Titans of History

MOZART

1756–1791

I cannot write about Mozart. I can only worship him.

Richard Strauss

Born in Salzburg, Austria, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was the epitome of genius, a child prodigy who went on to become one of the most brilliant composers in the history of Western classical music. Leaping from one musical genre to the next, in his short life Mozart composed some of the greatest and most melodic compositions of all time.

As a child virtuoso on the keyboard Mozart was the musical wonder of his age, touring Europe’s capitals and courts with his sister Nannerl under the direction of their father, Leopold, himself a musician who was quick to recognize his children’s precocious talents. As both a fond parent and an assiduous publicist, Leopold dressed his children in the latest fashions and airily reported that: “We keep company only with aristocrats and other distinguished persons.” Wolfgang began composing at the age of five, was a seasoned performer at seven, and had written his first symphony by eight. Of Mozart’s early compositions, Leopold wrote with satisfaction, “Imagine the noise these sonatas will make in the world when it says on the title page that they are the work of a child of seven.”

Even the skeptics realized that no trickery lay behind the child’s precocity. By the still tender age of thirteen, Wolfgang was an artist of unrivaled musical understanding, of whom Johann Hasse (1699–1783), one of the era’s eminent composers, was said to have remarked that “he has done things which for such an age are really incomprehensible; they would be astonishing in an adult.”

Mozart’s versatility was astounding. He wrote chamber music, operas, symphonies, masses; he virtually invented the solo piano concerto, and his use of counterpoint was as revelatory as his limpid melodies and subtle harmonic shifts. He composed with legendary speed—his magnificent “Jupiter” symphony, No. 41 in C Major, was written in a mere sixteen days, and he reportedly composed the overture to his opera Don Giovanni on the night before the work premiered. The range of his genius only increased over the years—from the exuberant violin concerti of his teens, dazzling operas such as The Marriage of Figaro and The Magic Flute, and masterpieces in late Classical style such as the Clarinet Quintet from 1789. His death at thirty-five left the musical world with the perpetual enigma of what might have been, had this sublimely talented composer lived to old age.

Fellow composers never wavered in their recognition of his genius. To Josef Haydn (1732–1809), the musical elder statesman of the time, he was “the greatest composer … either in person or by name,” while the “magic sounds of Mozart’s music” left Franz Schubert (1797–1828) awestruck. The public response was more capricious. Some judged his last three symphonies “difficult,” and other works were criticized for being “audacious” or too complex. But he was held in high regard at the time of his death, and today layman and professional alike recognize what one conductor has described as “the seriousness in his charm, the loftiness in his beauty.”

Mozart’s princely patrons were less deferential. Perennially short of money, Mozart’s frustration at his lack of independence and his pitiful wages often led to stormy relations. From 1773 he was engaged to compose at the Salzburg court, but in 1781, summoned to produce music for Emperor Joseph II’s court in Vienna, he was angry to find himself in the role of a servant, with a correspondingly meager salary. He angrily demanded his release, which was—as he wrote in a letter of June that year—granted “with a kick on my ass … by order of our worthy Prince Archbishop.”

Throughout his life, Mozart displayed the same mix of playfulness and seriousness that shines through his music. He was an affectionate child, and his difficult relationship with his domineering father led him to constantly seek approval: visiting Vienna, the six-year-old Mozart apparently jumped into Empress Maria Theresa’s lap for a hug. The adult Mozart, always physically small, retained this childlike manner in his willful extravagance, his open and sometimes crude sexuality and the distinctive, scatological humor that had led the teenage Mozart to write to his first love: “Now I wish a good night, shit into your bed until it creaks.”

The composer for whom, as he put it, composing was the only “joy and passion” was no solitary genius. While in later years his relationship with his father deteriorated, his love for his wife, Constanze, was abiding—despite Leopold’s disapproval. Nevertheless, after Leopold’s death in 1787 Mozart, now permanently in Vienna, went through a period when he composed less. Fearing poverty, he produced a stream of begging letters to patrons, acquaintances and his fellow Freemasons. While never destitute, Mozart had to rely on income from teaching and performances of his works. He lived beyond his means, having a weakness for fashionable clothes while also paying off debts to friends and publishers.

Mozart’s last composition, the Requiem that became his own, is surrounded by mystery. Legend has it that Salieri, a jealous fellow composer, poisoned Mozart as he worked frantically on this composition, which had been anonymously commissioned by letter. But an acute attack of rheumatic fever (and a noble patron intent on passing off Mozart’s compositions as his own) is probably nearer the truth. Even so, Mozart’s modest burial—although not quite the pauper’s of repute—sealed the myth of the neglected genius.