Mozart - History's Greatest Child Prodigy Documentary

01:10:07
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GKmp_x2Md8

Resumen

TLDRWolfgang Amadeus Mozart, nato nel 1756 a Salisburgo, fu un prodigio musicale che iniziò a comporre e suonare in giovane età sotto la guida di suo padre, Leopold Mozart. Dopo un'infanzia di esibizioni in varie corti europee, si stabilì a Vienna nel 1781, dove realizzò alcune delle sue opere più celebri come 'Le nozze di Figaro', 'Don Giovanni' e 'Il flauto magico'. Sebbene raggiunse grande successo, Mozart affrontò anche difficoltà finanziarie e tragedie personali, inclusa la perdita di molti dei suoi figli. Morì prematuramente nel 1791 a soli 35 anni, lasciando un'eredità musicale che ha influenzato profondamente la musica classica per secoli a venire. Nonostante il riconoscimento postumo come uno dei più grandi compositori di sempre, la sua vita fu segnata da difficoltà e incomprensioni professionali.

Para llevar

  • 🎼 Mozart fu un prodigio musicale fin da giovane.
  • 🎻 Iniziò i suoi tour europei con la famiglia da bambino.
  • 🎹 Scrisse opere famose come 'Le nozze di Figaro'.
  • 🏛 Si stabilì a Vienna dove ebbe il massimo successo.
  • 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 Affrontò molte tragedie personali, perdendo molti figli.
  • 🕯 Morì giovane, a soli 35 anni, lasciando opere incompiute.
  • 🎶 Nonostante le difficoltà, lasciò un'eredità immortale.
  • 💸 Successo e difficoltà finanziarie si alternarono nella sua vita.
  • 🎤 Il suo lavoro ha influenzato generazioni di musicisti.
  • 📜 È considerato uno dei più grandi compositori di sempre.

Cronología

  • 00:00:00 - 00:05:00

    Mozart nasciḍdat in su 27 de su mese de Cabulaniu 1756 in Saulsburgu, Austria. Su babbu, Leopold, fuit musicista e compositore a sa corte de su prince-arcivescovu de Saulsburgu. Mozart mostrada is talentos musicales desde picciottu, imparendi su organu e su viulinu a su 4 annus.

  • 00:05:00 - 00:10:00

    Mozart stat iu pochi, ma si fattu connotu subitu pro is suus talentos. A seis annus, hat datu concertus in Vienna e Munich, impresandu erestes ariscratus.

  • 00:10:00 - 00:15:00

    In su 1770, Mozart e su babbu fanno sa prima bidida a Itàlia, calorada bellu scitá de concertus e opportunidadis. Su prumu opira Mitridate futi su primu triompanti operaticu.

  • 00:15:00 - 00:20:00

    Mozart scritta sa so prima operetta a quindichi annus. In su 1777, pro moris finanziamentalis, teni dejanare sa sua casa, prucerendi concertus.

  • 00:20:00 - 00:25:00

    In su 1781, Mozart trauhenda su residenza a Vienna. Abbène ammentau su so reputazione cum compositore pro sa court, formanda sa ripertorio de so travallos iconicos e significos.

  • 00:25:00 - 00:30:00

    Sa collaborazione cun so companyu de libretto da Ponte produddi un continuu de capolavorus operaticus. Su successi di Le Nozze di Figaro e Don Giovanni bollis con prenaidinza su status de Mozart.

  • 00:30:00 - 00:35:00

    Mozart ricevìda prestigiosas commissionis, ma iso non suffendi pro scidaniare is derettos finanziarios. In singia solucion, spartiddidi is opiras soas come Così fan tutte ambitioni e popolarità.

  • 00:35:00 - 00:40:00

    In su 1791, Mozart trabadda arduamente, composinda opiras irriconoscìas come La Clemenza di Tito e Die Zauberflöte, po morrer prima de completesi is travallos.

  • 00:40:00 - 00:45:00

    Ultimana mensas de sa vida de Mozart, sustidadi de traballu e creativa responsabilidadis, enhance ocorri di suspicions e insinuazionis de avvelenamentos.

  • 00:45:00 - 00:50:00

    Mozart moret nei 5 de Cabulaniu 1791 a 35 annus. Noistà un incaida travallosa, ma restà immutabile legenda in so mundo de su munegheria classicu occidentale. Sa so travalla continuà a seudà inspire Emmaus e incantare gentis.

  • 00:50:00 - 01:10:07

    Su svolgimenti performerusu proloco evolutionalis importancia in saonato de artu e cunveniensia in maria Allegre. Su storia de Mozart è una saga de gran falli e succesu extraordinariu.

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Mapa mental

Mind Map

Preguntas frecuentes

  • Quando e dove è nato Mozart?

    Mozart è nato il 27 gennaio 1756 a Salisburgo, in Austria.

  • Chi erano i genitori di Mozart?

    I genitori di Mozart erano Leopold e Anna Maria Mozart.

  • Come ha iniziato la sua carriera musicale Mozart?

    Mozart ha iniziato la sua carriera musicale come bambino prodigio, viaggiando in Europa con suo padre e sua sorella.

  • Quali sono alcune delle opere più famose di Mozart?

    Alcune delle opere più famose di Mozart includono 'Il matrimonio di Figaro', 'Don Giovanni' e 'Il flauto magico'.

  • Qual è stato il periodo più significativo della carriera di Mozart?

    Il periodo più significativo della carriera di Mozart è stato durante la sua permanenza a Vienna dal 1781 fino alla sua morte nel 1791.

  • Quali sono stati i problemi personali affrontati da Mozart?

    Mozart ha affrontato problemi finanziari e lutti personali, perdendo molti dei suoi figli in giovane età.

  • Come è morto Mozart e a che età?

    Mozart è morto a Vienna il 5 dicembre 1791, a soli 35 anni.

  • Qual è l'eredità di Mozart nella musica classica?

    Mozart è considerato uno dei più grandi compositori della tradizione classica occidentale, noto per la sua capacità di combinare melodia e struttura.

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Subtítulos
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  • 00:00:05
    The man known to history as Wolfgang Amadeus  Mozart was born on the 27th of January 1756 in
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    the city of Salzburg in Austria. His full birth  name was Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgang Theophilus
  • 00:00:25
    Mozart, but from as early as 1770 when he was 14  years old he preferred to go by Wolfgang Amadeus
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    Mozart, Amadeus being derived from the Latin  version of the Greek origin name Theophilus.
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    His father Leopold Mozart was originally  from Augsburg in Bavaria in southern Germany,
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    but moved to Salzburg as a teenager and  became a violinist and composer at the
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    court of the Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg.  His mother Anna Maria Pertl was from a poor
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    rural family and married Leopold Mozart in  November 1747 at the age of twenty-seven.
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    They had seven children together, though only  two survived infancy: daughter Maria Anna,
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    known as Nannerl, born in 1751, and son  Wolfgang, the youngest of the seven.
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    Mozart’s native Prince-Archbishopric of Salzburg  was one of the hundreds of states that formed
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    the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, which  primarily included modern-day Germany and Austria,
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    the latter being part of the personal  domain of the Holy Roman Emperor,
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    who despite officially being elected was typically  a member of the House of Habsburg. The Habsburg
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    lands also extended beyond Austria to Hungary  and Bohemia, now part of the Czech Republic.
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    As Salzburg was both an archbishopric and a  principality, the Catholic Prince-Archbishop
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    exercised spiritual and political power over  his domains. Fortunately for the Mozarts,
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    the incumbent officeholder at the time of  Wolfgang’s birth was Siegmund Schrattenbach,
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    a music lover who sought to transform  his city into a major musical centre.
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    The Mozart family lived in a third-floor  apartment at No. 9 Getreidegasse in the old
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    town on the southern bank of the Salzach River,  near the foot of the hill that leads up to the
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    medieval Hohensalzburg Fortress that dominates  the city’s skyline. The apartment was filled
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    with music as Leopold often invited his friends  to play together while making some money on the
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    side as a violin tutor. In the year of Wolfgang’s  birth, Leopold published a textbook that soon
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    became an influential instruction manual for young  violinists, and in 1763 he would be promoted to
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    deputy kapellmeister, or deputy music director,  at Archbishop Siegmund’s court. In around 1759,
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    upon noticing his seven-year-old daughter’s  interest in music, Leopold began teaching
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    Nannerl to play the clavier, a term used to  describe various keyboard instruments, the most
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    popular at the time being the harpsichord. The  three-year-old Wolfgang looked on intently, and
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    when Leopold wrote a book of keyboard exercises  for Nannerl, the boy started playing from
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    his sister’s book. Leopold soon started paying  attention and noticed that his son was unusually
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    talented for his age and began to teach him  the organ and the violin at the age of four.
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    When Wolfgang was just six years old, two  of Leopold’s friends called on the apartment
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    to play some new string trios, and the boy  begged his father to play the second violin
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    part. After Leopold initially refused, second  violinist Johann Andreas Schachtner invited
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    the boy to follow his lead. Schachtner soon  realised that Wolfgang could do fine on his own
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    reading by sight. Wolfgang was then allowed  to play his father’s part of first violin,
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    and despite having to use an unorthodox  technique due to his small hands,
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    managed to play all six trios without  serious blemishes. On another occasion,
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    the two men came across Wolfgang making a mess  on a piece of paper with an ink pen in hand.
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    Wolfgang informed the adults that he was writing  the first movement of a clavier concerto. After
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    examining the manuscript more closely, the amazed  Leopold remarked on how well it was written,
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    but commented that it was too difficult. The boy  replied, “You must practice very hard to be able
  • 00:05:23
    to play it,” and proceeded to give a demonstration  on the clavier. Mozart’s compositions are
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    usually identified with a ‘K’ number with  reference to a catalogue of his music compiled
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    by Ludwig von Köchel in 1862. These earliest  compositions are known as K. 1a, 1b, and 1c.
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    In January 1762, on the eve of Wolfgang’s sixth  birthday, Leopold took his talented children to
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    visit Munich. There Nannerl and Wolfgang impressed  Elector Maximilian III and were invited to perform
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    in the city’s salons. Following this initial  success, Leopold planned to take his children to
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    Vienna, the capital of the Archduchy of Austria  where Empress Maria Theresa held court. He
  • 00:06:20
    prevailed on Archbishop Siegmund to grant him paid  leave and to cover part of his expenses. With this
  • 00:06:28
    secured, on the 18th of September 1762 the entire  family left Salzburg and arrived in Vienna three
  • 00:06:37
    weeks later. On the way, Wolfgang and Nannerl gave  their first public concert in the city of Linz.
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    The Viennese aristocrats in the audience that  day spread the word to the imperial palace, and
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    on the 13th of October the Mozarts were invited  to the Schönbrunn Palace to the west of the city.
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    Leopold’s account of the occasion has entered  into legend. After impressing the imperial couple
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    with his talent at the clavier, Wolfgang ran to  Maria Theresa, jumped on her lap, and kissed the
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    empress repeatedly. The Mozarts were the talk of  the town, and the Viennese nobility jumped at the
  • 00:07:21
    opportunity to hear the six-year-old prodigy  play. However, when the Mozarts were invited
  • 00:07:28
    to Schönbrunn for a second time, Wolfgang was  seriously ill, possibly with smallpox or scarlet
  • 00:07:36
    fever, and the empress expressed concern that  Leopold was putting too much pressure on his son.
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    Wolfgang soon recovered from his illness, and with  the continent at peace following the end of the
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    Seven Years’ War in February 1763, Leopold decided  to take his family on a Grand Tour of Europe,
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    financed by the Archbishop and others.  In June, the Mozarts left for Munich,
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    where both Wolfgang and Nannerl impressed  the elector once again. After ten days,
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    they went to Leopold’s hometown of Augsburg,  where he bought a small travelling clavier
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    for the children. After unsuccessfully trying  to get hold of Duke Karl Eugen of Wurttemberg
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    in Stuttgart, the family travelled up  the Rhineland. On the 18th of August,
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    the Mozarts gave a concert in Frankfurt that  was so well received that they gave four
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    more. One of Wolfgang’s favourite party  tricks was to play the keyboard blind,
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    with the keys covered under a cloth. Among the  attendees of the final concert of the series was
  • 00:08:50
    the teenage Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who would  become one of the great intellectuals of the age.
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    In late September the Mozarts crossed into  the Austrian Netherlands, modern-day Belgium,
  • 00:09:06
    where Emperor Franz’s younger brother Prince  Charles Alexander of Lorraine was imperial
  • 00:09:12
    governor. After performing in Brussels  in early November they headed for Paris,
  • 00:09:18
    where they performed before King Louis XV  and Queen Marie at the Palace of Versailles.
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    Wolfgang suitably impressed the royal couple as  well as the King’s influential mistress, Madame
  • 00:09:31
    de Pompadour. Before leaving Paris on the 10th  of April 1764, some of Wolfgang’s compositions
  • 00:09:38
    were published for the first time, two pairs  of keyboard and violin sonatas, K. 6-7, and K.
  • 00:09:47
    8-9. Then it was on to London, a city which had  developed a great culture of concert performances
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    during the long residence there from 1712 until  his death in 1759 of George Frideric Handel,
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    one of the greatest European composers of the  first half of the eighteenth century. King George
  • 00:10:10
    III and Queen Charlotte received the Mozarts  warmly on the 27th of April 1764 at Buckingham
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    House. On the 5th of June, the two children gave  a public concert attended by many of Britain’s
  • 00:10:24
    leading aristocrats and statesmen. By now Wolfgang  was writing regularly and it was while in England
  • 00:10:32
    that he composed six sonatas for piano and violin,  one of which he dedicated to Queen Charlotte.
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    In July 1765, after more than fifteen months  in England, the Mozarts left London. Leopold
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    was keen to head back to Salzburg, but the  Dutch ambassador persuaded him to take his
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    family to The Hague so that his countrymen could  have an opportunity to hear the child prodigies
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    they had heard so much about. Days before the  scheduled concert on the 30th of September,
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    Nannerl fell seriously ill, leaving Wolfgang  to perform alone. Just as she was recovering,
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    Wolfgang was bedridden with similar symptoms  and took much longer to recover. It was only on
  • 00:11:23
    the 22nd of January 1766 that the children were  well enough to perform together, where Wolfgang
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    may have premiered his Symphony No. 4 in D major,  composed in London, and Symphony No. 5 in B-flat
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    major, written at The Hague. After journeying  through the Low Countries, they arrived in Paris
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    in May to pick up some of the luggage they had  left behind before the crossing to England. By
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    July they were off to Switzerland, returning to  Salzburg via southern Germany in November 1766.
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    The Mozart children had been abroad for more  than three years, something which had severely
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    interrupted any form of normal schooling beyond  their musical training. To compensate Leopold
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    home-schooled Wolfgang and Nannerl, informing  them as best he could about mathematics,
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    languages, philosophy, history and geography.  Nannerl was fifteen, and of an age where her
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    being wed was already under consideration, while  Wolfgang was just shy of his eleventh birthday,
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    and already a musician of international renown.  While the young Mozart’s keyboard-playing was
  • 00:12:44
    undisputed, rumours spread that Leopold was  exaggerating his son’s skills as a composer by
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    writing pieces himself and passing them off under  Wolfgang’s name. Archbishop Siegmund decided to
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    put the child to the test by giving him the  libretto for a sacred drama and locking him
  • 00:13:05
    in a room for a week. Wolfgang had been  writing choral music at the end of the
  • 00:13:10
    tour and responded to the challenge by  writing eighteen arias and recitatives,
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    forming the first part of Die Schuldigkeit  des ersten Gebots or The Obligation of the
  • 00:13:23
    First Commandment. Later that year, he wrote his  first opera, the three-act Apollo et Hyacinthus.
  • 00:13:32
    This was based on a mythical tale found in  the Metamorphoses of the Roman poet Ovid.
  • 00:13:41
    In the autumn of 1767 the Mozarts headed once  again for Vienna, where Maria Theresa’s daughter,
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    Archduchess Maria Josepha, was set to marry King  Ferdinand IV of Naples. During the preparations
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    at the Viennese court, Maria Josepha died  of smallpox in October and within weeks the
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    disease was spreading throughout the city.  The Mozarts attempted to escape the epidemic
  • 00:14:09
    by leaving the city, but both children caught the  disease nevertheless. Wolfgang’s case was severe.
  • 00:14:17
    An account written by his father indicates that  the young prodigy was so afflicted by pox marks
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    on his skin that even his eyelids were covered  and he was left temporarily blind for nine days
  • 00:14:31
    as he could not open his eyes. It was a lucky  escape though. Mozart made a full recovery,
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    whereas one in four who contracted the illness  at this time died from it and many were left
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    badly scarred when the pox marks receded. By July  1768, the Mozarts were back in Vienna and soon met
  • 00:14:54
    the imperial family. Maria Theresa’s son, Joseph,  who was now co-ruling with his mother as Emperor,
  • 00:15:02
    gave Wolfgang the opportunity to compose and  direct an opera. During the first half of 1769 he
  • 00:15:10
    produced this in three acts. The work was entitled  La finta semplice, “The Fake Innocent.” Feathers
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    were ruffled though when some of the musicians  in Vienna took umbrage at being conducted by
  • 00:15:24
    a child and many continued to believe that  Leopold was actually composing his son’s work.
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    Back in Salzburg, Leopold quickly began  making preparations to take Wolfgang
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    to Italy. For the first time, Leopold  only took Wolfgang with him when they
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    headed off in December 1769. Northern  Italy was part of the Habsburg Empire,
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    and its centre of power was in Milan, governed  by the Emperor’s brother Archduke Ferdinand Karl.
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    After crossing the Alps in winter, the two Mozarts  arrived in Milan on the 23rd of January 1770.
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    Wolfgang was soon patronised by Count Karl Joseph  von Firmian, a senior figure in the Milanese
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    government. After Wolfgang gave a concert at  the count’s palace in early March, Count Firmian
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    commissioned him to write an opera for 100 ducats.  In addition to securing a lucrative commission,
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    the fourteen-year-old Wolfgang began commenting  on the girls he saw at the ballet in a letter to
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    Nannerl, an early indication of his future  reputation as a ladies’ man. On his way to
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    Florence, Wolfgang wrote his first string quartet,  given the serial number K. 80 in the published
  • 00:16:49
    collections of his work, in Lodi. During the first  week of April, the Mozarts stayed in Florence,
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    where Wolfgang befriended the promising English  violinist Thomas Linley, a boy three months his
  • 00:17:03
    junior who would enjoy considerable success as a  composer and performer before his untimely death
  • 00:17:10
    at the age of twenty-two in a boating accident.  Thereafter they headed for Rome in the spring
  • 00:17:16
    of 1770, where they saw Michelangelo’s Sistine  Chapel and had an audience with Pope Clement XIV,
  • 00:17:24
    who bestowed the Order of the Golden Spur,  a high-ranking papal honour, on Mozart.
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    The Italian tour continued with Wolfgang and his  father heading further south to Naples, where
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    they were invited to stay at the residence of the  British ambassador, Sir William Hamilton. By the
  • 00:17:46
    end of June the Mozarts were heading back north  via Rome and Rimini, reaching Bologna on the 20th
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    of July. Here Mozart worked on the libretto for  the opera Wolfgang had been commissioned to write
  • 00:18:00
    while in Milan in January. This was to be entitled  as Mitridate, re di Ponto, meaning Mithridates,
  • 00:18:09
    King of Pontus. It was based on a tragic play by  the French dramatist, Jean Racine, which explored
  • 00:18:16
    the demise of King Mithridates VI of Pontus,  one of the Roman Republic’s most formidable
  • 00:18:23
    enemies. The opera was finally performed in  Milan when it premiered at the Teatro Regio
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    Ducal there on the 26th of December 1770,
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    with Wolfgang directing from the harpsichord.  It was an instant hit, playing to full houses
  • 00:18:41
    across twenty-two performances. Thus it  was that Mozart and his father headed for
  • 00:18:47
    Venice for a relatively relaxed end to what had  otherwise been a very successful tour of Italy.
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    The Mozarts headed for home in the spring  of 1771. During this last leg of their trip,
  • 00:19:03
    they received news that Empress Maria Theresa  wished to commission Wolfgang to write an opera
  • 00:19:09
    for the Milanese royal theatre to celebrate the  marriage of her son Archduke Ferdinand Karl to
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    an Italian princess in October. The subject of  the opera would be Ascanio in Alba, following a
  • 00:19:24
    storyline in which the goddess Venus sets up the  marriage of Ascanius, son of the classical hero
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    Aeneas, the Trojan prince who settled in Italy and  became the mythical ancestor of the Romans. Keen
  • 00:19:40
    to return home as soon as possible so Wolfgang  could get to work on this, the Mozarts arrived in
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    Salzburg on the 28th of March 1771. By August,  they were heading back to Milan, where they
  • 00:19:55
    received the libretto, and Mozart had the two-act  Ascanio, ready to rehearse by late September. The
  • 00:20:02
    premiere on the 17th of October 1771 met with  an enthusiastic reception from the newlyweds
  • 00:20:10
    and theirs guests. Either prompted by Leopold or  on his own initiative, Archduke Ferdinand Karl
  • 00:20:18
    sought permission from his mother to hire Wolfgang  as his court musician. Despite her earlier favour
  • 00:20:25
    to the Mozarts, Maria Theresa wrote back “I do  not know, nor do I believe, that you would need
  • 00:20:33
    a composer.” Perhaps she was simply trying to  reduce expenditure in Milan, with the Habsburg
  • 00:20:40
    state mired in a financial crisis after a series  of long and costly wars between 1701 and 1763.
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    Frustrated that no offer was  forthcoming from the Archduke,
  • 00:20:55
    the Mozarts left Milan on the 5th of December  1771. Within a day of their arrival in Salzburg,
  • 00:21:03
    Prince-Archbishop Siegmund died unexpectedly. The  popular archbishop had been a supporter of young
  • 00:21:11
    Wolfgang’s musical career since its beginning  and his successor, Count Hieronymus Colloredo,
  • 00:21:18
    the son of the imperial vice-chancellor, continued  the tradition. In July 1772, Colloredo appointed
  • 00:21:26
    Wolfgang as konzertmeister, leading the  court orchestra from the first violins,
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    the young man’s first paid appointment  at 150 florins a year. Before leaving for
  • 00:21:39
    a third trip to Italy, Wolfgang wrote eight  symphonies over the course of the year. Upon
  • 00:21:46
    their arrival in Milan in October, Wolfgang  wrote the music for the opera Lucio Silla,
  • 00:21:53
    whose title character was the Roman Republican  general and dictator Lucius Cornelius
  • 00:21:58
    Sulla. Once again Wolfgang only had a few weeks to  complete the opera before its premiere on the 26th
  • 00:22:06
    of December. Lucio Silla was given an extended  run of twenty-six performances. It is worth
  • 00:22:14
    reminding ourselves at this point that Mozart  was still just fifteen years of age at this time.
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    Leopold Mozart once again awaited a court  appointment for his son that would pay more
  • 00:22:29
    than the allowance they were receiving in  Salzburg, but left Milan disappointed. They
  • 00:22:35
    were not long back in Salzburg before they set  off again for Vienna. Leopold had received word
  • 00:22:42
    that the kapellmeister of the imperial court was  seriously ill and now Leopold sought to position
  • 00:22:49
    Wolfgang as his successor. Yet, not only was he  rebuffed by Maria Theresa, but more worryingly,
  • 00:22:57
    Wolfgang was not invited to perform in any  aristocratic salons while in the Austrian capital,
  • 00:23:03
    an indication perhaps that he was no longer in  such demand as his status as a child prodigy was
  • 00:23:10
    coming to an end. After two fruitless months in  the capital, the Mozarts returned to Salzburg and
  • 00:23:18
    soon moved into a larger apartment on the northern  side of the river, giving Wolfgang a dedicated
  • 00:23:24
    space to compose. In 1773 he wrote seven more  symphonies, including Symphony No. 25 in G minor.
  • 00:23:35
    One of only two Mozart symphonies in a minor key,  it is characterised by melodic leaps and off-beat
  • 00:23:43
    syncopation and is one of his most popular  symphonies. That same year, Wolfgang wrote a set
  • 00:23:51
    of six string quartets inspired by Joseph Haydn,  one of the leading Austrian composers of the age.
  • 00:24:01
    In the summer of 1774, the Elector of Bavaria  commissioned Wolfgang to write a comic opera,
  • 00:24:08
    La finta gardiniera, meaning “The pretend garden  girl.” Enticed by the prospect of Wolfgang
  • 00:24:16
    obtaining a position at the Bavarian court,  Leopold and Wolfgang went to Munich in early
  • 00:24:22
    December, but the opera was poorly received on its  premiere on the 13th of January 1775, Wolfgang’s
  • 00:24:30
    first flop as an operatic composer. This began  one of the most difficult periods in both Wolfgang
  • 00:24:38
    and his family’s life. Returning to Salzburg  he continued to write and perform, yet there
  • 00:24:45
    were no calls from the great courts of Europe for  him to visit them over the next two years and no
  • 00:24:52
    offers of more attractive employment. Yet they  were also formative years in some respects. Up
  • 00:25:00
    until that point Mozart had produced his earliest  piano concertos by rearranging piano sonatas by
  • 00:25:07
    other composers for piano and full orchestra. The  mid-1770s saw him striking out to compose his own
  • 00:25:16
    original piano concertos. This became the normal  method for him in the second half of the 1770s
  • 00:25:23
    as he entered his twenties. Disaster followed,  though, in 1777 when Wolfgang was essentially
  • 00:25:32
    relieved of their positions in Salzburg as the  Archbishop attempted to make budgetary cuts there.
  • 00:25:40
    With this setback, Mozart had no option but to  travel again to make money. On this occasion
  • 00:25:47
    Leopold would have to remain in Salzburg, and the  twenty-one-year-old Wolfgang had to make his own
  • 00:25:54
    travel arrangements for the first time. His mother  Anna Maria would accompany him. Leaving Salzburg
  • 00:26:01
    on the 23rd of September, their first port of call  was Munich, where the Mozarts still retained hope
  • 00:26:08
    for employment at Maximilian Joseph’s court.  While Wolfgang was glad to be liberated from
  • 00:26:15
    his domineering father, Leopold continued to send  instructions to his wife to ensure that his son
  • 00:26:22
    did not get side-tracked by the usual distractions  that might come the way of a young man.
  • 00:26:28
    On the 30th of September, Wolfgang intercepted  Maximilian at the electoral residence to
  • 00:26:34
    plead his case. The young composer listed his  accomplishments, including three successful operas
  • 00:26:41
    in Milan, but, despite the Mozarts knowing in  advance that the elector was looking for a court
  • 00:26:48
    composer, Maximilian Joseph simply told him “There  just isn’t any vacancy.” As a consolation prize,
  • 00:26:57
    ten of Mozart’s wealthy admirers in Munich offered  to pay sixty florins a year each, quadrupling what
  • 00:27:05
    his konzertmeister’s salary in Salzburg had  been. Nevertheless, Leopold questioned whether
  • 00:27:12
    the ten could be trusted to keep their word  and instructed his son to move on to Augsburg.
  • 00:27:20
    Although Augsburg was intended as a stop-off on  the way to the court of Elector Karl Theodor of
  • 00:27:27
    the Palatinate in Mannheim, Mozart’s time  in his father’s hometown was a memorable
  • 00:27:33
    one. Wolfgang and his mother stayed near the  household of Leopold’s brother, Franz Alois,
  • 00:27:40
    where he met his nineteen-year-old cousin, Maria  Anna Thekla. Wolfgang’s letters to his cousin
  • 00:27:47
    after his departure are full of bawdy rhymes and  innuendos. Mozart’s biographers are split on what
  • 00:27:55
    these might indicate about his feelings towards  his cousin. While Leopold had high hopes that
  • 00:28:01
    Karl Theodor’s renowned musical establishment  would have a place for his son, they were not
  • 00:28:08
    realised. As winter approached, Leopold urged  his son to make his onward journey to Paris,
  • 00:28:14
    but the young man was in no hurry to leave. He had  fallen in love with a sixteen-year-old soprano,
  • 00:28:22
    Aloysia Weber, the second daughter of Fridolin  Weber, a bass singer at the court theatre. Leopold
  • 00:28:31
    was aghast when Wolfgang suggested going on tour  to Italy with Herr Weber and two of his daughters.
  • 00:28:40
    Wolfgang and his mother did not leave Mannheim  until March 1778. Since Anna Maria had no desire
  • 00:28:48
    to go to Paris, Wolfgang suggested that she  should return home to Salzburg and he would
  • 00:28:54
    continue the journey to France alone. Having  been informed of this Leopold wrote back from
  • 00:29:01
    Salzburg that it was not acceptable, being  convinced that if his wife left Wolfgang
  • 00:29:07
    alone he intended to elope to Italy with  the Webers. Instead he instructed his wife
  • 00:29:14
    to stay with their son and they headed for Paris.  Their visit to the French capital was disastrous,
  • 00:29:22
    with little interest being displayed by the nobles  there in patronizing Mozart. More seriously,
  • 00:29:29
    their lodgings were poor and damp and Wolfgang’s  mother’s health deteriorated dramatically while in
  • 00:29:36
    the city. She eventually died on the evening of  the 3rd of July 1778 at the age of fifty-seven.
  • 00:29:45
    Wolfgang immediately wrote to Leopold claiming  that she was still alive, albeit seriously ill,
  • 00:29:52
    and it was only on the 9th, with his mother buried  in a Parisian cemetery, that he told the truth. He
  • 00:29:59
    soon received a response from Leopold blaming him  for failing to take action until it was too late
  • 00:30:06
    and in another letter Leopold suggested that Anna  Maria would still be alive if Wolfgang had not
  • 00:30:13
    harboured ambitions to travel to Italy with the  Webers. Despite blaming him for his wife’s death,
  • 00:30:21
    on the 31st of August Leopold informed Wolfgang  that he had prevailed upon Colloredo to reappoint
  • 00:30:28
    him as konzertmeister at 500 florins a year.  Wolfgang accepted, on the condition that he
  • 00:30:36
    would be allowed to travel every two years. Mozart took his time to return to Salzburg,
  • 00:30:45
    stopping off in Munich in December 1778. Much  had changed since his last visit. The childless
  • 00:30:53
    Elector Maximilian III had died the previous  December and was succeeded by his cousin,
  • 00:31:00
    Karl Theodor, Elector Palatine, who took his  musical establishment to Bavaria. Aloysia Weber
  • 00:31:09
    was quickly establishing herself as a singer at  the Bavarian court and Mozart was keen to see her
  • 00:31:16
    again, perhaps even to propose marriage. After his  arrival in Munich, he proceeded to write a letter
  • 00:31:23
    full of innuendo asking his cousin Maria Anna to  join him. When Mozart called on the Webers, he had
  • 00:31:31
    with him a new aria he had written for Aloysia,  but she claimed that she didn’t know who he was.
  • 00:31:40
    According to Aloysia’s sister Constanze, following  the rejection Mozart walked over to the piano and
  • 00:31:47
    sang, quote, “Let the wench who doesn’t want me  kiss my ass,” before showing himself out. Despite
  • 00:31:57
    this display of nonchalance, Mozart admitted to  his father in a letter that he was heartbroken
  • 00:32:03
    and unable to write any good music, but that at  least he had his cousin around to comfort him.
  • 00:32:13
    On the 15th of January 1779, Wolfgang Amadeus  Mozart returned home to Salzburg, just shy of
  • 00:32:22
    his twenty-third birthday. His youthful fame as  a child prodigy in Vienna and across Europe was
  • 00:32:29
    far behind him, as was any thought of returning  to Italy. During this latest absence from home,
  • 00:32:37
    he had not only lost his mother and  been rejected by his love interest,
  • 00:32:42
    but failed utterly in achieving the  original goal of the trip. Instead of
  • 00:32:47
    gaining a highly paid position at one  of Europe’s leading courts, he would
  • 00:32:52
    recommence his position as konzertmeister  for the Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg.
  • 00:32:58
    To add insult to injury, the salary would be 450  florins, not even the 500 florins promised to
  • 00:33:07
    his father the previous summer. His better-known  compositions over the next two years included his
  • 00:33:14
    Coronation Mass in C major, so-called because the  music was later frequently performed at imperial
  • 00:33:21
    coronations in the Habsburg Empire, while Sinfonia  concertante in E flat major for Violin and Viola,
  • 00:33:29
    was the closest any renowned composer has got to  writing a solo concerto for the viola, Mozart’s
  • 00:33:36
    favourite instrument, combining the melodiousness  of the violin and the richness of the cello.
  • 00:33:45
    In 1780, Mozart received a commission from  Elector Karl Theodor of Bavaria to write the
  • 00:33:53
    opera Idomeneo, re de Creta, set in the court  of King Idomeneus of Crete after the fabled
  • 00:34:01
    Trojan War. Delighted to have the opportunity to  leave Salzburg, Mozart arrived in Munich in early
  • 00:34:09
    November and spent the next few weeks writing  music and leading rehearsals. On the 29th of
  • 00:34:16
    January 1781, Idomeneo premiered at the court  theatre in Munich, with Leopold and Nannerl in
  • 00:34:24
    attendance. Unlike the last time he wrote an opera  for Munich, Idomeneo was a great success, and is
  • 00:34:32
    the earliest of Mozart’s operas to be included  in the modern-day operatic repertoire. Mozart was
  • 00:34:39
    soon on the move again, this time to Vienna.  Empress Maria Theresa had died in late 1780,
  • 00:34:47
    and Archbishop Colloredo was preparing to go to  the capital to attend to the full accession of her
  • 00:34:53
    son, Emperor Joseph. On the 16th of March 1781,  Mozart arrived in Vienna, where he would spend
  • 00:35:02
    the next decade. It would be the greatest decade  of his life and career. It would also be the last.
  • 00:35:11
    Upon his arrival in Vienna, Mozart resented the  fact that he was living in the same building as
  • 00:35:18
    Colloredo and that he had to sit below the valets  at lunch. When he wrote to his father complaining
  • 00:35:25
    about how the archbishop was treating him, Leopold  urged his son to refrain from badmouthing their
  • 00:35:32
    employer. Mozart took no notice and instead  called to dine at various aristocratic houses
  • 00:35:40
    without permission. During an ill-tempered  meeting on the 9th of May, Mozart informed
  • 00:35:47
    Colloredo that he would resign his position as  konzertmeister of Salzburg. When Leopold learned
  • 00:35:54
    of this he expressed outrage. In Vienna itself,  in an attempt to dissuade Mozart from quitting,
  • 00:36:02
    Count Karl von Arco, the archbishop’s steward,  told Mozart that his position at the Habsburg
  • 00:36:08
    court would not last and that, quote, “after a  few months the Viennese will want something new.”
  • 00:36:15
    When Mozart stood his ground and went to present  his letter of resignation to the archbishop in
  • 00:36:21
    early June, Count Arco refused to admit him and  instead dismissed the troublesome composer.
  • 00:36:30
    After being thrown out of the archbishop’s  residence, Mozart went straight to stay with
  • 00:36:36
    the Webers, into whose good graces Mozart had  returned now that he was in fashion again at
  • 00:36:43
    the Habsburg court. Herr Fridolin Weber  had died suddenly, and his family moved
  • 00:36:50
    to Vienna where Aloysia became a renowned  soprano and married the actor Joseph Lange.
  • 00:36:58
    With Aloysia taken, Mozart turned his  attention towards her younger sister Constanze,
  • 00:37:04
    then nineteen years old. He soon received a  commission from the imperial court to write an
  • 00:37:11
    opera for the anticipated visit of Grand Duke  Paul of Russia, the son and heir of Empress
  • 00:37:17
    Catherine the Great. The opera’s title was to be  Die Entführung aus dem Serail, “The Abduction for
  • 00:37:26
    Seraglio,” in which the hero tenor seeks to  rescue his beloved soprano from the harem of
  • 00:37:32
    a Turkish pasha. As the Russian grand duke’s  visit was postponed, the opera was not staged
  • 00:37:40
    until the 16th of July 1782 at the Imperial  Burgtheater. The opera established Mozart’s
  • 00:37:48
    reputation as a composer throughout Europe and  enabled him to pocket a handy 1,200 florins.
  • 00:37:56
    Mozart had a harder job persuading his father to  allow him to marry Constanze. The man appointed
  • 00:38:03
    to look after the Webers’ financial interests  also had his concerns and forced Mozart to sign a
  • 00:38:11
    pre-nuptial contract promising to pay 300 florins  if he reneged on the engagement. Leopold had found
  • 00:38:19
    out about this and was outraged, but Wolfgang  claimed that Constanze tore up the agreement
  • 00:38:26
    in a demonstration of her trust. In fact, the  engagement was broken off on several occasions but
  • 00:38:33
    the couple reconciled. During the summer of 1782,  after her mother withdrew her consent, Constanze
  • 00:38:41
    went to stay with a friend. When Frau Weber  threatened to call the police to get her daughter
  • 00:38:47
    to return home, the desperate couple decided to  get married on the 4th of August at St Stephen’s
  • 00:38:54
    Cathedral in the city centre. Although Leopold  accepted the inevitable, he continued to believe
  • 00:39:01
    that Constanze had married his son for money.  Wolfgang responded by defending his and his wife’s
  • 00:39:09
    reputation and promised to visit Salzburg and  bring Constanze along to meet her father-in-law.
  • 00:39:19
    In the months following his marriage, Mozart wrote  his Symphony No. 35 in D major. The composition
  • 00:39:27
    was based on a serenade hastily written  that summer for the Haffner family,
  • 00:39:32
    one of the most prominent in Salzburg. One  of his most accomplished symphonies, with a
  • 00:39:38
    fiery opening movement, the “Haffner” premiered at  the Burgtheater on the 23rd of March with Mozart
  • 00:39:47
    conducting. At the same concert, Mozart played his  Piano Concerto No. 13, the latest in a series of
  • 00:39:55
    three piano concertos he had written during the  winter. Mozart realised that he attracted larger
  • 00:40:02
    audiences if he gave concerts by playing his piano  concertos and conducting his orchestral works.
  • 00:40:11
    Despite his promise to visit his father in  Salzburg, Mozart was in no hurry to leave
  • 00:40:17
    Vienna and offered a series of increasingly  ludicrous excuses. Constanze was pregnant,
  • 00:40:25
    winter was soon upon them, he was very busy, and  finally, the fear that he would be arrested by
  • 00:40:32
    Archbishop Colloredo upon setting foot in  his native city. On the 17th of June 1783,
  • 00:40:40
    Constanze gave birth to a son named  Raimund Leopold. In his letters to Leopold,
  • 00:40:47
    Mozart continued to express his fears about being  arrested in Salzburg until he eventually gave
  • 00:40:54
    in. Leaving their newborn child with a foster  mother, the couple left Vienna and arrived in
  • 00:41:01
    Salzburg on the 29th of July. Neither Leopold nor  Nannerl had given their blessing to the marriage,
  • 00:41:09
    and Constanze was hurt that she was unable  to obtain the acceptance of her in-laws.
  • 00:41:16
    Less than a month after their arrival, the family  received the news that the baby Raimund Leopold
  • 00:41:24
    died on the 19th of August, but even this  tragedy failed to bring the family together.
  • 00:41:33
    A musical highlight of Mozart’s visit to his  hometown was the premiere of his Great Mass in C
  • 00:41:40
    minor, on the 26th of October 1783, with Constanze  singing the first soprano part. Although Mozart
  • 00:41:49
    did not have the time to finish the mass,  which remained incomplete upon his death,
  • 00:41:54
    the four complete movements stunned the audience.  The following day, Wolfgang and Constanze left
  • 00:42:02
    Salzburg to return to Vienna. During their  return journey, they stopped off in Linz,
  • 00:42:09
    where Mozart was scheduled to give a concert on  the 4th of November. Having forgotten to bring a
  • 00:42:15
    symphony with him, he decided to write a new  one in the four days before the concert. The
  • 00:42:21
    lively Symphony No. 36 in C major, known as the  “Linz,” remains a firm favourite to this day.
  • 00:42:30
    In early 1784, Mozart and Constanze moved into  the Trattnerhof, a large apartment building on
  • 00:42:39
    the Graben Square which happened to boast a large  concert hall. Rather than rent out one of the
  • 00:42:45
    imperial theatres, which could be prohibitively  expensive, Mozart decided that he would give
  • 00:42:51
    concerts at the Trattnerhof. To maintain the  novelty factor, he decided to write a new
  • 00:42:57
    piano concerto for each performance. As a result,  between 1784 and 1786, he composed piano concertos
  • 00:43:08
    Nos. 14 to 25, a set of twelve works that remain  highly acclaimed. In particular, his Piano
  • 00:43:17
    Concerto No. 25 in C major, with a majestic and  expansive opening movement that bears similarities
  • 00:43:25
    to his yet-to-be-written Symphony No. 41, is  considered one of the greatest ever written. This
  • 00:43:32
    was, along with Piano Concerto No. 21 in C major,  the greatest of Mozart’s works from the mid-1780s.
  • 00:43:42
    In contrast to the anxiety and tragedy of  the previous year, 1784 was becoming one of
  • 00:43:49
    the most successful years in Mozart’s career,  and he was now making 4,000 florins a year.
  • 00:43:57
    That September, Constanze gave birth to a  second son, Karl Thomas, who would survive into
  • 00:44:04
    adulthood. Soon afterwards, the family moved into  a large apartment near St Stephen’s Cathedral,
  • 00:44:11
    now the Vienna Mozarthaus museum. Despite his  increased income, the rent of 460 florins a month,
  • 00:44:20
    coupled with the desire to keep up with the latest  aristocratic fashions, drove Mozart into debt.
  • 00:44:27
    To further his aristocratic  networking, he joined the Freemasons,
  • 00:44:32
    a typical pursuit for socially ambitious men  of the eighteenth century, and was admitted
  • 00:44:38
    to the “Beneficence” Lodge in late 1784 and  quickly made it to the rank of Master Mason.
  • 00:44:48
    Mozart was keen for his father to see how he was  living in Vienna and that he had finally lived up
  • 00:44:54
    to his potential. Therefore he extended frequent  invitations to Leopold to visit him and Constanze
  • 00:45:02
    in Vienna. Although Leopold refused to do so on  several occasions, after Nannerl married and left
  • 00:45:10
    Salzburg in August 1784, the lonely father decided  to accept the invitation in February 1785. While
  • 00:45:20
    Leopold complained that the schedule was too busy  and he had little time to rest, Constanze ensured
  • 00:45:27
    that her mother and sister treated him comfortably  and fed him well, and Leopold was also delighted
  • 00:45:34
    to spend time with his grandson Karl. With Leopold  and Constanze soon on good terms, Mozart was
  • 00:45:43
    also keen to show his father the extent of his  professional success. Leopold wrote to Nannerl
  • 00:45:50
    about being overwhelmed when great aristocrats  came to him after concerts to congratulate him on
  • 00:45:57
    his son’s success, and that Emperor Joseph  himself had once called out “Bravo, Mozart!”
  • 00:46:05
    During Leopold’s stay in Vienna, Joseph  Haydn called at Mozart’s apartment. The
  • 00:46:11
    fifty-three-year-old Haydn was regarded  as the greatest composer of the age,
  • 00:46:17
    famed for his symphonies and string quartets.  As kapellmeister at the court of the Hungarian
  • 00:46:23
    Prince Nicolaus Esterházy, he spent much of  his time at the Schloss Eszterháza in Hungary
  • 00:46:30
    around 90 kilometres from Vienna. Although the  Haydn family were no strangers to the Mozarts as
  • 00:46:37
    Joseph’s younger brother, Michael Haydn, was the  long-serving kapellmeister in Salzburg since 1762,
  • 00:46:45
    Mozart and Joseph Haydn seem to have only  first met around 1784. The older man was
  • 00:46:53
    impressed with Mozart’s abilities as a composer  and a musician and visited Mozart’s apartment
  • 00:46:59
    to play string quartets with friends. In late  1781, Haydn wrote a set of six string quartets,
  • 00:47:08
    Opus 33, for the visit of Grand Duke Paul of  Russia. Between 1782 and 1785, Mozart wrote
  • 00:47:17
    six string quartets, Nos. 14-19, which appear  to be influenced by Haydn’s set and were later
  • 00:47:26
    dedicated to him. After Leopold heard Mozart  and Haydn play the last three of these quartets,
  • 00:47:34
    the latter told Leopold “Before God and as  an honest man I tell you that your son is the
  • 00:47:41
    greatest composer known to me either in person  or by name.” By the time Leopold bid farewell to
  • 00:47:49
    his son and daughter-in-law on the 25th of April,  he could be proud that Wolfgang had married well
  • 00:47:56
    and was finally gaining the success which his  position as a child prodigy had once augured.
  • 00:48:06
    Soon after Leopold departed from Vienna, Mozart  was introduced to Lorenzo da Ponte, an Italian
  • 00:48:14
    in his mid-thirties who had lived a colourful  life in Venice as a priest and frequenter of
  • 00:48:20
    brothels before being banished from the city  for his lewd conduct. He arrived in Vienna
  • 00:48:27
    in 1784 and soon began to write librettos  for Antonio Salieri, a fellow Venetian and
  • 00:48:35
    composer. This partnership was not a success  and da Ponte soon invited Mozart to work with
  • 00:48:42
    him. The relationship between a composer and a  librettist at the time was that the librettist
  • 00:48:49
    would write the text and lyrics for an extended  opera, while the composer, Mozart in this case,
  • 00:48:56
    wrote the musical compositions. Early on in their  collaboration Mozart asked Da Ponte if he could
  • 00:49:04
    write a libretto based on Pierre de Beaumarchais’  1784 comedy The Marriage of Figaro. Set in the
  • 00:49:12
    palace of Count Almaviva in Spain, the opera takes  place on the wedding day of Figaro, the Count’s
  • 00:49:20
    head servant, and Susanna, Countess Rosina’s maid.  In Act 1, after learning of the Count’s desire to
  • 00:49:28
    exercise his droit de seigneur, to spend the first  night of the marriage with Susanna, an indignant
  • 00:49:35
    Figaro resolves to make a fool of the count in the  aria “Se vuol ballare, Signor Contino” (“If you
  • 00:49:43
    would like to dance, Sir Count”). In the meantime,  learning of her husband’s plans, the Countess
  • 00:49:50
    laments “Porgi, amor, qualche ristoro,” (“Grant,  love, some comfort,”) and joins Figaro and Susanna
  • 00:50:00
    in devising various schemes to subvert the Count’s  intentions. The plot succeeds after Susanna and
  • 00:50:08
    the Countess change into each other’s clothes at  night, forcing the Count to plead for forgiveness.
  • 00:50:18
    This initial ruse does not end the Count’s  scheming and efforts to get Susanna for
  • 00:50:23
    himself in some way. As the opera goes on, in his  attempt to delay Figaro and Susanna’s wedding,
  • 00:50:31
    the Count seizes upon information provided  by Dr Bartolo of Seville and his housekeeper
  • 00:50:37
    Marcellina that Figaro had earlier promised to  marry Marcellina. The Count thus plots to make
  • 00:50:44
    Figaro honour his promise. Following a legal  ruling that he must marry Marcellina, Figaro
  • 00:50:51
    says he cannot get married without permission from  his parents, and he doesn’t know who his parents
  • 00:50:57
    are because he was abducted as a child. After  Figaro offers more details, Marcellina comes to
  • 00:51:05
    the realisation that he is actually her son whom  she knew as Rafaello in his youth before he was
  • 00:51:14
    abducted. Susanna arrives on the scene only to see  Figaro embracing Marcellina as his mother. Now,
  • 00:51:21
    with the threat that Figaro will be forced  to marry Marcellina having abated, the last
  • 00:51:27
    obstacle to Figaro marrying Susanna is lifted  and the Count’s plans are foiled completely.
  • 00:51:36
    The Marriage of Figaro was first performed  at the Burgtheater on the 1st of May 1786.
  • 00:51:43
    Despite the subversive plot, with its thinly  veiled criticisms of the aristocracy, da Ponte
  • 00:51:50
    prevailed upon the emperor to allow the  performance to go ahead. Whether they knew
  • 00:51:55
    they were being mocked or not, the great  and the good of Vienna loved the comedy,
  • 00:52:01
    which was performed on almost forty occasions  over the next five years. Figaro was also
  • 00:52:08
    enthusiastically received in Prague, where  Mozart went in early 1787 for the premiere
  • 00:52:15
    of his Symphony No. 38, K. 504, also known as  his “Prague” Symphony. It is one of Mozart’s
  • 00:52:23
    masterpieces and is often considered one  of, if not the greatest operas of all time.
  • 00:52:30
    With the success of Figaro, the Estates Theatre  in Prague duly commissioned Mozart and da Ponte to
  • 00:52:37
    write another opera. This time, da Ponte chose the  subject of Don Giovanni and his amorous conquests.
  • 00:52:45
    Although categorised as a comic opera, the two-act  spectacle is a particularly dark comedy. Early in
  • 00:52:53
    the opera, Giovanni attempts to seduce Donna Anna,  in the garden of her father, the Commendatore.
  • 00:53:00
    When the Commendatore intervenes, Giovanni kills  him. Escaping from the scene of the crime, he
  • 00:53:06
    runs into a former lover, Donna Elvira, who curses  him for leaving her. Giovanni’s servant Leporello
  • 00:53:15
    tells Elvira that his master is a scoundrel and  not worth her time, and in a crowd-pleasing aria
  • 00:53:22
    invites her to read the list of conquests his  master has made all over Europe: 640 in Italy,
  • 00:53:31
    231 in Germany, 100 in France, 91 in Turkey, but  in Spain… one – thousand – and – three! Thereafter
  • 00:53:43
    Giovanni continues his philandering. In Act 2,  as Giovanni and Leporello walk past the statue
  • 00:53:50
    of the Commendatore, the statue comes to life  and warns Giovanni that he would not survive the
  • 00:53:57
    day. Undeterred, Giovanni invites him to dinner.  That evening, with Leporello cowering in fear,
  • 00:54:05
    Giovanni opens the door to the ghostly figure  of the Commendatore. Giovanni is struck down
  • 00:54:12
    but still refuses to repent for his sins,  upon which he is dragged down into Hell.
  • 00:54:20
    Don Giovanni opened in Prague on the 29th of  October 1787. Although Mozart had written the
  • 00:54:28
    overture with minutes to spare and the orchestra  had to play it by sight without having rehearsed,
  • 00:54:34
    it was another magnificent triumph  for Mozart and da Ponte. However,
  • 00:54:40
    when it was performed in Vienna in April 1788  the critics praised the music but complained
  • 00:54:47
    that the arias were too difficult to sing and  that the opera was too heavy. Nevertheless,
  • 00:54:53
    Giovanni seems to have made  Mozart more money than Figaro.
  • 00:55:00
    Don Giovanni’s premiere in Prague was just one of  several highlights of the year 1787 for Mozart. In
  • 00:55:09
    April, the sixteen-year-old Ludwig van Beethoven  arrived in Vienna hoping to study under Mozart. It
  • 00:55:16
    is not clear if Mozart met the young Beethoven  and heard him play, but the latter’s trip was
  • 00:55:23
    cut short after two weeks to return home to his  ailing mother. During the summer, Mozart wrote
  • 00:55:30
    his Serenade for Strings No. 13, a three-movement  piece better known as Eine kleine Nachtmusik or
  • 00:55:37
    “A little night music,” perhaps his best-known  composition. In December, following the death of
  • 00:55:44
    imperial kapellmeister Christoph Willibald von  Gluck, Mozart was appointed imperial composer,
  • 00:55:51
    a part-time job requiring him to compose no more  than a few dances a year for 800 florins. However,
  • 00:56:00
    the year was also marred by the death of Leopold  Mozart in May at the age of sixty-seven. This must
  • 00:56:08
    have aroused conflicting emotions in Wolfgang.  Like any child prodigy taught by a father,
  • 00:56:15
    Leopold had played a major part in making  Wolfgang into the composer he became,
  • 00:56:21
    yet their relationship was not an easy one over  the years and it had left Wolfgang with many
  • 00:56:28
    psychological scars. The sorrow of Leopold’s  passing was compounded in the middle of 1788
  • 00:56:36
    when Wolfgang and Constanze lost another child,  this time a daughter who was only six months old.
  • 00:56:46
    Casting his personal distress aside, Mozart  wrote a set of three symphonies, Nos. 39-41,
  • 00:56:54
    his greatest and final contributions to the  symphonic form. Symphony No. 40 in G minor,
  • 00:57:02
    sometimes called his Great G minor symphony to  distinguish it from No. 25 in the same key, opens
  • 00:57:09
    with one of the catchiest themes in the history of  classical music, its popularity both enhanced and
  • 00:57:17
    debased by its use as a mobile phone ringtone  in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Symphony
  • 00:57:26
    No. 41 is a far grander affair, the most ambitious  symphony written to date, and its scale earned it
  • 00:57:34
    the nickname “Jupiter.” Mozart composed these  symphonies soon after Austria joined Russia’s
  • 00:57:42
    war against the Ottomans in the Balkans in  February 1788, which led to a decline in
  • 00:57:48
    earnings as Austrian aristocrats went off to serve  as officers in the army. Increasingly indebted,
  • 00:57:56
    in the spring of 1789 Mozart planned a tour  to Berlin, Prague, Dresden, and Leipzig,
  • 00:58:04
    leaving the again pregnant Constanze behind.  When Mozart returned to Vienna on the 4th of
  • 00:58:11
    June 1789 with little to show for his efforts in  terms of money, Constanze was seriously ill and
  • 00:58:20
    had to seek treatment at the spa in nearby Baden,  where she would return on several occasions. When
  • 00:58:27
    Constanze gave birth in November, it was to  a daughter who lived for less than one hour.
  • 00:58:36
    In late 1789 Mozart was working on his third and  final collaboration with da Ponte, Così fan tutte,
  • 00:58:45
    literally meaning “So do they all.” It premiered  in January 1790. Less well-regarded than Giovanni
  • 00:58:54
    or Figaro, it nevertheless proved popular  at the time, but its run was cut short by
  • 00:59:00
    the death of Emperor Joseph II on the  20th of February 1790. Later that year,
  • 00:59:07
    in an effort to maintain his imperial patronage,  Mozart travelled to Frankfurt for the coronation
  • 00:59:13
    of the new emperor, Leopold II. Although  Mozart performed his Piano Concerto No. 26,
  • 00:59:20
    known as the “Coronation” Concerto in October,  he was not successful in retaining his position
  • 00:59:27
    at court. During his absence, Constanze went  a long way to improving the family finances
  • 00:59:33
    by negotiating a new loan at 5% interest and  moving to a smaller apartment. Around this time,
  • 00:59:41
    Mozart and Haydn were invited to tour together  in London. While Haydn accepted, Mozart decided
  • 00:59:49
    to stay behind as Constanze was pregnant  yet again. He would never see Haydn again.
  • 00:59:57
    On a slightly sounder financial footing, Mozart  began 1791 by writing his Piano Concerto No. 27,
  • 01:00:06
    which he premiered in March. On the 9th of May  he was appointed as assistant kapellmeister at
  • 01:00:13
    St Stephen’s Cathedral, with the promise that he  would become kapellmeister on a salary of 2,000
  • 01:00:19
    florins a year upon the incumbent’s death.  Mozart’s acquaintance and fellow Freemason,
  • 01:00:26
    Emanuel Schikaneder, also asked him around this  time to write the music for a fantastical opera
  • 01:00:33
    based on Masonic ideals to a German libretto  he wrote under the title Die Zauberflöte,
  • 01:00:40
    or The Magic Flute. While working on the opera,  Mozart was visited by a masked stranger who
  • 01:00:48
    brought a commission for a Requiem Mass  without any further details. Mozart soon
  • 01:00:54
    realised that the man who commissioned  him must have been Count Franz Walsegg,
  • 01:01:00
    a fellow Mason who was known in musical  circles to commission works by talented
  • 01:01:05
    composers and pass them off as his own.  Walsegg’s wife had died in February,
  • 01:01:11
    and the Mass would be sung in her memory.  Knowing that Walsegg paid generously for
  • 01:01:17
    these ghost-written compositions, Mozart was happy  to accept the commission, despite the duplicity.
  • 01:01:26
    With two major projects underway, Mozart received  a third in July, this time from Prague. He was to
  • 01:01:35
    write an opera for the installation of Emperor  Leopold as King of Bohemia in September. The
  • 01:01:41
    opera was to be called La Clemenza di Tito, with  a plot revolving around the Roman Emperor Titus’
  • 01:01:49
    magnanimity towards the enemies who attempted to  overthrow him. While Mozart was busily juggling
  • 01:01:56
    three projects, Constanze returned home and  gave birth to a sixth child on the 26th of July,
  • 01:02:04
    Franz Xaver Wolfgang. When Mozart went to Prague  to oversee the completion of his coronation opera,
  • 01:02:12
    Constanze decided to accompany him. La Clemenza  di Tito, was performed in Prague on the 6th of
  • 01:02:19
    September, the same day as Leopold’s coronation,  with the emperor and empress as guests of honour.
  • 01:02:26
    Although it subsequently gained in popularity,  La Clemenza was not an instant success. The
  • 01:02:34
    mystical Magic Flute, staged for the first  time in Vienna on the 30th of September,
  • 01:02:39
    played to full houses for weeks and  remains one of Mozart’s most popular works.
  • 01:02:48
    The Magic Flute would be one of Mozart’s last  works of any kind. His intense work schedule
  • 01:02:56
    throughout the 1780s had left him exhausted and  ill. During the autumn of 1791, as his health
  • 01:03:04
    declined even further, he even became suspicious  that he was being poisoned, such was his declining
  • 01:03:11
    health, making reference to Aqua Tofana, a fabled  poison that was allegedly used by a ring of female
  • 01:03:18
    assassins in Italy in the mid-seventeenth century  and which contained ingredients like arsenic and
  • 01:03:24
    belladonna. These statements of Mozart’s later  inspired the rumour that he had been poisoned
  • 01:03:30
    by the composer, Antonio Salieri, a rival for  patronage at the Habsburg court. It would later
  • 01:03:38
    form the basis of the Russian poet Alexander  Pushkin’s drama Mozart and Salieri, which in
  • 01:03:45
    turn inspired Peter Schaffer’s 1979 play Amadeus,  adapted for the silver screen in 1984. In November
  • 01:03:56
    Mozart’s condition deteriorated rapidly and he  was confined to bed, where he continued to try
  • 01:04:02
    and work by dictating musical notation to his  assistant. By early December his condition was
  • 01:04:10
    critical and an hour past midnight, on the 5th of  December 1791, two months shy of his thirty-sixth
  • 01:04:19
    birthday, Mozart died. He was buried two days  later at St Marx’s Cemetery in Vienna in a very
  • 01:04:27
    limited ceremony. Exactly what he died from has  been widely debated, with some studies suggesting
  • 01:04:35
    that he had a number of health issues, notably  bouts of tonsillitis throughout his life, ones
  • 01:04:41
    which eventually led to a potential combination of  renal failure, cerebral haemorrhage and pneumonia.
  • 01:04:50
    Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is universally regarded  as one of the greatest composers in the Western
  • 01:04:57
    classical tradition. Tutored from infancy by  his father Leopold, Mozart had shown great
  • 01:05:05
    promise from a young age, touring Europe as  a child prodigy, but the road to stardom was
  • 01:05:12
    by no means a straightforward one. Despite  some well-received early operas in Italy,
  • 01:05:18
    he failed on numerous occasions to obtain  employment and had to resort to accepting
  • 01:05:24
    a position in his hated native Salzburg. It was  only after Mozart moved to Vienna in 1781 that
  • 01:05:33
    he established himself as the greatest musician  of the day, though the composition of works such
  • 01:05:39
    as the Marriage of Figaro and the Magic Flute,  as well as a number of immensely well-received
  • 01:05:45
    piano concertos and symphonies. As a result of  all of these he is often regarded as second only
  • 01:05:52
    to Beethoven in the canon of classical music.  And yet there was a tragic element to his life,
  • 01:06:00
    losing most of his children in infancy and  struggling to find recognition and success
  • 01:06:06
    as an adult composer, although some of his  financial woes were clearly self-inflicted
  • 01:06:12
    through his overly grand lifestyle when the  money was coming in. Ultimately he died far
  • 01:06:19
    too young and no doubt left many great works  unwritten when we consider that he was only
  • 01:06:26
    entering the prime of his work as a composer  in the 1780s and early 1790s before his death.
  • 01:06:36
    What do you think of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart?  Was he the greatest composer in history,
  • 01:06:43
    or does his music lack the emotional depth  of later composers such as Beethoven? Would
  • 01:06:50
    he have eclipsed Beethoven if he had  lived a much longer life? Please let us
  • 01:06:55
    know in the comment section and in the  meantime, thank you very much for watching.
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