Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Mozart circa 1780, by Johann Nepomuk della CroceWolfgang Amadeus Mozart (IPA: [ˈvɔlfgaŋ amaˈdeus ˈmoːtsart], full name Johann Chrysostom Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart [1] (27 January 1756 – 5 December 1791) was an Austrian composer of the Classical era. His more than 600 compositions include works widely acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music, and he is among the most enduringly popular of classical composers.
Mozart was born in Salzburg, into a musical family, and at a very early age began to show indications of prodigious abilities. When he was five years old he could both read and write music, and had precocious skills as a player of keyboard and violin. Much of his childhood and adolescence was taken up with tours which included performances before many of the royal courts of Europe. In 1773, aged 17, he accepted a post as a court musician in Salzburg, but was unhappy with his low pay and limited opportunities. Over the next eight years, he frequently traveled in search of a better position, and composed abundantly. This situation continued until his dismissal from Salzburg in 1781 by his employer, the Prince-Archbishop, and his subsequent departure for Vienna.
His Viennese years, which lasted until his death, were crowded, bringing him relative fame, though his finances remained precarious, with periods of prosperity and of penury. In 1782 he married Constanze Weber, against the wishes of his family; six children were born of whom two survived infancy. Musically this was a period of outstanding creativity which saw the production of many of his best known symphonic, concertante and operatic works, and his final, incomplete Requiem. The circumstances of his death, aged 35, have been much mythologised, but were most likely commonplace.
In his youth, Mozart had used his gifts of imitation and mimicry to learn from the works of others. From these lessons, in maturity he fashioned a style that ranged in mood from the light and pleasant to the dark and violent, from a vision of humanity "redeemed through art, forgiven, and reconciled with nature and the absolute".[2] His influence on all subsequent classical music has been profound; Beethoven wrote much of his early music in Mozart's shadow. Joseph Haydn, sometime mentor and later friend and admirer, wrote: "Posterity will not see such a talent again in 100 years"; others claim that, more than two centuries after his death, that talent remains unsurpassed.[3]
Biography
Mozart's birthplace at Getreidegasse 9, Salzburg, Austria
Family and early years
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born to Leopold and Anna Maria Pertl Mozart in Getreidegasse 9 in Salzburg, the capital of the sovereign Archbishopric of Salzburg, in what is now Austria, then part of the Holy Roman Empire. His only sibling who survived past birth was his sister Maria Anna (1751–1829), called "Nannerl". Wolfgang was baptized the day after his birth at St. Rupert's Cathedral. The baptismal record gives his name in Latinized form as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart. Mozart generally called himself "Wolfgang Amadè Mozart"[4][page # needed] as an adult, but there were many variants.
Mozart's father Leopold Mozart (1719–1787) was deputy Kapellmeister to the court orchestra of the Archbishop of Salzburg and a minor composer. He was also an experienced teacher; in the year of Mozart's birth he published a successful violin textbook, Versuch einer gründlichen Violinschule.
Anonymous portrait of the child Mozart, possibly by Pietro Antonio Lorenzoni; painted in 1763 on commission from LeopoldWhen Nannerl was seven, Leopold began giving her keyboard lessons. The three-year old Mozart looked on, evidently with fascination: his sister later recorded that at this age "he often spent much time at the clavier [keyboard], picking out thirds, [...] and his pleasure showed it sounded good [to him]."[5] Nannerl continued: "in the fourth year of his age his father, for a game as it were, began to teach him a few minuets and pieces at the clavier. [...] he could play it faultlessly and with the greatest delicacy, and keeping exactly in time. [...] At the age of five he was already composing little pieces, which he played to his father who wrote them down."[5] Among them were the Andante (K. 1a) and Allegro in C (K. 1b).
Biographer Maynard Solomon[6] notes that while Leopold was a very devoted teacher to his children, there is evidence that Wolfgang was motivated to make progress even beyond what his father was teaching him. His first independent (and ink-spattered) composition, and his initial ability to play the violin, were both his own doing and were a great surprise to Leopold. The father and son seem to have been close; both of the precocious episodes just mentioned brought tears to Leopold's eyes.[7]
Leopold eventually gave up composing when his son's outstanding musical talents became evide