The Great Composer Mozart!

Mozart was born on January 27^th of the year 1756 in Salzburg (Austria) he was baptized as ‘Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart’ although he was known just by Wolfgang Amadeus. His father was Leopold Mozart a musician under Salzburg’s prince archbishop service.

Mozart started his musical education from a very early age, when he was three years old he was able to recognize with great ease harmonic successions of the harpsichord and he could play any melody by ear in the piano. His career started at the age of five years old playing with his older sister in Europe most prestigious courts.

His sister Maria Anna Ignatia Mozart, nicknamed ‘Nannerl’ was also a prodigious musician; she was able to play multiple instruments since a very young age. She wanted to become a composer but her position as a woman wouldn’t allow her to pursue a career as a composer as her younger brother did. So she had to stay at home giving piano lessons to little girls.

Mozart wrote his first symphony at the age of eight years old and his first full length opera at the age of fourteen. He wrote thirty three from his sixty eight symphonies between the ages of eight and 19 years old. More than six hundred works are attributed to him, some of them unfinished.

As a curiosity, it was said that Mozart didn’t stand the sound of flutes, that’s the main reason why he only composed concerts for this instrument only for orders. Some of his biographies quote him pointing out his dislike: “The only thing worse than a flute, is two flutes”.

The first trip he made with his family was in Munich. They performed for the emperor Maximilian Joseph II and they continue traveling until they arrived to Vienna. Mozart was a big sensation everywhere he went, he got a lot of praise from very important people. This first trip was Mozart’s debut and also a test for him, which he successfully fulfilled, to prove and showcase his talents.

The biggest trip the Mozart family ever did was in 1763, and for the next three and a half years they traveled the most important cities in Europe creating huge success. When they visited Vienna again they were summoned into the empress’ Mary Therese palace and she was absolutely mesmerized with the young kid.

In Versailles, the family performed for the monarch Louis XV. In London, they were praised by the king George III, during their stay at London, Mozart wrote his first symphony and meet Johann Christian Bach, Johann Sebastian Bach’s younger son. In Holland he dazzled everyone by playing the biggest and most complex pipe organ.

The family went back to Salzburg in 1766. In this same year until 1769 Mozart traveled to Vienna with his father and sister to develop his composing faculties. He wrote lots of concerts, symphonies, masses, oratorios, cantatas and his first operas.

Mozart’s life despite his great success, encountered many difficulties once he reached the adolescent age, he couldn’t pretend no longer to be a child prodigy so he had to start struggling in life. After not being able to find a good job position when he was in Milan he went back to Salzburg at the age of 17.

In 1777 he traveled Paris with his mother where he met the Weber family and he felled in love with the oldest daughter Aloysa. After his mother died from an infection he decided to as Aloysa for marriage, but she rejected him proposal. But after his failure with Aloysa he found comfort on her youngest sister Constanze, they got married against Mozart’s father and sister’s will. The couple had six kids from which only two survived.

Mozart joined the franc mason in 1784; the next year would be very productive in a social an artistic way. He reached the peak of his career in 1786; year in which he premiered one of his most famous operas: ‘Le nozze di Figaro’ and also Don Giovanni in 1787 in Praga with great success.

His father died that same year, causing a big depression on Mozart since his father was his best friend and counselor. Mozart offered his last public concerts in Vienna in 1791, he received an order from an unknown man, asking him to write a requiem. Since Mozart was depressed and ill because of his father’s loss he started to derange and think that death itself asked him to write his own requiem.

He never got to finish this requiem and left some notes to one of his disciples. He died the 5^th of December at the age of 35 years old. By that age because of his illness and due to his economic problems he was buried in a pauper’s grave and no one ever find his body again.

After his death Constanze contacted an editor to publish Mozart’s compositions and after her second marriage she wrote one of Mozart’s first biographies.