Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in Salzburg on 27 January 1756. His father, Leopold, a violinist at the prince-archbishop’s court, was a renowned teacher and author of a famous violin method. He quickly discovered his son’s extraordinary gifts: at three Wolfgang copied on the keyboard the lessons of his elder sister Maria Anna, known as Nannerl; at five he composed his first little minuets. Leopold decided to devote his life to the education and careers of his two prodigy children.

From 1762 the family went on tour: Munich, then Vienna, where Wolfgang played for Empress Maria Theresa and, it is said, jumped on her lap. From 1763 to 1766 a grand journey of three and a half years took them to Paris, London, The Hague and many European cities. The child played blindfolded, improvised on given themes and sight-read. In London he met Johann Christian Bach, Johann Sebastian’s youngest son, who influenced him deeply, and composed his first symphony at eight.

Between 1769 and 1773 he made three journeys to Italy with his father. In Rome in 1770 he heard Allegri’s Miserere in the Sistine Chapel, whose score was kept secret, and wrote it out from memory after a single hearing. The pope made him a Knight of the Golden Spur. In Milan he composed and conducted his first operas, such as Mitridate, at fourteen. Back in Salzburg he entered the service of the new prince-archbishop, Hieronymus Colloredo, authoritarian and indifferent to his genius.

Stifled in Salzburg, Mozart left in 1777 to seek a post in Mannheim and Paris, accompanied by his mother. The journey was a failure: no court hired him, and his mother died in Paris in July 1778. Back in Salzburg he composed the Coronation Mass and the opera Idomeneo, premiered in Munich in 1781. That same year, after a violent quarrel with Colloredo — he was literally dismissed with a “kick” from the chamberlain — he settled in Vienna as a freelance musician, a rare thing at the time.

In Vienna Mozart lived on teaching, concerts — for which he wrote his great piano concertos — and publications. In 1782 he married Constanze Weber despite his father’s opposition and triumphed with The Abduction from the Seraglio. He became friends with Haydn, to whom he dedicated six quartets. His collaboration with the librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte produced three operatic masterpieces: The Marriage of Figaro (1786), Don Giovanni (1787), premiered in Prague to huge acclaim, and Così fan tutte (1790).

Despite his fame Mozart had financial difficulties, due to wars that curtailed musical life and a costly lifestyle. He wrote to friends to borrow money. He nonetheless composed tirelessly: in the summer of 1788 he wrote his last three symphonies in a few weeks, including No. 40 in G minor and No. 41, the “Jupiter”. He also composed Eine kleine Nachtmusik (1787), the “Alla turca” Sonata and dozens of chamber-music masterpieces.

The year 1791 was incredibly productive: The Magic Flute, a popular German opera premiered in a suburban theatre; La clemenza di Tito for the emperor’s coronation in Prague; the Clarinet Concerto; and a Requiem commissioned anonymously by a count who wanted to pass it off as his own. Ill, Mozart died in Vienna on 5 December 1791, aged thirty-five, leaving the Requiem unfinished; his pupil Franz Xaver Süssmayr completed it. He left more than six hundred works, listed in the Köchel catalogue.