time.

At the age of five, he was already composing little pieces, which he played to his father who wrote them down. These early pieces, K. There is some scholarly debate about whether Mozart was four or five years old when he created his first musical compositions, though there is little doubt that Mozart composed his first three pieces of music within a few weeks of each other: K.

In his early years, Wolfgang's father was his only teacher. Along with music, he taught his children languages and academic subjects. While Wolfgang was young, his family made several European journeys in which he and Nannerl performed as child prodigies. A particularly significant influence was Johann Christian Bach , whom he visited in London in and When he was eight years old, Mozart wrote his first symphony , most of which was probably transcribed by his father.

The family trips were often challenging, and travel conditions were primitive. This tour lasted from December to March As with earlier journeys, Leopold wanted to display his son's abilities as a performer and a rapidly maturing composer. There exists a myth, according to which, while in Rome, he heard Gregorio Allegri 's Miserere twice in performance in the Sistine Chapel.

Allegedly, he subsequently wrote it out from memory, thus producing the "first unauthorised copy of this closely guarded property of the Vatican ". However, both the origin and plausibility of this account are disputed. In Milan, Mozart wrote the opera Mitridate, re di Ponto , which was performed with success. This led to further opera commissions.

He returned with his father twice to Milan August—December ; October — March for the composition and premieres of Ascanio in Alba and Lucio Silla Leopold hoped these visits would result in a professional appointment for his son, and indeed ruling Archduke Ferdinand contemplated hiring Mozart, but owing to his mother Empress Maria Theresa 's reluctance to employ "useless people", the matter was dropped [ e ] and Leopold's hopes were never realised.

After finally returning with his father from Italy on 13 March , Mozart was employed as a court musician by the ruler of Salzburg, Prince-Archbishop Hieronymus Colloredo. The composer had many friends and admirers in Salzburg [ 23 ] and had the opportunity to work in many genres, including symphonies, sonatas, string quartets, masses , serenades, and a few minor operas.

Between April and December , Mozart developed an enthusiasm for violin concertos, producing a series of five the only ones he ever wrote , which steadily increased in their musical sophistication. The last three— K. Despite these artistic successes, Mozart grew increasingly discontented with Salzburg and redoubled his efforts to find a position elsewhere.

One reason was his low salary, florins a year; [ 25 ] Mozart longed to compose operas, and Salzburg provided only rare occasions for these. The situation worsened in when the court theatre was closed, especially since the other theatre in Salzburg was primarily reserved for visiting troupes. Two long expeditions in search of work interrupted this long Salzburg stay.

Mozart and his father visited Vienna from 14 July to 26 September , and Munich from 6 December to March Neither visit was successful, though the Munich journey resulted in a popular success with the premiere of Mozart's opera La finta giardiniera. In August , Mozart resigned his position at Salzburg [ 29 ] [ f ] and on 23 September ventured out once more in search of employment, with visits to Augsburg , Mannheim, Paris, and Munich.

Mozart became acquainted with members of the famous orchestra in Mannheim, the best in Europe at the time. He also fell in love with Aloysia Weber , one of four daughters of a musical family. There were prospects of employment in Mannheim, but they came to nothing, [ 31 ] and Mozart left for Paris on 14 March [ 32 ] to continue his search.

One of his letters from Paris hints at a possible post as an organist at Versailles , but Mozart was not interested in such an appointment. While Mozart was in Paris, his father was pursuing opportunities of employment for him in Salzburg. The annual salary was florins, [ 39 ] but he was reluctant to accept. After leaving Paris in September for Strasbourg , he lingered in Mannheim and Munich, still hoping to obtain an appointment outside Salzburg.

In Munich, he again encountered Aloysia, now a very successful singer, but she was no longer interested in him. Among the better-known works which Mozart wrote on the Paris journey are the A minor piano sonata , K. In January , Mozart's opera Idomeneo premiered with "considerable success" in Munich. For Colloredo, this was simply a matter of wanting his musical servant to be at hand Mozart indeed was required to dine in Colloredo's establishment with the valets and cooks.

My main goal right now is to meet the emperor in some agreeable fashion, I am absolutely determined he should get to know me. I would be so happy if I could whip through my opera for him and then play a fugue or two, for that's what he likes. Mozart did indeed soon meet the Emperor, who eventually was to support his career substantially with commissions and a part-time position.

Colloredo's wish to prevent Mozart from performing outside his establishment was in other cases carried through, raising the composer's anger; one example was a chance to perform before the Emperor at Countess Thun 's for a fee equal to half of his yearly Salzburg salary. The quarrel with the archbishop came to a head in May: Mozart attempted to resign and was refused.

The following month, permission was granted, but in a grossly insulting way: the composer was dismissed literally "with a kick in the arse", administered by the archbishop's steward, Count Arco. Mozart decided to settle in Vienna as a freelance performer and composer. The quarrel with Colloredo was more difficult for Mozart because his father sided against him.

Hoping fervently that he would obediently follow Colloredo back to Salzburg, Mozart's father exchanged intense letters with his son, urging him to be reconciled with their employer. Mozart passionately defended his intention to pursue an independent career in Vienna. The debate ended when Mozart was dismissed by the archbishop, freeing himself both of his employer and of his father's demands to return.

Solomon characterizes Mozart's resignation as a "revolutionary step" that significantly altered the course of his life. Mozart's new career in Vienna began well. He often performed as a pianist, notably in a competition before the Emperor with Muzio Clementi on 24 December , [ 50 ] and he soon "had established himself as the finest keyboard player in Vienna".

The work was soon being performed "throughout German-speaking Europe", [ 50 ] and thoroughly established Mozart's reputation as a composer. Near the height of his quarrels with Colloredo, Mozart moved in with the Weber family, who had moved to Vienna from Mannheim. The family's father, Fridolin, had died, and the Webers were now taking in lodgers to make ends meet.

After failing to win the hand of Aloysia Weber, who was now married to the actor and artist Joseph Lange , Mozart's interest shifted to the third daughter of the family, Constanze. The courtship did not go entirely smoothly; surviving correspondence indicates that Mozart and Constanze briefly broke up in April , over an episode involving jealousy Constanze had permitted another young man to measure her calves in a parlour game.

The marriage took place in an atmosphere of crisis. Daniel Heartz suggests that eventually, Constanze moved in with Mozart, which would have placed her in disgrace by the mores of the time. Further postponement is out of the question. Perhaps it is only a ruse of Madame Weber to get her daughter back. If not, I know no better remedy than to marry Constanze tomorrow morning or if possible today.

The couple were finally married on 4 August in St. Stephen's Cathedral , the day before his father's consenting letter arrived in the mail. In the marriage contract, Constanze "assigns to her bridegroom five hundred gulden which Further, all joint acquisitions during the marriage were to remain the common property of both. The couple had six children, of whom only two survived infancy: [ 57 ].

In and , Mozart became intimately acquainted with the work of Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel as a result of the influence of Gottfried van Swieten , who owned many manuscripts of the Baroque masters. In , Mozart and his wife visited his family in Salzburg. His father and sister were cordially polite to Constanze, but the visit prompted the composition of one of Mozart's great liturgical pieces, the Mass in C minor.

Though not completed, it was premiered in Salzburg, with Constanze singing a solo part. Mozart met Joseph Haydn in Vienna around , and the two composers became friends. When Haydn visited Vienna, they sometimes played together in an impromptu string quartet. Mozart's six quartets dedicated to Haydn K. From to Mozart mounted concerts with himself as a soloist, presenting three or four new piano concertos in each season.

He died in Vienna, in , before his 36th birthday. Discover Music. See more Mozart latest. See more Best classical music. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart — Biography. The Fast and Friendly Guide to Mozart Preview Track Preview. Despite his success as a pianist and composer, Mozart was falling into serious financial difficulties. Mozart associated himself with aristocratic Europeans and felt he should live like one.

He figured that the best way to attain a more stable and lucrative income would be through court appointment. Letters written between Mozart and his father, Leopold, indicate that the two felt a rivalry for and mistrust of the Italian musicians in general and Salieri in particular. But in truth, there is no basis for this speculation. Though both composers were often in contention for the same job and public attention, there is little evidence that their relationship was anything beyond a typical professional rivalry.

Toward the end of , Mozart met the librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte, a Venetian composer and poet and together they collaborated on the opera The Marriage of Figaro. It received a successful premiere in Vienna in and was even more warmly received in Prague later that year. This triumph led to a second collaboration with Da Ponte on the opera Don Giovanni which premiered in to high acclaim in Prague.

Both compositions feature the wicked nobleman, though Figaro is presented more in comedy and portrays strong social tension. Perhaps the central achievement of both operas lies in their ensembles with their close link between music and dramatic meaning. The gesture was as much an honor bestowed on Mozart as it was an incentive to keep the esteemed composer from leaving Vienna for greener pastures.

It was a part-time appointment with low pay, but it required Mozart only to compose dances for the annual balls. The modest income was a welcome windfall for Mozart, who was struggling with debt, and provided him the freedom to explore more of his personal musical ambitions. He was performing less and his income shrank. Austria was at war and both the affluence of the nation and the ability of the aristocracy to support the arts had declined.

By mid, Mozart moved his family from central Vienna to the suburb of Alsergrund, for what would seem to be a way of reducing living costs. But in reality, his family expenses remained high and the new dwelling only provided more room. Mozart began to borrow money from friends, though he was almost always able to promptly repay when a commission or concert came his way.

During this time he wrote his last three symphonies and the last of the three Da Ponte operas, Cosi Fan Tutte , which premiered in The two-year period of was a low point for Mozart, experiencing in his own words "black thoughts" and deep depression. Historians believe he may have had some form of bipolar disorder, which might explain the periods of hysteria coupled with spells of hectic creativity.

Between and , now in his mid-thirties, Mozart went through a period of great music productivity and personal healing. Some of his most admired works -- the opera The Magic Flute , the final piano concerto in B-flat, the Clarinet Concerto in A major, and the unfinished Requiem to name a few -- were written during this time. Mozart was able to revive much of his public notoriety with repeated performances of his works.

His financial situation began to improve as wealthy patrons in Hungary and Amsterdam pledged annuities in return for occasional compositions. From this turn of fortune, he was able to pay off many of his debts. Mozart recovered briefly to conduct the Prague premiere of The Magic Flute , but fell deeper into illness in November and was confined to bed.

Constanze and her sister Sophie came to his side to help nurse him back to health, but Mozart was mentally preoccupied with finishing Requiem, and their efforts were in vain. Mozart died on December 5, , at age The cause of death is uncertain, due to the limits of postmortem diagnosis. Officially, the record lists the cause as severe miliary fever, referring to a skin rash that looks like millet seeds.