Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus

MOZART, WOLFGANG AMADEUS. - Musician, b. in Salzburg on 27 Jan. 1756, d. in Vienna on 5 Dec. 1791. Of absolutely exceptional precocity, he was started in music by his father and very early presented to the admiration of the cultured and aristocratic society of the principal European artistic centers; as early as 1762 the first journey to Munich and to Vienna took place, in which the child played in concert with his sister Anna Maria. Then from 1763 to 1766 numerous journeys followed to Paris, London and the principal cities of Germany and the Netherlands; from 1769 to 1773 three journeys to Italy; in Rome he was received by the Pope, who conferred on him the title of knight of the Golden Spur. From 1773 to 1777 he remained in Salzburg, whence he went, in search of better fortune, to Munich, Augsburg, Mannheim and finally to Paris; recalled by his father, he reluctantly entered the service of the archbishop of Salzburg, but in the summer of 1781 he renounced the office and settled in Vienna. Having begun his activity as a free artist, the first years of the Viennese period brought on the whole the best recognitions of the master's genius, but especially after the great success of Le nozze di Figaro the bitterness caused by envious men and rivals began, led by Salieri. In 1787 he returned to Prague for the first performance of Don Giovanni, which had a triumphal outcome; in Nov. of the same year he succeeded Gluck as "chamber musician" to the Emperor. Having returned to Vienna from Prague, where La clemenza di Tito had been performed, he wrote Die Zauberflöte and attended to the composition of the Requiem, interrupted by death.

Prodigious in number and value was his artistic creation in every musical genre (cf. Ludwig von Köchel, Chronologisch-thematisches Verzeichnis sämtlicher Tonwerke W. A. M.'s, 1st ed. of 1862, revised and supplemented under the editorship of A. Einstein, Leipzig 1937). Orchestral music: 41 symphonies, cassations, divertimentos, serenades, marches and various dances; 25 concertos for piano and orchestra, one concerto for two and another for three pianos, 6 concertos for violin and piano, concertos for various instruments. Chamber music: 7 string quintets, one with horn and one with clarinet, 26 string quartets, a quintet and other quartets for various instruments, 8 trios, 42 sonatas for violin; divertimentos, cassations, serenades for various instruments; 17 sonatas, 4 fantasias, numerous variations for piano. Secular vocal music: arias, Lieder, songs, choruses. Theatrical music: La finta semplice (1768), Bastien et Bastienne (1768), Mitridate (1770), Ascanio in Alba (1771), Il sogno di Scipione (1772), Lucio Silla (1773), Il re pastore (1775), La finta giardiniera (1775), Zaide (1779-80), Idomeneo (1781), Die Entführung aus dem Serail (1782), Le nozze di Figaro (1786), Der Schauspieldirektor (1786), Don Giovanni (1787), Così fan tutte (1790), La clemenza di Tito (1791), Die Zauberflöte (1791).

Very important is the religious music, for the most part composed in the Salzburg period; besides 12 church sonatas for organ and instruments, offertories, motets, vespers and litanies, M. has left the mark of his genius by A. Kolk, M., Paris and s., pp. 61-63
MOZART, WOLFGANG AMADEUS - Portrait of M. 211 years old. Painting by Holbling - Salzburg, Mozart-Museum.

The religious music of M., like that of Haydn, was later better understood and interpreted. Although in part, especially in the youthful period, it is influenced by Austrian religious music (above all by Michael Haydn), to which later the Italian influence was added, as it had come to be fixed in the compositions of the Neapolitan school, Mozart's expression gradually surpasses the predominantly fragmentary conception of the individual pieces in order to reach a more intimate cohesion of the parts. To this contributes not only the deepening of the religious text, relived by M. with the sincere faith of a Catholic, but also the new stylistic orientation, by which one must recognize in the more complex works an aspect of personal originality. Particularly worthy of mention are the Litanies, the three Masses in C major of 1776 and other works of the Salzburg period: on the whole, the great Mass in C minor (R. 427), left incomplete in the Credo and lacking the Agnus Dei, stands out greatly, and above all the Ave verum, in which the celestial beauty conceals the perfection of the technique, and the Requiem, which in the parts written by the master (Requiem and Kyrie completed, seven parts of the Dies irae outlined in the vocal parts and in the bass, sketched in the orchestration) counts some of the moments of high Mozartian inspiration.

Luigi Ronga