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Mozart, Thanks for the Music
By Tel Asiado   
Rated "G" by the Author.
Last edited: Monday, July 24, 2006
Posted: Monday, July 24, 2006

As the classical music world celebrates the 250th birthday anniversary of Wolfgang Amadeus, the author, a lifelong Mozartean, pays her own tribute to the immortal genius, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

"Mozart tapped the source from which all music flows, expressing himself with a spontaneity and refinement and breathtaking rightness." ~Aaron Copland, American composer

This year, 2006, we remember the 250th birthday anniversary of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Jan 27, 1756 – Dec 5, 1791), one of the rare geniuses that came to our world. Worldwide celebrations and tributes have started pouring through live concerts, classical music stations programs airing his music, festivals, exhibitions, and lots more. If I have my way, I'll now be in Salzburg or Vienna, in the footsteps of the master.

Mozart was born in Salzburg, Austria, where his father, Leopold Mozart, was a court musician. Of the seven children, only Mozart and his older sister, Maria Anna or "Nannerl" as her family called her, survived infancy. Leopold Mozart was himself a composer and an excellent teacher, a court musician of the archbishop's chapel in Salzburg, and the author of a well-known book on violin-playing. Both Nannerl and Wolfgang showed early musical promise, but the four-year old Wolfgang soon overtook his sister at the keyboard.

His upbringing was unconventional. Taught by his father, Mozart was way ahead in his education compared to other boys his age. As an infant prodigy, his enthusiasm for music was boundless. He began to play the harpsichord at the age of three and compose at the age of five. He wrote his first minuet at the age of six. It was also this time that Mozart went on his first tour with his family. Their reputation preceded them by the time they reached Vienna. The family lived like this for years, touring and playing over Europe. Shortly before his ninth birthday, he composed his first symphony. When he was eleven, he wrote his first oratorio and his first opera followed a year later.

Mozart had his share of first love and loss. In Mannheim, Germany, he fell in love with a young soprano, Aloysia Weber. His love was not reciprocated. A year later, in 1778, his beloved mother died in Paris. He was devastated. With heartache from the double loss of his mother and Aloysia, he returned to Salzburg. He found work at the court but unhappy with the court restrictions, Mozart returned to Vienna where he took up lodgings with Aloysia Weber's family. By now Aloysia had married, and Constanze, Aloysia's sister, caught Mozart's eye. He fell in love and married her.

In the same year that he married Constanze, he met the older Franz Joseph Haydn. A stimulating and rewarding friendship developed between the two. Instead of jealousies and insincerities that often arise between talented people, they genuinely respected one another and learned from each other. Haydn's works had a strong influence on Mozart's creativity. In gratitude for all he had learned from his older friend Haydn, he dedicated six string quartets to him, referred to as the six Haydn Quartets. Haydn, when he first heard the compositions, said to Mozart's father, "Before God and as an honest man, I tell you that your son is the greatest composer known to me either in person or by name. He has taste, and what is more, the most profound knowledge of composition."

Mozart and his wife Constanze Weber always lacked money. He never had good health, and his life was filled with difficulties. Yet we rarely see evidence of these hardships in his music. In fact, his music often demonstrated a vibrant and carefree spirit. Credited to his mother, he had a lively disposition and humanizing simplicity that enabled him to carry gracefully his burden of genius.

Mozart was a comprehensively gifted musician. He belonged to the classical period of the second half of the 18th century. History tells us that the 18th century was the "Age of Enlightenment", the complex movement involving the revolt of the spirit, a turning against supernatural religion and the church in favor of "natural" religion and practical morality. Towards the end of his life Mozart turned from formal religion to Freemasonry. This period also was the "Age of Eleganc". There was a general tendency towards elegance, hedonism, and frivolity. The name for 18th century music is referred to as 'Rococo', from a French word meaning 'shell'. The emphasis on pleasantness and prettiness was in marked contrast to the impressive grandeur of the true Baroque style. Rococo elements are present in the works of Mozart.

Sadly, Mozart died at the young age of 35, while working on his "Requiem" in bed. He never finished it. He died believing even as he wrote it that it would be his own requiem. The opening theme of the "Kyrie" is one used by both Bach and Handel. This is not surprising, Mozart's encounter with the music of J.S. Bach earlier in his life had much influence on him, and the impact of what he had learned from Bach was deep and lasting.

To those who are not into classical music and unfamiliar with Mozart and his music, the play and film Amadeus certainly advertised Mozart, while misrepresenting his life and work. Despite myth depicting him as a simple-minded youth with a miraculous gift of music, the truth is far more complicated yet fascinating. The beauty, joy and pain that Mozart embody, add to the admiration he is accorded.

He composed music that was to enrich million lives, many more yet unborn. This genius, from the age of three until he died at thirty-five, scarcely had a day's rest. His thoughts were always occupied with music, perhaps even in his sleep. Whenever Goethe spoke of the nature of genius, he would speak about Mozart, who appeared to him as "the human incarnation of a divine force of creation." While there had been other prodigies, none has approached Mozart's ability to combine a dazzling musical imagination with a total mastery of style and form. His music style is a perfect blending of the Italian art, German knowledge, and French elegance.

Being a lifelong Mozartean, I have been drawn to his music and find it extremely difficult to choose which of his work would qualify as 'most famous' and therefore I will dispense with this task.

Is Mozart the greatest composer in the history of music? To me, this question is immaterial, meaningless. I do love and admire many other composers – Bach, Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert, to name a few – but no other has ever composed in the great range of genres at the same time excelled in all of them. A prolific composer, Mozart's major works include 21 piano concertos, 24 string quartets, 35 violin sonatas, 5 violin concertos, concertos for clarinet and other wind instruments, 24 string quartets, chamber music, masses, and more than 45 symphonies, including nos. 39, 40 and 41:'Jupiter'. He composed more than 5 operas, including "The Marriage of Figaro", "Cosi fan tutte", "Don Giovanni" and "The Magic flute". Mozart also played both the violin and viola to soloist standard.

Why Mozart? Mozart soothes. His music doesn't give me turbulence, instead, it pleases, gently touches my soul. I do not need any criteria or tonal design analysis to support his greatness. The beauty and perfection of his creation – serene, majestic, gentle - continue to delight through the years. That it flows into my being is enough.

Mozart, thanks for the music.

Recommended Listening:
Clarinet Concerto
Clarinet Quintet in A
Don Giovanni
Exsultate Jubilate
Flute and Harp Concerto
Haydn Quartets
The Magic flute
The Marriage of Figaro
Piano Concerto No. 21, Elvira Madigan
Serenade, Eine Kleine Nachtmusik
Sinfonia Concertante
Requiem
Symphony No. 38, Prague
Symphony No. 41, Jupiter



Selective References:
The Classic Composers, International Masters Publishers Ltd.
Mozartiana by Joseph Solam. Two Centuries of Notes, Quotes and Anecdotes about WAM, Macmillan London.
The Gift of Music by Jane Stuart Smith and Betty Carlson, Crossway Books.
The Mozart Compendium, H.C. Robbins Landon, General Editor, Thames and Hudson.


Image from RITRO.com: W.A. Mozart, 1790, portrait by Johann Georg Edlinger

(This piece is also published in RITRO.com, Jan 25,2006, to commemorate the 250th birthday anniversary of the wunderkind, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.