Johann Chrysostom, in full, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart The Austrian composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, also known by his baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus, was widely regarded as one of the best in the history of Western music. He was born in Salzburg, Austria, on January 27, 1756, and died there on December 5, 1791. He elevated the achievements of the Viennese Classical school with Haydn and Beethoven. He wrote in every genre of music that was popular at the time and excelled in every one, which is unheard of in the history of music.
Although he appears to be the most universal of all composers due to his taste, command of form, and range of expression, it can also be said that his music was written to suit the particular tastes of various audiences.
Most frequently, Mozart went by the names Wolfgang Amadé or Wolfgang Gottlieb. Leopold, his father, was from a respectable family that included bookbinders and architects (from whom he was estranged). Leopold wrote a well-known violin instruction book that was released in Mozart’s birth year. His mother, Anna Maria Pertl, was a member of an administratively active middle-class family. Only two of their seven children, Mozart and his sister Maria Anna (also known as “Nannerl”), survived.
The young youngster had a tremendous knack for music. At age 3, he began picking out harpsichord chords; at age 4, he played brief compositions; and at age 5, he began to compose. There are stories of his impeccable memory for pitch, how he wrote a concerto at the age of five, and how sweet and sensitive he was (he was afraid of the trumpet). Prior to turning six, his father brought him and Nannerl, another very gifted musician, to Munich to perform at the Bavarian court. A few months later, they travelled to Vienna where they were heard at the imperial court and in affluent homes.
Leopold referred to his son as “the miracle which God let be born in Salzburg,” and he was acutely aware of his responsibility to God, as he saw it, to bring the miracle to the attention of the world. He was granted a leave of absence from his job as the deputy Kapellmeister at the prince-archbishop’s court in Salzburg in the middle of 1763, and the family left for an extended trip.
They visited all of the major musical hubs in western Europe, including Munich, Augsburg, Stuttgart, Mannheim, Mainz, Frankfurt, Brussels, and Paris, where they stayed for the winter. They then travelled to London for 15 months before returning to Salzburg in November 1766 via The Hague, Amsterdam, Paris, Lyon, and Switzerland. In the majority of these cities, Mozart performed and improvised, sometimes at court, other times in front of an audience or in a church. The letters that Leopold left behind to friends in Salzburg describe the widespread acclaim that his son’s accomplishments inspired.
They made friends with several German composers in Paris, where Mozart’s first compositions—sonatas for keyboard and violin—were published and dedicated to a royal princess. In London, they made friends with Johann Christian Bach—the youngest son of Johann Sebastian Bach and a prominent figure in the city’s musical life—and under his guidance, Mozart wrote his first symphonies, of which three—K 16, K 19, and K 19a—remain in existence today. During a stop in The Hague on the way back, two more followed (K 22 and K 45a).
The Mozarts left Salzburg after a little over nine months and moved to Vienna in September 1767, where they remained 15 months (apart from a 10-week interruption during a smallpox epidemic). Bastien und Bastienne, a one-act German singspiel by Mozart, was performed in private. Greater expectations were placed on his ability to stage the Italian operetta buffa La finta semplice (also known as “The Feigned Simpleton”) at the court theater; these expectations, however, were dashed, much to Leopold’s outrage.
But at the Orphanage Church’s dedication, a substantial, festal mass setting (likely K 139/47a) was successfully delivered before the court. The following year, 1769, La Finta Semplice was performed in Salzburg’s archbishop’s palace. At the Salzburg court, Mozart was named an honorary Konzertmeister in October.
Mozart, who was just 13 years old, had already mastered the musical lingo of the day and was particularly skilled at mimicking the musical counterpart of regional accents. Early Paris and London sonatas, whose autographs feature Leopold’s helpful hand, exhibit a childish delight in note and texture patterns. But the London and The Hague symphonies, as well as those he created in Vienna, with their enriched texture and fuller development, attest to his quick and inventive response to the music he had encountered. Additionally, his debut Italian opera demonstrates a command of the buffo genre.
Over the course of the summer of 1773, additional symphonies, divertimentos, and a mass were composed. Then Leopold took his kid to Vienna in an effort to provide him with a better condition than the Salzburg court (now presided over by a much less understanding archbishop) was likely to provide. Although no position became available, Mozart’s exposure to the most recent Viennese music appears to have had a significant impact on him. In the nation’s capital, he composed a collection of six string quartets that displayed his familiarity with Haydn’s most recent Opus 20 through their richer textures and more cerebral approaches to the genre.
Soon after his return, he composed a number of symphonies, two of which, the “Little” G Minor (K 183) and the A Major, indicate a new level of achievement (K 201). The first genuine piano concerto by Mozart was composed during this period (in D, K 175; earlier keyboard concertos were arrangements of movements by other composers).
However, 1791 was expected to be a better year. For a concert in March, Mozart finished a piano concerto (K 595) that had been started a few years before, composed a number of dances for the Redoutensaal, and composed two new string quintets, the one in D (K 593) being a piece of remarkable finesse and nuance. He was hired in April after making a successful application for the unpaid position of assistant to Leopold Hofmann, the ailing Kapellmeister of St. Stephen’s Cathedral (with the expectation of being duly appointed his successor, but Hofmann was to live until 1793).
