A major

Relative key	F♯ minor
Parallel key	A minor
Component pitches
A, B, C♯, D, E, F♯, G♯, A

A major (or the key of A) is a major scale based on A, with the pitches A, B, C♯, D, E, F♯, and G♯. Its key signature has three sharps.

Its relative minor is F-sharp minor and its parallel minor is A minor. The key of A major is the only key where a Neapolitan sixth chord on Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \hat2

requires both a flat and a natural accidental.

In the treble, alto, and bass clefs, the G♯ in the key signature is placed higher than C♯. However, in the tenor clef, it would require a ledger line and so G♯ is placed lower than C♯.

Although not as rare in the symphonic literature as sharper keys, examples of symphonies in A major are not as numerous as for D major or G major. Beethoven's Symphony No. 7, Bruckner's Symphony No. 6 and Mendelssohn's Symphony No. 4 comprise a nearly complete list of symphonies in this key in the Romantic era. Mozart's Clarinet Concerto and Clarinet Quintet are both in A major, and generally Mozart was more likely to use clarinets in A major than in any other key besides E-flat major.^[1]

A major occurs frequently in chamber music. Franz Schubert's Piano Quintet known as the Trout Quintet and Antonín Dvořák's Piano Quintet No. 2 are both in A major. Johannes Brahms, César Franck, and Gabriel Fauré wrote violin sonatas in A major. In connection to Beethoven's Kreutzer Sonata, Peter Cropper said that A major "is the fullest sounding key for the violin."^[2]

According to Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart, A major is a key suitable for "declarations of innocent love, ... hope of seeing one's beloved again when parting; youthful cheerfulness and trust in God."^[3]

Ascending and descending A major scale  Play in just intonation (help·info).

For orchestral works in A major, the timpani are typically set to A and E a fifth apart, rather than a fourth apart as for most other keys. Hector Berlioz complained about the custom of his day in which timpani tuned to A and E a fifth apart were notated C and G a fourth apart, a custom which survived as late as the music of Franz Berwald.^[4]

References[link]

1. ^ Mark Anson-Cartwright, "Chromatic Features of E♭-Major Works of the Classical Period" Music Theory Spectrum 22 2 (2000): 178
2. ^ Peter Cropper "Beethoven's Violin Sonata in A major, Op.47 'Kreutzer': First Movement" The Strad March 2009, p. 64
3. ^ Rita Steblin: A History of Key Characteristics in the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries (Rochester, University of Rochester Press: 1996) p. 123
4. ^ N. D. Mar (1981). Anatomy of the Orchestra University of California Press, p. 349

• Colin Lawson, Mozart: Clarinet Concerto, A Cambridge Music Handbook, Cambridge University Press, 1996.

Scales and keys[link]

v t e Diatonic scales and keys
	Flats Sharps Major minor Major minor 0 C a C a 1 F d G e 2 B♭ g D b 3 E♭ c A f♯ 4 A♭ f E c♯ 5 D♭ b♭ B g♯ 6 G♭ e♭ F♯ d♯ 7 C♭ a♭ C♯ a♯ 8 F♭ d♭ G♯ e♯
The table indicates the number of sharps or flats in each scale. Minor scales are written in lower case.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: A major

Sviatoslav Teofilovich Richter (Russian: Святослав Теофилович Рихтер Sviatosláv Teofílovich Ríkhter, Russian pronunciation: [svʲjətəsˈlaf tʲɪəˈfʲiləvʲɪtɕ ˈrʲixtər], Ukrainian: Святослав Теофілович Ріхтер; March 20 [O.S. March 7] 1915 – August 1, 1997) was a Soviet pianist well known for the depth of his interpretations, virtuoso technique, and vast repertoire.^[1] He is widely considered one of the greatest pianists of the 20th century.^[1]

Biography[link]

Childhood[link]

Richter was born in Zhytomyr, Ukraine. His father, Teofil Danilovich Richter (1872–1941), was a German expatriate pianist, organist, and composer who had studied in Vienna. His mother, Anna Pavlovna (née Moskaleva; 1892–1963), was from a landowning Russian family, and at one point had been a pupil of her future husband.^[2] In 1918, when Richter's parents were in Odessa, the Civil War separated them from their son, and Richter moved in with his aunt Tamara. He lived with her from 1918 to 1921, and it was then that his interest in art first manifested itself, although he first became interested in painting, which his aunt taught him.

In 1921 the family was reunited, and the Richters moved to Odessa, where Teofil taught at the Odessa Conservatory and, briefly, worked as organist of a Lutheran church. In early 1920s Richter became interested in music (as well as other art forms such as cinema, literature, and theatre) and started studying piano. Unusually, he was largely self-taught. His father only gave him a basic education in music, and so did one of his father's pupils, a Czech harpist.^[3]

Even at an early age, Richter was an excellent sight-reader and regularly practiced with local opera and ballet companies. He developed a lifelong passion for opera, vocal and chamber music that found its full expression in the festivals he established in Grange de Meslay, France, and in Moscow, at the Pushkin Museum. At age 15, he started to work at the Odessa Opera, where he accompanied the rehearsals.^[4]

Early career[link]

On March 19, 1934, Richter gave his first recital, at the Engineers' Club of Odessa; but he did not formally start studying piano until three years later, when he decided to seek out Heinrich Neuhaus, a famous pianist and piano teacher, at the Moscow Conservatory. During Richter's audition for Neuhaus (at which he performed Chopin's Ballade No. 4), Neuhaus apparently whispered to a fellow student, "This man's a genius". Although Neuhaus taught many great pianists, including Emil Gilels and Radu Lupu, it is said that he considered Richter to be "the genius pupil, for whom he had been waiting all his life," while acknowledging that he taught Richter "almost nothing."

Early in his career, Richter also tried his hand at composing, and it even appears that he played some of his compositions during his audition for Neuhaus. He gave up composition shortly after moving to Moscow. Years later, Richter explained this decision as follows: "Perhaps the best way I can put it is that I see no point in adding to all the bad music in the world".^[5]

Behind the Iron Curtain[link]

By the beginning of World War II, Richter's parents' marriage had failed and his mother had fallen in love with another man. Because Richter's father was a German, he was under suspicion by the authorities and a plan was made for the family to flee the country. Due to her romantic involvement, his mother did not want to leave and so they remained in Odessa. In August 1941 his father was arrested, and on 6 October 1941 was shot by the Soviets as a spy. Richter didn't speak to his mother again until shortly before her death nearly 20 years later in connection with his first US tour.

In 1945, Richter met and accompanied in recital the soprano Nina Dorliak. Richter and Dorliak thereafter remained companions until his death, although they never married. She accompanied Richter both in his complex life and career. She supported him in his last sickness, and died herself a few months later, on May 17, 1998.

It was rumored that Richter was homosexual and that having a female companion provided a social front for his sexual orientation, because in the Soviet world homosexual behavior was illegal.^[6][7] Richter had a tendency to be private and withdrawn and was not open to interviews. He never publicly discussed his personal life until in the last year of his life filmmaker Bruno Monsaingeon convinced him to be interviewed for a documentary.

In 1949 Richter won the Stalin Prize, which led to extensive concert tours in Russia, Eastern Europe and China. He gave his first concerts outside the Soviet Union in Czechoslovakia in 1950.^[8] In 1952, Richter was invited to play Franz Liszt in a film based on the life of Mikhail Glinka, called Kompozitor Glinka (Russian: Композитор Глинка, "The Composer Glinka"; a remake of the 1946 film Glinka). The title role was played by Boris Smirnov.

On February 18, 1952, Richter made his debut as a conductor when he led the world premiere of Prokofiev's Symphony-Concerto for Cello and Orchestra in E minor with Mstislav Rostropovich as the soloist.^[9]

In 1960, even though he had a reputation for being "indifferent" to politics, Richter defied the authorities when he performed at Boris Pasternak's funeral.^[10] (He had played Prokofiev's Violin Sonata No. 1 at Joseph Stalin's funeral in 1953, with David Oistrakh.)

Having received the Stalin and Lenin prizes and become People's Artist of the RSFSR, he gave his first tour concerts in the USA in 1960, and in England and France in 1961.^[11]

Tour in the West[link]

The West first became aware of Richter through recordings made in the 1950s. One of Richter's first advocates in the West was Emil Gilels, who stated during his first tour of the United States that the critics (who were giving Gilels rave reviews) should "wait until you hear Richter."^[12]

Richter's first concerts in the West took place in May 1960, when he was allowed to play in Finland, and on October 15, 1960, in Chicago, where he played Brahms's Second Piano Concerto accompanied by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Erich Leinsdorf, creating a sensation. In a review, noted music Chicago Tribune critic Claudia Cassidy, who was known for her unkind reviews of established artists, recalled Richter first walking on stage hesitantly, looking vulnerable (as if about to be "devoured"), but then sitting at the piano and dispatching "the performance of a lifetime".^[13] Richter's 1960 tour of the United States culminated in a series of concerts at Carnegie Hall.^[14]

Richter, however, claimed to dislike performing in the United States.^[15] He also claimed to dislike the high expectations of American audiences. Following a 1970 incident at Alice Tully Hall in New York City, when Richter's performance alongside David Oistrakh was disrupted by anti-Soviet protests, Richter vowed never to return.^[12] Rumors of a planned return to Carnegie Hall surfaced in the last years of Richter's life, although it is not clear if there was any truth behind them.^[16]

In 1961, Richter played for the first time in London. His first recital, pairing works of Haydn and Prokofiev, was received with hostility by British critics. Notably, Neville Cardus concluded that Richter's playing was "provincial", and wondered why Richter had been invited to play in London, given that London had plenty of "second class" pianists of its own. Following a July 18, 1961, concert, where Richter performed both of Liszt's piano concertos, the critics reversed course.^[17]

In 1963, after searching in the Loire Valley, France, for a venue suitable for a music festival, Richter discovered La Grange de Meslay several kilometres north of Tours. The festival was established by Richter and became an annual event.

In 1970, Richter visited Japan for the first time traveling across Siberia by railway and boat as he disliked airplanes. He played Beethoven, Schumann, Mussorgsky, Prokofiev, Bartok and Rachmaninov, as well as works by Mozart and Beethoven with Japanese orchestras. Richter visited Japan eight times.

Later years[link]

While he very much enjoyed performing for an audience, Richter hated planning concerts years in advance, and in later life took to playing at very short notice in small, most often darkened halls, with only a small lamp lighting the score. Richter claimed that this setting helped the audience focus on the music being performed, rather than on extraneous and irrelevant matters such as the performer's grimaces and gestures.^[18]

In 1986, Richter embarked on a six-month tour of Siberia with his beloved Yamaha piano, giving possibly as many as 150 recitals, at times performing in small towns that did not even have a concert hall. It is said that after one such concert, the members of the audience, who had never before heard classical music performed, gathered in the middle of the hall and started swaying from side to side to celebrate the performer.^[19] It is said that in his last years Richter contemplated giving concerts free of charge.^[20]

An anecdote illustrates Richter's approach to performance in the last decade of his life. After reading a biography of Charlemagne (he was an avid reader), Richter had his secretary send a telegram to the director of the theater in Aachen, Charlemagne's favoured residence city and his burial place, stating "The Maestro has read a biography of Charlemagne and would like to play at Aquisgrana (Aix-la-Chapelle)". The performance took place shortly thereafter.^[21]

As late as 1995, Richter continued to perform some of the most demanding pieces in the pianistic repertoire, including Ravel's Miroirs cycle, Prokofiev's Second Sonata and Chopin's études and Ballade No. 4.^[22][23]

Richter's last recorded orchestral performance was of three Mozart concerti in 1994 with the Japan Shinsei Symphony Orchestra conducted by his old friend Rudolf Barshai.^[24]

Richter's last recital was a private gathering in Lübeck, Germany, on March 30, 1995. The program consisted of two Haydn sonatas and Reger's Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Beethoven, a piece for two pianos, which Richter performed with pianist Andreas Lucewicz.^[25]

Richter died at Central Clinical Hospital in Moscow from a heart attack, after he suffered from a depressed state of mind caused by his inability to perform in public. At the time of his death, he was rehearsing Schubert's Fünf Klavierstücke, D. 459.^[26]

Repertoire[link]

As Richter once put it, "My repertory runs to around eighty different programs, not counting chamber works."^[27] Indeed, Richter's repertoire ranged from Handel and Bach to Szymanowski, Berg, Webern, Stravinsky, Bartók, Hindemith, Britten, and Gershwin, although the works he did not play are curious (they include Bach's Goldberg Variations, Beethoven's Waldstein and Moonlight sonatas and Fourth and Fifth piano concertos, Schubert's A-major sonata D. 959, Prokofiev's Third piano concerto, Chopin's first piano concerto and second sonata and Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3).^[28]

Richter worked tirelessly to learn new pieces. For instance, in the late 1980s, he learned Brahms's Paganini and Handel Variations, and in the 1990s, several of Debussy's études and Gershwin, and works by Bach and Mozart which he had not previously included in his programs.

Central to his repertoire were the works of Schubert, Schumann, Beethoven, J. S. Bach, Chopin, Liszt, Prokofiev and Debussy.^[28] He is said to have learned the second book of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier by heart in one month.^[29]

He gave the premiere of Prokofiev's Sonata No. 7, which he learned in four days, and No. 9, which Prokofiev dedicated to Richter. Apart from his solo career, he also performed chamber music with partners such as Mstislav Rostropovich, Rudolf Barshai, David Oistrakh, Oleg Kagan, Yuri Bashmet, Natalia Gutman, Zoltán Kocsis, Elisabeth Leonskaja, Benjamin Britten and members of the Borodin Quartet. Richter also often accompanied singers such as Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Peter Schreier, Galina Pisarenko and his long-time companion Nina Dorliak.^[30]

Richter also conducted the premiere of Prokofiev's Symphony-Concerto for cello and orchestra. This was his sole appearance as a conductor. The soloist was Rostropovich, to whom the work was dedicated. Prokofiev also wrote his 1949 Cello Sonata in C for Rostropovich, and he and Richter premiered it in 1950. Richter himself was a passable cellist, and Rostropovich was a good pianist; at one concert in Moscow at which he accompanied Rostropovich on the piano, they exchanged instruments for part of the program.

Approach to performance[link]

Richter explained his approach to performance as follows: "The interpreter is really an executant, carrying out the composer's intentions to the letter. He doesn't add anything that isn't already in the work. If he is talented, he allows us to glimpse the truth of the work that is in itself a thing of genius and that is reflected in him. He shouldn't dominate the music, but should dissolve into it."^[31] Or, similarly: "I am not a complete idiot, but whether from weakness or laziness have no talent for thinking. I know only how to reflect: I am a mirror . . . Logic does not exist for me. I float on the waves of art and life and never really know how to distinguish what belongs to the one or the other or what is common to both. Life unfolds for me like a theatre presenting a sequence of somewhat unreal sentiments; while the things of art are real to me and go straight to my heart."^[32]

Richter's belief that musicians should "carry ... out the composer's intentions to the letter", led him to be critical of others and, most often, himself.^[31] After attending a recital of Murray Perahia, where Perahia performed Chopin's Third Piano Sonata without observing the first movement repeat, Richter asked him backstage to explain the omission.^[33] Similarly, after Richter realized that he had been playing a wrong note in Bach's Italian Concerto for decades, he insisted that the following disclaimer/apology be printed on a CD containing a performance thereof: "Just now Sviatoslav Richter realized, much to his regret, that he always made a mistake in the third measure before the end of the second part of the 'Italian Concerto'. As a matter of fact, through forty years -- and no musician or technician ever pointed it out to him -- he played 'F-sharp' rather than 'F'. The same mistake can be found in the previous recording made by Maestro Richter in the fifties."^[34]

Recordings[link]

Despite his large discography, Richter disliked the recording process,^[35] and most of Richter's recordings originate from live performances. Thus, his live recitals from Moscow (1948), Warsaw (1954 and 1972), Sofia (1958), New York City (1960), Leipzig (1963), Aldeburgh (multiple years), Prague (multiple years), Salzburg (1977) and Amsterdam (1986), are hailed as some of the finest documents of his playing, as are other myriad live recordings issued prior to and since his death on labels including Music & Arts, BBC Legends, Philips, Russian Revelation, and more recently Ankh productions.

Other critically acclaimed live recordings by Richter include performances of Scriabin's selected etudes, preludes and sonatas (multiple performances, different years), Schumann's C major Fantasy (multiple performances, different years), Beethoven's Appassionata Sonata (Moscow, 1960), Schubert's B-flat Sonata (multiple performances, different years), Ravel's Miroirs (Prague, 1965), Liszt's B minor Sonata (multiple performances, 1965–66), Beethoven's Hammerklavier Sonata (multiple performances, 1975) and selected preludes by Rachmaninoff (multiple performances, different years) and Debussy (multiple performances, different years).^[36]

However, despite his professed hatred for the studio, Richter took the recording process quite seriously.^[37] For instance, after a long recording session for Schubert's Wanderer Fantasy, for which he had used a Bösendorfer piano, Richter listened to the tapes and, dissatisfied with his performance, told the recording engineer "Well, I think we'll remake it on the Steinway after all".^[38] Similarly, during a recording session for Schumann's Toccata, Richter reportedly chose to play this piece (which Schumann himself considered "among the most difficult pieces ever written"^[39]) several times in a row, without taking any breaks, in order to preserve the spontaneity of his interpretation.^{[citation needed]}

According to Falk Schwartz and John Berrie's 1983 article "Sviatoslav Richter -- A Discography",^[40] in the 1970s Richter announced his intention of recording his complete solo repertoire "on some 50 discs". This "complete" Richter project did not come to fruition, however, although twelve LPs worth of recordings were pressed between 1970 and 1973 and were subsequently re-issued (in CD format) by Olympia (various composers, 10 CDs) and RCA (Bach's The Well-Tempered Clavier).

In 1961, Richter's recording with Erich Leinsdorf and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra of the Brahms Piano Concerto No. 2 won the Grammy Award for Best Classical Performance - Concerto or Instrumental Soloist. That recording is still considered a landmark (despite Richter's claim he was dissatisfied with it),^[41] as are his studio recordings of Schubert's Wanderer Fantasy, Liszt's two Piano Concertos, Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto and Schumann's Toccata, among many others.^[42]

Honours and awards[link]

This article incorporates information from the equivalent article on the Russian Wikipedia.

• Stalin Prize (1950);
• People's Artist of the RSFSR (1955);
• Grammy Award (1960);
• Lenin Prize (1961);
• People's Artist of the USSR (1961);
• Robert Schumann Prize (1968);
• Honorary Doctor of the University of Strasbourg (1977);
• Léonie Sonning Music Prize (1986; Denmark);
• Hero of Socialist Labour (1975);
• Three Orders of Lenin (1965, 1975, 1985);
• Order of the October Revolution (1980);
• Glinka State Prize of the RSFSR (1987) - for concert programmes in 1986, performed in the cities of Siberia and the Far East;
• Order of Merit for the Fatherland, 4th class (1995);
• Russian Federation State Prize (1996);
• Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters (France)
• Doctor of Music, honoris causa Oxford University^[43]
• Voted into the Gramophone Hall of Fame in 2012^[44]

In film[link]

Richter appeared in a 1952 Soviet film playing Liszt in a Kompozitor Glinka, (Russian: Композитор Глинка).

Quotations[link]

Memorable statements about Richter[link]

The Italian critic Piero Rattalino has asserted that the only pianists comparable to Richter in the history of piano performance were Franz Liszt and Ferruccio Busoni.^[45]

Glenn Gould called Richter "one of the most powerful communicators the world of music has produced in our time".^[46]

Nathan Milstein described Richter in his memoir "From Russia to the West" as the following: "Richter was certainly a marvelous pianist but not as impeccable as he was reputed to be. His music making was too dry for me. In Richter's interpretation of Ravel's Jeux d'eau, instead of flowing water you hear frozen icicles."^[47]

Van Cliburn attended a Richter recital in 1958 in the Soviet Union. He reportedly cried during the recital and, upon returning to the United States, described Richter's playing as "the most powerful piano playing I have ever heard".^[48]

Arthur Rubinstein described his first exposure to Richter as follows: "It really wasn't anything out of the ordinary. Then at some point I noticed my eyes growing moist: tears began rolling down my cheeks."^[46]

Heinrich Neuhaus described Richter as follows: "His singular ability to grasp the whole and at the same time miss none of the smallest details of a composition suggests a comparison with an eagle who from his great height can see as far as the horizon and yet single out the tiniest detail of the landscape."^[49]

Dmitri Shostakovich wrote of Richter: "Richter is an extraordinary phenomenon. The enormity of his talent staggers and enraptures. All the phenomena of musical art are accessible to him."^[50]

Vladimir Sofronitsky proclaimed that Richter was a "genius", prompting Richter to respond that Sofronitsky was a "god".^[51]

Vladimir Horowitz said: "Of the Russian pianists, I like only one, Richter."^[52]

Pierre Boulez wrote of Richter: "His personality was greater than the possibilities offered to him by the piano, broader than the very concept of complete mastery of the instrument."^[53]

Marlene Dietrich, who was Richter's friend, wrote in her autobiography, Marlene: "One evening the audience sat around him on the stage. While he was playing a piece, a woman directly behind him collapsed and died on the spot. She was carried out of the hall. I was deeply impressed by this incident and thought to myself: “What an enviable fate, to die while Richter is playing! What a strong feeling for the music this woman must have had when she breathed out her life!” But Richter did not share this opinion, he was shaken".

Gramophone critic Bryce Morrison described Richter as follows: "Idiosyncratic, plain-speaking, heroic, reserved, lyrical, virtuosic and perhaps above all, profoundly enigmatic, Sviatoslav Richter remains one of the greatest recreative artists of all time."^[54]

Memorable statements by Richter[link]

On listening to Bach: "It does no harm to listen to Bach from time to time, even if only from a hygienic standpoint."^[55]

On Scriabin: "Scriabin isn't the sort of composer whom you'd regard as your daily bread, but is a heavy liqueur on which you can get drunk periodically, a poetical drug, a crystal that's easily broken."^[56]

On picking small venues for performance: "Put a small piano in a truck and drive out on country roads; take time to discover new scenery; stop in a pretty place where there is a good church; unload the piano and tell the residents; give a concert; offer flowers to the people who have been so kind as to attend; leave again."^[57]

On his plan to perform without a fee: "Music must be given to those who love it. I want to give free concerts; that's the answer."^[58]

On Neuhaus: "I learned a lot from him, even though he kept saying that there was nothing he could teach me. Music is written to be played and listened to and has always seemed to me to be able to manage without words... This was exactly the case with Heinrich Neuhaus. In his presence I was almost always reduced to total silence. This was an extremely good thing, as it meant that we concentrated exclusively on the music. Above all, he taught me the meaning of silence and the meaning of singing. He said I was incredibly obstinate and did only what I wanted to. It's true that I've only ever played what I wanted. And so he left me to do as I liked."^[59]

On playing: "...I don't play for the audience, I play for myself, and if I derive any satisfaction from it, then the audience, too, is content." ^[60]

Anecdotes[link]

• Richter usually refused to play piano transcriptions in concert, although on occasion he would perform opera transcriptions for his friends. In the 1940s, he apparently performed his own transcription of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde for a group of friends in one sitting. Similarly, after being a witness at Riccardo Muti's wedding, Richter played from memory the entire first act of Puccini's Madama Butterfly for a small group of wedding guests.^{[citation needed]}

• Born in 1915 to a father of German extraction and a Russian noble mother, Richter recounts how he told Herbert von Karajan that he (Richter) was "a German, too", and Karajan replied "then I am a Chinese". Richter commented on Karajan's reaction by saying, "How do you like that?" (Karajan was of part-Greek and Slovenian descent.)

Media[link]

	Wanderer Fantasy noicon In this 1963 studio recording of Schubert's Wanderer Fantasy, Richter demonstrates his barnstorming technique and ability to control all aspects of his playing to bring out the structural features of a work as he moves from the end of the third movement into the beginning of the finale.
Problems listening to this file? See media help.

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Rasmussen, Karl Aage (2007). Svjatoslav Richter - Pianist. Gyldendal, Copenhagen. ISBN 978-87-02-03430-1. 
• Rasmussen, Karl Aage (2010). Szvjatoszlav Richter - A zongorista. Rozsavolgyi es Tarsa, Budapest. ISBN 978-963-87764-8-8. 
• Rasmussen, Karl Aage (2010). Sviatoslav Richter - Pianist. Northeastern University Press, Boston. ISBN 978-1-55553-710-4. 
• Monsaingeon, Bruno (2001). Sviatoslav Richter: Notebooks and Conversations. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-571-20553-4. 
• Monsaingeon, Bruno (1998), Richter, the Enigma. Video interview-documentary. OCLC 41148757
• Rattalino, Piero (2005). Sviatoslav Richter. Il Visionario. Zecchini Editore. ISBN 88-87203-35-0. 

External links[link]

• Sviatoslav Richter at the Internet Movie Database
• Sviatoslav Richter at Find a Grave
• Website dedicated to Sviatoslav Richter, includes an extensive discography
• RECORDED RICHTER, complete discography that includes currently unavailable recordings and private recordings
• Brief obituary of Nina Dorliak
• Paul Geffen, 1999: Vita of Sviatoslav Richter
• Pete Taylor, 2010: Concert list program with Google Earth maps

This section requires expansion with: early life before career.

David Fray
Background information
Born	(1981-05-24) May 24, 1981 (age 31) Tarbes, France
Genres	Classical
Occupations	Pianist
Instruments	Piano
Years active	2005–present[1]

David Fray (born May 24, 1981) is a French classical pianist. Voted "Newcomer of the Year 2008" by the BBC Music Magazine,^[2] Fray has gained attention for his musical interpretation as well as his eccentricities in performance and rehearsal, which were highlighted in the 2008 ARTE documentary about him titled "Swing, Sing and Think".

Biography[link]

David Fray was born in Tarbes, near the Pyrenees. Both his parents are teachers, his father's subject being philosophy and his mother's German.^[3]

Fray entered the classical music world after receiving the Second Grand Prize at the Montreal International Music Competition in 2004. After this acclaim he released "Schubert, Liszt", a CD compilation of works by the two composers, on the ATMA Classique label. More recently, he has done video recordings of piano concertos by J.S. Bach with the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, as well as Schubert's Wanderer Fantasy during the Festival of La Roque d'Anthérnon. In 2008 he released a second CD, "Bach / Boulez Piano Recital", which was another compilation of two composers from separate musical periods.^[4] He has performed with many established conductors such as John Axelrod, Kurt Masur, Jaap van Zweden and Christoph Eschenbach.

Fray has won a number of awards, including the "Révélation Classique" (Classical Discovery) from ADAMI, the "Jeune Soliste de l'Année" (Young Soloist of the Year) from the French Language Public Radio Coalition, and the Diploma for Outstanding Merit from the Hamamatsu Competition.

In July 2008, he married actress Chiara Muti, daughter of conductor Riccardo Muti.

Playing style[link]

Thanks to his antics at the piano, his relatively young age, and his recent focus on Bach, Fray has been compared to pianist Glenn Gould. As seen in the ARTE documentary, he rehearses with excitement and playfulness, bobbing his eyebrows, humming along with the German orchestra, bending low over the piano, repeatedly joking with his fellow musicians, and even conducting himself with one hand, in Gould's signature style.^[5]

Recordings[link]

• Schubert: Fantasia in C Major/Lieder Transcriptions/Sonata / David Fray (Atma 2006)
• Bach: Partita in D major; French Suite BWV 812 in B minor / Boulez: Douze Notations pour piano; "Incises" / David Fray (Virgin Classics 2007)
• Bach: Keyboard Concertos BWV 1052, 1055, 1056 & 1058 / David Fray, Die Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen (Virgin Classics 2008)
• Swing, Sing & Think. David Fray Records J.S. Bach / A film by Bruno Monsaingeon (Virgin Classics DVD 2008)
• Schubert: Impromptus Op.90, Moments Musicaux, Allegretto in C minor / David Fray (Virgin Classics 2009)
• Mozart: Piano Concertos 22 & 25 / David Fray, Philharmonia Orchestra, Jaap van Zweden (Virgin Classics 2010)

References[link]

External links[link]

• Biography at EMI Classics
• David Fray Bach website
• David Fray Schubert website
• Bach Cantatas Short Biography

Aldo Ciccolini

Aldo Ciccolini (Italian pronunciation: [ˈaldo tʃikkoˈlini]) (born 15 August 1925), is an Italian-French pianist.

Biography[link]

Aldo Ciccolini was born in Naples. His father, who bore the title of Marquis of Macerara, worked as a typographer. He took his first lessons with Maria Vigliarolo d'Ovidio, and entered Naples Conservatory in 1934 at the age of 9, by special permission of the director, Francesco Cilea. There he studied piano with Paolo Denza, a pupil of Ferruccio Busoni, and harmony and counterpoint with Achile Longo.

He began his performing career playing at the Teatro San Carlo at the age of 16. However, by 1946 he was reduced to playing in bars to support his family. In 1949, he won the Marguerite Long-Jacques Thibaud Competition in Paris (among the other prizewinners were Paul Badura-Skoda and Pierre Barbizet). He became a French citizen in 1969 and taught at the Conservatoire de Paris from 1970 to 1988, where his students included Akiko Ebi, Géry Moutier, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Artur Pizarro, Nicholas Angelich and André Sayasov. Among his students at the Biella L.Perosi International Academy were Roberto Cominati, Andrea Padova, Filippo Faes, Francesco Libetta and Angela Annese.

Ciccolini is a celebrated interpreter and advocate of the piano music of the French composers Camille Saint-Saëns, Maurice Ravel, Claude Debussy and Erik Satie as well as that of less prominent composers such as Déodat de Séverac, Jules Massenet, Charles-Valentin Alkan, and Alexis de Castillon. Ciccolini is also known for his playing of the music of the Spanish composers Isaac Albéniz, Enrique Granados, and Manuel de Falla, as well as of Franz Liszt. The soprano Elisabeth Schwarzkopf said of him "I have hardly met a more wonderful partner and a more delightful companion."

On 9 December 1999 Ciccolini celebrated a career in France spanning 50 years with a recital at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris.

Recordings[link]

Aldo Ciccolini in 2005

Ciccolini has made more than a hundred recordings for EMI-Pathé Marconi and other record companies, including the complete sonata cycles of Mozart and Beethoven, complete solo piano work of Claude Debussy, and two separate cycles of the complete piano works of Erik Satie.

In 2002 Ciccolini was awarded the Diapason d'or for his recording of the entire solo piano works of Janáček for Abeille Music and of Schumann for Cascavelles. His complete Beethoven sonata cycle was re-published under Cascavelle label in 2006.

He has also recorded unusual repertoire such as selections from the Péchés de vieillesse of Rossini.

Source[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Aldo Ciccolini

• Article on Aldo Ciccolini in French Wikipedia
• Bellamy, Olivier. Courage and silence. Essay included in Aldo Ciccolini: Enregistrements EMI 1950–1991 EMI 2009

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

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• 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.