Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in Salzburg, Austria, on January 27, 1756. The son of Leopold, Kapellmeister at the court of the Salzburg Archbishop, Wolfgang Amadeus disclosed his remarkable musical powers at a tender age. He began composition at the age of five, completed a piano sonata at seven, and a symphony at eight. Taught the harpsichord, also very early in his childhood, he revealed such phenomenal abilities at improvisation and sight reading that he was the wonder and awe of all who came into contact with him. His ambitious father exhibited this formidable prodigy for several years before the crowned heads of Europe; and wherever he appeared the child was acclaimed. Goethe said: “A phenomenon like that of Mozart remains an inexplicable thing.” In Milan in 1770 he was commissioned to write an opera Mitridate, rè di Ponto, successfully performed that year. In Bologna he became the only musician under the age of twenty to be elected a member of the renowned Accademia Filarmonica. And in Rome he provided dramatic evidence of his extraordinary natural gifts by putting down on paper the entire complex score of Allegri’s Miserere after a single hearing.
As he outgrew childhood he ripened as a composer, gaining all the time in both technical and creative powers. But he was a prodigy no more, and though he was rapidly becoming one of the most profound and original musicians in Europe he was unable to attract the adulation and excitement that had once been his. Between 1772 and 1777, as an employee in the musical establishment of the Salzburg Archbishop, he was treated like a menial servant. The remarkable music he was writing all the time passed unnoticed. Finally, in 1782, he made a permanent break with the Archbishop and established his home in Vienna where he lived for the remainder of his life. Though he received some important commissions, and enjoyed several triumphs for his operas, he did not fare any too well in Vienna either. He had to wait several years for a court appointment, and when it finally came in 1787 he was deplorably underpaid. Thus he lived in poverty, often dependent for food and other necessities of life on the generosity of his friends. And yet the masterworks kept coming in every conceivable medium—operas, symphonies, sonatas, quartets, concertos, choral music and so forth. A few people in Vienna were aware of his prodigious achievements, and one of these was Joseph Haydn who called him “the greatest composer I know either personally or by name.” During the last years of his life Mozart was harassed not only by poverty but also by severe illness. Yet his last year was one of his most productive, yielding his last three symphonies, the Requiem, the opera The Magic Flute (Die Zauberfloete), the Ave Verum, and a remarkable piano concerto and string quintet. He died in Vienna on December 5, 1791 and was buried in a pauper’s grave with no tombstone or cross for identification.
Through his genius every form of music was endowed with new grandeur, nobility of expression and richness of thought. He was a technician second to none; a bold innovator; a creator capable of plumbing the profoundest depths of emotion and the most exalted heights of spirituality. Yet he could also be simple and charming and graceful, in music remarkably overflowing with the most engaging melodies conceived by man, and characterized by the most exquisite taste and the most consummate craftsmanship. Thus Mozart’s lighter moods in music are often also endowed with extraordinary creative resources and original invention; yet they never lose their capacity to delight audiences at first contact.
The music Mozart wrote directly for popular consumption were the hundred or so Dances for orchestra: Country Dances, German Dances, Minuets. The greatest number of these consist of the German Dances. These are lively melodies in eight-measure phrases and with forceful peasant rhythms. Some of the best German Dances are those in which Mozart utilized unusual orchestral resources or instruments to suggest extra-musical sounds. The Sleighride (Die Schlittenfahrt), K. 605, in C major, simulates the sound of sleigh bells in the middle trio section, sounded in the tones A-F-E-C. The Organgrinder (Der Leiermann), K. 602, imitates the sound of a hurdy-gurdy. In The Canary (Der Kanarienvogel), K. 571, flutes reproduce the chirping of birds.
The Country Dance, or Contretanze, is sometimes regarded as the first modern dance, forerunner of the quadrille. Structurally and stylistically these are very much like German Dances with a peasant-like vitality and earthiness. Here, too, Mozart sometimes realistically imitates non-musical sounds as in The Thunder Storm (Das Donnerwetter), K. 534, in which the role of the timpani suggests peals of thunder.
Mozart’s most popular Minuet—indeed, it is probably one of the most popular minuets ever written—comes from his opera Don Giovanni, libretto by Lorenzo da Ponte, and first performed in Prague in 1787. The hero of this opera is, to be sure, the Spanish nobleman of the 17th century whose escapades and licentious life finally bring him to doom at the hands of the statue of the Commandant come to life to consign him to the fires of hell. The Minuet appears in the fifth scene of the first act. Don Giovanni is the gracious host of a party held in his palace, and there the guests dance a courtly minuet while Don himself is making amatory overtures to Zerlina.
In a lighter mood, also, is the Eine kleine Nachtmusik (A Little Night Music), K. 525, a serenade for string orchestra (1787). This work is consistently tuneful, gracious, charming. The first movement has two lilting little melodies, which are presented and recapitulated with no formal development to speak of. The second movement is a Romance, or Romanza, a poetic song contrasted by two vigorous sections; the main thought of this movement is then repeated between each of these two vigorous parts. After that comes a formal minuet, and the work ends with a brisk and sprightly rondo.
Mozart’s popular Turkish March—in the pseudo Turkish style so popular in Vienna in his day—comes out of his piano Sonata in A major, K. 331 (1778), where it appears as the last movement. This march is extremely popular in orchestral transcription.