Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was a composer born in Salzburg on 27 January 1756 who died in Vienna on 5 December 1791 at the early age of 35 years. His works are numbered K. 626 in the chronological-thematic catalogue compiled under Ludwig von Köchel's name, a range that runs from his earliest pieces to the Requiem and takes in his operas, symphonies and piano concertos.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in the Hagenauer Haus on the Getreidegasse in Salzburg, the house where the Mozart family lived for 26 years from 1747 and occupied an apartment on the third floor. At baptism he received the names Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus. He was the seventh and last child of Leopold and Anna Maria Mozart, whose maiden name was Pertl. His mother Anna Maria Pertl lived from 1720 to 1778.

Leopold Mozart had married Anna Maria Pertl on 21 November 1747 and the marriage lasted until her death in 1778 during the journey to Paris.

Leopold Mozart was born in Augsburg on 14 November 1719 and died in Salzburg on 28 May 1787. He worked as a violinist, composer and Kapellmeister, and he was also active as a violin teacher.

His Versuch einer gründlichen Violinschule was published by Lotter in Augsburg in 1756. He also compiled a music notebook for his children.

In 1768 he drew up a catalogue of Wolfgang's works in answer to an accusation concerning their authorship.

Leopold Mozart began his son's instruction at the keyboard when the boy was four and added composition to the lessons at six, as the notebook begun for Maria Anna in 1759 shows. The family's first documented appearance in Vienna came in 1762 and brought the child before Maria Theresa on 13 October 1762. The impressions of that visit survive in the diary entries of Zinzendorf from October 1762, which describe the six-and-a-half-year-old performer.

A grand tour followed between 1763 and 1766, taking the family through Germany, Switzerland, Paris, London and Holland with Nannerl sharing the programme. In London the journey brought the children into contact with Johann Christian Bach, who influenced the boy decisively.

The Italian journeys that shaped Mozart's theatrical education ran from December 1769 to March 1773, and in that time he wrote three operas for the Teatro Regio Ducale in Milan, among them Mitridate re di Ponto and Lucio Silla. In 1770 Pope Clement XIV awarded him the cross of the Order of the Golden Spur, and in the same year the Accademia Filarmonica in Bologna admitted him among its magistri compositores.

In the Salzburg court chapel, where his father had been vice-Kapellmeister since 1763, Mozart was appointed third concertmaster without salary in 1769, at the age of thirteen, and received a salaried post as second concertmaster in 1772.

Between September 1777 and January 1779 Mozart travelled to Munich, Mannheim and Paris, the last of these then generally regarded as the only city where a musician could win reputation and income. The journey did not yield the standing he sought: despite individual successes as a pianist and composer he obtained neither a post nor an opera commission. On 3 July 1778 his mother died in Paris.

Long disagreements with the Salzburg archbishop preceded a final breach in early June 1781, after which Mozart remained in Vienna.

Constanze Weber was born in Zell im Wiesental, the second-youngest of the four daughters of Franz Fridolin and Cäcilia Weber; the composer Carl Maria von Weber was her cousin. Despite Leopold Mozart's open rejection, Constanze Weber and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart married on 4 August 1782 in St Stephen's Cathedral. In July 1782 Die Entführung aus dem Serail was performed under Joseph II's promotion of German Singspiel and, despite intrigues, became Mozart's most successful stage work in his lifetime.

Six children were born to the couple, but only the sons Carl Mozart and Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart reached adulthood.

Between February 1784 and March 1786 Mozart composed eleven piano concertos alongside numerous chamber works, among them the quintet for piano and winds K. 452 that he prized highly. In the same span from 1784 to 1786 he gave successful subscription concerts in Lent and Advent and produced several symphonies and string quartets.

In 1789 and 1790 Mozart turned increasingly to opera and wrote Così fan tutte (KV 588), which was composed in 1789 and 1790 and first performed on 26 January 1790 in Vienna's Burgtheater. In 1791 he wrote La clemenza di Tito (KV 621) for the coronation of Leopold II as King of Bohemia and travelled to Prague in September with his pupil Franz Xaver Süssmayr.

On 7 December 1787 Mozart was appointed imperial chamber musician with a salary of 800 gulden a year. Le nozze di Figaro had been given for the first time on 1 May 1786 in Vienna's Burgtheater, to a libretto by Lorenzo da Ponte after Beaumarchais, and Don Giovanni followed on 29 October 1787 at the Estates Theatre in Prague, conducted by Mozart himself.

Of Mozart's Viennese dwellings only one survives: the apartment in the Domgasse, where he lived and worked from 1784 to 1787 at the height of his creative power^{12Das Museum · Mozarthaus Vienna ↗}. Leopold Mozart saw the rooms for himself in February 1785 and noted that his son had a fine apartment for which he paid 460 gulden in rent^{13Figarohaus · Wien Geschichte Wiki, City of Vienna ↗}. The building is now the Mozarthaus Vienna, which opened on 27 January 2006 after a thorough renovation prompted by Mozart's 250th birthday, with about 1,000 square metres devoted to his ten years in Vienna^{12Das Museum · Mozarthaus Vienna ↗}. It was the largest, finest and most expensive dwelling he ever occupied, with four rooms, two cabinets and a kitchen ^{12Das Museum · Mozarthaus Vienna ↗}.

Around 20 November 1791 Mozart fell seriously ill and could no longer work on the Requiem (KV 626). He died in Vienna on 5 December 1791 and was buried in the city's St Marx cemetery. The monument created for him in St Marx in 1859 was moved to the Vienna Central Cemetery in 1891 where he now has an honorary grave.

The Requiem was composed in 1791 and left unfinished. Mozart received the commission in the summer of 1791 through an intermediary who kept the identity of the donor, Count Walsegg-Stuppach, secret. He left the work as a fragment, and his pupil Franz Xaver Süssmayr completed it in February of the following year.

The first completed version of the Requiem reflects the contributions of Mozart's pupils in the years 1791 and 1792 on the commission of his widow Constanze, in the order Franz Jakob Freystädtler, Joseph Eybler and Franz Xaver Süssmayr. The Introitus and Kyrie were performed at Mozart's memorial service in St Michael's Church in Vienna on 10 December 1791, while the complete work followed on 2 January 1793 at a benefit for Constanze Mozart.

The work is scored for four vocal soloists, mixed chorus and an orchestra of basset horns, bassoons, trumpets, trombones, timpani, strings and organ, and the score was first published in 1800 by Breitkopf und Härtel in Leipzig.

The standard list of Mozart's works follows the K numbers of the first edition of Ludwig von Köchel's chronological-thematic catalogue, published in Leipzig in 1862 under Köchel's name. A second numbering in the same list follows the sixth edition of the Köchel catalogue, published in Wiesbaden in 1964 and labelled K6.

Among the numbered works are the symphonies, of which the last three were composed in 1788 and include the Jupiter Symphony (KV 551).

The numbered piano concertos come to 27, the last of them K.

Distorting views of Mozart's life and works proved so tenacious that scholars still find it remarkably difficult to assert their findings against portrayals such as Hildesheimer's Mozart or Shaffer's Amadeus. As Mozart's widow and the administrator of his estate Constanze made it her task to preserve his memory and sang his music in European cities.

A clavichord that belonged to Mozart came to the Dommusikverein in 1844 with the bequest of his younger son Franz Xaver Wolfgang.

The Digital Mozart Edition aims to make Mozart's entire output available in digital form free of charge for scholarly, private and educational use, while the Bibliotheca Mozartiana, founded in 1841, holds about 35,000 literature titles and more than 6,000 music items.