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Frederick the Great playing a flute concerto in Sanssouci, C. P. E. Bach at the piano, Johann Joachim Quantz is leaning on the wall to the right; by Adolph Menzel, 1852

A concerto (from the Italian: concerto, plural concerti or, often, the anglicised form concertos) is a musical composition usually composed in three parts or movements, in which (usually) one solo instrument (for instance, a piano, violin, cello or flute) is accompanied by an orchestra.

The etymology is uncertain, but the word seems to have originated from the conjunction of the two Latin words conserere (meaning to tie, to join, to weave) and certamen (competition, fight): the idea is that the two parts in a concerto, the soloist and the orchestra, alternate episodes of opposition, cooperation, and independence in the creation of the music flow.

The concerto, as understood in this modern way, arose in the Baroque period side by side with the concerto grosso, which contrasted a small group of instruments with the rest of the orchestra. The popularity of the concerto grosso form declined after the Baroque period, and the genre was not revived until the 20th century. The solo concerto, however, has remained a vital musical force from its inception to this day.

Early Baroque concerto[link]

The term "concerto" was initially used to denote works involving voices and instruments in which the instruments had independent parts—as opposed to the Renaissance common practice in which the instruments that accompanied voices only doubled the voice parts.^[1] Examples of this earlier form of concerto include Giovanni Gabrieli's "In Ecclesiis" or Heinrich Schütz's "Saul, Saul, was verfolgst du mich."

Late Baroque concerto[link]

The concerto began to take its modern shape in the late Baroque period. Starting from a form called Concerto grosso introduced by Arcangelo Corelli, it evolved into the form we understand today as performance of a soloist with/against an orchestra.

The main composers of concerti of the baroque were Tommaso Albinoni, Antonio Vivaldi, Georg Philipp Telemann, Johann Sebastian Bach, George Frideric Handel, Pietro Locatelli, Giuseppe Tartini, Francesco Geminiani and Johann Joachim Quantz. The concerto was intended as a composition typical of the Italian style of the time, and all the composers were studying how to compose in the Italian fashion (all'italiana).

The baroque concerto was mainly for a string instrument (violin, viola, cello, seldom viola d'amore or harp) or a wind instrument (oboe, trumpet, flute, or horn).

During the baroque period, before the invention of the piano, keyboard concertos were comparatively rare, with the exception of the organ and some harpsichord concertos by Johann Sebastian Bach. As the harpsichord evolved into the fortepiano, and in the end to the modern piano, the increased volume and the richer sound of the new instrument allowed the keyboard instrument to better compete with a full orchestra.

Cello concertos have been written since the Baroque era if not earlier. Among the works from that period, those by Antonio Vivaldi and Giuseppe Tartini are still part of the standard repertoire today.

Classical concerto[link]

Sonata form in the Classical Concerto.^[2] See: trill (music), cadenza, and coda (music). For exposition, development and recapitulation, see sonata form.

The concerti of the sons of Johann Sebastian Bach are perhaps the best links between those of the Baroque period and those of Mozart. C.P.E. Bach’s keyboard concerti contain some brilliant soloistic writing. Some of them have movements that run into one another without a break, and there are frequent cross-movement thematic references. Mozart, as a boy, made arrangements for harpsichord and orchestra of three sonata movements by Johann Christian Bach. By the time he was twenty, Mozart was able to write concerto ritornelli that gave the orchestra admirable opportunity for asserting its character in an exposition with some five or six sharply contrasted themes, before the soloist enters to elaborate on the material. He wrote one concerto each for flute, oboe (later rearranged for flute and known as Flute Concerto No. 2), clarinet, and bassoon, four for horn, a Concerto for Flute, Harp, and Orchestra, and a Sinfonia Concertante for Violin, Viola and Orchestra. They all exploit and explore the characteristics of the solo instrument. His five violin concerti, written in quick succession, show a number of influences, notably Italian and Austrian. Several passages have leanings towards folk music, as manifested in Austrian serenades. However, it was in his twenty-seven original piano concerti that he excelled himself.^{[citation needed]} It is conventional to state that the first movements of concerti from the Classical period onwards follow the structure of sonata form. Final movements are often in rondo form, as in J.S. Bach's E Major Violin Concerto.^[2]

Romantic concerto[link]

In the romantic era, the concerto largely narrowed to three genres: the violin concerto, the cello concerto and the piano concerto. Virtually no major composer wrote concertos for wind instruments.

Violin concertos[link]

In the 19th century the concerto was a vehicle for virtuosic display flourished as never before. It was the age in which the artist was seen as hero, to be worshipped and adulated with rapture. Early Romantic traits can be found in the violin concertos of Viotti, but it is Spohr’s twelve violin concertos, written between 1802 and 1827, that truly embrace the Romantic spirit with their melodic as well as their dramatic qualities. Beethoven’s Violin Concerto is unique in its scale and melodic qualities. Recitative elements are often incorporated, showing the influence of Italian opera on purely instrumental forms. Mendelssohn opens his violin concerto (1844) with the singing qualities of the violin solo. Even later passage work is dramatic and recitative-like, rather than merely virtuosic. The wind instruments state the lyrical second subject over a low pedal G on the violin – certainly an innovation. The cadenza, placed at the end of the development and acting as a link to the recapitulation, is fully written out and integrated into the structure.

The great violin virtuoso Niccolò Paganini was a legendary figure who, as a composer, exploited the technical potential of his instrument to its very limits. Each one exploits rhapsodic ideas but is unique in its own form. The Belgian violinist Henri Vieuxtemps contributed several works to this form. Édouard Lalo's Symphonie Espagnole (1875) displays virtuoso writing with a Spanish flavor. Max Bruch wrote three violin concertos, but it is the first, in G minor, that has remained a firm favorite in the repertoire. The opening movement relates so closely to the two remaining movements that it functions like an operatic prelude. Tchaikovsky’s violin concerto (1878) is a powerful work which succeeds in being lyrical as well as superbly virtuosic. In the same year Brahms wrote his violin concerto for the virtuoso Joseph Joachim. This work makes new demands on the player, so much so that when it was first written it was referred to as a "concerto against the violin". The first movement brings the concerto into the realm of symphonic development. The second movement is traditionally lyrical, and the finale is based on a lively Hungarian theme.

Cello concertos[link]

Since the Romantic era, the cello has received as much attention as the piano and violin as a concerto instrument, and many great Romantic and even more 20th century composers left examples. Antonín Dvořák’s cello concerto ranks among the supreme examples from the Romantic era while those of Robert Schumann, Carl Reinecke, David Popper, and Julius Klengel focus on the lyrical qualities of the instrument. Beethoven contributed to the repertoire with a Triple Concerto for piano, violin, cello and orchestra while later in the century, Brahms wrote a Double Concerto for violin, cello and orchestra. The instrument was also popular with composers of the Franco-Belgian tradition: Saint-Saëns and Vieuxtemps wrote two cello concertos each and Lalo and Jongen one. Tchaikovsky’s contribution to the genre is a series of Variations on a Rococo Theme. He also left very fragmentary sketches of a projected Cello Concerto which was only completed in 2006. Elgar's popular concerto, while written in the early 20th century, belongs to the late romantic period stylistically. In addition, Ernest Bloch wrote Schelomo, Rhapsodie Hébraïque for cello solo and orchestra in the 20th century.

Today's 'core' repertoire which is performed the most of any cello concertos are by Elgar, Dvořák, Saint-Saëns, Haydn, Shostakovich, Tchaikovsky and Schumann but there are many more concertos which are performed nearly as often (see below: cello concertos in the 20th century).

Piano concertos[link]

Beethoven’s five piano concertos increase the technical demands made on the soloist. The last two are particularly remarkable, integrating the concerto into a large symphonic structure with movements that frequently run into one another. His Piano Concerto no 4 starts, against tradition, with a statement by the piano, after which the orchestra magically enters in a foreign key, to present what would normally have been the opening tutti. The work has an essentially lyrical character. The slow movement is a dramatic dialogue between the soloist and the orchestra. Concerto no 5 has the basic rhythm of a Viennese military march. There is no lyrical second subject, but in its place a continuous development of the opening material. He also wrote a Triple Concerto for piano, violin, cello, and orchestra.

The piano concertos of Mendelssohn, Field, and Hummel provide a link from the Classical concerto to the Romantic concerto. Chopin wrote two piano concertos in which the orchestra is very much relegated to an accompanying role. Schumann, despite being a pianist-composer, wrote a piano concerto in which virtuosity is never allowed to eclipse the essential lyrical quality of the work. The gentle, expressive melody heard at the beginning on woodwind and horns (after the piano’s heralding introductory chords) bears the material for most of the argument in the first movement. In fact, argument in the traditional developmental sense is replaced by a kind of variation technique in which soloist and orchestra interweave their ideas.

Liszt's mastery of piano technique matched that of Paganini for the violin. His concertos No. 1 and No. 2 left a deep impression on the style of piano concerto writing, influencing Rubinstein, and especially Tchaikovsky, whose first piano concerto's rich chordal opening is justly famous. Grieg’s concerto likewise begins in a striking manner after which it continues in a lyrical vein.

Brahms's First Piano Concerto in D minor (pub 1861) was the result of an immense amount of work on a mass of material originally intended for a symphony. His Second Piano Concerto in B♭ major (1881) has four movements and is written on a larger scale than any earlier concerto. Like his violin concerto, it is symphonic in proportions.

Fewer piano concertos were written in the late Romantic Period. But Grieg-inspired Sergei Rachmaninoff wrote 4 piano concertos between 1891 and 1926. His 2nd and 3rd, being the most popular of the 4, went on to become among the most famous in piano repertoire and shining examples of Russian musicianship.

Small-scale works[link]

Besides the usual three-movement works with the title "concerto", many 19th-century composers wrote shorter pieces for solo instrument and orchestra, often bearing descriptive titles. From around 1800 such pieces were often called Konzertstück or Phantasie by German composers. Liszt wrote the Totentanz for piano and orchestra, a paraphrase of the Dies Irae. Max Bruch wrote a popular Scottish Fantasy for violin and orchestra, César Franck wrote Les Djinns and Variations symphoniques, and Gabriel Fauré wrote a Ballade for piano and orchestra. Tchaikovsky's Variations on a Rococo Theme for cello and orchestra have an important place in the instrument's repertoire. Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini is widely considered to be structured similarly to a piano concerto.

20th century[link]

Many of the concertos written in the early 20th century belong more to the late Romantic school than to any modernistic movement. Masterpieces were written by Edward Elgar (a violin concerto and a cello concerto), Sergei Rachmaninoff and Nikolai Medtner (four and three piano concertos, respectively), Jean Sibelius (a violin concerto), Frederick Delius (a violin concerto, a cello concerto, a piano concerto and a double concerto for violin and cello), Karol Szymanowski (two violin concertos and a "Symphonie Concertante" for piano), and Richard Strauss (two horn concertos, a violin concerto, Don Quixote —a tone poem which features the cello as a soloist— and among later works, an oboe concerto).

However, in the first decades of the 20th century, several composers such as Debussy, Schoenberg, Berg, Hindemith, Stravinsky, Prokofiev and Bartók started experimenting with ideas that were to have far-reaching consequences for the way music is written and, in some cases, performed. Some of these innovations include a more frequent use of modality, the exploration of non-western scales, the development of atonality, the wider acceptance of dissonances, the invention of the twelve-tone technique of composition and the use of polyrhythms and complex time signatures.

These changes also affected the concerto as a musical form. Beside more or less radical effects on musical language, they led to a redefinition of the concept of virtuosity in order to include new and extended instrumental techniques as well as a focus on aspects of sound that had been neglected or even ignored before such as pitch, timbre and dynamics. In some cases, they also brought about a new approach to the role of the soloist and its relation to the orchestra.

Violin concertos[link]

Two great innovators of early 20th-century music, Schoenberg and Stravinsky, both wrote violin concertos. The material in Schoenberg’s concerto, like that in Berg’s, is linked by the twelve-tone serial method. Bartók, another major 20th century composer, wrote two important concertos for violin. Russian composers Prokofiev and Shostakovich both wrote two concertos while Khachaturian wrote a concerto and a Concerto-Rhapsody for the instrument. Hindemith’s concertos hark back to the forms of the 19th century, even if the harmonic language which he used was different.

Three violin concertos from David Diamond show the form in neoclassical style.

More recently, Dutilleux's L'Arbre des Songes has proved an important addition to the repertoire and a fine example of the composer's atonal yet melodic style.

Other composers of major violin concertos include Jean Sibelius, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Walton, Benjamin Britten, Frank Martin, Carl Nielsen, Paul Hindemith, Alfred Schnittke, György Ligeti, Philip Glass, John Adams, and Kan-no.

Cello concertos[link]

In the 20th century, particularly after the Second World War, the cello enjoyed an unprecedented popularity. As a result, its concertante repertoire caught up with those of the piano and the violin both in terms of quantity and quality.

An important factor in this phenomenon was the rise of virtuoso cellist Mstislav Rostropovich. His outstanding technique and passionate playing prompted dozens of composers to write pieces for him, first in his native Soviet Union and then abroad. His creations include such masterpieces as Sergei Prokofiev's Symphony-Concerto, Dmitri Shostakovich's two cello concertos, Benjamin Britten's Cello-Symphony (which emphasizes, as its title suggests, the equal importance of soloist and orchestra), Henri Dutilleux' Tout un monde lointain, Witold Lutosławski's cello concerto, Dmitri Kabalevsky's two cello concertos, Aram Khachaturian's Concerto-Rhapsody, Arvo Pärt's Pro et Contra, Alfred Schnittke, André Jolivet and Krzysztof Penderecki second cello concertos, Sofia Gubaidulina's Canticles of the Sun, Luciano Berio's Ritorno degli Snovidenia, Leonard Bernstein's Three Meditations, James MacMillan's cello concerto and Olivier Messiaen's Concert à quatre (a quadruple concerto for cello, piano, oboe, flute and orchestra).

In addition, several important composers who were not directly influenced by Rostropovich wrote cello concertos: György Ligeti, Alexander Glazunov, Paul Hindemith, Toru Takemitsu, Darius Milhaud, Arthur Honegger, Nikolai Myaskovsky, Samuel Barber, Joaquín Rodrigo, Elliot Carter, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, William Walton, Heitor Villa-Lobos, Hans Werner Henze, Bernd Alois Zimmermann and Einojuhani Rautavaara for instance.

Piano concertos[link]

Schoenberg’s Piano Concerto is a well known example of piano concerti. In addition, Stravinsky wrote three works for solo piano and orchestra: Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments, Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra, and Movements for Piano and Orchestra. Prokofiev, another Russian composer, wrote no less than five piano concertos which he himself performed. Shostakovich composed two. Fellow soviet composer Khachaturian contributed to the repertoire with a piano concerto and a Concerto-Rhapsody.

Bartók also wrote three piano concertos. Like their violin counterparts, they show the various stages in his musical development.

Ralph Vaughan Williams wrote concertos for piano and for two pianos while Britten's concerto for piano (1938) is a fine work from his early period.

György Ligeti's concerto is a good example of a more recent piece (1985) that uses complex rhythms. Russian composer Rodion Shchedrin has written six piano concertos.

Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara wrote three piano concertos, the third one dedicated to Vladimir Ashkenazy, who played and conducted the world première.

Concertos for other instruments[link]

The 20th century also witnessed a growth of the concertante repertoire of instruments, some of which had seldom or never been used in this capacity. As a result, almost all the instruments of the classical orchestra now have a concertante repertoire. Examples include:

• Alto saxophone Concerto: Creston, Dahl, Denisov, Dubois, Glazunov, Ibert, Koch, Larsson, Maslanka, Tomasi, Yoshimatsu
• Bandoneón Concerto: Piazzolla
• Baritone saxophone Concerto: Gaines
• Bassoon concerto: Aho, Donatoni, Eckhardt-Gramatté, Gubaidulina, Hétu, Jolivet, Davies, Panufnik, Sæverud, J. Williams
• Bass clarinet Concerto: Bouliane
• Bass oboe concerto: Bryars
• Clarinet concerto: Aho, Arnold, Copland, Denisov, Dusapin, Fairouz, Françaix, Hétu, Hindemith, Kan-no, Nielsen, Penderecki, Rautavaara, Stravinsky, Takemitsu, Tomasi, J. Williams
• Contrabassoon Concerto: Aho, Erb
• Contrabass flute Concerto: McGowan
• Cornet Concerto: Wright
• Double bass concerto: Aho, Gagneux, Henze, Koussevitsky, Davies, Ohzawa, Rautavaara, Tubin
• Drum set Concerto : Beck
• Euphonium Concerto: Clarke, Cosma, Ewazen, Gillingham, Golland, Graham, Horovitz, Lindberg, Linkola, Sparke, Wilby.
• Flute Concerto: Aho, Arnold, Denisov, Dusapin, Harman, Hétu, Ibert, Jolivet, Nielsen, Penderecki, Rautavaara, Rodrigo, Takemitsu, J. Williams
• Free bass accordion Concerto: Serry, Sr.
• Guitar Concerto: Arnold, Brouwer, Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Hovhaness, Ohana, Ponce, Rodrigo, Villa-Lobos
• Harmonica concerto: Arnold, Vaughan Williams, Villa-Lobos
• Harp Concerto: Ginastera, Glière, Jongen, Milhaud, Jolivet, Rautavaara, Rodrigo, Villa-Lobos
• Harpsichord Concerto: de Falla, Glass, Górecki, Martinů, Poulenc
• Horn Concerto: Aho, Arnold, Arutiunian, Atterberg, Bowen, Carter, Davies, Glière, Gipps, Hindemith, Hovhaness, Jacob, Knussen, Ligeti, Murail, Penderecki, Strauss, Tomasi, J. Williams
• Kanun Concerto: Alnar
• Mandolin Concerto: Thile
• Marimba Concerto: Creston, Larsen, Milhaud, Rosauro, Svoboda, Viñao
• Oboe concerto: Aho, Arnold, Bouliane, Denisov, Harman, MacMillan, Maderna, Martinů, Penderecki, Shchedrin, Strauss, Vaughan Williams, Zimmermann
• Organ concerto: Arnold, Hanson, Harrison, Hétu, Hindemith, Jongen, Kan-no, MacMillan, Peeters, Poulenc, Rorem, Sowerby
• Percussion Concerto: Aho, Dorman, Glass, Jolivet, MacMillan, Milhaud, Rautavaara, Susman
• Piccolo Concerto: Liebermann
• Shakuhachi Concerto: Takemitsu
• Sheng Concerto: Kan-no, Unsuk Chin.
• Soprano saxophone Concerto: Higdon, Mackey, Torke, Yoshimatsu.
• Tenor saxophone Concerto: Bennett, Ewazen, Nicolau, Ward, Wilder.
• Timpani concerto: Druschetzky, Glass, Kraft, Rosauro
• Trombone Concerto: Aho, Bourgeois, Dusapin, Gagneux, Grøndahl, Holmboe, Larsson, Milhaud, Olsen, Rota, Rouse, Tomasi
• Trumpet Concerto:Aho, Arnold, Arutiunian, Böhme, Jolivet, Perry, Williams, Zimmermann
• Tuba Concerto: Aho, Arutiunian, Gagneux, Holmboe, Vaughan Williams, J. Williams
• Viola concerto: Aho, Arnold, Bartók, Denisov, Gagneux, Gubaidulina, Hindemith, Kan-no, Kancheli, Martinů, Milhaud, Murail, Penderecki, Schnittke, Takemitsu, Walton

Among the works of the prolific composer Alan Hovhaness may be noted Prayer of St. Gregory for trumpet and strings.

Today the concerto tradition has been continued by composers such as Maxwell Davies, whose series of Strathclyde Concertos exploit some of the instruments less familiar as soloists.

Concertos for orchestra[link]

In the 20th century, several important composers wrote concertos for orchestra. In these works, different sections and/or instruments of the orchestra are treated at one point or another as soloists with emphasis on solo sections and/or instruments changing during the piece. Famous examples include those written by:

• Bartók - Concerto for Orchestra
• Kodály
• Lutoslawski - Concerto for Orchestra
• Hindemith
• Carter
• Lindberg
• Shchedrin

Dutilleux has also described his Métaboles as a concerto for orchestra, while Britten's well-known pedagogical work The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra is essentially a concerto for orchestra in all but name.

Concertos for two or more instruments[link]

Many composers also wrote concertos for two or more soloists.

In the Baroque era:

• Vivaldi's concerti for 2, 3 or 4 violins, for 2 cellos, for 2 mandolins, for 2 trumpets, for 2 flutes, for oboe and bassoon, for cello and bassoon... etc.
• Bach's concerti for 2 violins, for 2, 3, or 4 harpsichords as well as several of his Brandenburg concertos.

In the Classical era:

• Mozart's concerti for 2 pianos and 3 pianos, the Sinfonia concertante for violin and viola, and his concerto for flute and harp.
• Salieri's Triple Concerto for oboe, violin and cello, and his double concerto for flute and oboe.

In the Romantic era:

• Beethoven's triple concerto for piano, violin, and cello.
• Brahms's double concerto for violin and cello.
• Bruch's double concerto for viola and clarinet.

In the 20th century:

• Malcolm Arnold's concerto for piano duet and strings, as well as his concerto for two violins and string orchestra
• Béla Bartók's concerto for two pianos and percussion
• Samuel Barber's Capricorn Concerto for flute, oboe and trumpet.
• Benjamin Britten's double concerto for violin and viola.
• Elliott Carter's double concerto for piano and harpsichord.
• Frederick Delius's double concerto for violin and cello.
• Jean Françaix's concerto for two pianos and another for two harps, as well as his Divertissement for string trio and orchestra, his Quadruple Concerto for flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon and orchestra, his Double Concerto for flute and clarinet, and his Concerto for 15 Soloists and Orchestra
• Philip Glass's concerto for saxophone quartet.
• Hans Werner Henze's double concerto for oboe and harp.
• Paul Hindemith's concerto for flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, harp, and orchestra as well as his concerto for trumpet, bassoon, and strings
• Gustav Holst's Fugal Concerto for flute, oboe and string orchestra
• György Kurtág's double concerto for piano and cello.
• Lowell Liebermann's concerto for flute and harp
• György Ligeti's double concerto for flute and oboe.
• Jon Lord's concerto for rock band.
• Witold Lutosławski's concerto for oboe and harp.
• Bohuslav Martinu's concerto for string quartet, concertino for piano trio and string orchestra, two concertante duos for two violins, concerto for two pianos, sinfonia concertante No. 2 for violin, cello, oboe, bassoon and orchestra with piano, and his concerto for violin and piano.
• Olivier Messiaen's Concert à quatre for piano, cello, oboe and flute.
• Darius Milhaud's Symphonie concertante for bassoon, horn, trumpet and double bass, as well as his concerti for flute and violin, and for marimba and vibraphone.
• Francis Poulenc's concerto for two pianos.
• Joaquín Rodrigo's Concierto madrigal for 2 guitars and Concierto Andaluz for 4 guitars.
• William Russo's concerto for blues band.
• Alfred Schnittke's double concerto for oboe, harp, and strings as well as his Konzert zu Dritt, for violin, viola, violoncello and strings.
• Rodion Shchedrin's double concerto for piano and cello.
• Michael Tippett's triple concerto for violin, viola, and cello.

In the 21st century:

• Leo Brouwer's Guitar Concerto No. 10 "Book of Signs", for two guitars
• Mohammed Fairouz's Double Concerto 'States of Fantasy' for violin and cello
• William P. Perry's Gemini Concerto for violin and piano
• Karl Jenkins' Over the Stone for two harps

See also[link]

References[link]

 Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Concerto". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 

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Mozart circa 1780, by Johann Nepomuk della Croce.

Mozart's signature.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (German: [ˈvɔlfɡaŋ amaˈdeus ˈmoːtsaʁt], English see fn.),^[1] baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart^[2] (27 January 1756 – 5 December 1791), was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, operatic, and choral music. He is among the most enduringly popular of classical composers.

Mozart showed prodigious ability from his earliest childhood in Salzburg. Already competent on keyboard and violin, he composed from the age of five and performed before European royalty. At 17, he was engaged as a court musician in Salzburg, but grew restless and travelled in search of a better position, always composing abundantly. While visiting Vienna in 1781, he was dismissed from his Salzburg position. He chose to stay in the capital, where he achieved fame but little financial security. During his final years in Vienna, he composed many of his best-known symphonies, concertos, and operas, and portions of the Requiem, which was largely unfinished at the time of his death. The circumstances of his early death have been much mythologized. He was survived by his wife Constanze and two sons.

Mozart learned voraciously from others, and developed a brilliance and maturity of style that encompassed the light and graceful along with the dark and passionate. His influence on subsequent Western art music is profound. Beethoven wrote his own early compositions in the shadow of Mozart, and Joseph Haydn wrote that "posterity will not see such a talent again in 100 years."^[3]

Biography[link]

Mozart's birthplace at Getreidegasse 9, Salzburg, Austria.

Family and early years[link]

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born to Leopold and Anna Maria Mozart at 9 Getreidegasse in Salzburg, capital of the sovereign Archbishopric of Salzburg in what is now Austria, but then was part of the Holy Roman Empire. His only sibling to survive infancy was his elder sister Maria Anna (1751–1829), nicknamed "Nannerl". Mozart was baptized the day after his birth at St. Rupert's Cathedral. The baptismal record gives his name in Latinized form as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart. He generally called himself "Wolfgang Amadè Mozart"^[4] as an adult, but there were many variants.

His father (1719–1787) was from Augsburg. A minor composer and an experienced teacher, he was deputy Kapellmeister to the court orchestra of the Archbishop of Salzburg. In the year of Mozart's birth, his father published a violin textbook, Versuch einer gründlichen Violinschule, which achieved success.

Anonymous portrait of the child Mozart, possibly by Pietro Antonio Lorenzoni; painted in 1763 on commission from Leopold Mozart

When Nannerl was seven, she began keyboard lessons with her father while her three-year-old brother looked on. Years later, after her brother's death, she reminisced:

He often spent much time at the clavier, picking out thirds, which he was ever striking, and his pleasure showed that it sounded good. [...] In the fourth year of his age his father, for a game as it were, began to teach him a few minuets and pieces at the clavier. [...] He could play it faultlessly and with the greatest delicacy, and keeping exactly in time. [...] At the age of five, he was already composing little pieces, which he played to his father who wrote them down.^[5]

These early pieces, K. 1–5, were recorded in the Nannerl Notenbuch.

Biographer Maynard Solomon^[6] notes that, while Mozart's father was a devoted teacher to his children, there is evidence that Mozart was keen to progress beyond what he was taught. His first ink-spattered composition and his precocious efforts with the violin were of his own initiative and came as a surprise to his father.^[7] Mozart's father eventually gave up composing when his son's musical talents became evident.^[8] In his early years, Mozart's father was his only teacher. Along with music, he also taught his children languages and academic subjects.^[6]

The Mozart family on tour: Leopold, Wolfgang, and Nannerl. Watercolor by Carmontelle, ca. 1763^[9]

1762–1773: Years of travel[link]

During Mozart's youth, his family made several European journeys in which he and Nannerl performed as child prodigies. These began with an exhibition, in 1762, at the court of the Prince-elector Maximilian III of Bavaria in Munich, and at the Imperial Court in Vienna and Prague. A long concert tour spanning three and a half years followed, taking the family to the courts of Munich, Mannheim, Paris, London, The Hague, again to Paris, and back home via Zurich, Donaueschingen, and Munich.

During this trip, Mozart met a great number of musicians and acquainted himself with the works of other composers. A particularly important influence was Johann Christian Bach, whom Mozart visited in London in 1764 and 1765. The family again went to Vienna in late 1767 and remained there until December 1768. In 1767, during this period, Mozart composed the Latin drama Apollo et Hyacinthus first performed in Salzburg University.

These trips were often difficult and travel conditions were primitive.^[10] The family had to wait for invitations and reimbursement from the nobility and they endured long, near-fatal illnesses far from home: first Leopold (London, summer 1764)^[11] then both children (The Hague, autumn 1765).^[12]

After one year in Salzburg, father and son set off for Italy, leaving Mozart's mother and sister at home. This travel lasted from December 1769 to March 1771. As with earlier journeys, Mozart's father wanted to display his son's abilities as a performer and a rapidly maturing composer. Mozart met G. B. Martini, in Bologna, and was accepted as a member of the famous Accademia Filarmonica. In Rome, he heard Gregorio Allegri's Miserere twice in performance in the Sistine Chapel and wrote it out from memory, thus producing the first unauthorized copy of this closely guarded property of the Vatican.^[13][14]

In Milan, Mozart wrote the opera Mitridate, re di Ponto (1770), which was performed with success. This led to further opera commissions. He returned with his father later twice to Milan (August–December 1771; October 1772 – March 1773) for the composition and premieres of Ascanio in Alba (1771) and Lucio Silla (1772). Mozart's father hoped these visits would result in a professional appointment for his son in Italy, but these hopes were never realized.^[15]

Toward the end of the final Italian journey, Mozart wrote the first of his works to be still widely performed today, the solo motet Exsultate, jubilate, K. 165.

1773–1777: The Salzburg court[link]

After finally returning with his father from Italy on 13 March 1773, Mozart was employed as a court musician by the ruler of Salzburg, Prince-Archbishop Hieronymus Colloredo. The composer had a great number of friends and admirers in Salzburg^[16] and had the opportunity to work in many genres, composing symphonies, sonatas, string quartets, serenades, and a few minor operas. Between April and December 1775, Mozart developed an enthusiasm for violin concertos, producing a series of five (the only ones he ever wrote), which steadily increased in their musical sophistication. The last three — K. 216, K. 218, K. 219 — are now staples of the repertoire. In 1776 he turned his efforts to piano concertos, culminating in the E-flat concerto K. 271 of early 1777, considered by critics to be a breakthrough work.^[17]

Despite these artistic successes, Mozart grew increasingly discontented with Salzburg and redoubled his efforts to find a position elsewhere. One reason was his low salary, 150 florins a year;^[18] Mozart also longed to compose operas, and Salzburg provided only rare occasions for these. The situation worsened in 1775 when the court theater was closed, especially since the other theater in Salzburg was largely reserved for visiting troupes.^[19]

Two long expeditions in search of work interrupted this long Salzburg stay: Mozart and his father visited Vienna from 14 July to 26 September 1773, and Munich from 6 December 1774 to March 1775. Neither visit was successful, though the Munich journey resulted in a popular success with the premiere of Mozart's opera La finta giardiniera.^[20]

1777–1778: The Paris journey[link]

Circa 1777; Portrait of Mozart wearing the Order of the Golden Spur, received in 1770 from Pope Clement XIV in Rome.^[21]

In August 1777, Mozart resigned his Salzburg position^[22] and, on September 23, ventured out once more in search of employment, with visits to Augsburg, Mannheim, Paris, and Munich.^[23]

Mozart became acquainted with members of the famous orchestra in Mannheim, the best in Europe at the time. He also fell in love with Aloysia Weber, one of four daughters in a musical family. There were prospects of employment in Mannheim, but they came to nothing, and Mozart left for Paris on 14 March 1778^[24] to continue his search. One of his letters from Paris hints at a possible post as an organist at Versailles, but Mozart was not interested in such an appointment.^[25] He fell into debt and took to pawning valuables.^[26] The nadir of the visit occurred when Mozart's mother took ill and died on 3 July 1778.^[27] There had been delays in calling a doctor — probably, according to Halliwell, because of a lack of funds.^[28]

While Mozart was in Paris, his father was pursuing opportunities for his son back in Salzburg.^[29] With the support of local nobility, Mozart was offered a post as court organist and concertmaster. The yearly salary was 450 florins,^[30] but he was reluctant to accept.^[31] After leaving Paris on in September 1778, he tarried in Mannheim and Munich, still hoping to obtain an appointment outside Salzburg. In Munich, he again encountered Aloysia, now a very successful singer, but she was no longer interested in him.^[32] Mozart finally reached home on 15 January 1779 and took up the new position, but his discontent with Salzburg was undiminished.

Among the better known works that Mozart wrote on the Paris journey are the A minor piano sonata K. 310/300d and the "Paris" Symphony (no. 31); these were performed in Paris on 12 and 18 June 1778.^[33]

The Mozart family circa 1780. The portrait on the wall is of Mozart's mother.

1781: Departure to Vienna[link]

In January 1781, Mozart's opera Idomeneo premiered with "considerable success" in Munich.^[34] The following March the composer was summoned to Vienna, where his employer, Archbishop Colloredo, was attending the celebrations for the accession of Joseph II to the Austrian throne. Mozart, fresh from the adulation he had earned in Munich, was offended when Colloredo treated him as a mere servant and particularly when the archbishop forbade him to perform before the Emperor at Countess Thun's for a fee equal to half of his yearly Salzburg salary. The resulting quarrel came to a head in May: Mozart attempted to resign and was refused. The following month, permission was granted but in a grossly insulting way: the composer was dismissed literally "with a kick in the arse", administered by the archbishop's steward, Count Arco. Mozart decided to settle in Vienna as a freelance performer and composer.^[35]

The quarrel with the archbishop went harder for Mozart because his father sided against him. Hoping fervently that he would obediently follow Colloredo back to Salzburg, Mozart's father exchanged intense letters with his son, urging him to be reconciled with their employer. Mozart passionately defended his intention to pursue an independent career in Vienna. The debate ended when Mozart was dismissed by the archbishop, freeing himself both of his employer and his father's demands to return. Solomon characterizes Mozart's resignation as a "revolutionary step", and it greatly altered the course of his life.^[36]

Early Vienna years[link]

Mozart's new career in Vienna began well. He performed often as a pianist, notably in a competition before the Emperor with Muzio Clementi on 24 December 1781,^[35] and he soon "had established himself as the finest keyboard player in Vienna".^[35] He also prospered as a composer, and in 1782 completed the opera Die Entführung aus dem Serail ("The Abduction from the Seraglio"), which premiered on 16 July 1782 and achieved a huge success. The work was soon being performed "throughout German-speaking Europe",^[35] and fully established Mozart's reputation as a composer.

1782 portrait of Constanze Mozart by her brother-in-law Joseph Lange.

Near the height of his quarrels with Colloredo, Mozart moved in with the Weber family, who had moved to Vienna from Mannheim. The father, Fridolin, had died, and the Webers were now taking in lodgers to make ends meet.^[37] Aloysia, who had earlier rejected Mozart's suit, was now married to the actor and artist Joseph Lange. Mozart's interest shifted to the third Weber daughter, Constanze. The courtship did not go entirely smoothly; surviving correspondence indicates that Mozart and Constanze briefly separated in April 1782.^[38] Mozart also faced a very difficult task in getting his father's permission for the marriage.^[39] The couple were finally married on 4 August 1782 in St. Stephen's Cathedral, the day before his father's consent arrived in the mail.^[39]

The couple had six children, of whom only two survived infancy:

• Raimund Leopold (17 June – 19 August 1783)
• Karl Thomas Mozart (21 September 1784 – 31 October 1858)
• Johann Thomas Leopold (18 October – 15 November 1786)
• Theresia Constanzia Adelheid Friedericke Maria Anna (27 December 1787 – 29 June 1788)
• Anna Maria (died soon after birth, 25 December 1789)
• Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart (26 July 1791 – 29 July 1844)

In the course of 1782 and 1783, Mozart became intimately acquainted with the work of Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel as a result of the influence of Gottfried van Swieten, who owned many manuscripts of the Baroque masters. Mozart's study of these scores inspired compositions in Baroque style, and later influenced his personal musical language, for example in fugal passages in Die Zauberflöte ("The Magic Flute") and the finale of Symphony No. 41.^[40]

In 1783, Mozart and his wife visited his family in Salzburg. His father and sister were cordially polite to Constanze, but the visit prompted the composition of one of Mozart's great liturgical pieces, the Mass in C minor. Though not completed, it was premiered in Salzburg, with Constanze singing a solo part.^[41]

Mozart met Joseph Haydn in Vienna around 1784, and the two composers became friends. When Haydn visited Vienna, they sometimes played together in an impromptu string quartet. Mozart's six quartets dedicated to Haydn (K. 387, K. 421, K. 428, K. 458, K. 464, and K. 465) date from the period 1782 to 1785, and are judged to be a response to Haydn's Opus 33 set from 1781.^[42] Haydn in 1785 told Mozart's father: "I tell you before God, and as an honest man, your son is the greatest composer known to me by person and repute, he has taste and what is more the greatest skill in composition."^[43] (See also: Haydn and Mozart)

From 1782 to 1785 Mozart mounted concerts with himself as soloist, presenting three or four new piano concertos in each season. Since space in the theaters was scarce, he booked unconventional venues: a large room in the Trattnerhof (an apartment building), and the ballroom of the Mehlgrube (a restaurant).^[44] The concerts were very popular, and the concertos he premiered at them are still firm fixtures in the repertoire. Solomon writes that during this period Mozart created "a harmonious connection between an eager composer-performer and a delighted audience, which was given the opportunity of witnessing the transformation and perfection of a major musical genre".^[44]

With substantial returns from his concerts and elsewhere, Mozart and his wife adopted a rather plush lifestyle. They moved to an expensive apartment, with a yearly rent of 460 florins.^[45] Mozart also bought a fine fortepiano from Anton Walter for about 900 florins, and a billiard table for about 300.^[45] The Mozarts sent their son Karl Thomas to an expensive boarding school,^[46][47] and kept servants. Saving was therefore impossible, and the short period of financial success did nothing to soften the hardship the Mozarts were later to experience.^[48][49]

On 14 December 1784, Mozart became a Freemason, admitted to the lodge Zur Wohltätigkeit ("Beneficence").^[50] Freemasonry played an important role in the remainder of Mozart's life: he attended meetings, a number of his friends were Masons, and on various occasions he composed Masonic music. (See also: Mozart and Freemasonry)

1786–1787: Return to opera[link]

Despite the great success of Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Mozart did little operatic writing for the next four years, producing only two unfinished works and the one-act Der Schauspieldirektor. He focused instead on his career as a piano soloist and writer of concertos. However, around the end of 1785, Mozart moved away from keyboard writing^{[51][page needed]} and began his famous operatic collaboration with the librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte. 1786 saw the successful premiere of The Marriage of Figaro in Vienna. Its reception in Prague later in the year was even warmer, and this led to a second collaboration with Da Ponte: the opera Don Giovanni, which premiered in October 1787 to acclaim in Prague, and also met with success in Vienna in 1788. The two are among Mozart's most important works and are mainstays of the operatic repertoire today, though at their premieres their musical complexity caused difficulty for both listeners and performers. These developments were not witnessed by Mozart's father, who had died on 28 May 1787.

In December 1787, Mozart finally obtained a steady post under aristocratic patronage. Emperor Joseph II appointed him as his "chamber composer", a post that had fallen vacant the previous month on the death of Gluck. It was a part-time appointment, paying just 800 florins per year, and required Mozart only to compose dances for the annual balls in the Redoutensaal (see Mozart and dance). However, even this modest income became important to Mozart when hard times arrived. Court records show that Joseph's aim was to keep the esteemed composer from leaving Vienna in pursuit of better prospects.^[52]

In 1787 the young Ludwig van Beethoven spent several weeks in Vienna, hoping to study with Mozart.^[53] No reliable records survive to indicate whether the two composers ever met. (See also section "Influence" below)

1788–1790[link]

Drawing of Mozart in silverpoint, made by Dora Stock during Mozart's visit to Dresden, April 1789

Toward the end of the decade, Mozart's circumstances worsened. Around 1786 he had ceased to appear frequently in public concerts, and his income shrank.^[54] This was a difficult time for musicians in Vienna because Austria was at war, and both the general level of prosperity and the ability of the aristocracy to support music had declined.^[51]

By mid-1788, Mozart and his family had moved from central Vienna to the suburb of Alsergrund.^[54] Although it has been thought that Mozart reduced his rental expenses, recent research shows that by moving to the suburb, Mozart had certainly not reduced his expenses (as claimed in his letter to Puchberg), but merely increased the housing space at his disposal.^[55] Mozart began to borrow money, most often from his friend and fellow Mason Michael Puchberg; "a pitiful sequence of letters pleading for loans" survives.^[56] Maynard Solomon and others have suggested that Mozart was suffering from depression, and it seems that his output slowed.^[57] Major works of the period include the last three symphonies (Nos. 39, 40, and 41, all from 1788), and the last of the three Da Ponte operas, Così fan tutte, premiered in 1790.

Around this time, Mozart made long journeys hoping to improve his fortunes: to Leipzig, Dresden, and Berlin in the spring of 1789, and to Frankfurt, Mannheim, and other German cities in 1790. The trips produced only isolated success and did not relieve the family's financial distress. (See also: Mozart's Berlin journey)

1791[link]

Mozart's last year was, until his final illness struck, a time of great productivity — and by some accounts a time of personal recovery.^[58] He composed a great deal, including some of his most admired works: the opera The Magic Flute; the final piano concerto (K. 595 in B-flat); the Clarinet Concerto K. 622; the last in his great series of string quintets (K. 614 in E-flat); the motet Ave verum corpus K. 618; and the unfinished Requiem K. 626.

Mozart's financial situation, a source of extreme anxiety in 1790, finally began to improve. Although the evidence is inconclusive,^[59] it appears that wealthy patrons in Hungary and Amsterdam pledged annuities to Mozart in return for the occasional composition. He probably also benefited from the sale of dance music written in his role as Imperial chamber composer.^[59] Mozart no longer borrowed large sums from Puchberg, and made a start on paying off his debts.^[59]

He experienced great satisfaction in the public success of some of his works, notably The Magic Flute (performed many times in the short period between its premiere and Mozart's death)^[60] and the Little Masonic Cantata K. 623, premiered on 15 November 1791.^[61]

Final illness and death[link]

Posthumous painting by Barbara Krafft in 1819

Mozart fell ill while in Prague for the 6 September 1791 premiere of his opera La clemenza di Tito, written in that same year on commission for the Emperor's coronation festivities.^[62] He was able to continue his professional functions for some time, and conducted the premiere of The Magic Flute on 30 September. The illness intensified on 20 November, at which point Mozart became bedridden, suffering from swelling, pain, and vomiting.^[63]

Mozart was nursed in his final illness by his wife and her youngest sister, and was attended by the family doctor, Thomas Franz Closset. It is clear that he was mentally occupied with the task of finishing his Requiem. The evidence, however, that he actually dictated passages to his student Süssmayr is minimal.^[64][65]

Mozart died at 1 am on 5 December 1791 at the age of 35. The New Grove gives a matter-of-fact description of his funeral:

Mozart was buried in a common grave, in accordance with contemporary Viennese custom, at the St. Marx Cemetery outside the city on 7 December. If, as later reports say, no mourners attended, that too is consistent with Viennese burial customs at the time; later Jahn (1856) wrote that Salieri, Süssmayr, van Swieten and two other musicians were present. The tale of a storm and snow is false; the day was calm and mild.^[66]

The cause of Mozart's death cannot be known with certainty. The official record has it as "hitziges Frieselfieber" ("severe miliary fever", referring to a rash that looks like millet seeds), a description that does not suffice to identify the cause as it would be diagnosed in modern medicine. Researchers have posited at least 118 causes of death, including trichinosis, influenza, mercury poisoning, and a rare kidney ailment.^[67] The most widely accepted hypothesis is that Mozart died of acute rheumatic fever.^[68]

Mozart's modest funeral did not reflect his standing with the public as a composer: memorial services and concerts in Vienna and Prague were well attended. Indeed, in the period immediately after his death, Mozart's reputation rose substantially: Solomon describes an "unprecedented wave of enthusiasm"^[69] for his work; biographies were written (first by Schlichtegroll, Niemetschek, and Nissen; see Biographies of Mozart); and publishers vied to produce complete editions of his works.^[69]

Appearance and character[link]

Unfinished portrait of Mozart by his brother-in-law Joseph Lange

Mozart's physical appearance was described by tenor Michael Kelly, in his Reminiscences: "a remarkably small man, very thin and pale, with a profusion of fine, fair hair of which he was rather vain". As his early biographer Niemetschek wrote, "there was nothing special about [his] physique. [...] He was small and his countenance, except for his large intense eyes, gave no signs of his genius." His facial complexion was pitted, a reminder of his childhood case of smallpox. He loved elegant clothing. Kelly remembered him at a rehearsal: "[He] was on the stage with his crimson pelisse and gold-laced cocked hat, giving the time of the music to the orchestra." Of his voice his wife later wrote that it "was a tenor, rather soft in speaking and delicate in singing, but when anything excited him, or it became necessary to exert it, it was both powerful and energetic".^[70]

Mozart usually worked long and hard, finishing compositions at a tremendous pace as deadlines approached. He often made sketches and drafts; unlike Beethoven's these are mostly not preserved, as his wife sought to destroy them after his death.^[71] He was raised a Roman Catholic and remained a member of the Church throughout his life. (See also: Mozart and Roman Catholicism)

Mozart lived at the center of the Viennese musical world, and knew a great number and variety of people: fellow musicians, theatrical performers, fellow Salzburgers, and aristocrats, including some acquaintance with the Emperor Joseph II. Solomon considers his three closest friends to have been Gottfried von Jacquin, Count August Hatzfeld, and Sigmund Barisani; others included his older colleague Joseph Haydn, singers Franz Xaver Gerl and Benedikt Schack, and the horn player Joseph Leutgeb. Leutgeb and Mozart carried on a curious kind of friendly mockery, often with Leutgeb as the butt of Mozart's practical jokes.^[72]

He enjoyed billiards and dancing, and kept pets: a canary, a starling, a dog, and also a horse for recreational riding.^[73] He had a startling fondness for scatological humor, which is preserved in his surviving letters, notably those written to his cousin Maria Anna Thekla Mozart around 1777–1778, but also in his correspondence with his sister and parents.^[74] Mozart even wrote scatological music, a series of canons that he sang with his friends. (See also: Mozart and scatology)

Works, musical style, and innovations[link]

Style[link]

Mozart's signature.

Mozart's music, like Haydn's, stands as an archetype of the Classical style. At the time he began composing, European music was dominated by the style galant, a reaction against the highly evolved intricacy of the Baroque. Progressively, and in large part at the hands of Mozart himself, the contrapuntal complexities of the late Baroque emerged once more, moderated and disciplined by new forms, and adapted to a new aesthetic and social milieu. Mozart was a versatile composer, and wrote in every major genre, including symphony, opera, the solo concerto, chamber music including string quartet and string quintet, and the piano sonata. These forms were not new, but Mozart advanced their technical sophistication and emotional reach. He almost single-handedly developed and popularized the Classical piano concerto. He wrote a great deal of religious music, including large-scale masses, but also dances, divertimenti, serenades, and other forms of light entertainment.

The central traits of the Classical style are all present in Mozart's music. Clarity, balance, and transparency are the hallmarks of his work, but simplistic notions of its delicacy mask the exceptional power of his finest masterpieces, such as the Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor, K. 491; the Symphony No. 40 in G minor, K. 550; and the opera Don Giovanni. Charles Rosen makes the point forcefully:

"It is only through recognizing the violence and sensuality at the center of Mozart's work that we can make a start towards a comprehension of his structures and an insight into his magnificence. In a paradoxical way, Schumann's superficial characterization of the G minor Symphony can help us to see Mozart's daemon more steadily. In all of Mozart's supreme expressions of suffering and terror, there is something shockingly voluptuous."^[75]

Especially during his last decade, Mozart exploited chromatic harmony to a degree rare at the time, with remarkable assurance and to great artistic effect.

Mozart always had a gift for absorbing and adapting valuable features of others' music. His travels helped in the forging of a unique compositional language.^[76] In London as a child, he met J.C. Bach and heard his music. In Paris, Mannheim, and Vienna he met with other compositional influences, as well as the avant-garde capabilities of the Mannheim orchestra. In Italy he encountered the Italian overture and opera buffa, both of which deeply affected the evolution of his own practice. In London and Italy, the galant style was in the ascendent: simple, light music with a mania for cadencing; an emphasis on tonic, dominant, and subdominant to the exclusion of other harmonies; symmetrical phrases; and clearly articulated partitions in the overall form of movements.^[77] Some of Mozart's early symphonies are Italian overtures, with three movements running into each other; many are homotonal (all three movements having the same key signature, with the slow middle movement being in the relative minor). Others mimic the works of J.C. Bach, and others show the simple rounded binary forms turned out by Viennese composers.

As Mozart matured, he progressively incorporated more features adapted from the Baroque. For example, the Symphony No. 29 in A major K. 201 has a contrapuntal main theme in its first movement, and experimentation with irregular phrase lengths. Some of his quartets from 1773 have fugal finales, probably influenced by Haydn, who had included three such finales in his recently published Opus 20 set. The influence of the Sturm und Drang ("Storm and Stress") period in music, with its brief foreshadowing of the Romantic era, is evident in the music of both composers at that time. Mozart's Symphony No. 25 in G minor K. 183 is another excellent example.

Mozart would sometimes switch his focus between operas and instrumental music. He produced operas in each of the prevailing styles: opera buffa, such as The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, and Così fan tutte; opera seria, such as Idomeneo; and Singspiel, of which Die Zauberflöte is the most famous example by any composer. In his later operas he employed subtle changes in instrumentation, orchestral texture, and tone color, for emotional depth and to mark dramatic shifts. Here his advances in opera and instrumental composing interacted: his increasingly sophisticated use of the orchestra in the symphonies and concertos influenced his operatic orchestration, and his developing subtlety in using the orchestra to psychological effect in his operas was in turn reflected in his later non-operatic compositions.^[78]

Influence[link]

Mozart's most famous pupil, whom the Mozarts took into their Vienna home for two years as a child, was probably Johann Nepomuk Hummel, a transitional figure between Classical and Romantic eras.^[79] More important is the influence Mozart had on composers of later generations. Ever since the surge in his reputation after his death, studying his scores has been a standard part of the training of classical musicians.

Ludwig van Beethoven, Mozart's junior by fifteen years, was deeply influenced by his work, with which he was acquainted as a teenager. He is thought to have performed Mozart's operas while playing in the court orchestra at Bonn,^[80] and he traveled to Vienna in 1787 hoping to study with the older composer. Some of Beethoven's works have direct models in comparable works by Mozart, and he wrote cadenzas (WoO 58) to Mozart's D minor piano concerto K. 466.

A number of composers have paid homage to Mozart by writing sets of variations on his themes. Beethoven wrote four such sets (Op. 66, WoO 28, WoO 40, WoO 46). Others include Frédéric Chopin's Variations on "Là ci darem la mano" from Don Giovanni (1827); Max Reger's Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Mozart (1914), based on the variation theme in the piano sonata K. 331;^[81] Fernando Sor's Introduction and Variations on a Theme by Mozart (1821); and Mikhail Glinka's Variations on a Theme from Mozart's Opera Die Zauberflöte in E♭ major (1822). Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky wrote his Orchestral Suite No. 4 in G, "Mozartiana" (1887), as a tribute to Mozart.

Köchel catalogue[link]

For unambiguous identification of works by Mozart, a Köchel catalogue number is used. This is a unique number assigned, in regular chronological order, to every one of his known works. A work is referenced by the abbreviation "K." followed by this number. The first edition of the catalogue was completed in 1862 by Ludwig von Köchel. It has since been repeatedly updated, as scholarly research improves knowledge of the dates and authenticity of individual works.

See also[link]

	Book: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wikipedia books are collections of articles that can be downloaded or ordered in print.

• The Complete Mozart Edition, 180 compact discs arranged into 45 themed volumes released by Philips Classics Records in 2000.
• Mozart effect
• Mozart family
• Mozart in fiction
• Mozartkugel
• Mozarteum
• Mozarthaus Vienna
• Sociological and cultural aspects of Tourette syndrome – for discussion of the discredited view that Mozart suffered from Tourette's syndrome

Notes[link]

References[link]

Cited sources

• Abert, Hermann (2007). W. A. Mozart. Cliff Eisen (ed.), Stewart Spencer (trans.). New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-07223-5. OCLC 70401564. http://books.google.com/books?id=l6I6BwTMJ3sC. 
• Barry, Barbara R (2000). The Philosopher's Stone: Essays in the Transformation of Musical Structure. Hillsdale, New York: Pendragon Press. ISBN 1-57647-010-5. OCLC 466918491. http://books.google.com/books?id=whSIM4Snh7YC. 
• Deutsch, Otto Erich (1965). Mozart: A Documentary Biography. Peter Branscombe, Eric Blom, Jeremy Noble (trans.). Stanford: Stanford University Press. ISBN 978-0-8047-0233-1. OCLC 8991008. http://books.google.com/books?id=e8AtwaddUW4C. 
• Einstein, Alfred (1965). Mozart: His Character, His Work. Galaxy Book 162. Arthur Mendel, Nathan Broder (trans.) (6th ed.). New York City: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-304-92483-0. OCLC 456644858. http://books.google.com/books?id=U0KVSgAACAAJ. 
• Eisen, Cliff; et al. "Mozart". Grove Music Online (Subscription required). http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/40258pg3. Retrieved 15 September 2010. 
• (German) Haberl, Dieter (2006). "Beethovens erste Reise nach Wien: die Datierung seiner Schülerreise zu W. A. Mozart". Neues Musikwissenschaftliches Jahrbuch (14). OCLC 634798176. 
• Fradkin, Robert A. (1996) The well-tempered announcer: a pronunciation guide to classical music. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. ISBN 0-253-21064-X.
• Halliwell, Ruth (1998). The Mozart Family: Four Lives in a Social Context. New York City: Clarendon Press. ISBN 978-0-19-816371-8. OCLC 36423516. http://books.google.com/books?id=TUMyCTKlAr0C. 
• Heartz, Daniel (2003). Music in European Capitals: The Galant Style, 1720–1780 (1st ed.). New York City: W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 0-393-05080-7. OCLC 50693068. http://books.google.com/books?id=Sq7rU0BGyREC. 
• Holmes, Edward (2005). The Life of Mozart. New York: Cosimo Classics. ISBN 1-59605-147-7. OCLC 62790104. http://books.google.com/books?id=V6dBeXZ3GTwC&pg=PA268. 
• Landon, Howard Chandler Robbins (1990). 1791: Mozart's Last Year. London: Flamingo. ISBN 978-0-00-654324-4. OCLC 20932333. http://books.google.com/books?id=oXdNwE0mQ9UC. 
• Lorenz, Michael (9 August 2010). "Mozart's Apartment on the Alsergrund". http://homepage.univie.ac.at/michael.lorenz/alsergrund/. Retrieved 27 September 2010. 
• March, Ivan; Greenfield, Edward; Layton, Robert (2005). Czajkowski, Paul. ed. Penguin Guide to Compact Discs And DVDs, 2005–2006 (30th ed.). London: Penguin. ISBN 0-14-102262-0. OCLC 416204627. http://books.google.com/books?id=_H6KQgAACAAJ. 
• Mozart, Wolfgang; Mozart, Leopold (1966). Anderson, Emily. ed. The Letters of Mozart and his Family (2nd ed.). London: Macmillan. ISBN 0-393-02248-X. OCLC 594813. http://books.google.com/books?id=VMkuAAAAIAAJ. 
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