Transcript Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart`s background and treatment of the

Wolfgang Amadeus
Mozart
1756-1791
• Father Leopold Mozart
• Court musician
• Composer
• Wrote method on violin playing
• Leopold recognized Wolfgang’s genius,
and devoted himself to educating the
boy, and to exhibiting his
accomplishments.
• Traveled to France, England, Holland,
Italy, Vienna, and principal cities of
Germany
• Young Mozart was eager to learn all
that he could from each place he
visited.
• His musical style was a combination of
the best elements of each nationality’s
musical identity
• By age 6 he was a virtuoso on
keyboard.
• Composed his first minuets at the
keyboard
• By age 9, wrote his first symphony
• 11, first oratorio
• 12, first opera
• His works are organized chronologically
and cataloged with a K. number.
• K is for Ludwig von Köchel, the
researcher who compiled his works.
• More than 600 works in the catalog.
• Absolute musicality - music for its own
sake. No trace of Mozart’s personal
troubles or disappointments in his
music. He does not reveal his attitudes
toward nature or the historical events of
his time (the French Revolution is the
most significant)
Composing
• Composition came easy to Mozart.
• Ideas were worked out thoroughly in his
head first.
• When it was time to write them down,
he was just copying the finished product
in his mind.
• He would laugh and joke while copying
• Early symphonies showed Italian
influence.
• Later, he shows the influence of Haydn.
• Haydn’s themes appear to have been
“invented with a view chiefly to their
possibilities for motivic development.”
• Mozart’s themes usually are complete
in themselves, and sometimes he
rejects a formal development section in
order to write a completely new theme.
• Mozart almost always has two
contrasting ideas in his symphonies
• Haydn often has one theme that is
heard in two different keys for theme 1
and theme 2.
Freelancing
• In 1781, Mozart decided against his
father’s advice to quit his patronage job
for the Archbishop of Salzburg.
• Moved to Vienna to make it as a
freelance musician.
• Active as a pianist and composer.
• “Popular” for about 5 seasons.
• Most of the works that made Mozart
immortal were composed in the last ten
years of his life.
• Continued study of Haydn, and
discovery of the music of J.S. Bach.
• Bach’s influence gave Mozart more
contrapuntal textures.
Vienna symphonies
• Haffner Symphony (K. 385), Prague
Symphony (K. 504) and Linz Symphony
(K. 425)
• Symphony in E flat (K. 543), Symphony
in G Minor (K. 550), and Symphony in C
Major (Jupiter) (K. 551) were written in
a six week period in the summer of
1788.