Mozart Background+

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

• b. 1756 (Salzburg) –  d. 1791 (Vienna)

• His early genius made him a candidate for patronage, but he never really secured a prestigious or well payed position

• Travelled broadly as a youth and learned all the stules of different areas (Italy, France, London, German-speaking areas, etc)

• Learned to “read” and please his audience…often imaginal level of listening manipulation

• For most of his mature life (1780-91), he worked as a “free-lance”

  • Taking commissions for compositions

  • Performing 

  • Teaching pupils

  • Writing compositions to “sell” dedications

  • Arranging “benefit” concerts, where the proceeds would “benefit” him. (this was common practice”

• Financially insecure for much of the time. (sometimes he did very well monetarily)
  

Background – Music and context in Salzburg

• Salzburg – its political and musical reality in the time of Mozart

• Salzburg was a separate, independent, CATHOLIC state between Austria and Bavaria

• ruled by a Prince Archbishop, who was elected by a college of prelates upon the death of the incumbent 

Two rulers during Mozart’s day

• Sigismund Christoph, Count of Schrattenbach (ruled 1753-71) – 

  • loved music and encouraged it at his court, particularly instrumental music. 

  • Paid for musicians (Mozart family) to travel to Italy and learn latest styles. 

  • Seen as a sympathetic patron to the Mozart family since Leopold (father) rose rapidly in his service 

  • he allowed some of the Mozart family’s longest absences from court.     

• Hieronymus, Count of Colloredo (1771-1803) last Prince Archbishop of Salzburg 

  • Did not pay much attention to the musical establishment at court 

  • This was cause of dissaopointment to Mozart and his father

Music at Salzburg

• One genre NOT practiced in Salzburg - OPERA 

  • Opera was put on only in major centres 

  • Mozart viewed OPERA as a main means to advance career

  • thus Mozart always looking for opera commissions 

  • early career, even as a boy travels extensively across Europe looking for a position at court and commissions for various works, especially operas. 

Mozart The Early Years

• Taught by his father

• First compositions at the age of 5

“He often spent much time at the clavier, picking out thirds, which he was ever striking, and his pleasure showed that it sounded good.... At the age of five, he was already composing little pieces, which he played to his father who wrote them down.” — Marianna (Nannerl) Mozart

• First symphony age 8

• First opera age 11

Leopold Mozart - Background

• Leopold Mozart – Mozart’s father 

• When genius of his son becomes apparent he sacrifices his own career (even gives up composition when his son’s talents become manifest), taking many leaves of absence from Salzburg, to tour Europe while educating his son and trying to advance his son’s opportunities to obtain a high ranking position in a court of note. 

• failure to obtain a position for Wolfgang that he felt the young man deserved – WA Mozart only held nominal position in the musical establishment at Salzburg)

• bitter disappointment, aggravated by his view of Salzburg.

• Leopold’s attitudes:

• considered himself more cultured and learned (even referred to himself as Doctor although he had been expelled from the University) 

• feeling that he and his son were too good for Salzburg; most of the court knew this attitude.

• resented Salzburg as an ignorant backwater and looked down upon fellow musicians at the court, gossiped and even joked about his colleagues

• In private letters between father and son often gossip about colleagues and aim insults at the Archbishop Colloredo - the Arch booby, the Arch Ass–usually written in a special code devised by Leopold, since the letters could be opened and read by the court censors.

• Leopold was most resentful under Archbishop Colloredo and unfortunately attitude communicated to Wolfgang

  • Ultimately this rubbed off on the young Mozart, ultimately getting him released from his nominal position at the Salzburg court in 1781.

Leopold highly controlling 

• in his son’s early career and development 

• even into his son’s early manhood, 

• also financially - when son gets a position at the Salzburg court all of Mozart’s salary paid directly to the father (even when he is in his 20’s) 

• outside commissions also go directly to the father  

• Munich Idomeneo, Wofgang doesn’t see a cent of his fee, 1/3 of fee spent by Leopold on a dress for Nannerl for the opera’s premiere. 

Mozart grand tour 1763-66: His education “on location” in important music centres

First leg of the grand tour

• The pattern established on first leg of the grand tour would be repeated in major centers all over Europe. First, Wolfgang and Nannerl would perform at the most influential local court. Then private concerts would follow as the lesser nobility competed to entertain one another with an appearance by the "miracle children" of Salzburg. Payment came in the form of hard currency or gifts. When private concerts didn't pay the bills, the children would be put on public display. Public or private, the programs could last anywhere from one and a half to three hours. Two programs per day were the rule. 

In Paris and London

• Paris: The royal couple invited the Mozarts to court dinner on New Year's Day, and then insisted that the family stand behind them during the meal. "My Wolfgang was graciously privileged to stand beside the Queen the whole time, to talk constantly to her, entertain her and kiss her hands repeatedly, besides partaking of the dishes which she handed him from the table," 

• London:Within days they were received by King George III and Queen Charlotte. The affable young king (George III was 27 at the time, his bride 21) must have taken a shine to Wolfgang. A week later he happened upon them as they walked in St. James Park. As he passed by in his carriage, the king "opened the window, leaned out and saluted us and especially our Master Wolfgang, nodding to us and waving his hand." Less than a month later they were invited to perform again at Buckingham Palace. 

1764 in Paris

• First publications 

• two harpsichord sonatas with violin accompaniment (K. 6 and 7). They were dedicated to Louis XV's second daughter, Louise-Marie-Thérèse de Bourbon. In April two more sonatas (K. 8 and 9) were published with a dedication to Madame la Comtesse de Tessé, lady-in-waiting to the wife of the Dauphin.

By end of London trip

• the children had grown. Nannerl, at 13, was becoming a young woman. Wolfgang, at 9, was no longer the amazing natural wonder that he had been at 6 or 7. Leopold, in fact, had routinely begun subtracting a year from his son's age in the promotional items he published in the Public Advertiser -- Wolfgang's small size let him get away with this. He also began to devote more attention to his son's musical development. There was more than a hint of father's pride in Leopold's letters when he wrote home: "What he knew when we left Salzburg is a mere shadow compared with what he knows now. It exceeds all that one can imagine.

Between his foreign travels: 1773-77

• Employed as a court musician at Salzburg

• Becomes increasingly dissatisfied with the environment at Salzburg

• Composes in a number of genres (concerto, symphony string quartet, sonata, masses, serenades, opera)

• From his early travels, Mozart assimilated the stylistic archetypes of each of the locations he visited.  He understood them and their context from having experienced them “in situ”, and not only as transplanted sytlization. He experienced Mannheim Symphonies, Italian symphonies, Concertos of JC Bach (galant style), Sturm und Drang style, etc.  Each of these he could adopt seamlessly into his own compositions, using them as part of a layered subtext in his composition and fully realizing the idea of Kenner und Liebhaber.

Early Life

• Late 1767-late 1768 Mozart and his father were in Vienna (Leopold still trying to promote the son)

• after one year in Salzburg, Leopold and Wolfgang set off for Italy. This tour lasted from December 1769 to March 1771. As with earlier journeys, Leopold wanted to display his son's abilities as a performer and a rapidly maturing composer.

  • Met important composers an musicians in Italy

  • Composed his first opera (“Mitradate, re di Ponto” - 1770).  Led to other commissions

Paris, Munich, and Vienna (1778-1791)

Travelling again - Paris 1778

• Paris 1778

• To make ends meet, Mozart engages in several activities typical for a musician

  • Composes for performances on concert series

  • Teaches both piano and composition

  • Composes works for his students and for sale 

    • Selling the dedication 

    • Publication and sale of music

Paris 1778

• Concert life in Paris

  • Le Concert Spirituel

  • Mozart writes his “Paris” Symphony)

• Le Concert de la Loge Olympique (first violinist and leader was le Chevalier de Boulogne who commissions Haydn Paris Symphonies in the early 1780’s)

  • Mozart writes a Symphonie Concertante for Flute and Harp for this series

1780’s

• Has a final falling out with his employer Archbishop Colloredo of Salzburg and is “released”

• In 1782 and 1783, Mozart studies scores of Bach and Handel (Baroque masters) 

  • inspired compositions in Baroque style and later influenced his musical language (e.g incorporation of counterpoint and even fugue in some sections of works)

• Early on, he focused on his career as a piano soloist and writer of concertos

• From 1782 to 1785 Mozart mounted concerts with himself as a soloist, presenting three or four new piano concertos in each season. The concerts were very popular

• With substantial returns from his concerts and elsewhere, Mozart and his wife adopted a rather luxurious lifestyle. They moved to an expensive apartment, had servants…

• Around the end of 1785, Mozart moved began his famous operatic collaboration with the librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte. In 1786 there was a successful premiere of his opera “The Marriage of Figaro” in Vienna. And an even greater success when it was performed in Prague one year later 

• second collaboration with Da Ponte: the opera “Don Giovanni” which premiered in October 1787 to acclaim in Prague, but less success in Vienna in 1788.

Late 1789-91

• Toward the end of the decade, Mozart's circumstances worsened. Around 1786 he had ceased to appear frequently in public concerts, and his income shrank. This was a difficult time for musicians in Vienna because of the Austrio-Turkish war; both the general level of prosperity and the ability of the aristocracy to support music declined.

• Mozart began to borrow money

• Circumstances improved for him in 1791, with more compositions and financial support, but became sick in the fall and died December 5, 1791

• His public popularity rose substantially immediately after his death.