Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)

## Introduction

   Mozart was born in Salzburg on January 27th,

1756. His father, Leopold Mozart, was a talented composer, teacher, violinist
and deputy Kapellmeister at the Salzburg court. Leopold began teaching his
daughter the keyboard when she was seven. Mozart was only three but he watched
his sister’s lessons and would mimic her playing. He soon began to show a good
understanding of chords, tonality and tempo so his father started to tutor him
as well. By six, Mozart was performing in courts all over Europe as a child
prodigy. During this time he played in Zurich, Vienna, Paris, London, The
Hague, and Prague and met many accomplished composers such as Johann Christian
Bach. He composed his first piece at eight but it is thought that his father
transcribed most of it for him. After a year back home, Mozart and his father
set off for Italy to further showcase his capabilities as a performer and
budding composer; they traveled from 1769- 1771. Back in Salzburg, Mozart was
dissatisfied with his position as assistant Kapellmeister and left with is
mother to find a better job elsewhere. While traveling his mother fell ill and
died, so Mozart went back home and took the position of court organist. He also
tried his luck in Paris but overall was disappointed with the lack of
opportunities there for him. In 1781 Archbishop von Colloredo summoned him to
Vienna and while there he was let go by the Archbishop but decided to stay in
Vienna to settle down. There he met his wife Constanze and started a family.
Throughout the 1780’s he had many jobs to get himself out of the debt he was in
but it wasn’t enough and so he moved his family to Alsergrund, a local suburb.
Mozart’s last years were very profitable for him due to a spike in his productivity
in composing music. When he died December 5, 1791, he left behind over 600
works that would then be sold by his wife to support her and their two sons.
His works included sonatas, symphonies, masses, chamber music, concertos and operas.

## Works

At the Alba Music Festival, on May 26, 2017, Giuseppe Nova, Maxence Larrieu and Andrea Bacchetti performed his piece *Don Giovanni e Il flauto magico.* This performance was very well executed. The two flautists parts intertwined, overlapped, and played back and forth in call and response a lot but the musicians still kept it very clear, transparent and simple, true to the Classical music style Mozart was famous for.

* *Don Giovanni e Il flauto magico*[1] (Short recording from the Alba Music Festival 2017)

On May 28, 2017, at the Alba Music Festival, another work of Mozart's was performed by soloists Giuseppe Nova, Maxence Larrieu, and the Japanese Flute Ensemble. They performed *Divertimento*, which was initially written in July of 1776. This work featured six movements. The opening movement is in monothematic sonata form in A minor. The third movement is in rondo form, and the fourth movement features an unusual mix of minuet and variation form. The sixth movement is in rondo form with an ABABA structure. (this paragraph add-on by Katie Wegener)

Although Mozart composed pieces in a wide variety of musical genres, some of his best works were in the opera, piano concerto and sonata, symphony, and chamber music for the string quartet and quintet. Below are some of Mozart's works in these genres:

* *The Marriage of Figaro* [2]

* *Piano Concerto No. 24 K.491 - 1st Movement Part 1*[3]

* *Mozart "Alla Turca" K 331- 1st Movement* [4]

* *Symphony n. 40 K. 550 in G minor - 1st Movement (Molto Allegro)*

* *String Quartet No.19 in C Major, K465 "Dissonance"*

* *String Quintet No. 3 in C major, K. 515*

## Comparisons

Mozart's development in his musical style lines up harmoniously with that of the Classical music style of his time. His style started off as the light and elegant sounds of classical music that directly contrasted the complex and heavy music of the Baroque era but in his later years as a composer, when the Classical music genre began to change, he too began to incorporate some of the complex characteristics back from the later Baroque style. Some of the features he incorporated into his later works from the Baroque style were irregular phrase lengths, fugal finales, and double melodies.

## Observations

Mozart was a very versatile composer. He wrote all of the major genres such as symphony, opera, concertos, the solo concerto, chamber music including both string quartet and quintet, the piano sonata, serenades, quodlibets, divertimenti, marches, dances, sacred music and organ music. What made him unique was how much he truly mastered every genre and the fact that his music was way more advanced than his time with it's dissonant, complex and virtuosic features. Mozart also stood out as the first artist to break free from working
for nobles to compose music for himself. In 1781 Mozart left the feudal
system of the Archbishop of Salzburg to compose what he wanted, which was courageous
and unheard of. He definitely lined the way for composers to come and made
a difference in the world of music.

## Works Cited

"Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus d. J. (Franz Xaver
Wolfgang)." Mozart-Bibliographien (n.d.): n. pag. Web. 19 June 2017.

"Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart." Wikipedia. Wikimedia
Foundation, 17 June 2017. Web. 21 June 2017.

"Wolfgang Mozart." Biography.com. A&E Networks
Television, 28 Apr. 2017. Web. 21 June 2017.

"Divertimento No. 11 (Mozart)" Wikipedia, 6 June 2017. Web. 25 June 2017.