Mozart

 

Mozart: A Life, by Maynard Solomon © 1995

 

I spent the past five weeks winding my way through a thick biography of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Why? Well, first of all, Little One spent a weekend of her semester abroad back in March in Austria, specifically Salzburg, a small city whose main claim to fame is it being Mozart’s birthplace. Then a few days later, completely at random and with eerie synchronicity, I spotted the above biography on sale for $1 at my local library. I took it as a sign and put it in the immediate On-Deck Circle. Third, and on a lesser note, I have been browsing through my copy of Schonberg’s Lives of the Composers while listening to my growing record collection and felt like I might want to augment it with a small book collection. And finally, I realized that the only thing I really knew of the great Mozart is what I remembered from that movie Amadeus, parts of which I last saw forty years ago.

 

Anyway, the biography taught me much about the great composer. Generally and invariably Mozart is regarded as one of the Big Three of classical music: Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven. In my amateur career as a classical music enthusiast and aficionado, however, I wouldn’t have put him in my top three. I was fairly familiar with his major works and appreciated his crisp, clear, clean compositional style, but it didn’t move me. Would it, after a thorough reading of this biography?

 

I felt the best way to answer this question was to also listen to at least one piece by the maestro every day. All in all, I listened to 45 compositions while working my way through the biography.

 

I did a little research before starting the book. Mozart: A Life was a finalist in the Pulitzer Price biography category. Solomon himself founded Vanguard Records and taught at Julliard, in addition to several Ivy League schools. He also authored a similar biography of Beethoven. Skimming through it I saw numerous pages of musical scores, so with excited anticipation I dove in.

 

And was kinda disappointed. Overall, if pressed I’d give the book a B+. True, I left feeling that I knew Wolfgang; it filled in a lot of gaps from my sparse knowledge of his life and I gained a working knowledge of his, er, work. But right from the start and running almost through the entire 519 pages was Mozart’s oppressive, domineering, often misguided father Leopold. Mozart was a child prodigy, a virtuoso on the keyboard and quite adept at the violin, who began composing at age 5. His father, a middling composer himself whose abrasive personality failed to secure him a prominent position in any of the courts of Europe, saw in the boy a means to bring fame and financial success to the family. Mozart’s older sister was also a virtuoso in her own right, and Leopold had them touring northern Europe and Italy several times as children, performing before royalty and the upper classes. So the biography devoted a hefty chunk to psychoanalyzing our hero.

 

(And I realized that Mozart’s best 20th-century analog – and it’s not a perfect comparison – would be to a certain extent Michael Jackson.)

 

Solomon also devotes a crazy amount of space on Mozart’s finances – how much he earned per performance, how much he earned per year, his expenses, Leopold’s finances, the family finances, the finances of the family of Mozart’s wife, Constanze Weber, and how much composers and musicians earned at the time and in which city in service to which prince. It was all so distracting and ultimately meaningless. Mozart lives on for his music, not for the amount of ducats, florins, kreuzers, or louis d’ors that flowed through his coffers.

 

In fairness, Solomon does devote three entire chapters, one in each Part, to Mozart’s compositions: Chapter 8, “A Composer’s Voice”, Chapter 24, “Fearful Symmetries”, and an analysis of his opera in the ultimate chapter, Chapter 32, “The Power of Music.” All well and good and interesting. I’d like to re-read these three chapters in the future. But I think I’d like even better (and perhaps this exposes my lack of familiarity with Mozart’s works) is a more chronological approach where each major work is explained in terms of how Mozart’s mastery evolved and the effect each had upon the zeitgeist.

 

One thing I learned almost immediately, and the one thing I’d like you to take away from this post, is that the award-winning 1984 film Amadeus is a complete work of fiction. It’s based on nearly two-hundred-year-old speculation that grew into its own mythology. Just about every detail about Amadeus is incorrect, save for the fact that Mozart was an 18th-century composer who married a woman named Costanze and another composer named Salieri existed around the same time. Even the movie’s writer and director called it a “fantasia on the theme of Mozart and Salieri.” One of the first things I did with Solomon’s biography was turn to the Index and look for Salieri. His name appears on 9 of the book’s 519 pages.

 

So did my opinion of Mozart change during and after reading Mozart: A Life and sampling his works on a daily basis? You bet! As stated above, I always felt his music to be crisp and clean, “pure” like water from a cold mountain stream, meandering in and out and around in the ether yet always resolving itself into the perfect notes (chords) needed at the perfect moment. Sublime. I made a conscious decision to move my focus around the music beside simply the melody, to study the undercurrents, the tempos and harmony, the internal counterpoints and countermovements, the emotions that these meanderings brought up within me. It’s hard to put into words (and now I have a little bit more sympathy for Mr. Solomon). But I enjoyed the exercises and I found myself enjoying the pieces I listened to.

 

The works I loved the most?

 

Andante (second movement) from Symphony No. 1 in E-flat, K. 16

Serenade No. 13 in G, “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik”, K. 525

Andante (second movement) from Symphony No. 36 “Linz”

Serenade No. 10 in B-flat, K. 361/370a, II: Adagio

“Haydn” String Quartet No. 18 in A, K. 464, III: Andante

Cosi fan tutte, K. 588 Act I: Overture

Divertimento No. 17 in D major, IV, K. 334

Divertimento No. 17 in D major, VI, K. 334

Piano Sonata No. 3 in B-flat, K. 281

Symphony No. 29 in A, K. 201/186a

Violin Sonata No. 18 in G, K. 301

 

Mozart was born on January 27, 1756 and died on December 5, 1791, at the age of 35. He died most likely of a combination of rheumatic fever and the medical (mal)practice of the day. He was not poisoned by Salieri.

 

[N.B. 1 – Other notable Salzburgians include Paracelsus, 16th-century physician; Christian Doppler of the Doppler effect; the Von Trapps of Sound of Music fame; Herbert von Karajan, noted conductor of whom I own many of his orchestral CDs; Theodor Herzl, founder of Zionism; and Joseph Haydn’s younger brother, Johann Michael. Mozart was an acquaintance of the older Haydn and, while not exactly buddies, they did meet several times and held mutually high opinions of each other.]

 

[N.B. 2 – “K” numbers stand for Köchel numbers (pronounced between “kohshell” and “kershell” and are an attempt at a chronological catalogue of Mozart’s work published in 1862 by the man whom it’s named after. Since then it’s been revised six times, the last edition in 1964; when two K numbers appear after a work by Mozart the first represents the first edition Kochel number and the second the number of the sixth edition. The original catalogue ran up to 626 works.]

 

For those keeping score at home (and as a reference for Future Me):

 

Mozart works I own –

   Best of Mozart (CD bought May 1992)     

            Serenade in G, “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik”, K. 525

            Symphony No. 29 in A, K. 201

            Symphony No. 41 in C, “Jupiter”, K. 551

            Overture to “The Marriage of Figaro”, K. 492

            Symphony No. 1 in E-flat, K 216

   Masters of Classical Music: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (CD, Christmas gift 1993)

            Eleven miscellaneous short pieces

   Mozart: The Last Five Symphonies (CD bought August 1999)     

            Symphony No. 36 in C, “Linz”, K. 425

            Symphony No. 38 in D, “Prague”, K. 504

            Symphony No. 39 in E-flat, K. 543

            Symphony No. 40 in G-minor, K. 550

            Symphony No. 41 in C, “Jupiter”, K. 551

   Mozart: Kronungsmesse (Record, Christmas gift 2022)

            Coronation Mass No. 14 in C, K. 317

Motet “Exsultate, Jubilate”, K. 165

Great Mass in Cm, K. 427

   Obras para piano a cuatro manos (Record, birthday gift 2023)

            Sonata in B-flat for Piano Four-Hands, K. 358

5 Variations in G, K. 501

Fantasia in F minor for a Mechanical Organ, K. 608

Piano Sonata in C for Four-Hands (doubtful), K. 19

   Soundtrack to the movie Amadeus (Record bought May 2024)

 

Selections of Mozart’s work I listened to while reading the biography:

   Symphony No. 41 in C, K. 551 “Jupiter”

   Horn Concerto No. 1 in D, K. 386b (K. 412/514)

   Horn Concerto No. 2 in Eb, K. 417

   Horn Concerto No. 3 in Eb, K. 447

   Horn Concerto No. 4 in Eb, K. 495

   Symphony No. 39 in Eb, K. 543

   Symphony No. 40 in Gm, K. 550 “Great G minor Symphony”

   Clarinet Concerto in A, K. 622

   Coronation Mass No. 14 in C, K. 317

   Clarinet Quintet in A, “Stadler”, K. 581

   Symphony No. 36 in C, “Linz”, K. 425

   Symphony No. 35 in D, “Haffner”, K. 385

   Symphony No. 38 in D, “Prague”, K. 504

   Serenade No. 13 in G, “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik”, K. 525

   Idomeneo, re di Creta, Acts I and II, K. 366

   Piano Concerto No. 20 in D-minor, K. 466

   Piano Concerto No. 21 in C, K. 467

   Symphony No. 1 in E-flat, K. 16

   Serenade No. 10 in B-flat, I-IV, K. 361/370a “Gran Partita”

   Marriage of Figaro Overture, K. 492

   Piano Sonata No. 12 in F, K. 332/300k

   Piano Concerto No. 20 in D-minor, K. 466

   Piano Sonata No. 1 in C, K. 279

   Piano Sonata No. 2 in F, K. 280

   Piano Sonata No. 3 in B-flat, K. 281

   Die Zauberflöte, K. 620, OT and part of Act I

   Die Zauberflöte, K. 620, continuation of Act I

   “Haydn” String Quartet No. 14 in G, "Spring", K. 387

   “Haydn” String Quartet No. 15 in D minor, K. 421

   “Haydn” String Quartet No. 16 in E-flat, K. 428

   “Haydn” String Quartet No. 17 in B-flat, "The Hunt", K. 458

   “Haydn” String Quartet No. 18 in A, K. 464

   Cosi fan tutte, K. 588 Act I: Overture

   Side One of “Amadeus” Soundtrack

      Symphony No. 25 in G minor, “Little G minor Symphony”, I, K. 183

      Serenade No. 10 for Winds in B-flat, “Gran Partita”, III, K. 361

      The Abduction from the Seraglio, Turkish Finale, K. 384

      Symphony No. 29 in A, I, K. 201

   Divertimento No. 17 in D major, I-III, K. 334

   Divertimento No. 17 in D major, IV-VI, K. 334

   Piano Sonata No. 3 in B-flat, K. 281

   Piano Sonata No. 10 in C, K. 330

   Piano Sonata No. 13 in B-flat, K. 333

   Symphony No. 29 in A, K. 201/186a

   Don Giovanni, Overture, K. 527

   Violin Sonata No. 24 in F, K. 376

   Violin Sonata No. 18 in G, K. 301

   Violin Sonata No. 21 in E-minor, K. 304

   Requiem in D-minor, K. 626