Mozart Home Page

27 Jan 1756

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Son of Leopold Mozart, born in Salzburg.

1760 - 1766

Mozart's father mentions Wolfgangs earliest compositions. Young Mozart showed musical gifts at a very early age, composing when he was just five and playing before the Bavarian elector and the Austrian empress, by the time he was six. Leopold encouraged Wolfgang and arranged these recitals to show off his sons genius, and to make money.

1763

Leopold takes Wolfgang and his mother on a tour passing through London and Paris, and playing in many courts along the way. Young Mozart astonished audiences with his remarkable skills.

1764

Young Mozart plays to both the English and French royal families. Still only eight years old Wolfgang also composes his first Symphony, which is published in mid 1764, shortly after his arrival back in Salzburg.

1766

Leopold decides to take the family to Vienna, where he hopes that he can get an opera written by Wolfgang performed. Unfortunately public reception is not good, and although Wolfgang wrote several more symphonies during this time, he failed to make it in Vienna 1766.

1769

The Mozart’s are back in Salzburg, and as ever, leopold encourages young Wolfgang to play and write, although during this period, public performances by Wolfgang where rare, as one so young was still not taken seriously.

1770-1773

The Mozart’s make no less than three visits to Italy. While there, Mozart wrote two operas (Mitridate, Lucio Silla) and a Serenata which was to be performed in Milan. It was also a perfect opportunity for Wolfgang to acquaint himself with the styles of the spanish composers. In the summer they paid another visit to Vienna, which Leopold probably took in the hope of securing a post there in the royal court; there Mozart wrote a set of string quartets and, on his return, wrote a group of symphonies including his two earliest, Numbers 25 in g Minor and 29 in A, in the regular repertory.

1774-1777

During this three year period Mozart spent most of his time in Salzburg, where he worked as Konzertmeister at the Prince Archbishop's court. His works during these years include masses, symphonies, all his violin concerti, six piano sonatas, several serenades and divertimentos and his first great piano concerto, K271.
Early in 1775 saw a brief journey to Munich for the premiere of his opera La finta giardiniera, which was very well received.

In 1777 the Mozarts, seeing limited opportunity in Salzburg for a composer so hugely gifted, resolved to seek a post elsewhere for Wolfgang. He was sent, with his mother, to Munich and to Mannheim, but was offered no position (though he stayed over four months at Mannheim, composing for piano and flute and falling in love with Aloysia Weber). His father then dispatched him to Paris: there he had minor successes, notably with his Paris Symphony, no.31, deftly designed for the local taste. But prospects there were poor and Leopold ordered him home, where a superior post had been arranged at the court. He returned slowly and alone; his mother had died in Paris.

1779-1780

The years 1779-80 were spent in Salzburg, playing in the cathedral and at court, composing sacred works, symphonies, concertos, serenades and dramatic music. But opera remained at the centre of his ambitions, and an opportunity came with a commission for a serious opera for Munich. He went there to compose it late in 1780; his correspondence with Leopold (through whom he communicated with the librettist, in Salzburg) is richly informative about his approach to musical drama. The work, Idomeneo, was a success. In it Mozart depicted serious, heroic emotion with a richness unparalleled elsewhere in his works, with vivid orchestral writing and an abundance of profoundly expressive orchestral recitative.
Mozart was then summoned from Munich to Vienna, where the Salzburg court was in residence on the accession of a new emperor

1781

Fresh from his success in Munich, he found himself placed between the valets and the cooks; his resentment towards his employer, exacerbated by the Prince-Archbishop's refusal to let him perform at events the emperor was attending, soon led to conflict, and in May 1781 he resigned, or was kicked out of, his job. He wanted a post at the Imperial court in Vienna, but was content to do freelance work in a city that apparently offered golden opportunities. He made his living over the ensuing years by teaching, by publishing his music, by playing at patrons' houses or in public and composing to commission (particularly operas).


1782-1776

In his early years in Vienna, Mozart built up his reputation by publishing (sonatas for piano, some with violin), by playing the piano and, in 1782, by having an opera performed: Die Entführung aus dem Serail, a German Singspiel which went far beyond the usual limits of the tradition with its long, elaborately written songs (hence Emperor Joseph II's famous observation, 'Too many notes, my dear Mozart'). The work was successful and was taken into the repertories of many provincial companies (for which Mozart was not however paid). In these years, too, he wrote sting quartets which he dedicated to the master of the form, Haydn: they are marked not only by their variety of expression but by their complex textures, conceived as four-part discourse, with the musical ideas linked to this freshly integrated treatment of the medium. Haydn told Mozart's father that Mozart was 'the greatest composer known to me in person or by name; he has taste and, what is more, the greatest knowledge of composition'.

The Premiere of the lyrical drama, "The Abduction from the Seraglio", was the most successful opera of his lifetime.

Mozart also married in 1782 to a woman called Konstanze Weber, an amusing, if somewhat superficial woman, who failed to recognize her husbands genius at all.

He undertook a number of journeys: to Salzburg in 1783, to introduce his wife to his family; to Prague three times, playing in court on every occasion.

In 1782 Mozart also embarked on the composition of piano concertos, so that he could appear both as composer and soloist. He wrote 15 before the end of 1786, with early 1784 as the peak of activity. They represent one of his greatest achievements, with their formal mastery, their subtle relationships between piano and orchestra (the wind instruments especially) and their combination of brilliance, lyricism and symphonic growth.

In 1786 he wrote the first of his three comic operas with Lorenzo da Ponte as librettist, Le nozze di Figaro: here and in Don Giovanni.

1787

The first performance of Don Giovanni was held in Prague. It was (and still is) widely agreed that mozart has managed to treat the interplay of social and sexual tensions with keen insight into human character, and as a result Don Giovanni was a hit with all social classes.

1789

Mozart made several trips to Berlin, playing concerts and operas with an ever increasing number of people in the audience, but uniquely, by this time Mozart played to both the aristocracy and commoners at the same time, and refused to perform seperate concerts for both.

1790-1791

Mozart writes Cosi fan tutte (1790) - which transcends the comic framework of the time, just as Die Zauberflöte (1791) transcends social barriers, with its elements of ritual and allegory about human harmony and enlightenment. The world of the Viennese popular theatre takes on a life of it’s own and people many people travel from all over europe to see Mozart perform.

In November Mozart received the commission to write a requiem mass, which he works night and day on, but never manages to finish.

On 5 December 1791, after a few days of severe illness he died and was buried in an unmarked mass grave as was the custom of the time.