Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, a titanic Austrian composer of the Classical era
An child prodigy, he began performing in public and composing at the age of six. He quickly absorbed all the musical forms and influences of his time, and then raised classical music to new heights of elegance, style and beauty, with new levels of expressive power and purity.
His works (more than 600 in all) included 41 symphonies, concertos for piano, violin and other instruments, string quartets, sonatas, serenades, chamber music, religious music (including the Requiem that was unfinished at his death), songs, and operas (including The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, Cosi fan tutte, and The Magic Flute.
Mozart died in poverty at the tender age of just 39 and was buried in a pauper's grave.
Eine Kleine Nachtmusik (A Little Night Music) by Mozart
With video of night views of Weingarten and Ravensburg, Germany
Immortal Mozart!
"O Mozart, immortal Mozart, how many, how infinitely many inspiring suggestions of a finer, better life have you left in our souls!"
-- Franz Schubert, Diary, 1816
Mozart's Women: His Family, His Friends, His Music
Mozart's Women: His Family, His Friends, His Music
Amazon Price: $13.56 (as of 12/16/2009)
Despite this book's title, Mozart was no ladies' man. The loves in his life add up to his mother, Maria Anna; his talented sister, Nannerl; a cousin known as "the Bäsle"; the four Weber sisters, all singers, and one of them, Constanze, his wife; and, naturally, the women in his operas and the divas who sang the roles (these included the Webers). In this latest of many Mozart biographies, Glover, a leading conductor of 18th-century music, views Mozart's life through the women who surrounded him, though no biographer could avoid Mozart's micromanaging father, Leopold. Mozart's first crush may have been on his cousin, and the second was certainly on Aloysia Weber, who firmly rejected him (and later regretted it). But Mozart's marriage to Aloysia's younger sister seems to have been entirely happy. The book's best and most original part of this work offers a close analysis of the operas, especially of the female roles and the women who inspired them; the discussion of Così fan tutte is especially good.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Piano Concerto No. 21 - Andante
With the theme used in the film "Elvira Madigan"
Mozart: Piano Concertos Nos. 20 and 21 (Cambridge Music Handbooks)
Mozart: Piano Concertos Nos. 20 and 21 (Cambridge Music Handbooks)
Amazon Price: $26.99 (as of 12/17/2009)
"Recommended to libraries with holdings devoted to music history and analysis at the upper-division undergraduate level and above." - Choice
"The entire handbook is exceptionally clear and well written." - Notes
Mozart as a Child (1763)
Mozart - Symphony No. 41 (K 551) ("Jupiter") - Molto Allegro
Jeffrey Tate conducting English Chamber Orchestra
Mozart Symphony 41 K 551 - Molto Allegro
Woody Allen once said that Mozart's Symphony 41 proved the existence of God. Certainly, a symphony of such grandness and scale had, until the summer of 1788, never before been seen in the musical universe. Its implications for the direction of music in the future, and its influence on future composers is immeasurable. What makes Mozart's Jupiter symphony worthy to share the name of the most powerful god of the Roman world? The answer to this question comes in the Molto Allegro, and more specifically in its coda, (8:09-8:36). In the coda, Mozart takes the five musical themes or melodies that had been developed throughout the final movement, and does something that no one has ever achieved to the extent that he did, not even the illustrious Beethoven. What Mozart does is take these five themes and combines them to create a fugato in five-part counterpoint. That is, he takes the five melodies and simultaneously plays them in a variety of combinations and permutations. Imagine five separate melodies, all with their own notes, being played simultaneously, but each constantly changing. It's impossible for the human ear to focus on the enormous amount of notes that this simultaneous playing and constant changing entails. The effect is that the music seems to encompass an infinite amount of sound. With lesser two or three-part fugues, it is occasionally possible to sense everything that is going on. Once you get to four voices, it's nearly impossible to detect all of the nuances of the melodies. With five, well, only God could completely grasp its profundity. This is Jeffrey Tate and the English Chamber Orchestra performing the Molto Allegro of Mozart's Symphony 41 in C Major. A far greater introduction to this piece than I provide can be found at NPR's website, if you follow this link: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5173337 In the audio clip, you will get the chance to hear the five melodies that Mozart used in the coda individually.
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Mozart: The 'Jupiter' Symphony (Cambridge Music
Mozart: The 'Jupiter' Symphony (Cambridge Music Handbooks)
Amazon Price: $33.99 (as of 12/16/2009)
"...it is a delight to find such a text immediately setting about debunking the kind of canonical valorization which is our critical heritage since the Back Revival. No mere collection of empirical data here, however, as Sisman links audience rowdiness and aestheic attitudes with unproblematic ease; a critical turn which should be less alien to more writers." - Steve Sweeney-Turner, The Musical Times
Mozart's Letters, Mozart's Life
Mozart's Letters, Mozart's Life
Amazon Price: $13.57 (as of 12/17/2009)
Mozart from the Heart
Almost since the moment of his death in December 1791, people have been writing about W.A. Mozart, some of it accurate, but a great deal misguided, and false. Although I have enjoyed reading various Mozart biographies (Maynard Solomon's is my favorite), I found it quite refreshing to finally to sit down and read a collection of Mozart's own words. While the composer was somewhat a prankster in his younger days ( the "Eternal Child" stereotype unfortunately perpetuated by the film "Amadeus"), his letters undeniably demonstrate that Mozart was also a very thoughtful and passionate human being who enjoyed the highs and endured the lows of life, just like the rest of us. In this book, readers will get to know a man who wanted to be loved and lead a full life, only to die at the young age of 35!
Mozart: The Magic Flute - Overture
Conducted by Sir Colin Davis
Mozart: The Magic Flute - Overture - Sir Colin Davis
Sir Colin Davis conducts the Orchestra of The Royal Opera House Covent Garden. then some talking heads speak about the opera (last one is Jonathan Miller on the French Revolution), with snippets of performances from the Magic Flute by Sarastro • Alfred Reiter The Queen of the Night • Anna Kristiina Kaappola Papageno • Klaus Häger Papagena • Nadine Lehner Staatsopernchor Staatskapelle Berlin Conductor • Julien Salemkour Directors • Bernward Konermann and Walter Rösler K620 • Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute, La Flûte enchantée), by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
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Mozart Music on CD
25 Mozart Favorites
Amazon Price: $4.98 (as of 12/16/2009)
Mozart: The Great Piano Concertos, Vol. 1
Amazon Price: $13.99 (as of 12/16/2009)
Don Giovanni
Amazon Price: $39.98 (as of 12/16/2009)
Mozart - Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute) / Levine, Battle, Serra, Metropolitan Opera
Amazon Price: $18.97 (as of 12/16/2009)
Mozart: Requiem / McNair, Watkinson, Araiza, Lloyd; Marriner
Amazon Price: $14.99 (as of 12/16/2009)
If You REALLY Want to Get Serious...
Mozart Edition: Complete Works (170 CD Box Set)
Amazon Price: $139.99 (as of 12/17/2009)
Mozart in 1777
It Makes You Think!
"It is sobering to think that when Mozart was my age he had already been dead a year."
-- Songwriter and comedian Tom Lehrer, speaking of Mozart's early death at the age of just 35 years
Listen Up! The Top 4 Mozart CDs
- Mozart: Great Piano Concertos
- Conductor: Vladimir Ashkenazy
Orchestra: Philharmonia Orchestra of London - Eine Kleine Nachtmusik
- Conductor: Herbert von Karajan
Orchestra: Berliner Philharmoniker - Mozart - Requiem
- Conductor: Leonard Bernstein
Performer: Cornelius Hauptmann, Friedemann Winklhofer, Maria Ewing, Marie McLaughlin, Jerry Hadley
Orchestra: Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Bayerischen Rundfunkorchester - Mozart - Don Giovanni
- Don Giovanni is Mozart's most famous opera.
Jascha Heifetz plays Rondo by Mozart
Interesting Internet Resources on Mozart
- The Mozart Project
- The life, times and music of Mozart.
- Mozart's Magical Musical Life
- The story of Mozart's life and music told in fairytale form.
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
- Life and works of Wolgang Amadeus Mozart (article by William Smythe Rockstro, pianist and musical composer; author of A General History of Music from the Infancy of the Greek Drama to the Present Period and other works on the history of music).
Requiem (by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart)
Conductor: Karl Bohm
Original Manuscript of Mozart's Requiem (K626)
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (article)
Mozart was born in Salzburg into a musical family and showed indications of prodigious abilities at a very young age. When he was five years old, he could both read and write music and had precocious skills as a keyboard and violin player. Much of his childhood and adolescence was taken up with tours, which included performances before many of the royal courts of Europe. In 1773, aged 17, he accepted a post as a court musician in Salzburg, but was unhappy with his low pay and limited opportunities. Over the next eight years, he frequently traveled in search of a better position and composed abundantly. This situation continued until 1781, when during a visit to Vienna, he was dismissed from his court position and chose to stay.
He spent the rest of his busy life in Vienna, where he achieved relative fame. However, his finances remained precarious, with periods of prosperity and of penury. In 1782, he married Constanze Weber against the wishes of his family; six children were born, of whom two survived infancy. Musically, this was a period of outstanding creativity which saw the production of many of his best known symphonic, concertante and operatic works, and his final, incomplete Requiem. The circumstances of his death, at the age of 35, have been much mythologized, but were most likely commonplace.
In his youth, Mozart had used his gifts of imitation and mimicry to learn from the works of others. From these lessons, in maturity, he fashioned a style that ranged in mood from the light and pleasant to the dark and violent, from a vision of humanity "redeemed through art, forgiven, and reconciled with nature and the absolute".Till, p. 320 His influence on all subsequent classical music has been profound. Beethoven wrote much of his early music in Mozart's shadow. His friend Joseph Haydn wrote, "Posterity will not see such a talent again in 100 years". Others claim that, more than two centuries after his death, his talent remains unsurpassed.
Source: Wapedia
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Sample of Mozart's Handwriting from Figaro House, Vienna, Austria
Mozart - Clarinet Concerto (final movement)
Clarinet: Andrew Marriner
Andrew Marriner plays Mozart clarinet concerto (final movt)
Andrew Marriner, clarinet London Symphony Orchestra (chamber) Andrew Marriner has recorded the Mozart a number of times, including with his father Sir Neville. Aside from his soloist career, he is also principal clarinetist of the LSO. Here he partners his LSO colleagues in a concert performance of Mozart's ever popular masterpiece. As everyone knows, Mozart originally wrote it for Anton Stadler and his basset clarinet and this fact was only rediscovered a few decades ago. There has been a trend in recent years, in trying to keep with historical authenticity, to play the restored version for basset clarinet, but here we hear it in the usual adapted version for the standard clarinet. III. Rondo (allegro)
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Mozart : Clarinet Concerto (Cambridge Music Handbooks)
Mozart : Clarinet Concerto (Cambridge Music Handbooks)
Amazon Price: $26.09 (as of 12/16/2009)
Mozart's K. 622 is certainly one of his greatest concerti. If you have listened to this work several times, or simply want a better understanding, Lawson's book is ideal. Although I am not a clarinetist, this book has profoundly shaped my listening and appreciation of this masterpiece.
True to this Cambridge series, the concerto is put into its historical context. Did you know that the clarinet used in the late 1700s was toned differently than today's? Did you know there is no cadenza?
The chapter on design and structure is arguably the best set of program notes on the piece. The descriptions are nearly bar-by-bar, so you will need to have a score handy. For example, the development section of the first movement (Allegro) changes tonality from E major to F# minor to D major to B minor to F# minor in about 20 bars. Where the book does justice is to show parallels both within movements as well as between movements.
Indeed, there are even references to other Mozart works, especially to the esteemed Clarinet Quintet and even clarinet portrayals in Don Giovanni and Cosi Fan Tutte. Ideally, this book would have been more accessible through an interactive CD-ROM with links to those themes. This then is the reason to get the book--the rich context, both musically and historically, in which this piece is put. In other words, a careful reading of Chapter 6, with a recording and the score, and my finger on the pause button, have given me increased insight into not only this piece, but several other Mozart concerti and arias.
Please note that the book is scholarly and I have only described a single chapter. For most other books, I would not consider the purchase of a book for a single chapter a good value. However, bearing in mind that Mozart's Clarinet Concerto is THE definitive clarinet concerto and a piece no Mozart lover should be without, it is a worthwhile investment. To the first time listener, the last movement, with its rapid changes in tessitura, rich textures, and addictive melodies will offer the listener bubbling satisfaction. By reading the book, it will offer increased insight into this masterpiece of this genius.
Show the World You Love Mozart!
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- ViolinStudent ViolinStudent Aug 28, 2009 @ 10:28 pm
- A lot of very good information here. Mozart was an absolute genius. His influence on music incredibly powerful, even today. From chamber music, to symphonies, to operas the man's work will live on forever. Thanks very much for all your hard work.
Art Haule
http://www.violinstudent.com
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- andrasnm andrasnm May 10, 2009 @ 9:00 pm
- I love Mozart and I love this lens.
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- flutestar123 flutestar123 Oct 6, 2008 @ 6:17 pm
- Awesome lens! Check out my group for flutes @
http://www.squidoo.com/groups/Flutes
Would love to have a composer lens in the group.
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- Gillie2tat Gillie2tat Feb 19, 2008 @ 10:37 am
- Super lens. Thanks for writing it!
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- JaimeBonet JaimeBonet Feb 12, 2008 @ 2:25 am
- A Mozart lens is definitely a must, thanks for this. I would suggest featuring more Mozart videos for some of his well-known pieces, but also for less known ones that people should enjoy to discover. Keep up the good job and keep on developing this great resource!
by ilovemusic
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