Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (baptized as Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart; January 27, 1756 – December 5, 1791) was a prolific and highly influential composer of Classical music. His enormous output of more than six hundred compositions includes works that are widely acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music. Mozart is among the most enduringly popular of European composers, and many of his works are part of the standard concert repertoire.

Works, musical style, and innovations

Style

Mozart's music, like Haydn's, stands as an archetypal example of the Classical style. His works spanned the period during which that style transformed from one exemplified by the style galant to one that began to incorporate some of the contrapuntal complexities of the late Baroque, complexities against which the galant style had been a reaction. Mozart's own stylistic development closely paralleled the development of the classical style as a whole. In addition, he was a versatile composer and wrote in almost every major genre, including symphony, opera, the solo concerto, chamber music including string quartet and string quintet, and the piano sonata. While none of these genres were new, the piano concerto was almost single-handedly developed and popularized by Mozart. He also wrote a great deal of religious music, including masses; and he composed many dances, divertimenti, serenades, and other forms of light entertainment.

The central traits of the classical style can all be identified in Mozart's music. Clarity, balance, and transparency are hallmarks, though a simplistic notion of the delicacy of his music obscures for us the exceptional and even demonic power of some of his finest masterpieces, such as the Piano Concerto No. 24 (Mozart) in C minor, K. 491, the Symphony No. 40 in G minor, K. 550, and the opera Don Giovanni. The famed writer on music Charles Rosen has written (in The Classical Style): "It is only through recognizing the violence and sensuality at the center of Mozart's work that we can make a start towards a comprehension of his structures and an insight into his magnificence. In a paradoxical way, Schumann's superficial characterization of the G minor Symphony can help us to see Mozart's daemon more steadily. In all of Mozart's supreme expressions of suffering and terror, there is something shockingly voluptuous." Especially during his last decade, Mozart explored chromatic harmony to a degree rare at the time. The slow introduction to the "Dissonant" Quartet, K. 465, a work that Haydn greatly admired, rapidly explodes a shallow understanding of Mozart's style as light and pleasant.

From his earliest years Mozart had a gift for imitating the music he heard; since he travelled widely, he acquired a rare collection of experiences from which to create his unique compositional language. When he went to London as a child, he met J.C. Bach and heard his music; when he went to Paris, Mannheim, and Vienna, he heard the work of composers active there, as well as the spectacular Mannheim orchestra; when he went to Italy, he encountered the Italian overture and the opera buffa, both of which were to be hugely influential on his development. Both in London and Italy, the galant style was all the rage: simple, light music, with a mania for cadencing, an emphasis on tonic, dominant, and subdominant to the exclusion of other chords, symmetrical phrases, and clearly articulated structures. This style, out of which the classical style evolved, was a reaction against the complexity of late Baroque music. Some of Mozart's early symphonies are Italian overtures, with three movements running into each other; many are "homotonal" (each movement in the same key, with the slow movement in the tonic minor). Others mimic the works of J.C. Bach, and others show the simple rounded binary forms commonly being written by composers in Vienna. One of the most recognizable features of Mozart's works is a sequence of harmonies or modes that usually leads to a cadence in the dominant or tonic key. This sequence is essentially borrowed from baroque music, especially Bach. But Mozart shifted the sequence so that the cadence ended on the stronger half, i.e., the first beat of the bar. Mozart's understanding of modes such as Phrygian is evident in such passages.

As Mozart matured, he began to incorporate some more features of Baroque styles into his music. For example, the Symphony No. 29 in A Major K. 201 uses a contrapuntal main theme in its first movement, and experimentation with irregular phrase lengths. Some of his quartets from 1773 have fugal finales, probably influenced by Haydn, who had just published his opus 20 set. The influence of the Sturm und Drang ("Storm and Stress") period in German literature, with its brief foreshadowing of the Romantic era to come, is evident in some of the music of both composers at that time.

Over the course of his working life Mozart switched his focus from instrumental music to operas, and back again. He wrote operas in each of the styles current in Europe: opera buffa, such as The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, or Così fan tutte; opera seria, such as Idomeneo; and Singspiel, of which Die Zauberflöte is probably the most famous example by any composer. In his later operas, he developed the use of subtle changes in instrumentation, orchestration, and tone colour to express or highlight psychological or emotional states and dramatic shifts. Here his advances in opera and instrumental composing interacted. His increasingly sophisticated use of the orchestra in the symphonies and concerti served as a resource in his operatic orchestration, and his developing subtlety in using the orchestra to psychological effect in his operas was reflected in his later non-operatic compositions.

Influence

Mozart's legacy to subsequent generations of composers (in all genres) is immense.

Many important composers since Mozart's time have expressed profound appreciation of Mozart. Rossini averred, "He is the only musician who had as much knowledge as genius, and as much genius as knowledge." Ludwig van Beethoven's admiration for Mozart is also quite clear. Beethoven used Mozart as a model a number of times: for example, Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major demonstrates a debt to Mozart's Piano Concerto in C major, K. 503. A plausible story – not corroborated – regards one of Beethoven's students who looked through a pile of music in Beethoven's apartment. When the student pulled out Mozart's A major Quartet, K. 464, Beethoven exclaimed "Ah, that piece. That's Mozart saying 'here's what I could do, if only you had ears to hear!' "; Beethoven's own Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor is an obvious tribute to Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor, and yet another plausible – if unconfirmed – story concerns Beethoven at a concert with his sometime-student Ferdinand Ries. As they listened to Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 24, the orchestra reached the quite unusual coda of the last movement, and Beethoven whispered to Ries: "We'll never think of anything like that!" Beethoven's Quintet for Piano and Winds is another obvious tribute to Mozart, similar to Mozart's own quintet for the same ensemble. Beethoven also paid homage to Mozart by writing sets of variations on several of his themes: for example, the two sets of variations for cello and piano on themes from Mozart's Magic Flute, and cadenzas to several of Mozart's piano concertos, most notably the Piano Concerto No. 20 K. 466. A famous legend asserts that, after the only meeting between the two composers, Mozart noted that Beethoven would "give the world something to talk about." However, it is not certain that the two ever met. Tchaikovsky wrote his Mozartiana in praise of Mozart; and Mahler's final word was alleged to have been simply "Mozart". The theme of the opening movement of the Piano Sonata in A major K. 331 (itself a set of variations on that theme) was used by Max Reger for his Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Mozart, written in 1914 and among Reger's best-known works.

In addition, Mozart received outstanding praise from several fellow composers including Frédéric Chopin, Franz Schubert, Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky, Robert Schumann, and many more.

Mozart has remained an influence in popular contemporary music in varying genres ranging from Jazz to modern Rock and Heavy metal. An example of this influence is the jazz pianist Chick Corea, who has performed piano concertos of Mozart and was inspired by them to write a concerto of his own.

The Köchel catalogue

Main article: Köchel-Verzeichnis

In the decades after Mozart's death there were several attempts to catalogue his compositions, but it was not until 1862 that Ludwig von Köchel succeeded in this enterprise. Many of his famous works are referred to by their Köchel catalogue number; for example, the Piano Concerto in A major (Piano Concerto No. 23) is often referred to simply as "K. 488" or "KV. 488". The catalogue has undergone six revisions, labeling the works from K. 1 to K. 626.

Myths and controversies

Mozart is unusual among composers for being the subject of an abundance of legend, partly because none of his early biographers knew him personally. They often resorted to fiction in order to produce a work. Many myths began soon after Mozart died, but few have any basis in fact. An example is the story that Mozart composed his Requiem with the belief it was for himself. Sorting out fabrications from real events is a vexing and continuous task for Mozart scholars mainly because of the prevalence of legend in scholarship. Dramatists and screenwriters, free from responsibilities of scholarship, have found excellent material among these legends.

An especially popular case is the supposed rivalry between Mozart and Antonio Salieri, and, in some versions, the tale that it was poison received from the latter that caused Mozart's death; this is the subject of Aleksandr Pushkin's play Mozart and Salieri, Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov's opera Mozart and Salieri, and Peter Shaffer's play Amadeus. The last of these has been made into a feature-length film of the same name. Shaffer's play attracted criticism for portraying Mozart as vulgar and loutish, a characterization felt by many to be unfairly exaggerated, but in fact frequently confirmed by the composer's letters and other memorabilia. For example, Mozart wrote canons on the words "Leck mich im Arsch" ("Lick my arse") and "Leck mich im Arsch recht fein schön sauber" ("Lick my arse nice and clean") as party pieces for his friends. The Köchel numbers of these canons are 231 and 233.

Another debate involves Mozart's alleged status as a kind of superhuman prodigy, from childhood right up until his death. While some have criticised his earlier works as simplistic or forgettable, others revere even Mozart's juvenilia. In any case, several of his early compositions remain very popular. The motet Exultate, jubilate (K. 165), for example, composed when Mozart was seventeen years old, is among the most frequently recorded of his vocal compositions. It is also mentioned that around the time when he was five or six years old, he could play the piano blindfolded and with his hands crossed over one another.

Benjamin Simkin, a medical doctor, argues in his book Medical and Musical Byways of Mozartiana that Mozart had Tourette syndrome. However, no Tourette syndrome expert, organization, psychiatrist or neurologist has stated that there is credible evidence that Mozart had this syndrome, and several have stated that they do not believe there is enough evidence to substantiate the claim.

Amadeus (1984)

Milos Forman’s 1984 motion picture Amadeus, based on the play by Peter Shaffer, won eight Academy Awards and was one of the year’s most popular films. While the film did a great deal to popularize Mozart’s work with the general public, it has been criticized for its historical inaccuracies, and in particular for its portrayal of Antonio Salieri’s intrigues against Mozart, for which little historical evidence can be found. On the contrary, it is likely that Mozart and Salieri regarded each other as friends and colleagues: it is well documented, for instance, that Salieri frequently lent Mozart musical scores from the court library, that he often chose compositions by Mozart for performance at state occasions, and Salieri taught Mozart's son, Franz Xaver.

The idea that he never revised his compositions, dramatized in the film, is easily exploded by even a cursory examination of the autograph manuscripts, which contain many revisions. Mozart was a studiously hard worker, and by his own admission his extensive knowledge and abilities developed out of many years' close study of the European musical tradition. In fairness, Schaffer and Forman never claimed that Amadeus was intended to be an accurate biographical portrait of Mozart. Rather, as Shaffer reveals on the DVD release of the film, the dramatic narrative was inspired by the biblical story of Cain and Abel – one brother loved by God, and the other scorned.

Media

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References

The Mozarts first lodged in Cecil Court off Tottenham Court Road, then in Frith Street in Soho, and later in Ebury Street, where a blue plaque commemorates their stay. See BBC World Service article.
Penguin Guide to Classical Compact Discs
Did Mozart Have Tourette Syndrome? at Daniel Publishing PMID 1286388
FAMOUS PEOPLE WITH TOURETTE'S SYNDROME AND/OR OBSESSIVE-COMPULSIVE DISORDER, SchoolBehavior.com, May 20, 2006.

External links

General reference

The Mozart Project – the life, times and music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Mozart - Vida e Obra,'Portuguese' - the Brazilian site of Mozart by the coloratura soprano Camila Argolo
Compact Mozart biography - at mozartones.com
A Profile of Amadeus Mozart from Aaron Green, guide to Classical Music at About.com.
WAMozartFan.com The Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Educational Fanpage - resource for students, teachers and music lovers.
The Music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, from Classical Music Pages
Mozart Forum Exploring the world of Classical-Era Music (1770-1827), encompassing the music, personalities and accomplishments of Mozart and his contemporaries.
Mozart Archive
Année Mozart(French) blog about W.A. Mozart and his family