Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Biography

Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, known as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, was an Austrian composer and pianist of classical music. Mozart is considered one of the greatest musical genius of all time. He was born on January 27, 1756, in Getreidegasse, Salzburg, (Austria), and is the son of Leopold Mozart and Anna Maria Pertl.

Wolfgang is recognized as one of the most important musicians in history for his prodigious musical talent and the creation of more than 600 works. Mozart composed an original and powerful work that included genres as different as an opera buffa, sacred music, and symphonies.

At the age of 5, Mozart already showed an excellent command of violin and piano. He devoted most of his life to composing and, due to his own economic situation he had to work as a teacher and interpreter until the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, Joseph II of Habsburg, offered him a job as a composer.

On June 9, 1763, the Mozart family began a very successful concert tour. For three and a half years, they moved to the courts of Munich, Mannheim, Paris, London, and The Hague. During this trip, Mozart would meet a large number of musicians and the works of other composers, but especially Johann Christian Bach, who had a very big influence on the musician.

In 1769, Mozart was chosen as concert director by the Prince of Salzburg. Between 1769 and 1773, he made three trips to Italy. On one of his trips to Naples with his father, visited Rome and listened to Allegri’s Miserere in the Sistine Chapel. Mozart was able to memorize and play it in a single audition. Later, he traveled to Vienna, Munich, and Paris in search of new job opportunities.

In 1781, he settled in Vienna where he would achieve the fame that remained the rest of his life. In this city, he would often perform as a pianist, so he was able to consolidate as the best piano player in Vienna. During his final years, composed many songs, concerts and best-known operas, as well as his “Requiem.”

Around 1782, Mozart completed the opera “The Abduction from the Seraglio” which was released on July 16 of the same year, and with which he would become popular and develop the operatic genre known as singspiel or German opera.

On August 4, 1782, he married Constanze Weber, with whom he had six children, but only two survived.

On December 14, 1784, he entered Masonry with the Apprentice degree, at the Zur Wohltätigkeit (Welfare) Lodge in Vienna. He was admitted by Baron Otto Von Gemminger Homberg. He was so enthusiastic about logistics, that in a very short time he became a teacher and managed to compose Masonic music.

During 1785, Mozart left the composition for piano and began his collaboration with the operatic with the librettist Lorenzo da Ponte.

A year later, Mozart was in the successful premiere of the opera The Marriage of Figaro based on the homonymous work of Pierre-Augustin de Beaumarchais, which was exposed to politics due to its political content. He continued composing great instrumental works and a year later create his famous serenade Eine Klein Nachtmusik. His last symphony is known as the Jupiter Symphony (1788) and Cosi fan Tutte, a masterpiece presented in 1790.

March 1791, Mozart gave one of his last public concerts in Vienna; he played the concert for piano and orchestra “Piano Concerto No. 27” (KV 595). In the last years of his life, he composed The Magic Flute, which premiered on September 30, 1791. Mozart himself conducted the orchestra, while the librettist, Emanuel Schikaneder, sang the role of Papageno.

Mozart died in Vienna on December 5, 1791, at the age of 35. His last words were: “The taste of death on my lips … I feel something that is not of this world”. He was buried in a common grave in the cemetery of San Marx.

Mozart left 46 symphonies, 20 masses, 178 sonatas for piano, 27 concertos for piano, 6 for violin, 23 operas, and another 60 orchestral compositions. His legacy was made over time, he was recognized as an excellent pianist, organist, violinist, and director, standing out for the improvisations he performed in his concerts and recitals.