Read on for our brief guide to the life and work of the composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, one of the most gifted composers of his or any other era.
Who was Mozart?
Mozart was a great composer: one of the very greatest composers, in fact. And, before that, he was a child prodigy. From the age of seven, Mozart spent much of his childhood on tour, paraded by his father before potential patrons, academics and professional musicians.
When was Mozart born?
Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, to give him his full and rather impressive name, was born on 27 January 1756, in the Austrian city of Salzburg.
Where did Mozart grow up?
Mozart grew up in Salzburg, where his father Leopold worked as a composer, violinist and theorist.
The young prodigy
It became apparent early on that the young Wolfgang was that rare thing: a musical prodigy. His father, Leopold Mozart, referred to him as ‘the miracle that God allowed to be born in Salzburg.’
This talent first surfaced on January 24, 1761, when young Wolfgang, just days away from turning five, surprised his family. Though he’d never played a piece before, he sat at the harpsichord and, within half an hour, mastered and memorised a minuet that his sister Nannerl had been practising.
Nannerl, it’s worth noting, also showed prodigious talent. But Wolfgang was operating on a different level entirely. He soon started composing his own music, which rapidly grew in complexity and scale. By the age of eight, he had already written symphonies for full orchestras. Although Leopold played a significant role in guiding and refining his work, the brilliance of the music clearly originated from the young boy.
At this stage, Leopold devised an extraordinary plan: to showcase his children’s talents across Europe. A violinist, composer, and educator known for his acclaimed violin method, Leopold also had a keen sense for strategy and orchestration – both musically and logistically.
An exhausting, globe-trotting childhood
Between June 1763, five months after his seventh birthday, and November 1766, the Mozart family visited no less than ten German cities, as well as Brussels, Paris (where they dined with Louis XV at Versailles) and London.
After a year in England, they returned home via Holland, Paris and Switzerland to Salzburg. But they would not stop for long. After barely a year at home, they returned to the road again, this time journeying to Vienna (where both children caught smallpox), Olomouc and Brno, returning home in January 1769. Mozart was just 13 years old. But he was already writing complex music – the Symphony No. 8 dates from around this time.
Not much of a childhood, really: a non-existent home life; constantly writing or performing in different places; threatened with, and as often as not, succumbing to illness; constantly on display; always in the company of adults. But what did it do for Mozart and his music?
Before setting off on his first tour, Mozart had already laid the firm foundations of his technique, learning from the collections of more than 100 keyboard works, mostly by North German composers such as Telemann and CPE Bach, that his father had gathered for him and his sister, Nannerl, to study.
Mozart and JC Bach
It’s no surprise, then, that Mozart’s earliest works show their influence and North German seriousness would become an important feature of his mature style, such as in the slow movement of his Sinfonia Concertante for violin, viola and orchestra (1779) – an unquestionable masterpiece of the classical canon.
But it was during his visit to London that the eight-year-old Mozart met Johann Sebastian Bach’s youngest son Johann Christian Bach, with whom he would form a life-long friendship.
JC Bach had spent much of his earlier life in Italy, mastering the Italian style, and had since established himself in London with a successful series of concerts at the fashionable Vauxhall Gardens. His Italianate style made a profound impact on Mozart who modelled his first three symphonies on those of Bach and his business-partner, Carl Friedrich Abel.
Mozart also arranged three of Bach’s Op. 5 keyboard sonatas as Piano Concertos (KV107). Indeed, Bach’s ‘singing allegros’ can be heard in many of Mozart’s most characteristic first movements and finales, most triumphantly in the finale of the Jupiter Symphony No. 41 (1788).
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Mozart and Italy
By the age of 13, the young Mozart had already composed a little one-act opera, Bastien and Bastienne, modelled on the sort of French comic operas he had heard in Paris. It was the seed from which Mozart grew his ambition to create German opera, later realised with Die Entführung aus dem Serail (1782) and Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute, 1791).
To hone his operatic skills and establish his reputation, Mozart visited Italy three times between 1769 and 1773. He performed in Rovereto, Verona, Mantua and Milan, where he met composer Niccolò Piccinni and was commissioned to write his opera seria, Mitridate.
From Milan, Mozart journeyed to Lodi where he produced his first string quartet. Then came Parma, Bologna and Florence, where the emerging composer became friendly with just about the only child he ever had dealings with as an equal – the English composer Thomas Linley the Younger.
For Easter, Mozart was in Rome, where he famously broke the Papal decree against publishing Allegri’s Miserere by memorising it after hearing it at St Peter’s and later writing it down.
Further travels
In May, Mozart visited Naples where he met composer Niccolò Jommelli and the English historian, Charles Burney. Returning via Rome, where he was knighted by the Pope, he visited Bologna, taking lessons from the great contrapuntist, Father Martini.
The lessons proved beneficial. After passing a gruelling test in counterpoint, Mozart was elected a member of the prestigious Philharmonic Society. His style would combine contrapuntal rigour with Italian suavity, to be exploited as and when occasion demanded: for church, stage or concert hall.
Mozart’s first tour of Italy had been an outstanding success. France, to which he and his mother journeyed in September 1777, was an unmitigated disaster. Indeed, the summer of ’78 in Paris proved to be one of the saddest in Mozart’s short life. The young composer was forced to fend for himself when his mother died.
Neither a businessman, nor any longer a child prodigy, he struggled to survive.
Of the few commissions that came his way, some were unpaid, others unperformed.
The move to Vienna
In recompense for non-performance of a Sinfonia Concertante for four wind instruments and orchestra, however, he received a commission for a Symphony (No. 31, also known as the ‘Paris’ Symphony) – his one success.
‘It will please the few intelligent French people present’
Embittered and frustrated, he wrote to his father: ‘Whether it will please, I do not know, and to tell the truth I care very little. I guarantee that it will please the few intelligent French people present… as for the stupid ones – I see no great misfortune in not pleasing them…’
After returning home, it was not long before Mozart moved to Vienna, married and cut down on his travels. Still, in the last ten years of his life he seemed restless and continued to move from house to house.
Could it be that, raised against a backdrop of ever-changing scenery, Mozart perhaps needed disruption in order to compose? Certainly there is an identifiable sense of restlessness in his music. The modulations in the development of the Jupiter Symphony (No. 41), for example, that give rise to changing moods, shifting like the shadows of clouds across its musical landscape. In this sense, Mozart’s music not only speaks of the joys of existence, but also of the impossibility of peace.
What are Mozart’s most famous pieces?
Mozart composed across a relatively large span of musical forms and ensembles. His best known works include the later Piano Concertos – particularly those from 19 to 25. These are absolute, unquestioned masterpieces of the concerto form. Most of them are largely serene works, complete with moments of almost transcendental beauty – the slow movements of numbers 21 and 23, for example, in Andante and Adagio tempi respectively.
Two, however – numbers 20 and 24 – are composed in minor keys. These two have much more of a sense of drama about them. The stormy, passionate Piano Concerto No. 24, in particular, can be seen as an early outlier of the coming Romantic movement, of which more shortly.
Staying in the orchestral world, Mozart’s later symphonies (roughly from number 35, ‘Haffner’ onwards) are also masterpieces of their form. These late works combine intense melodic beauty, drama and often a sheer sense of joy in the possibilities opened up by music.
Most famous of all are the last two. Number 40 has that taut, dramatic first movement built, like Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, upon a single, rhythmical and insistent motif. The final Mozart symphony, Number 41 ‘Jupiter’, has an extraordinary fugal Finale. No fewer than six different themes are interwoven, producing a sense of astonishing beauty, exuberance and joy.
What are Mozart’s best operas?
But we can’t stop there. Other justly famous and much-loved Mozart works include his operas Le Nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro), Don Giovanni and Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute), which features some of the most colourful characters in opera (and that’s saying something), including Papageno the bird-catcher and the fantastically evil Queen of the Night.
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Then there is the stirring Requiem, with its contrapuntal elements that hark back to Bach and Handel. There are the beautiful Mozart Clarinet Concerto and Sinfonia Concertante (for violin and viola). Then there is some gorgeous chamber music such as the Clarinet Quintet and ‘Hunt’ and ‘Dissonance’ String Quartets. There really is so much wonderful Mozart to discover.
Mozart: the first Romantic composer?
Mozart died in 1791, just before (many would argue) the beginning of Romanticism in music, in around 1800 or shortly after. But can we already find early intimations of this exciting, passionate and individualistic musical movement in Mozart’s often passionate music?
One answer can come from the writer ETA Hoffmann, who helped to define Romanticism in music, particularly as embodied by his hero Beethoven whose music, Hoffmann claimed, ‘ ideal of music, as seen in his description of his prime musical hero: ‘Beethoven’s instrumental music ‘opens up for us the realm of the monstrous and the immeasurable.’
Hoffmann pointed to Mozart as the first true Romantic composer, citing his portrayal of Don Giovanni, that demonic anti-hero and sexual force of nature who, so very dramatically, descends into Hell.
He probably didn’t sense his own musical immortality in the way that Beethoven did
We shouldn’t overstress Mozart’s role in ushering in Romanticism, however. The Romantic ideal of art has the artist as a sensitive, suffering genius, an almost god-like figure. In this way, Berlioz, Beethoven and Chopin; Liszt, Schumann and Tchaikovsky: they all fit the Romantic hero perfectly. Mozart not so much.
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For example, Mozart probably didn’t have any sense of his own musical immortality in the way that Beethoven definitely did. Mozart was still writing at a time when, by and large, composers wrote for the time in which they lived, and assumed that their music would not survive them. Most music being performed was new music. The first composer to achieve some sort of renown beyond his own lifetime was probably Handel, who died when Mozart was three years old.
Beethoven, though, was the first composer to break this mould – to perceive that his music might outlive him, might, in fact, become part of a longer continuum, a permanent musical repertoire. He used the word ‘immortal’ in regard to his ambitions, and wrote for a wider humanity. Mozart is not known to have spoken about how his music might survive after his death: instead, he wrote for the audiences at his soirées and concerts, for churches and theatres.
It’s a nuanced argument though, because – again – works like the Piano Concerto No. 24, Don Giovanni, and the tense, relentless and hugely powerful Symphony No. 40 certainly have something Romantic in their impact, minor-key introspection, and probing insights into the recesses of the human psyche.
Who did Mozart marry?
In 1782 Mozart married Constanze Weber. She was the third daughter of the Weber family with whom he had found lodgings in Vienna. The couple had six children, although sadly only two of them lived beyond infancy. After Mozart’s death in 1791 Constanze, aged just 29, had to bring up her young family alone.
When did Mozart die?
Mozart died on 5 December 1791, at the age of just 35.
What illness did Mozart die of?
The cause of his death is not known for certain. It may well have been from a condition known as Schönlein-Henoch purpura.
Did Mozart and Beethoven meet?
The young Ludwig van Beethoven intended to study with Mozart. In 1787, aged 16, Beethoven travelled to Vienna to meet his (31-year-old) would-be mentor. The two composers did manage a meeting. However, shortly after his arrival in Vienna, Beethoven’s mother fell ill. The young Beethoven had to return to his hometown of Bonn in Germany.
Beethoven stayed in Bonn for five years, looking after his younger siblings. When he was finally able to undertake the trip to Vienna the great Mozart was, sadly, dead.
What is the best film about Mozart?
That would be the 1984 biopic Amadeus. Adapted by Peter Shaffer from his 1979 stage play, it’s directed by Miloš Forman. It may not be the most faithful historical account – the composer Salieri is portrayed as Mozart’s bitter rival, whereas in reality they were more likely on friendly, or at least mutually respectful terms. It is, however, a totally gripping experience. Tom Hulce and F. Murray Abraham are both captivating as Mozart and Salieri respectively, and we get a real sense of the young Mozart’s somewhat anarchic but revelatory genius. It’s undoubtedly one of the best films about composers that you will ever watch.
Are there any good books about Mozart?
Yes, there are plenty of good books about the composer. See our article on the best books about Mozart for more information.
Chris de Souza, Jan Swafford and Steve Wright