Wolfgang Mozart Biography

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, baptised Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart (27 January 1756 – 5 December 1791), had been a prolific and renowned composer of the Classical period. Mozart, who was born in the Holy Roman Empire's Salzburg (Mozart country of birth), had extraordinary talent from an early age. He began composing at the age of five and performed before European nobility before embarking on a great tour. Mozart was hired as a musician at the Salzburg court when he was 17 years old, but he became restless and moved around in pursuit of a better job.

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He was fired from his Salzburg position while travelling to Vienna in 1781. He elected to remain in Vienna, where he rose to popularity but struggled financially. Much of his best-known symphonies, concertos and operas were written during his final years in Vienna, as were elements of the Requiem, which remained largely incomplete at the time of his early death at the age of 35. The circumstances of his demise are mostly unknown, and as a result, he has become a folk hero.

Early Life

At Getreidegasse 9 in Salzburg, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born on January 27, 1756, to Leopold Mozart (1719–1787) and Anna Maria, née Pertl (1720–1778). The Archbishopric of Salzburg was an ecclesiastical principality in the Holy Roman Empire, and Salzburg was its capital (today in Austria). He was the youngest child amongst seven of his siblings, five of whom died when they were still young. Maria Anna Mozart (1751–1829), known as "Nannerl," was his older sister. Mozart was baptised at St. Rupert's Cathedral in Salzburg the day after his birth. Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart is his Latinized name, according to his baptismal record. Like an adult, he went by the name "Wolfgang Amade Mozart," but his name had various variations.

Leopold Mozart, a minor composer and skilled teacher, was born in Augsburg, perhaps an Imperial Free City in the Holy Roman Empire. In 1743, he was elected the fourth violinist in Count Leopold Anton von Firmian's musical institution, the ruling Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg. He eventually Married Maria in Salzburg four years later. In 1763, Leopold was appointed as the orchestra's deputy Kapellmeister. Leopold produced a successful violin textbook, Versuch einer gründlichen Violinschule, the same year his son was born.

Travel

Wolfgang's family had multiple European trips while he was a child, during which he and Nannerl played as child prodigies. The exhibitions began in 1762 at Prince-elector Maximilian III of Bavaria's court in Munich, as well as the Imperial Courts in Vienna and Prague.

The family then embarked on a three-and-a-half-year concert tour that took them to the courts of Munich, Mechelen, Paris, Mannheim, London, The Hague, Dover, Utrecht, Amsterdam, and Paris, before returning home via Donaueschingen, Zurich, and Munich. Wolfgang met several musicians and became acquainted with the works of other composers on this tour. Johann Christian Bach, whom he met in London in 1764 and 1765, had a tremendous influence on him. Mozart composed his first symphony when he was eight years old, the majority of which has been very likely transcribed by his father.

Family vacations were frequently difficult, and travel conditions were basic. They would have to wait for invitations and payment from the nobility, and they suffered long, near-fatal illnesses while away from home: first Leopold (London, summer 1764), then both children (London, summer 1765). In late 1767, the family returned to Vienna, where they resided until December 1768.

Marriage and Children

After failing to score the hand of Aloysia Weber, who had married actor and artist Joseph Lange, Mozart turned his attention to the family's third daughter, Constanze.

The courtship was not without its setbacks; according to extant correspondence, Mozart and Constanze briefly split up in April 1782.

Obtaining his father's approval for the marriage was a difficult undertaking for Mozart. The pair married in St. Stephen's Cathedral on August 4, 1782, a day before his father's approving letter arrived in the mail.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Children-

Only two of the couple's six children survived childhood:

• Raimund Leopold (17 June – 19 August 1783)

• Karl Thomas Mozart (21 September 1784 – 31 October 1858)

• Johann Thomas Leopold (18 October – 15 November 1786)

• Theresia Constanzia Adelheid Friedericke Maria Anna (27 December 1787 – 29 June 1788)

• Anna Maria (died soon after birth, 16 November 1789)

• Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart (26 July 1791 – 29 July 1844)

Wolfgang Mozart Death

Mozart became unwell while being in Prague for the premiere of his opera La Clemenza di Tito, which he had composed on commission for the Emperor's coronation celebrations the previous year. He resumed his professional activities for a while, and on September 30th, he led the world premiere of The Magic Flute.

On November 20, his health began to deteriorate, and he became bedridden, experiencing swelling, agony, and vomiting.

In his final days, Mozart was cared for by his wife and her younger sister, as well as the family doctor, Thomas Franz Closset. He seemed focused on finishing his Requiem, but there is little indication that he dictated parts to his student Franz Xaver Süssmayr.

Appearance and Character

Wolfgang Mozart being characterized as "a remarkably small guy, very slender and pale, with a profusion of beautiful, fair hair of which he was quite vain" by singer Michael Kelly in his Reminiscences. "There's nothing unusual about [his] physique," observed his early biographer Niemetschek, "he was little and his appearance, except for his huge penetrating eyes, provided no signs of his genius." His face was pitted, as if he'd had smallpox as a child. "He was a tenor, relatively gentle in talking and sensitive in singing, however when something agitated him, or it became essential to push it, it would be both forceful and dynamic," his wife later noted of his voice.

He was a sucker for fine attire. "[He] was on the platform with his crimson pelisse and gold-laced cocked hat, delivering the time of the music to the orchestra," Kelly recalled from a rehearsal. According to images of Mozart that scholars were able to find, he appeared to wear a white wig for much of his formal occasions—only one of his fourteen portraits found by the Salzburg Mozarteum depicted him without his wig.

Mozart was known for working long and hard, completing compositions at a breakneck speed as deadlines loomed. He produced a bunch of sketches and draughts, but unlike Beethoven's, they are mostly lost since his wife tried to destroy them after he died.

Mozart had been at the centre of the Viennese musical world, and he knew a wide range of people, including fellow musicians, theatre actors, fellow Salzburgers, and nobles, including Emperor Joseph II. Gottfried von Jacquin, Sigmund Barisani and Count August Hatzfeld were Solomon's closest friends; others comprised his senior colleague Joseph Haydn, vocalists Franz Xaver Gerl and Benedikt Schack, and horn player Joseph Leutgeb. Leutgeb and Mozart had a strange type of friendly mockery going on, with Leutgeb frequently becoming the target of Mozart's practical pranks.

Influence

Johann Nepomuk Hummel, a transitional character between the Classical and Romantic eras, was arguably his greatest renowned pupil, whom the Mozarts adopted into their Vienna home for two years as a kid. More significant is Mozart's influence on artists of subsequent generations. Studying his scores seems to have been a normal element of classical musicians' preparation ever since his renown soared following his death.

Mozart's fifteen-year junior, Ludwig van Beethoven, was profoundly impacted by Mozart's work, which he had heard as a teenager. While performing in the court orchestra in Bonn, he is believed to have performed Mozart's operas, and in 1787 he moved to Vienna in the hopes of studying under the older composer. Beethoven produced cadenzas for Mozart's D minor piano concerto K, and several of his works have direct models in analogous Mozart works. 466.  

Mozart has been honoured by composers who have written sets of variations on his themes. Beethoven composed four of them. Other works tend to involve Fernando Sor's Introduction and Variations on a Theme by Mozart (1821), Frédéric Chopin's Variations on "Là ci darem la mano" from Don Giovanni (1827), Mikhail Glinka's Variations on a Theme from Mozart's Opera "Die Zauberflöte" (1822), and Max Reger's Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Mozart (1914), which is predicated on the modification theme in 331.