Wikimedia Commons has media related to: 1756

Year 1756 (MDCCLVI) was a leap year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar and a leap year starting on Monday of the 11-day slower Julian calendar.

Events[link]

January–June[link]

• January 16 – Treaty of Westminster signed between Great Britain and Prussia guaranteeing the neutrality of Hanover, the German province controlled by King George II of Great Britain.^[1]
• March 17 – St. Patrick's Day is celebrated in New York City for the first time (at the Crown and Thistle Tavern).
• April 12 – Seven Years' War: The French invade Minorca, at this time under British control.
• May 15 – Seven Years' War: The Seven Years' War formally begins when Great Britain declares war on France.^[1]
• May 20 – Seven Years' War – Battle of Minorca: The British fleet under John Byng is defeated by the French under Roland-Michel Barrin de La Galissonière.
• 20 June – A garrison of the British Army in India is imprisoned in the Black Hole of Calcutta.^[1]
• June 25 – The Marine Society is founded in London, the world's oldest seafarers' charity.^[2]
• June 29 – Seven Years' War – Siege of Fort St Philip at Port Mahon: The British garrison in Minorca surrenders to the French after two months' siege by Armand de Vignerot du Plessis.

July–December[link]

July 30: In Russia, Empress Elizabeth at the porch of the newly built Catherine Palace, painting (1905) by Eugene Lanceray (in Tretyakov Gallery).

• July 30 – Bartolomeo Rastrelli presents the newly built Catherine Palace to Empress Elizabeth and her courtiers.
• August 14 – Seven Years' War – French and Indian War: Fort Oswego falls to the French.
• August 29 – Frederick II of Prussia invades Saxony, beginning the Seven Years' War on the continent.
• October 1 – Seven Years' War – Battle of Lobositz: Frederick defeats an Austrian army under Marshal Maximilian Ulysses Count Browne.
• October 14 – An Agreement of Friendship and Trade is signed by the Sultan Osman III and the King Frederick V. Denmark has appointed an extraordinary representative to the Ottoman Empire.^[3]
• December – Seven Years' War – French and Indian War: Militias of the Royal Colony of North Carolina build a fort on the province's western frontier to protect it against natives allied with the French. The fort is named Fort Dobbs in honor of North Carolina Governor Arthur Dobbs, who persuaded the North Carolina legislature to fund the construction a year earlier.
• December 14 The play Douglas is performed for the first time in Edinburgh, with overwhelming success, in spite of the opposition of the local church presbytery, who summoned Alexander Carlyle to answer for having attended its representation. However, it fails in its early promise to set up a new Scottish dramatic tradition.

Date unknown[link]

• Frederick II of Prussia forces his country's peasants to grow the unpopular and obscure potato.
• First chocolate-candy factory begins operations in Germany.
• Leopold Mozart publishes his book on his method for learning to play the violin, Versuch einer gründlichen Violinschule.

Births[link]

• January 19 – Guillaume-Antoine Olivier, French entemologist (d. 1814)
• January 27 – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Austrian composer (d. 1791)
• February 6 – Aaron Burr, Vice President of the United States (d. 1836)
• March 3 – William Godwin, English writer (d. 1836)
• March 4 – Sir Henry Raeburn, Scottish painter (d. 1823)
• May 18 – Ignaz Aurelius Fessler, court councillor and minister to Alexander I (d. 1839)
• May 27 – Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria (d. 1825)
• June 6 – John Trumbull, American painter (d. 1843)
• June 20 – Joseph Martin Kraus, German-Swedish composer (d. 1792)
• July 7 – Gustaf Adolf Reuterholm, Swedish statesman (d. 1813)
• july 31 – Dheeran Chinnamalai, Tamil king (d. 1805)
• August 1 – Pierre Louis Prieur, French politician (d. 1827)
• August 29 – Heinrich Graf von Bellegarde, Austrian field marshal and statesman (d. 1845)
• September 7 – Willem Bilderdijk, Dutch author (d. 1831)
• October 28 – Alf, Fictional alien
• November 3 – Pierre Laromiguière, French philosopher (d. 1837)

Deaths[link]

• January 18 – Francis George of Schönborn-Buchheim (b. 1682)
• February 25 – Eliza Haywood, English actress and writer (b. 1693)
• April 10 – Giacomo Antonio Perti, Italian composer (b. 1661)
• April 18 – Jacques Cassini, French astronomer (b. 1677)
• July 24 – George Vertue, English engraver and antiquary (b. 1684)
• October 26 – Roland-Michel Barrin de La Galissonière, governor of New France (b. 1693)
• October 28 – Charles Somerset, 4th Duke of Beaufort (b. 1709)
• December 8 – William Stanhope, 1st Earl of Harrington, English statesman and diplomat (b. c. 1690)
• date unknown – Bernard Accama, Dutch painter (b. 1697)

References[link]

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. 
• Mozart, Wolfgang (1972). Mersmann, Hans. ed. Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. New York: Dover Publications. ISBN 0-486-22859-2. OCLC 753483. http://books.google.com/books?id=KpjYoajWID8C&pg=PR8. 
• "Mozart, Mozart's Magic Flute and Beethoven". Raptus Association for Music Appreciation. http://www.raptusassociation.org/beethmoze.html. Retrieved 27 September 2010. 
• Rosen, Charles (1998). The Classical Style: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven (2nd ed.). New York City: W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 0-393-31712-9. OCLC 246977555. http://books.google.com/books?id=aAFUOreO-nMC. 
• Sadie, Stanley, ed. (1998). The New Grove Dictionary of Opera. New York: Grove's Dictionaries of Music Inc.. ISBN 978-0-333-73432-2. OCLC 39160203. 
• Sadie, Stanley, ed. (1980). The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (6th ed.). London: Macmillan. ISBN 0-333-23111-2. OCLC 5676891. 
• Solomon, Maynard (1995). Mozart: A Life (1st ed.). New York City: HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-06-019046-0. OCLC 31435799. http://books.google.com/books?id=UuEHAQAAMAAJ. 
• Steptoe, Andrew (1990). The Mozart-Da Ponte Operas: The Cultural and Musical Background to Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni, and Così fan tutte. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ISBN 0-19-816221-9. OCLC 22895166. http://books.google.com/books?id=s7394NpN0YQC. 
• Till, Nicholas (1995). Mozart and the Enlightenment: Truth, Virtue and Beauty in Mozart's Operas. New York City: W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 0-393-31395-6. OCLC 469628809. http://books.google.com/books?id=xCyegHQr2TwC. 
• "Award of the Papal Equestrian Order of the "Golden Spur" to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart". Vatican Secret Archives. 4 July 1770. http://asv.vatican.va/en/doc/1770.htm. Retrieved 27 September 2010. 
• Wakin, Daniel J. (24 August 2010). "After Mozart’s Death, an Endless Coda". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/25/arts/music/25death.html. 

Other sources

• Cairns, David (2006). Mozart and His Operas. Berkeley, California: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-22898-7. OCLC 62290645. http://books.google.com/books?id=4rNjwC5HShkC. 
• Eisen, Cliff; Keefe, Simon P, eds. (2006). The Cambridge Mozart Encyclopedia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-85659-0. OCLC 60245611. http://books.google.com/books?id=8o6mVjlSzM4C. 
• Gutman, Robert (2000). Mozart: A Cultural Biography. London: Harcourt Brace. ISBN 978-0-15-601171-6. OCLC 45485135. http://books.google.com/books?id=wKm3sCZeyr8C. 
• "New Mozart Pieces Unveiled (VIDEO)". The Huffington Post. 8 February 2009. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/02/new-mozart-pieces-unveile_n_249532.html. Retrieved 29 September 2010. 

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Wikisource has original works written by or about: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

• Mozarthaus Salzburg
• Salzburg Tourist Office – Salzburg City Tourist Board website.
• Chronological-Thematic Catalog
• Works by or about Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in libraries (WorldCat catalog)

Digitized, scanned material (books, sheet music)

• "Mozart" Titles; Mozart as author from archive.org
• "Mozart" Titles; Mozart as author from books.google.com
• Digital Mozart Edition (Internationale Stiftung Mozarteum)
• (French) "Mozart" titles from Gallica
• From the British Library
  • Mozart's Thematic Catalogue (view with "Turning the Pages")
  • Mozart's Musical Diary
  • Background information on Mozart and the Thematic Catalogue
• (German) Letters of Leopold Mozart und Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Badische Landesbibliothek)

Sheet music

• Complete sheetmusic (scores) from the Neue Mozart-Ausgabe (Internationale Stiftung Mozarteum)
• "Mozart" Titles from the Munich Digitisation Centre (MDZ)
• "Mozart" Titles from the University of Rochester
• Free scores by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart at the International Music Score Library Project
• Free scores by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in the Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki)
• Free scores by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in the Werner Icking Music Archive (WIMA)
• Free typeset sheet music of Mozart's works from Cantorion.org
• The Mutopia Project has compositions by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
• Mozart as author from archive.org
• Mozart as author from books.google.com

v t e Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Family Leopold Mozart Anna Maria Mozart Maria Anna Mozart (Nannerl) Constanze Mozart Maria Anna Thekla Mozart (Bäsle) Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart Karl Thomas Mozart Johann Georg Mozart Joseph Lange Cäcilia Weber Josepha Weber Aloysia Weber Sophie Weber Georg Nissen Family trees Biography Name Grand tour Smallpox Scatology Italy Berlin Death Biographies Music Köchel catalogue List of compositions Works for solo piano Concert arias, songs, canons Masses Horn concertos Piano concertos Operas Dances Symphonies Sonatas Method and techniques Influences Haydn and Mozart Salieri and Mozart Mozart and Beethoven Mozart and Prague Mozart and Catholicism Mozart and Freemasonry

vep:Mocart Vol'fgang Amadeus

Norbert Kraft (b. Linz, Austria, 1950) is a Canadian guitarist, music teacher, producer and arranger.

An international performer, Kraft has also recorded and (together with his wife: Bonnie Silver, who is also a pianist and harpsichordist) produced many albums on the Naxos Records label. In 1994 he launched the label's Guitar Collection as producer and artistic director.

Kraft specializes in solo guitar pieces from the 17th to 20th centuries as well as concerto repertoire. He has published many arrangements and transcriptions of Baroque and later solo and chamber music, including works for guitar and harpsichord. He has also compiled and edited a series of graded technical exercises and repertoire for the guitar. These were published in 1978 as Classical Guitar Editions and were adopted as official curriculum by the Royal Conservatory of Music (Toronto). He is also a composer for classical guitar. His pieces appear often in the RCM (Royal Conservatory of Music) graded classical guitar collection.

He has served on the faculties of Manhattan School of Music, University of Toronto and The Royal Conservatory of Music.

Awards[link]

• Grand Prize in the 1975 Canadian CBC Radio Competition
• 1985 Andrés Segovia International Guitar Competition (the first North American to do so)
• Gramophone Magazine "Critic's Choice for 1989"
• Classic CD Magazine "Favourite CD of the Year."

See also[link]

• Canadian classical music
• The Royal Conservatory of Music

External links[link]

• Article at the Canadian Encyclopedia
• Some photos of LP covers (Oviatt Library Digital Collections)

Naxos Recordings

• Naxos Guitar Collection
• Naxos Recording Sessions - Videos
• The Bach recordings (2011) - Norbert Kraft recording Ricardo Gallén

v t e Classical guitar portal Main articles Classical guitar History of the classical guitar Early classical guitar recordings Classical guitar technique Classical guitar repertoire Classical guitar strings Classical guitar making Classical guitar pedagogy Related instruments Brahms guitar Extended-range classical guitar Harp guitar Lyre-guitar Six-string alto guitar Early guitars Gittern Vihuela Baroque guitar Early romantic guitar Classical guitar lists Classical guitarists International classical guitar competitions Composers for the classical guitar (chronological) Composers for the classical guitar (nationality) Guitar main article Luthier main article Classical guitar WikiProject

Pachelbel's autograph signature from his 1695 letter to Gotha city authorities.

Johann Pachelbel ( /ˈjoʊhɑːn ˈpækəlbɛl/ or /ˈpɑːkəlbɛl/;^[1] German: [ˈjoːhan ˈpaxɛlbəl]^[2][3], baptised September 1, 1653 – buried March 9, 1706)^[4] was a German Baroque composer, organist and teacher, who brought the south German organ tradition to its peak. He composed a large body of sacred and secular music, and his contributions to the development of the chorale prelude and fugue have earned him a place among the most important composers of the middle Baroque era.^[5]

Pachelbel's music enjoyed enormous popularity during his lifetime; he had many pupils and his music became a model for the composers of south and central Germany. Today, Pachelbel is best known for the Canon in D, the only canon he wrote – although a true canon at the unison in three parts, it is often regarded more as a passacaglia, and it is in this mode that it has been arranged and transcribed for many different media. In addition to the canon, his most well-known works include the Chaconne in F minor, the Toccata in E minor for organ, and the Hexachordum Apollinis, a set of keyboard variations.^[6]

Pachelbel's music was influenced by southern German composers, such as Johann Jakob Froberger and Johann Kaspar Kerll, Italians such as Girolamo Frescobaldi and Alessandro Poglietti, French composers, and the composers of the Nuremberg tradition. He preferred a lucid, uncomplicated contrapuntal style that emphasized melodic and harmonic clarity. His music is less virtuosic and less adventurous harmonically than that of Dieterich Buxtehude, although, like Buxtehude, Pachelbel experimented with different ensembles and instrumental combinations in his chamber music and, most importantly, his vocal music, much of which features exceptionally rich instrumentation. Pachelbel explored many variation forms and associated techniques, which manifest themselves in various diverse pieces, from sacred concertos to harpsichord suites.

Life[link]

1653–1674: Early youth and education (Nuremberg, Altdorf, Regensburg)[link]

St. Sebaldus Church in Nuremberg, which played an important role in Pachelbel's life.

Johann Pachelbel was born in 1653 in Nuremberg into a middle-class family, son of Johann (Hans) Pachelbel (born 1613 in Wunsiedel, Germany), a wine dealer,^[7] and his second wife Anna (Anne) Maria Mair. The exact date of Johann's birth is unknown, but since he was baptized on September 1, he may have been born in late August.

During his early youth, Pachelbel received musical training from Heinrich Schwemmer, a musician and music teacher who later became the cantor of St. Sebaldus Church (Sebalduskirche). Some sources indicate that Pachelbel also studied with Georg Caspar Wecker, organist of the same church and an important composer of the Nuremberg school, but this is now considered unlikely.^[8] In any case, both Wecker and Schwemmer were trained by Johann Erasmus Kindermann, one of the founders of the Nuremberg musical tradition, who had been at one time a pupil of Johann Staden.

Johann Mattheson, whose Grundlage einer Ehrenpforte (Hamburg, 1740) is one of the most important sources of information about Pachelbel's life, mentions that the young Pachelbel demonstrated exceptional musical and academic abilities. He received his primary education in St. Lorenz Hauptschule and the Auditorio Aegediano in Nuremberg, then on 29 June 1669 he became a student at the University of Altdorf, where he was also appointed organist of St. Lorenz church the same year. Financial difficulties forced Pachelbel to leave the university after less than a year. In order to complete his studies he became a scholarship student, in 1670, at the Gymnasium Poeticum at Regensburg. The school authorities were so impressed by Pachelbel's academic qualifications that he was admitted above the school's normal quota.

Pachelbel was also permitted to study music outside the Gymnasium. His teacher was Kaspar (Caspar) Prentz, once a student of Johann Kaspar Kerll. Since the latter was greatly influenced by Italian composers such as Giacomo Carissimi, it is likely through Prentz that Pachelbel started developing an interest in contemporary Italian music, and Catholic church music in general.

1673–1690: Career (Vienna, Eisenach, Erfurt)[link]

Prentz left for Eichstätt in 1672. This period of Pachelbel's life is the least documented one,^[9] so it is unknown whether he stayed in Regensburg until 1673 or left the same year his teacher did; at any rate, by 1673 Pachelbel was living in Vienna, where he became a deputy organist at the famous Saint Stephen Cathedral (Stephansdom). At the time, Vienna was the center of the vast Habsburg empire and had much cultural importance; its tastes in music were predominantly Italian. Several renowned cosmopolitan composers worked there, many of them contributing to the exchange of musical traditions in Europe. In particular, Johann Jakob Froberger served as court organist in Vienna until 1657^[10] and was succeeded by Alessandro Poglietti.^[11] Georg Muffat lived in the city for some time, and, most importantly, Johann Kaspar Kerll moved to Vienna in 1673.^[12] While there, he may have known or even taught Pachelbel, whose music shows traces of Kerll's style. Pachelbel spent five years in Vienna, absorbing the music of Catholic composers from southern Germany and Italy. In some respects, Pachelbel is similar to Haydn, who too served as a professional musician of the Stephansdom in his youth and as such was exposed to music of the leading composers of the time.

In 1677, Pachelbel moved to Eisenach, where he found employment as court organist under Kapellmeister Daniel Eberlin (also a native of Nuremberg), in the employ of Johann Georg I, Duke of Saxe-Eisenach. He met members of the Bach family in Eisenach (which was the home city of J. S. Bach's father, Johann Ambrosius Bach), and became a close friend of Johann Ambrosius and tutor to his children.^[13] However, Pachelbel spent only one year in Eisenach. In 1678, Bernhard II, Duke of Saxe-Jena, Johann Georg's brother, died and during the period of mourning court musicians were greatly curtailed.^[14] Pachelbel was left unemployed. He requested a testimonial from Eberlin, who wrote one for him, describing Pachelbel as a 'perfect and rare virtuoso' – einen perfecten und raren Virtuosen.^[14] With this document, Pachelbel left Eisenach on May 18, 1678.

Predigerkirche, the Erfurt church where Pachelbel worked for 12 years starting in 1678.

In June 1678, Pachelbel was employed as organist of the Predigerkirche in Erfurt, succeeding Johann Effler (c. 1640–1711; Effler later preceded Johann Sebastian Bach in Weimar). The Bach family was very well known in Erfurt (where virtually all organists would later be called "Bachs"), so Pachelbel's friendship with them continued here. Pachelbel became godfather to Johann Ambrosius' daughter, Johanna Juditha, taught Johann Christoph Bach (1671–1721), Johann Sebastian's eldest brother, and lived in Johann Christian Bach's (1640–1682) house.^[15] Pachelbel remained in Erfurt for 12 years and established his reputation as one of the leading German organ composers of the time during his stay. The chorale prelude became one of his most characteristic products of the Erfurt period, since Pachelbel's contract specifically required him to compose the preludes for church services.^[16] His duties also included organ maintenance and, more importantly, composing a large-scale work every year to demonstrate his progress as composer and organist, as every work of that kind had to be better than the one composed the year before.

Johann Christian Bach (1640-1682), Pachelbel's landlord in Erfurt, died in 1682. In June 1684, Pachelbel purchased the house (called Zur silbernen Tasche, now Junkersand 1) from Johann Christian's widow.^[17] In 1686, he was offered a position as organist of the St. Trinitatis church (Trinitatiskirche) in Sondershausen. Pachelbel initially accepted the invitation but, as a surviving autograph letter indicates, had to reject the offer after a long series of negotiations: it appears that he was required to consult with Erfurt's elders and church authorities before considering any job offers.^[18] It seems that the situation had been resolved quietly and without harm to Pachelbel's reputation; he was offered a raise and stayed in the city for four more years.

Pachelbel married twice during his stay in Erfurt. Barbara Gabler, daughter of the Stadt-Major of Erfurt, became his first wife, on 25 October 1681. The marriage took place in the house of the bride's father. Unfortunately, both Barbara and their only son died in October 1683 during a plague. Pachelbel's first published work, a set of chorale variations called Musicalische Sterbens-Gedancken ("Musical Thoughts on Death", Erfurt, 1683), was probably influenced by this event.

Ten months later, Pachelbel married Judith Drommer (Trummert), daughter of a coppersmith,^[19] on 24 August 1684. They had five sons and two daughters. Two of the sons, Wilhelm Hieronymus Pachelbel and Charles Theodore Pachelbel, also became organ composers; the latter moved to the American colonies in 1734. Another son, Johann Michael, became an instrument maker in Nuremberg and traveled as far as London and Jamaica.^[14] One of the daughters, Amalia Pachelbel, achieved recognition as a painter and engraver.

1690–1706: Final years (Stuttgart, Gotha, Nuremberg)[link]

Pachelbel's autograph letter

Although Pachelbel was an outstandingly successful organist, composer, and teacher at Erfurt, he asked permission to leave, apparently seeking a better appointment, and was formally released on 15 August 1690, bearing a testimonial praising his diligence and fidelity.^[20]

He was employed in less than a fortnight: from 1 September 1690, he was a musician-organist in the Württemberg court at Stuttgart under the patronage of Duchess Magdalena Sibylla. That job was better, but, unfortunately, he lived there only two years before fleeing the French attacks of the War of the Grand Alliance. His next job was in Gotha as the town organist, a post he occupied for two years, starting on 8 November 1692; there he published his first, and only, liturgical music collection: Acht Chorale zum Praeambulieren in 1693 (Erster Theil etlicher Choräle).

When former pupil Johann Christoph Bach married in October 1694, the Bach family celebrated the marriage on 23 October 1694 in Ohrdruf, and invited him and other composers to provide the music; he probably attended – if so, it was the only time J.S. Bach, then nine years old, met Johann Pachelbel.^[21]

In his three years in Gotha, he was twice offered positions, in Stuttgart and at Oxford University; he declined both. Meanwhile, in Nuremberg, when the St. Sebaldus Church organist Georg Caspar Wecker (and his possible former teacher) died on 20 April 1695, the city authorities were so anxious to appoint Pachelbel (then a famous Nuremberger) to the position that they officially invited him to assume it without holding the usual job examination or inviting applications from prominent organists from lesser churches. He accepted, was released from Gotha in 1695, and arrived in Nuremberg in summer, with the city council paying his per diem expenses.

Pachelbel's tomb at the St. Rochus Cemetery (Rochuskirchhof) in Nuremberg.

Pachelbel lived the rest of his life in Nuremberg, during which he published the chamber music collection Musicalische Ergötzung, and, most importantly, the Hexachordum Apollinis (Nuremberg, 1699), a set of six keyboard arias with variations. Though most influenced by Italian and southern German composers, he knew the northern German school, because he dedicated the Hexachordum Apollinis to Dieterich Buxtehude. Also composed in the final years were Italian-influenced concertato Vespers and a set of more than ninety Magnificat fugues.

Johann Pachelbel died at the age of 52, 3 March 1706, and was buried on 9 March; Mattheson cites either 3 March or 7 March 1706 as the death date; yet, it is unlikely that the corpse was allowed to linger unburied so long. Contemporary custom was to bury the dead on the third or fourth post-mortem day; so, either 6 or 7 March 1706 is a likelier death date.^[22] He is buried in the St. Rochus Cemetery.

Posthumous influence[link]

One of the last middle Baroque composers, Pachelbel did not have any considerable influence on most of the famous late Baroque composers, such as George Frideric Handel, Domenico Scarlatti or Georg Philipp Telemann. He did influence Johann Sebastian Bach indirectly; the young Johann Sebastian was tutored by his older brother Johann Christoph Bach, who studied with Pachelbel, but although J.S. Bach's early chorales and chorale variations borrow from Pachelbel's music, the style of northern German composers (Georg Böhm, Dieterich Buxtehude, Johann Adam Reincken) played a more important role in the development of Bach's talent.

Pachelbel was the last great composer of the Nuremberg tradition and the last important southern German composer. Pachelbel's influence was mostly limited to his pupils, most notably Johann Christoph Bach, Johann Heinrich Buttstett, Andreas Nicolaus Vetter, and two of Pachelbel's sons, Wilhelm Hieronymus and Charles Theodore. The latter became one of the first European composers to take up residence in the American colonies and so Pachelbel influenced, although indirectly and only to a certain degree, the American church music of the era. Composer, musicologist and writer Johann Gottfried Walther is probably the most famous of the composers influenced by Pachelbel – he is, in fact, referred to as the "second Pachelbel" in Mattheson's Grundlage einer Ehrenpforte.^[23]