MOZART, WOLFGANG AMADEUS (1756–1791)

MOZART, WOLFGANG AMADEUS (1756–1791), Austrian composer, widely considered one of the most gifted figures in the history of Western music. Born in the archbishopric of Salzburg, a territory of the Holy Roman Empire, Mozart by the age of six had already acquired a reputation throughout Europe as a musical prodigy. According to his father, Wolfgang was already composing minuets at the age of four, and he was barely six when he performed on the harpsichord for the Habsburg imperial family in Vienna. Yet Mozart's astonishing precocity as a composer and performer should not obscure the role of his father, Leopold, in nurturing his genius. Leopold, the son of an Augsburg bookbinder, became a musician at the Salzburg court in 1739 and in 1763 secured an appointment as deputy kapellmeister. He was himself an accomplished musician and composer who in 1756, the year of Wolfgang's birth, published what would become a highly influential treatise on violin playing. He was therefore able to provide Wolfgang and his sister, Maria Anna ("Nannerl"; 1751–1829), with superb musical tutelage. Leopold could be a demanding and irascible father, proud of his son's talents but also possessive and manipulative, and the bitter conflicts that marked his relationship with Wolfgang in later years have made it easy for some biographers to portray Leopold in an unflattering light. But even those scholars inclined to highlight his shortcomings (see, for example, Maynard Solomon's brilliant but controversial biography) acknowledge Leopold's crucial role in fostering the talents and career of his son.

This role was evident above all in the series of European tours he arranged for Wolfgang between 1763 and 1772, when Leopold journeyed with his son to such major musical capitals as Vienna, Paris, Naples, Milan, Mannheim, and London. These journeys were undertaken with the purpose of landing Wolfgang a position more suitable to his talents than what was then available in Salzburg. Mozart failed to secure a permanent appointment and for most of the period up to 1781 would remain formally in the service of the Salzburg court. But the grand tours of the 1760s and early 1770s did have the effect of exposing the young composer to an exceptionally broad array of musical influences and genres. In this respect the extensive travels of Wolfgang's youth certainly helped foster what would become a key element of his gifts as a composer, namely his universality. Mozart would not only master every musical genre of his day, but leave a lasting imprint on each—sacred music, keyboard and chamber music, concertos and symphonies, opera—and although a composer of his talents was certainly more than the sum of his musical influences, the range of styles and genres to which his father helped expose him fostered the conditions under which Wolfgang's genius could flourish.

But the young Mozart's travels also bred a growing dissatisfaction with his patrons at the Salzburg court, where he spent most of the years from 1773 to 1780. Mozart's unhappiness came partly in response to the policies of the new archbishop, Hieronymus Colloredo (in office 1772–1803), whose reform-minded efforts to lower court expenditures and curtail the use of instrumental music in the Mass further reduced what to Mozart already seemed a dearth of musical opportunities. Growing tension between the two, heightened by the efforts of the Mozart family to find employment elsewhere, culminated in the composer's unceremonious dismissal (in Mozart's words, "with a kick on the ass") by the archbishop's court chamberlain in 1781. Mozart's break with the archbishop later acquired legendary and dramatic force as the romantic embodiment of the clash between unrequited genius and mediocrity.

But the incident also pointed to the growing importance of Vienna, where Mozart now resolved to make his fortune, as a musical and cultural capital. The 1780s, which coincided with the reign of the reformist Joseph II (ruled 1765–1790), marked the high point of Enlightenment culture in the Habsburg capital. The city's expanding musical and theatrical venues help explain why Mozart could take a step so unusual for a composer of his day, namely that of embarking on a freelance musical career in lieu of one based on court patronage. Legends to the contrary, Mozart enjoyed considerable success in Vienna. The concerts he presented earned him noteworthy sums, due substantially to the popularity of his concertos, while the city's lively stage provided a vehicle for Mozart's operatic ambitions. The Viennese premier of his German Singspiel, Die Entführung aus dem Serail (1782; The abduction from the seraglio), was a major success, as was Le nozze di Figaro (1786; The marriage of Figaro), his first of three collaborative efforts with the Italian librettist Lorenzo da Ponte (1749–1838). The Viennese reception of Don Giovanni (1788) and Così fan tutte (1790), for which da Ponte also wrote librettos, was more muted, though the former had earlier premiered to an enthusiastic audience in Prague. Die Zauberflöte (1791; The magic flute) masterfully blended North German chorale, Viennese popular comedy, and Italianate coloratura, while its Masonic themes of brotherhood, reason, and justice (Mozart had become a Freemason in 1784) mark the opera as one of the highest expressions of the Viennese Enlightenment. There Mozart's universality is once again evident, not only in the opera's synthesis of diverse musical traditions but also in the transcendence of its moral universe.

Although Mozart's annual income during most of his Viennese years was relatively comfortable and roughly approximated that of a merchant or higher government official, his failure to achieve financial security is legendary. Personal extravagance, aggravated by the need to maintain a style of living proper to his status as a composer, was partly responsible. Later scholars have sometimes blamed Mozart's financial insecurity on his wife Constanze (née Weber), the daughter of a Mannheim court musician, whom Mozart had married in 1782. But charges that Constanze, after "entrapping" Mozart in marriage, drove the pair to financial ruin through her spendthrift ways, appear to be groundless. Evidence suggests that she was a supportive wife and a competent if not shrewd household manager. At least in his later years, what was chiefly responsible for Mozart's precarious finances were deteriorating health, which reduced the income he would otherwise have earned through teaching, performing, and composing. The causes of his death in 1791 remain a subject of speculation, with rheumatic fever the most widely accepted explanation. Serious scholars have dismissed the sensationalist claim, first advanced in the 1820s and later revived in stage (1979) and film (1985) versions of Peter Shaffer's Amadeus, that Mozart died of poisoning at the hands of the composer Antonio Salieri (1750–1825).

See also Music; Music Criticism; Opera; Vienna.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Braunbehrens, Volkmar. Mozart in Vienna, 1781–1791. Translated by Timothy Bell. New York, 1990.

Gutman, Robert W. Mozart: A Cultural Biography. New York and London, 1999.

Landon, H. C. Robbins. 1791: Mozart's Last Year. London, 1988.

Sadie, Stanley. "(Johann Chrysostom) Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart." In The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, edited by Stanley Sadie, vol. 17, pp. 276–347. London and New York, 2001.

Solomon, Maynard. Mozart: A Life. New York, 1995.

JAMES VAN HORN MELTON