Do you know anything about Mozart?

Question

For examples:
1) Mozart's childhood, and the relationship with his family
2) Mozart's musical studies
3) Mozart's successes and failures
4) What was his most famous compositions?
5) How did people were dressed in that time? Hair?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~THANKS~~~~~~~~~

Answer 1

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (baptized as Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart; January 27, 1756 – December 5, 1791) was a prolific and highly influential composer of Classical music. His enormous output of more than six hundred compositions includes works that are widely acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music. Mozart is among the most enduringly popular of European composers, and many of his works are part of the standard concert repertoire.

Mozart was born to Leopold and Anna Maria Pertl Mozart, in the front room of 9 Getreidegasse 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 beyond infancy was an older sister: Maria Anna, nicknamed Nannerl. Mozart 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. Of these names, the first two refer to John Chrysostom, one of the Church Fathers, and they were names not employed in everyday life, while the fourth, meaning "beloved of God", was variously translated in Mozart's lifetime as Amadeus (Latin), Gottlieb (German), and Amadé (French). Mozart's father Leopold announced the birth of his son in a letter to the publisher Johann Jakob Lotter with the words "...the boy is called Joannes Chrysostomus, Wolfgang, Gottlieb". Mozart himself preferred the third name, and he also took a fancy to "Amadeus" over the years.

Mozart's father Leopold (1719–1787) was one of Europe's leading musical teachers. His influential textbook Versuch einer gründlichen Violinschule, was published in 1756, the year of Mozart's birth (English, as "A Treatise on the Fundamental Principles of Violin Playing", transl. E.Knocker; Oxford-New York, 1948). He was deputy kapellmeister to the court orchestra of the Archbishop of Salzburg, and a prolific and successful composer of instrumental music. Leopold gave up composing when his son's outstanding musical talents became evident. They first came to light when Wolfgang was about three years old, and Leopold, proud of Wolfgang's achievements, gave him intensive musical training, including instruction in clavier, violin, and organ. Leopold was Wolfgang's only teacher in his earliest years. A note by Leopold in Nannerl's music book – the Nannerl Notenbuch – records that little Wolfgang had learned several of the pieces at the age of four. Mozart's first compositions, a small Andante (K. 1a) and Allegro (K. 1b), were written in 1761, when he was five years old. Around the time when he was five or six years old, he could play the piano blindfolded and with his hands crossed over one another.
During his formative years, Mozart made several European journeys, beginning with an exhibition in 1762 at the Court of the Elector of Bavaria in Munich, then in the same year at the Imperial Court in Vienna and Prague. A long concert tour spanning three and a half years followed, taking him with his father to the courts of Munich, Mannheim, Paris, London (where Wolfgang Amadeus played with the famous Italian cellist Giovanni Battista Cirri), The Hague, again to Paris, and back home via Zürich, Donaueschingen, and Munich. During this trip Mozart met a great number of musicians and acquainted himself with the works of other great composers. A particularly important influence was Johann Christian Bach, who befriended Mozart in London in 1764–65. Bach's work is often taken to be an inspiration for Mozart's music. They again went to Vienna in late 1767 and remained there until December 1768. On this trip Mozart contracted smallpox, and his healing was considered by Leopold as a proof of God's intentions concerning the child.

After one year in Salzburg, three trips to Italy followed: from December 1769 to March 1771, from August to December 1771, and from October 1772 to March 1773. Mozart was commissioned to compose three operas: "Mitridate Rè di Ponto" (1770), "Ascanio in Alba" (1771), and "Lucio Silla" (1772), all three of which were performed in Milan. During the first of these trips, Mozart met Andrea Luchesi in Venice and G.B. Martini in Bologna, and was accepted as a member of the famous Accademia Filarmonica. A highlight of the Italian journey, now an almost legendary tale, occurred when he heard Gregorio Allegri's Miserere once in performance in the Sistine Chapel then wrote it out in its entirety from memory, only returning to correct minor errors; thus producing the first illegal copy of this closely-guarded property of the Vatican.

On September 23, 1777, accompanied by his mother, Mozart began a tour of Europe that included Munich, Mannheim, and Paris. In Mannheim he became acquainted with members of the Mannheim orchestra, the best in Europe at the time. He fell in love with Aloysia Weber, who later broke up the relationship with him. He was to marry her sister Constanze some four years later in Vienna. During his unsuccessful visit to Paris, his mother died (1778).
In 1780, Idomeneo, widely regarded as Mozart's first great opera, premiered in Munich. The following year, he visited Vienna in the company of his employer, the harsh Prince-Archbishop Colloredo. When they returned to Salzburg, Mozart, who was then Konzertmeister, became increasingly rebellious, not wanting to follow the whims of the archbishop relating to musical affairs, and expressing these views, soon fell out of favor with him. According to Mozart's own testimony, he was dismissed – literally – "with a kick in the ****".[3] Mozart chose to settle and develop his own freelance career in Vienna after its aristocracy began to take an interest in him.

On August 4, 1782, against his father's wishes, he married Constanze Weber (1763–1842; her name is also spelled "Costanze"); her father Fridolin was a half-brother of Carl Maria von Weber's father Franz Anton Weber. Although they had six children, only two survived infancy. Neither of these two, Karl Thomas (1784–1858) and Franz Xaver Wolfgang (1791–1844; later a minor composer himself), married or had children who reached adulthood. Karl did father a daughter, Constanza, who died in 1833.

The year 1782 was an auspicious one for Mozart's career: his opera Die Entführung aus dem Serail ("The Abduction from the Seraglio") was a great success and he began a series of concerts at which he premiered his own piano concertos as director of the ensemble and soloist.

During 1782–83, Mozart became closely acquainted with the work of J.S. Bach and G.F. Handel as a result of the influence of Baron Gottfried van Swieten, who owned many manuscripts of works by the Baroque masters. Mozart's study of these works led first to a number of works imitating Baroque style and later had a powerful influence on his own personal musical language, for example the fugal passages in Die Zauberflöte ("The Magic Flute") and in the Symphony No. 41.

In 1783, Wolfgang and Constanze visited Leopold in Salzburg, but the visit was not a success, as his father did not open his heart to Constanze. However, the visit sparked the composition of one of Mozart's great liturgical pieces, the Mass in C Minor, which, though not completed, was premiered in Salzburg, and is now one of his best-known works. Wolfgang featured Constanze as the lead female solo voice at the premiere of the work, hoping to endear her to his father's affection.

In his early Vienna years, Mozart met Joseph Haydn and the two composers became friends. When Haydn visited Vienna, they sometimes played in an impromptu string quartet. Mozart's six quartets dedicated to Haydn date from 1782–85, and are often judged to be his response to Haydn's Opus 33 set from 1781. Haydn was soon in awe of Mozart, and when he first heard the last three of Mozart's series he told Leopold, "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, furthermore, the most profound knowledge of composition."
During the years 1782–1785, Mozart put on a series of concerts in which he appeared as soloist in his piano concertos, widely considered among his greatest works. These concerts were financially successful. After 1785 Mozart performed far less and wrote only a few concertos. Maynard Solomon conjectures that he may have suffered from hand injuries; another possibility is that the fickle public ceased to attend the concerts in the same numbers.

Mozart was influenced by the ideas of the eighteenth century European Enlightenment as an adult, and became a Freemason (1784). His lodge was a specifically Catholic, rather than a deistic one, and he worked fervently and successfully to convert his father before the latter's death in 1787. Die Zauberflöte, his second last opera, includes Masonic themes and allegory. He was in the same Masonic Lodge as Haydn.

Mozart's life was occasionally fraught with financial difficulty. Though the extent of this difficulty has often been romanticized and exaggerated, he nonetheless did resort to borrowing money from close friends, some debts remaining unpaid even to his death. During the years 1784-1787 he lived in a lavish, seven-room apartment, which may be visited today at Domgasse 5, behind St Stephen's Cathedral; it was here, in 1786, that Mozart composed the opera Le nozze di Figaro.
Mozart had a special relationship with Prague and its people. The audience there celebrated the Figaro with the much-deserved reverence he was missing in his hometown Vienna. His quotation "Meine Prager verstehen mich" (My Praguers understand me) became very famous in the Bohemian lands. Many tourists follow his tracks in Prague and visit the Mozart Museum of the Villa Bertramka where they can enjoy a chamber concert. In the later years of his life, Prague provided Mozart with many financial resources from commissions [citation needed]. In Prague, Don Giovanni premiered on October 29, 1787 at the Theatre of the Estates. Mozart wrote La clemenza di Tito for the festivities accompanying Leopold II's coronation in November 1790; Mozart obtained this commission after Antonio Salieri had allegedly rejected it
Mozart's final illness and death are difficult topics for scholars, obscured by romantic legends and replete with conflicting theories. Scholars disagree about the course of decline in Mozart's health – particularly at what point (or if at all) Mozart became aware of his impending death and whether this awareness influenced his final works. The romantic view holds that Mozart declined gradually and that his outlook and compositions paralleled this decline. In opposition to this, some present-day scholars point out correspondence from Mozart's final year indicating that he was in good cheer, as well as evidence that Mozart's death was sudden and a shock to his family and friends. Mozart's attributed last words: "The taste of death is upon my lips...I feel something, that is not of this earth". The actual cause of Mozart's death is also a matter of conjecture. His death record listed "hitziges Frieselfieber" ("severe miliary fever," referring to a rash that looks like millet-seeds), a description that does not suffice to identify the cause as it would be diagnosed in modern medicine. Dozens of theories have been proposed, including trichinosis, mercury poisoning, and rheumatic fever. The practice, common at that time, of bleeding medical patients is also cited as a contributing cause.

Mozart died around 1 a.m. on December 5, 1791 in Vienna. Some days earlier, with the onset of his illness, he had largely ceased work on his final composition, the Requiem. Popular legend has it that Mozart was thinking of his own impending death while writing this piece, and even that a messenger from the afterworld commissioned it. However, documentary evidence has established that the anonymous commission came from one Count Franz Walsegg of Schloss Stuppach, and that most if not all of the music had been written while Mozart was still in good health. A younger composer, and Mozart's pupil at the time, Franz Xaver Süssmayr, was engaged by Constanze to complete the Requiem. However, he was not the first composer asked to finish the Requiem, as the widow had first approached another Mozart student, Joseph Eybler, who began work directly on the empty staves of Mozart's manuscript but then abandoned it.

Because he was buried in an unmarked grave, it has been popularly assumed that Mozart was penniless and forgotten when he died. In fact, though he was no longer as fashionable in Vienna as before, he continued to have a well-paid job at court and receive substantial commissions from more distant parts of Europe, Prague in particular [citation needed]. He earned about 10,000 florins per year[6], equivalent to at least 42,000 US dollars in 2006, which places him within the top 5 percent of late 18th century wage earners[6], but he could not manage his own wealth. His mother wrote, "When Wolfgang makes new acquaintances, he immediately wants to give his life and property to them." His impulsive largesse and spending often put him in the position of having to ask others for loans. Many of his begging letters survive but they are evidence not so much of poverty as of his habit of spending more than he earned. He was not buried in a "mass grave" but in a regular communal grave according to the 1784 laws in Austria.

Though the original grave in the St. Marx cemetery was lost, memorial gravestones (or cenotaphs) have been placed there and in the Zentralfriedhof. In 2005, new DNA testing was performed by Austria's University of Innsbruck and the US Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory in Rockville, Maryland, to determine if a skull in an Austrian Museum was actually his, using DNA samples from the marked graves of his grandmother and Mozart's niece. However, test results were inconclusive, suggesting that none of the DNA samples were related to each other.

In 1809, Constanze married Danish diplomat Georg Nikolaus von Nissen (1761–1826). Being a fanatical admirer of Mozart, he (and Constanze?) edited vulgar passages out of many of the composer's letters and wrote a Mozart biography. Nissen did not live to see his biography printed, and Constanze finished it.
Mozart's music, like Haydn's, stands as an archetypal example of the Classical style. His works spanned the period during which that style transformed from one exemplified by the style galant to one that began to incorporate some of the contrapuntal complexities of the late Baroque, complexities against which the galant style had been a reaction. Mozart's own stylistic development closely paralleled the development of the classical style as a whole. In addition, he was a versatile composer and wrote in almost every major genre, including symphony, opera, the solo concerto, chamber music including string quartet and string quintet, and the piano sonata. While none of these genres were new, the piano concerto was almost single-handedly developed and popularized by Mozart. He also wrote a great deal of religious music, including masses; and he composed many dances, divertimenti, serenades, and other forms of light entertainment.

The central traits of the classical style can all be identified in Mozart's music. Clarity, balance, and transparency are hallmarks, though a simplistic notion of the delicacy of his music obscures for us the exceptional and even demonic power of some of his finest masterpieces, such as the Piano Concerto in C minor, K. 491, the Symphony in G minor, K. 550, and the opera Don Giovanni. The famed writer on music Charles Rosen has written (in The Classical Style): "It is only through recognizing the violence and sensuality at the center of Mozart's work that we can make a start towards a comprehension of his structures and an insight into his magnificence. In a paradoxical way, Schumann's superficial characterization of the G minor Symphony can help us to see Mozart's daemon more steadily. In all of Mozart's supreme expressions of suffering and terror, there is something shockingly voluptuous." Especially during his last decade, Mozart explored chromatic harmony to a degree rare at the time. The slow introduction to the "Dissonant" Quartet, K. 465, a work that Haydn greatly admired, rapidly explodes a shallow understanding of Mozart's style as light and pleasant.

From his earliest years Mozart had a gift for imitating the music he heard; since he travelled widely, he acquired a rare collection of experiences from which to create his unique compositional language. When he went to London[7] as a child, he met J.C. Bach and heard his music; when he went to Paris, Mannheim, and Vienna, he heard the work of composers active there, as well as the spectacular Mannheim orchestra; when he went to Italy, he encountered the Italian overture and the opera buffa, both of which were to be hugely influential on his development. Both in London and Italy, the galant style was all the rage: simple, light music, with a mania for cadencing, an emphasis on tonic, dominant, and subdominant to the exclusion of other chords, symmetrical phrases, and clearly articulated structures. This style, out of which the classical style evolved, was a reaction against the complexity of late Baroque music. Some of Mozart's early symphonies are Italian overtures, with three movements running into each other; many are "homotonal" (each movement in the same key, with the slow movement in the tonic minor). Others mimic the works of J.C. Bach, and others show the simple rounded binary forms commonly being written by composers in Vienna.

As Mozart matured, he began to incorporate some features of Baroque styles into his music. For example, the Symphony No. 29 in A Major K. 201 uses a contrapuntal main theme in its first movement, and experimentation with irregular phrase lengths. Some of his quartets from 1773 have fugal finales, probably influenced by Haydn, who had just published his opus 20 set. The influence of the Sturm und Drang ("Storm and Stress") period in German literature, with its brief foreshadowing of the Romantic era to come, is evident in some of the music of both composers at that time.

Over the course of his working life Mozart switched his focus from instrumental music to operas, and back again. He wrote operas in each of the styles current in Europe: opera buffa, such as The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, or Così fan tutte; opera seria, such as Idomeneo; and Singspiel, of which Die Zauberflöte is probably the most famous example by any composer. In his later operas, he developed the use of subtle changes in instrumentation, orchestration, and tone colour to express or highlight psychological or emotional states and dramatic shifts. Here his advances in opera and instrumental composing interacted. His increasingly sophisticated use of the orchestra in the symphonies and concerti served as a resource in his operatic orchestration, and his developing subtlety in using the orchestra to psychological effect in his operas was reflected in his later non-operatic compositions.

and is still more........

Answer 2

Im still trying to forget! Beethoven was better. Mozart was immature and oh..... insane! Just watch Amadeus, the goon laughed like someone crazed, and made turkey faces at a picture of his dead father. But Mozart is always good for a laugh. Died in 1791, at 35 years old. He got married to Constance Weber against his father's wishes. He lived in Vienna and was friends with Haydn. He died and was buried as a pauper, without a grave. Years later people of Vienna made a grave in his honor, but didn't know where his body was. It's a shame I know. He was a genius, but an odd one.

Answer 3

The Wikipedia entry is probably a good place to start. One note: while the movie "Amadeus" is based on the life of Mozart, there is quite a bit of "dramatic license" in the portrayal of his life and personality. See it---it's a great movie!---but don't use it as a source of biographical material.

Answer 4

My answers
1) From what I hear, he had a good family relationship. As a child he wrote Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and other songs.

2) ???

3)He had many successes such as all the compositions he wrote. He had some failures but I don;t know what they are specifically.

4)Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Eine Kline Nackt Musik.

5) ???

Answer 5

One of my favorite movies of all time is, Amadeus (1984) be sure to watch the remastered DVD. It answers all your questions above.

I read all your answers wow hope you eyes don't fall out. Just watch the movie. A must see for any Mozart fan!

Answer 6

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozart

Answer 7

This website should give you some insight for your answers.

Answer 8

yeah, pretty much all that

Answer 9

Johannes Chrysostomus Wolgangus Theophilus Mozart was born in a house on Getreidegasse in Salzburg at eight o’clock on the evening of January 27, 1756. He was the youngest child of Leopold Mozart and Anna Maria Pertl. No doubt, Anna Maria’s practical food humor provided a healthy counterpoint to her husband’s drive and ambition. There is no question that they were completely devoted to each other. Leopold was a violinist and composer in the service of the Archbishop of Salzburg, Sigmund con Schrattenbach, and had originally some from the Bavarian city of Augsburg. He entered the archbishop’s service in 1743 and married Anna Maria in 1747. Of the seven children of their marriage, only two survived infancy. The first was a girl named Anna Maria Walburga Ignatia, whose pet name was Nannerl, born on July 30, 1751. The second was a boy named Wolfgang on January 27, 1756.
Not much was known of Wolfgang’s very early life. Both Wolfgang and Nannerl received music lessons from their father as early as possible, and he noted their progress in the manuscript notebook. When Nannerl reached the age of seven, Leopold began to instruct her on the clavier, and soon Leopold began to discover to his keen satisfaction that she had a gift for music. He continued the girl’s studies, challenging her with a series of exercises that he wrote out for her in a notebook that he entitled “Pour le clavecin, ce Livre appartient a Mademoiselle Maria-Anne Mozartin 1729.
The boy’s curiosity was piqued as well. As Nannerl later recalled, the three year old Wolfgang “often spend time at the clavier, picking out thirds, which he was always striking, and his pleasure showed that it sounded good.” Recognizing his children’s special abilities, Leopold began to devote extra effort to their educations – with emphasis on musical instruction. Leopold was a good father and a good teacher, but he kept a very tight rein on his children. He believed that music should be at the service of the Church and the aristocracy. This servitude also had its practical aspect—his livelihood depended on it. The children themselves probably never realized that life could be any different. Wolfgang, no doubt, enjoyed the extra attention and found great pleasure in learning—and in pleasing his father. It was a start of a relationship that he would never quite break free of, and the beginning of a career that would consume him altogether.
It took all of thirty minutes fro Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to learn his first musical composition. Leopold had copied the work, a scherzo by Georg Christoph Wagenseil, into Nannerl’s notebook. Wolfgang’s achievement was followed in rapid succession: a minuet and trio “learned within half an hour” on January 26, a march learned on February 4, another scherzo on February 6. It was not long before that the little boy started a composition of his own into the notebook. At six measures, this Andante in C major (K.1a) was a mere wisp of a work. Other small compositions would follow. Insignificant as they were, these bits and pieces of works were tokens of greater things to come.
No doubt, the boy held great promise as a composer. But Leopold, who could clearly see and hear his children’s daily progress as keyboard performers, had more immediate aims. He began to neglect his court career and devote more plans to take shape in his mind. Partly out of parental pride, partly out of a sense of duty, he was determined to take hid two musical prodigies on tour to the courts Europe.
The first trip was a short one. In January 1762, Leopold and the two prodigies traveled to nearby Munich court of Maximillian III Joseph, Elector of Bavaria. Very little is known about this trip. Nannerl, as the older one, simply noted that she and her brother had “played before the Elector”. Three weeks after the trip, they returned to Salzburg. Leopold together with his to prodigies made a second trip. The trip, by boat along the Danube to Vienna, began on September 18, 1762. The Mozarts disembarked at various places on the way, including Passau, Linz, Mauthausen, and Stein in the hope of giving concerts for the local nobility. Wolfgang, the youngest and most gifted, continually stole the show, although Nannerl also played the harpsichord extremely well.
Wolfgang made his first public concert. Among the audience were a certain Count Heberstein and the young Count Karl Heironymous Palffy, a councilor in the imperial Ministry of France. Both were astonished and hurried on to Vienna to spread the sensational reports of what they had seen. Within days, Palffy was describing the children’s performance of Archduke Joseph, son of Empress Maria Theresa na dlater Emperor Joseph II. As a token of her gratitude, Empress Maria Theresa presented Wolfgang and Nannerl with a court dress belonging to her own children. The Viennese aristocracy invited the young Mozarts everywhere—but Wolfgang caught a scarlet fever and the string performances ended. On December 31, 1762, after Wolfgang recovered, they set out on the return journey to Salzburg. At home, an unpleasant surprise was awaiting Leopold. The archbishop had not appointed him Kappelmeister (director of the court orchestra), as he had expected, but vice-Kappelmeister, a position he would retain until his death.
Back in Salzburg, six-year old Wolfgang now concentrated on the violin, an instrument which, like the harpsichord, he turned his hand extremely well. In his position as vice-Kappelmeister, his father did not have a great deal to do and received permission from the archbishop to take his children traveling again. Their tour through Europe lasted three years and this time mother Anna Maria went, too. In June 1763, the whole family left for Munich. During a stop in Wasserburg, Wolfgang demonstrated a new aspect of his talent. He was actually too small to play the organ sitting because his feet could not reach the pedals. His solution was to operate the pedals by standing on them – he was just tall enough to reach the manuals with the hands.
The success of the Munich trip also showed clearly the difference between the two child prodigies. Nannerl was indeed a virtuoso on the harpsichord but she could not compose, while Wolfgang was astounding listeners with his first compositions. We know from Leopold’s letters that Nannerl was sometimes jealous of this, so that now and again Leopold had to put on performances in which she featured more prominently.
The Mozarts left for Munch for Augsburg, Leopold’s birthplace, so he could proudly display his child prodigies to his former citizens. Here they also met the famous piano builder, Johann Andreas Stein, from whom they purchased a “pianoforte” which from then on became part of their permanent baggage. In Mozart’s time, the pianoforte (also known in its first form as the “Hammerklavier”) slowly began to replace the harpsichord because on the pianoforte the intensity of the sound could be varied (in Italian “piano” means soft and “forte” means loud). By the end of the 18th century, the pianoforte had evolved into the modern grand piano.
After giving concerts in various German cities, the Mozart family arrived in Frankfurt am Main on August 12, 1793, more than two months after they had left Salzburg. Leopold made the following announcement in the local press: “…During the concert, the girl of twelve and the boy of seven will perform. Both will play the harpsichord or the pianoforte… and the boy will also perform a violin concerto… The keys of the pianoforte will be covered with a cloth and the boy will still play perfectly, as if he could see them… moreover, from a distance, he will recognize all notes produced individually or as chords by the pianoforte or any other conceivable instrument, including church bells, goblets, and so on. Finally, he will improvise, for as long as you wish to listen to him, even the most difficult, and not only on the pianoforte but also on the organ… The price is I Thaler per person. Tickets are available on sale at the Golden Lion Inn”. It is little wonder that almost 60 years later the German writer, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who attended this concert as a 14-year-old, could still remember the image of “the little dandy with his wig and his sword”.
On April 10, 1764, the Mozarts left Paris for London, where they stayed for almost one and a half years. This was one of the most difficult periods of the tour. At first they were received by King George III and his wife and received 25 guineas for each concert. In those days there was a flourishing concert life in London, led by Johann Sebastian Bach and Karl Friedrich Abel. The season, however, had already progressed too far and not enough members of the public came to the two concerts the Mozarts organized. To make matters worst Leopold fell ill and had to go to Chelsea to recover.
In July 1765, Leopold decided to leave London. After a brief stay in Canterbury, the Mozart family embarked at Dover for Calias and traveled to The Hague by way of Lille, Ghent, and Rotterdam. The child prodigies were supposed to be received there by Prince of Orange but, sadly, first Nannerl became seriously ill and then, at the beginning of November, the same thing happened to Wolfgang; he remained in a kind of coma for eight days. By the end of November 1766, the Mozarts were back home again in Salzburg. Leopold ha d remained away much longer than his leave allowed, but the archbishop did not make too much fuss: after all, the Mozarts had helped spread the fame and glory of the Salzburg court. Leopold got his job back as vice-Kappelmeister. Moreover, during their trip, he had managed to save quite a bit of money.
Wolfgang had made so much progress during the tour that he was now, only 11 years old, appointed court concertmaster and received several commission for compositions. In two months, he composed the musical comedy Apollo and Hyacinthus, which was performed on May 13, 1767. In the year of the Mozarts’ stay in Salzburg, Wolfgang learned Latin and read a great deal. Leopold now considered that a journey to Italy would be of great importance to Wolfgang’s further education. Father and son departed on December 10th or 11th, while mother and daughter remained in Salzburg. Nannerl rarely left the city of her birth again and became a well-known and much-esteemed music teacher.
Leopold and Wolfgang traveled through Tirol towards the Brenner Pass. They gave concerts in Innsbruck, Bolzano, Trento, and Revereto. After this, they stayed for 15 days in Verona, where reports of highly successful concerts appeared in the paper. Wolfgang corresponded with his sister and his mother from the start of the Italian journey, and his letter were lively and witty. From Milan, he wrote: “Talking about little pigs, here you have one: I am well, thanks and praise the Lord, and I wait impatiently for a reply. I kiss Mamma’s hand and I pinch my sister so hard that she’ll get a blister as if she had the chicken pox…” From Rome, Wolfgang continued to write his amusing letter home: “I am, thank God, in good health, me and my poor pen... I kiss my mother’s hand, and also the nose, the neck, the mouth, and the face of my sister and, oh what a naughty pen I have!, also her bottom, as long as it is clean…”
On October 24, 1772, Leopold and Wolfgang left for the third and last time for Italy. In Milan, Wolfgang, in collaboration with the singers, had to write arias for the new opera Lucio Silla. The opera was due to be premiered in January 1773. Wolfgang wrote to his sister about it, saying that he hoped her thoughts would be with him during the rehearsals. He closed his letter with the usual jokes: “…have you heard what happened here? I’ll tell you. Today we left Count Firmian’s palace to go home and when we got to our street we opened the door of our house, and what do you think happened? We went inside! Goodbye, my lung; I kiss you my liver; and remain always, my stomach, your worthless brother Wolfgang. I implore you, I beseech you, my sister, tickle me, scratch me.” Unfortunately, the performances of the Lucio Silla were much less successful that those of Ascanio in Alba had been the previous year. This last Italian trip marked the end of an important phase of Wolfgang’s life. He was no longer a child prodigy, but an adolescent, and he was also at the threshold of an adulthood as a composer.
On September 23, 1777, Wolfgang and his mother left for Mannheim. Wolfgang fell in love with a lovely girl, Aloysia Weber, who had a wonderful voice. She was the first great love and he was never able to forget about her. To Leopold’s fury, he therefore remained in Mannheim instead of going to Paris. He wanted to go to Italy with Aloysia, but Leopold forbade him. He reconciled himself to the situation and on March 14, he departed for Paris with his mother, discouraged because he had to leave Aloysia behind. But in Paris, things did not turn out as he would have liked, and his mother noticed that too. The aristocracy behaved arrogantly, refused him admittance or talked during his concerts. After the business failure came, the tragedy of Anna Maria Mozart-Pertl’s death—probably from a form of typhus. She first became ill in the middle of June 3, 1778, but she refused to allow French doctors to examine her. At 10 o’clock on the evening of July 3, 1778, she breathed her last. A few hours later, Wolfgang wrote a letter to Leopold in which he only warned him that Anna Maria was seriously ill. The true bad news was sent to a family friend in Salzburg, Abbot Bullinger, who had to tell Leopold. Finally, on July 9, he himself wrote to his father to tell him what had happened.
Wolfgang found himself in a remarkable situation. Despite his grief at his mother’s death, he also felt a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. His thoughts were increasingly with Aloysia and the Weber family, with whom he had continued to correspond. Leopold wanted him to find a position in Paris, but Fredrich Melchoir Grimm, secretary to the Duke of Orleans and an old friend of the family, was less positive. For various reasons, Grimm wanted to get rid of the Mozarts. He could not withstand the pressure of Grimm and his father so he decided to back to Salzburg. Wolfgang had planned to return to Salzburg, but Archbishop Collerdo summoned him to Vienna, where he arrived on March 16, 1781. He was received with extreme coolness and at the musical life of Vienna, unless something was organized by the Salzburg court. Wolfgang was furious and sought the support of his old friend, Dr. Mesmer. The first conflict Colloredo soon arose when a charitable society for widows and orphans asked Wolfgang to collaborate a concert. Colloredo would not refuse this request, but when the concert turned out to be success, he ordered Wolfgang to leave within a few days. Now Wolfgang put to action a plan, which he must have thought out beforehand. He knew that in Vienna, he could easily earn the paltry annual salary, which he received in Salzburg by giving private lessons and concerts. He defied the archbishop, left the place, and moved in with Cecilie Weber, Aloysia’s mother, who rented rooms. Aloysia was married to the actor, Joseph Lange. Her singing career made her rich, and she supported her mother financially. Mozart resigned and he was literally kicked out of the palace. The “beloved Constanze Weber was the sister Aloysia Weber, who had rejected Wolfgang. Constanze was therefore something of a second choice, but love certainly played a role in their relationship. Despite the objections of Leopold and Nannerl, the couple was married on August 4, 1782, in St. Stephan’s Cathedral in Vienna. Constanze was certainly not the perfect housewife. She spent most of her money freely and loved to flirt. Nor did she fully understand that she was married to a genius. She did not restrain Wolfgang, however, and shared a difficult life with him without too much quarrelling, although she often adopted an independent attitude.
Mozart had competitors in Vienna – naturally. (By now, when the name “Mozart” was mentioned, everyone thought Wolfgang Amadeus and no longer Leopold.) One of them was the greatest pianist of his time, Muzio Clementi, with whom he was friends. There was little love lost, however, between Mozart and Salieri. Antonio Salieri was court composer and extremely proud of his success in France. Mozart, however, was convinced of his own superiority in the dramaturgical field, though he was jealous of Salieri’s facility in musical affairs and in his association with the aristocracy. Despite this rivalry, however, there is no reason to attach any truth to the story that Salieri poisoned Mozart out of jealousy.
On June 17, 1783, Constanze and Wolfgang’s first child was born. He was named Raimund, although Mozart had promised his father to name him Leopold. A friend, the Baronness Wetzlar, chose the name and Wolfgang did not dare to oppose her. In his own inimitable way he found a compromise by writing to his father that the boy was actually called Raimund Leopold, and therefore actually Leopold. In an attempt to effect a reconciliation with his father, Wolfgang and Constanze traveled to Salzburg so that Leopold and Nannerl would meet Constanze for the first time. The visit was not a success. Constanze did not find favor with either Leopold or Nannerl. (After Wolfgang’s deathe, sister and sister-in-law both lived in Salzburg, but they never spoke on each other). On August 19, 1783, new reached Salzburg that little Raimund had died. This was nothing unusual at a time when infant mortality was extremely high, but it was a blow to the Mozarts. On September 21, 1784, the Mozarts’ second child, Karl Thomas, was born. (He later became a government civil servant, and lived until 1858.)
The health of Mozart’s own father, Leopold, deteriorated steadily over a period of a few months and he died on May 28, 1787. His legacy was divided between his two children, who afterwards lost touch with each other almost completely. Mozart himself only had four and a half more years to live. In a letter, he sent to his father on April 4, 1787, he remarked: “I never go to bed at night without thinking that perhaps tomorrow I will never be no more.” In October 1786, the Mozarts’ third child, Johann Thomas Leopold, was born, but he died a month later from “suffocating convulsions”. On December 27th, the Mozarts fourth child was born, a daughter they named Theresia. She died in June the following year, also from “intestinal convulsions”.
On June 4, 1789, Wolfgang was back in Vienna. Circumstances were bad. Constanze was very ill and he had ran out of money. Constanze went to the health spa at Baden to recover. When she returned, she gave birth to their fifth child, Anna Maria, who died an hour later. In July of 1791, Constanze had returned from Baden and on July 26th she gave birth to their sixth child, Franz Xavier Wolfgang. In his turn he became a musician and composer, shamelessly advertising himself as the “son of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart”, and sometimes singing his compositions with his father’s name. He died in Karlsbad in 1844.
Wolfgang health had greatly deteriorated and from November 20, 1791 on he was bedridden. At the night of December 5,1791, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart died. He was 35 years old. The burial was simple. No cross was placed on his grave so that later his resting place could no longer be determined. Constanze kept secret the fact that Mozarts pupil, Franz Xavier Sussmayer, completed the Requiem, so that she would be able to collect the honorarium from Count Walsweg. She asked the Emperor for a small pension, which she received. She let her rooms in her house and in so doing me a Danish diplomat, Georg Nikolaus von Nisses, whom she married and went to live with in Copenhagen.
In 1820, von Nissen’s greatest wish was fulfilled; he was able to settle in Salzburg with Constanze and write Mozart’s biography. This was published posthumously in Leipzig in 1828. Mozart’s sister, Nannerl, ill, blind, and bitter continued to live in Salzburg until she died in 1829. Constanze took in her sisters, Aloysia and Sophie. She died in 1842 and was buried beside father Leopold.