He was a virtuoso pianist whose performing career lasted about 30 years, but he lived only 35 and had already become the most famous European composer by age 20, recognized across the musical genres of his time. How much more “eternal music” might this unique talent have left if he had spent his short life composing instead of chasing patrons?
“A Miracle from God”
Of seven children in the family, only two survived. The birth of the son on January 27, 1756 nearly cost his mother her life, and the newborn was so weak that he was hastily baptized on the second day. His father gave him names that mean “God’s miracle” or “beloved of God”—Theophilus and Amadeus in the Greek and Latin forms (one in honor of his grandfather, the other given at baptism).
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) was the son of a violinist and composer in the Salzburg archbishop’s court, and he was indeed “kissed by God.” The left-handed prodigy learned to read and write musical notation before he could read letters. From childhood Mozart had such a delicate ear that trumpet sounds caused him physical pain. By age three he had mastered the clavier and harpsichord; at four he played the violin part in the family string trio flawlessly after teaching himself by watching his older sister practice. At five he performed on keyboard and string instruments with professional skill, and by six he was appearing across Europe with his sister before nobility and royal courts.
Father teaching young Wolfgang to play the piano. Artist Ebenezer Crawford (19th century)
Remarkable talent robbed him of a childhood: his early years were an exhausting schedule of concerts, long performances, and meetings with potential patrons and commissioners. During a long tour the young Mozart contracted scarlet fever and then smallpox, which left unsightly scars on his pale face, and later, like his sister, he suffered from typhoid fever. Doctors later said excessive strain on his small, slender body may have turned acute infections chronic and hastened his early death.
Music Without Borders
To accompany his son and daughter on tours, their father, Leopold Mozart, obtained a three-year leave from the archbishop. But the travels through royal and princely courts stretched on for decades. The archbishop eventually grew tired of the disruption and dismissed Leopold with the words: “Let him go, I no longer need him.”
On those many-month tours they visited Vienna (where, decades later, Ludwig van Beethoven would also be prominent; Mozart said of Beethoven in 1787: “Everyone will be talking about this young man!”), Munich, Linz, Pressburg (Bratislava), Paris, London, The Hague, Lyon, Geneva, and Brno. Leopold’s strategy was to introduce influential people to the young virtuoso so he could be promoted later as a composer. The prodigy amazed audiences with unprecedented performance tricks: playing music backward from memory, performing flawlessly on cloth-covered keys while blindfolded, playing with his back to the instrument, and even playing while lying on a bench.
Visiting the Sistine Chapel at age 13, Mozart copied Gregorio Allegri’s Miserere from memory after hearing it—a piece closely guarded by the Vatican. With a phenomenal ear, memory, and gift for improvisation, he was a “world star” from childhood; at 14 he became the youngest member of the Bologna Philharmonic Academy and was made a knight of the Order of the Golden Spur.
He wrote half of his symphonies between the ages of 8 and 19. He never attended school; his father taught him the sciences he needed. Besides reading music, the self-taught Mozart knew many languages, including German, English, Italian, Spanish, French, Polish, Bohemian (Czech), Dutch, Russian, Turkish, as well as Ancient Greek, Latin, and Biblical Hebrew. This made it easier for him to work outside his homeland: Mozart spent half his life (14 of his 35 years) outside Austria.
The Mozart Family. On the wall — a portrait of the mother. Artist Johann Nepomuk de la Croce, 1780.
The Horse, Bowling, Minuet
Unlike his pianist sister, who stopped performing when she married, Wolfgang Amadeus continued to play and conduct. At the height of his fame he had no shortage of students or fees: income from publishing and concert subscriptions allowed him to rent expensive homes and keep servants (his household included a maid, a cook, and a barber). Mozart bought a prized piano, a billiard table, and his own carriage. His favorite pets included a horse, a dog, a starling, and a canary. He enjoyed horseback rides in the park, bowling, was a good minuet dancer, and sang with confidence. He had hoped to marry an opera singer who once lodged with his family, but she married someone else, and Mozart ultimately married her younger sister.
Mozart married Constanze Weber, the daughter of a theater double-bass player. They had six children in eight years, but four infants died; two of the deceased had been named after Mozart’s parents. Leopold Mozart disapproved of the marriage and never gave his consent. The two surviving sons, Karl Thomas and Franz Xaver, became musicians but never married and did not continue the Mozart line. Wolfgang paid for his elder son’s education in Perchtoldsdorf; after Mozart’s death Constanze raised the younger son alone and did not remarry for 18 years.
Wolfgang and Constanze. 19th-century postcard.
Trying to bring his works to the opera stage, Mozart composed individual arias for colleagues and eventually won an imperial commission for an original opera. Viennese audiences initially failed to appreciate The Marriage of Figaro, but Prague embraced the work. After his triumphant return to Vienna the emperor granted him support and appointed him an imperial musician (the post had opened after his predecessor’s death). For an annual salary of 800 florins Mozart had to supply masquerade and dance music. That would be the last good news in his career.
The theater in Prague where the world premieres of the operas “Don Giovanni” and “La clemenza di Tito” took place.
From Major to Minor
From 1787 his public “academies” declined rapidly, and by the next year, a lack of subscribers made them disappear entirely. His finances began to suffer, partly because Mozart’s second opera on the Viennese stage—Don Giovanni—failed to draw the public he needed. Two moves to cheaper housing, including to the suburbs, signaled growing money troubles. The situation was worsened by the death of a newborn daughter and by his wife’s illness, for which she was prescribed a spa cure. Constanze lived to 80 and, unlike her husband, was later buried next to Mozart’s father—despite the fact that Leopold had never reconciled with her during his lifetime.
Mozart wrote bitter letters pleading for help to a wealthy friend and brother in the Masonic lodge, and in just six summer weeks in 1788 he composed his three greatest late symphonies: Nos. 39, 40, and 41. But they brought no money because timely concert performances could not be organized. From the end of that year the composer arranged other composers’ works for private performances at the request of his patron Baron van Swieten. He was buried in a common grave without a name in a third-class cemetery, which made it impossible to locate Mozart’s remains even seven years after his burial.
After Emperor Joseph II died in 1790, Mozart offered his services to the new monarch, Leopold II, for the post of second Kapellmeister (deputy to Antonio Salieri), stressing his experience with sacred music. He received no reply. He later asked to be appointed unpaid assistant to the seriously ill Kapellmeister of St. Stephen’s Cathedral, hoping to succeed him someday, but the kapellmeister outlived Mozart.
“The Last Hours of Mozart’s Life,” painting by G. N. O’Neill, 1860s.
By the end of his life, the man who is today considered one of Austria’s greatest composers had only two students left. Mozart was not invited to perform for King Ferdinand nor at the coronation of Leopold II, which he found insulting. In the autumn he toured to Frankfurt am Main and on his way back performed in Mainz, Mannheim, and Munich. Meanwhile his wife moved the household to a new address, where she soon found herself alone with two sons and her husband’s debts. Mozart died on December 5, 1791.
