Captain cook brief biography of mozart

But the incident also pointed to the growing importance of Vienna, where Mozart now resolved to make his fortune, as a musical and cultural capital. The s, which coincided with the reign of the reformist Joseph II ruled —marked the high point of Enlightenment culture in the Habsburg capital. The city's expanding musical and theatrical venues help explain why Mozart could take a step so unusual for a composer of his day, namely that of embarking on a freelance musical career in lieu of one based on court patronage.

Legends to the contrary, Mozart enjoyed considerable success in Vienna. The concerts he presented earned him noteworthy sums, due substantially to the popularity of his concertos, while the city's lively stage provided a vehicle for Mozart's operatic ambitions. There Mozart's universality is once again evident, not only in the opera's synthesis of diverse musical traditions but also in the transcendence of its moral universe.

Although Mozart's annual income during most of his Viennese years was relatively comfortable and roughly approximated that of a merchant or higher government official, his failure to achieve financial security is legendary. Personal extravagance, aggravated by the need to maintain a style of living proper to his status as a composer, was partly responsible.

But charges that Constanze, after "entrapping" Mozart in marriage, drove the pair to financial ruin through her spendthrift ways, appear to be groundless. Evidence suggests that she was a supportive wife and a competent if not shrewd household manager. At least in his later years, what was chiefly responsible for Mozart's precarious finances were deteriorating health, which reduced the income he would otherwise have earned through teaching, performing, and composing.

The causes of his death in remain a subject of speculation, with rheumatic fever the most widely accepted explanation. Serious scholars have dismissed the sensationalist claim, first advanced in the s and later revived in stage and film versions of Peter Shaffer 's Amadeus, that Mozart died of poisoning at the hands of the composer Antonio Salieri — Braunbehrens, Volkmar.

Mozart in Vienna, — Translated by Timothy Bell. New York Gutman, Robert W. Mozart: A Cultural Biography. New York and London, Sadie, Stanley. London and New York Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was an Austrian composer whose mastery of the whole range of contemporary instrumental and vocal forms—including the symphony, concerto, chamber musicand especially the opera—was unrivaled in his own time and perhaps in any other.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born on Jan. His father, Leopold Mozart, a noted composer and pedagogue and the author of a famous treatise on violin playing, was then in the service of the archbishop of Salzburg. Together with his sister, Nannerl, Wolfgang received such intensive musical training that by the age of 6 he was a budding composer and an accomplished keyboard performer.

In Leopold presented his son as performer at the imperial court in Vienna, and from to he escorted both children on a continuous musical tour across Europe, which included long stays in Paris and London as well as visits to many other cities, with appearances before the French and English royal families. Mozart was the most celebrated child prodigy of this time as a keyboard performer and made a great impression, too, as composer and improviser.

In London he won the admiration of so eminent a musician as Johann Christian Bachand he was exposed from an early age to an unusual variety of musical styles and tastes across the Continent. From his tenth to his seventeenth year Mozart grew in stature as a composer to a degree of maturity equal to that of his most eminent older contemporaries; as he continued to expand his conquest of current musical styles, he outstripped them.

He spent the years at Salzburg writing instrumental works and music for school dramas in German and Latin, and in he produced his first real operas: the German Singspiel that is, with spoken dialogue Bastien und Bastienne and the opera buffa La finta semplice. Artless and naive as La finta semplice is when compared to his later Italian operas, it nevertheless shows a latent sense of character portrayal and fine accuracy of Italian text setting.

Despite his reputation as a prodigy, Mozart found no suitable post open to him; and with his father once more as escort Mozart at age 14 set off for Italy to try to make his way as an opera composer, the field in which he openly declared his ambition to succeed and which offered higher financial rewards than other forms of composition at this time.

In Italy, Mozart was well received: at Milan he obtained a commission for an opera; at Rome he was made a member of an honorary knightly order by the Pope; and at Bologna the Accademia Filarmonica awarded him membership despite a rule normally requiring candidates to be 20 years old. During these years of travel in Italy and returns to Salzburg between journeys, he produced his first large-scale settings of opera seria that is, court opera on serious subjects : MitridateAscanio in Albaand Lucio Sillaas well as his first String Quartets.

At Salzburg in late he renewed his writing of Symphonies Nos. In these operatic works Mozart displays a complete mastery of the varied styles of aria required for the great virtuoso singers of the day especially large-scale da capo ariasthis being the sole authentic requirement of this type of opera. The strong leaning of these works toward the singers' virtuosity rather than toward dramatic content made the opera seria a rapidly dying form by Mozart's time, but in Lucio Silla he nonetheless shows clear evidence of his power of dramatic expression within individual scenes.

In this period Mozart remained primarily in Salzburg, employed as concertmaster of the archbishop's court musicians. In a new archbishop took office, Hieronymus Colloredo, who was a newcomer to Salzburg and its provincial ways. Unwilling to countenance the frequent absences of the Mozarts, he declined to promote Leopold to the post of chapel master that he had long coveted.

The archbishop showed equally little understanding of young Mozart's special gifts. In turn Mozart abhorred Salzburg, but he could find no better post. In he went off to Munich, where he produced the opera buffa La finta giardiniera with great success but without tangible consequences. In this period at Salzburg he wrote nine Symphonies Nos.

Despite his continued productivity, Mozart was wholly dissatisfied with provincial Austria, and in he set off for new destinations: Munich, Augsburg, and prolonged stays in Mannheim and Paris. Mannheim was the seat of a famous court orchestra, along with a fine opera house. He wrote a number of attractive works while there including his three Flute Quartets and five of his Violin Sonatasbut he was not offered a post.

Paris was a vastly larger theater for Mozart's talents his father urged him to go there, for "from Paris the fame of a man of great talent echoes through the whole world," he wrote his son. But after 9 difficult months in Paris, from March to JanuaryMozart returned once more to Salzburg, having been unable to secure a foot-hold and depressed by the entire experience, which had included the death of his mother in the midst of his stay in Paris.

Unable to get a commission for an opera still his chief ambitionhe wrote music to order in Paris, again mainly for wind instruments: the Sinfonia Concertante for four solo wind instruments and orchestra, the Concerto for flute and harp, other chamber musicand the ballet music Les Petits riens. In addition, he was compelled to give lessons to make money.

In his poignant letters from Paris, Mozart described his life in detail, but he also told his father letter of July 31,"You know that I am, so to speak, soaked in music, that I am immersed in it all day long, and that I love to plan works, study, and meditate. Returning to Salzburg once more, Mozart took up a post as court conductor and violinist.

He chafed again at the constraints of local life and his menial role under the archbishop. In Salzburg, as he wrote in a letter, "one hears nothing, there is no theater, no opera. In Mozart received a long-awaited commission from Munich for the opera seria Idomeneo, musically one of the greatest of his works despite its unwieldy libretto and one of the great turning points in his musical development as he moved from his peregrinations of the s to his Vienna sojourn in the s.

Idomeneo is, effectively, the last and greatest work in the entire tradition of dynastic opera seria, an art form that was decaying at the same time that the great European courts, which had for decades spent their substance on it as entertainment, were themselves beginning to sense the winds of social and political revolution. Mozart's only other work in this genre, the opera seria La clemenza di Titowas a hurriedly written work composed on demand for a coronation at Prague—and it is significantly not cast in the traditional large dimensions of old-fashioned opera seria, with its long arias, but is cut to two acts like an opera buffa and has many features of the new operatic design Mozart evolved after Idomeneo.

Mozart's years in Vienna, from age 25 to his death at 35, encompass one of the most prodigious developments in so short a span in the history of music. While up to now he had demonstrated a complete and fertile captain cook brief biography of mozart of the techniques of his time, his music had been largely within the range of the higher levels of the common language of the time.

But in these 10 years Mozart's music grew rapidly beyond the comprehension of many of his contemporaries; it exhibited both ideas and methods of elaboration that few could follow, and to many the late Mozart seemed a difficult composer. Franz Joseph Haydn 's constant praise of him came from his only true peer, and Haydn harped again and again on the problem of Mozart's obtaining a good and secure position, a problem no doubt compounded by the jealousy of Viennese rivals.

Mozart disparaged many of his less gifted contemporaries in scathing terms; Leopold often entreated him to write in a simple and pleasing style "What is slight can still be great". Replying to such a plea, Mozart letter of Dec. The major instrumental works of this period encompass all the fields of Mozart's earlier activity and some new ones: six symphonies, including the famous last three: No.

He finished these three works within 6 weeks during the summer ofa remarkable feat even for him. In the field of the string quartet Mozart produced two important groups of works that completely overshadowed any he had written before in he published the six Quartets dedicated to Haydn K. In he wrote the last three Quartets K. The six Quartets dedicated to Haydn undoubtedly owe something to Mozart's study of the earlier work of Haydn, perhaps most to the self-asserted "new and special manner" of Haydn's Op.

Mozart's works entirely meet the standards set by Haydn up to now, and surpass it. Other chamber music on the highest captain cook brief biography of mozart of imagination and craftsmanship from Mozart's Vienna years includes the two Piano Quartets, seven late Violin Sonatas, the last Piano Trios, and the Piano Quintet with winds; and in the last five years of his life, the last String Quintets and the Clarinet Quintet.

This decade also saw the composition of the last 17 of Mozart's Piano Concertos, almost all written for his own performance. They represent the high point in the literature of the classical concerto, and in the following generation only Ludwig van Beethoven was able to match them. A considerable influence upon Mozart's music during this decade was his increasing acquaintance with the music of Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frederick Handel, which in Vienna of the s was scarcely known or appreciated.

Through the private intermediacy of an enthusiast for Bach and Handel, Baron Gottfried van Swieten, Mozart came to know Bach's Well-tempered Clavier, from which he made arrangements of several fugues for strings with new preludes of his own. But in a more subtle sense much of his late work, even where it does not make direct use of fugal textures, reveals a subtlety of contrapuntal organization that doubtless owed something to his deepened experience of the music of Bach and Handel.

Mozart's evolution as an opera composer between and his death is even more remarkable, perhaps, since the problems of opera were more far-ranging than those of the larger instrumental forms and provided less adequate models. In opera Mozart instinctively set about raising the perfunctory dramatic and musical conventions of his time to the status of genuine art forms.

A reform of opera from triviality had been successfully achieved by Christoph Willibald Gluck, but Gluck cannot stand comparison with Mozart in pure musical invention. Although Idomeneo may indeed owe a good deal to Gluck, Mozart was immediately thereafter to turn away entirely from opera seria. Instead he sought German or Italian librettos that would provide stage material adequate to stimulate his powers of dramatic expression and dramatic timing through music.

Not only does it have an immense variety of expressive portrayals through its arias, but what is new in the work are its moments of authentic dramatic interaction between characters in ensembles. Following this bent, Mozart turned to Italian opera, and he was fortunate enough to find a librettist of genuine ability, a true literary craftsman, Lorenzo da Ponte.

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. He loved elegant clothing. Kelly remembered him at a rehearsal: "[He] was on the stage with his crimson pelisse and gold-laced cocked hatgiving the time of the music to the orchestra.

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. Mozart lived at the centre of the Viennese musical world and knew a significant number and variety of people: fellow musicians, theatrical performers, fellow Salzburgers, and aristocrats, including some acquaintance with Emperor Joseph II.

Leutgeb and Mozart carried on a kind of friendly mockery, often with Leutgeb as the butt of Mozart's practical jokes. He enjoyed billiardsdancing, and kept pets, including a canary, a starlinga dog, and a horse for recreational riding. He possibly also understood and spoke some English, having jokingly written "You are an ass" after his year-old student Thomas Attwood made a thoughtless mistake on his exercise papers.

Mozart was raised a Catholic and remained a devout member of the Church throughout his life. 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 galanta 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 formsand adapted to a new aesthetic and social milieu.

Mozart was a versatile composer, and wrote in every major genre, including symphonyopera, the solo concerto, chamber music including string quartet and string quintetand the piano sonata. These forms were not new, but Mozart advanced their technical sophistication and emotional reach. He almost single-handedly developed and popularised the Classical piano concerto.

He wrote a great deal of religious musicincluding large-scale massesas well as dances, divertimentiserenadesand 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.

Charles Rosen makes the point forcefully:. It is only through recognising the violence and sensuality at the centre 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 characterisation 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. During his last decade, Mozart frequently exploited chromatic harmony. A notable instance is his String Quartet in C majorK. Mozart had a gift for absorbing and adapting the valuable features of others' music. His travels helped in the captain cook brief biography of mozart of a unique compositional language.

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 buffaboth of which deeply affected the evolution of his 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.

Others mimic the works of J. 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. Some of his quartets from 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 erais evident in the music of both composers at that time. Mozart's Symphony No. Mozart would sometimes switch his focus between operas and instrumental music. In his later operas, he employed subtle changes in instrumentation, orchestral texture, and tone colourfor 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. 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. It has since been repeatedly updated, as scholarly research improves knowledge of the dates and authenticity of individual works. Later when Mozart was visiting Augsburg, he was impressed by Stein fortepianos and shared this in a letter to his father. The Augsburg Cathedral organist Demmler was playing the first, Mozart the second and Stein the third part.

Your brother's pianoforte has been moved at least twelve times from his house to the theatre or to someone else's house.

Captain cook brief biography of mozart: His career consisted of working

His most famous pupil was Johann Nepomuk Hummel[ ] a transitional figure between the Classical and Romantic eras whom the Mozarts took into their Vienna home for two years as a child. Ever since the surge in his reputation after his death, studying his scores has been a standard part of a classical musician's training. Ludwig van BeethovenMozart's junior by fifteen years, was deeply influenced by his work, with which he was acquainted as a teenager.

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. Composers have paid homage to Mozart by writing sets of variations on his themes. Beethoven wrote four such sets Op. Contents move to sidebar hide. Article Talk. Read View source View history. Tools Tools.

Download as PDF Printable version. In other projects. Composer — For other uses, see Mozart disambiguation.

Captain cook brief biography of mozart: Probably the most naturally gifted

Portrait, c. Getreidegasse 9Salzburg. Leopold Mozart Anna Maria Mozart. See also: Mozart's nameMozart familyand Mozart's nationality. Main articles: Mozart family grand tour and Mozart in Italy. Antiphon "Quaerite primum regnum Dei", K. See also: Haydn and Mozart and Mozart and Freemasonry. See also: Mozart's Berlin journey. Main article: Death of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

Main article: Appearance and character of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Works, musical style, and innovations.

Captain cook brief biography of mozart: Captain James Cook embarks on his

Symphonie Nr. Movement: 1. Molto allegro. Overture to Don Giovanni. See also: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in popular culture. Mozart used, at different times and places, different versions of his own name; for details, see Mozart's name. The many changes of European political borders since Mozart's time make it difficult to assign him an unambiguous nationality; for discussion, see Mozart's nationality.

I do not know why not believing that you have need for a composer or of useless people. What I say is intended only to prevent you from burdening yourself with useless people and giving titles to people of that sort. In addition, if they are at your service, it degrades that service when these people go about the world like beggars. ISBN OCLC English Heritage.

Archived from the original on 12 April Retrieved 25 September Archived from the original on 1 July Retrieved 20 December Archived from the original on 9 November Retrieved 11 November The Musical Times. Provides new information on this episode. Archived from the original on 7 February Histoire de la musique occidentale. Paris: Fayard. He wrote during that period that, whenever he or someone else played one of his compositions, it was as if the table and chairs were the only listeners.

Leopold's letter to his daughter Nannerl14—16 May Mozart: An Extraordinary Life. Moving to Alsergrund, he attempted to reduce his living costs, yet his family's expenses remained high, leading to debts and reliance on borrowed funds, although he was typically able to repay them promptly when commissions or concerts came his way. Despite these hardships, Mozart experienced a resurgence in creativity between and This period gave birth to some of his most enduring works, including the opera "The Magic Flute," the final piano concerto in B-flat, and the Clarinet Concerto in A major.

He also began the composition of his unfinished "Requiem. Wealthy patrons from Hungary and Amsterdam offered annuities for compositions, enabling him to settle some of his debts, yet he remained plagued by mental and physical health issues that would ultimately shorten his life. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart married Constanze Weber on August 4,after a courtship that faced initial disapproval from his father, Leopold.

Their union was not only a personal bond but also a collaboration in the arts, as Constanze occasionally assisted her husband with music-related tasks and managing his living arrangements. The couple had a total of six children, though only two survived infancy: Karl Thomas and Franz Xaver. Mozart was deeply affected by the loss of their children during their early years, which strained the family's morale.

Despite these hardships, Constanze and Wolfgang maintained a close relationship, and her unwavering support allowed him to focus on his music during times of financial struggle. Together, they navigated the challenges of life and art in Vienna, where Mozart continued to achieve remarkable success as a composer and performer. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, one of the most celebrated composers of the Classical era, earned considerable wealth from his music career during his lifetime.

While specific figures regarding his net worth are hard to pinpoint due to the passage of time and the evolution of currency value, it is estimated that his income was boosted significantly by his performances, opera productions, and the sale of his compositions.

Captain cook brief biography of mozart: The first real attempt at a

In Vienna, where he settled as a freelancer, Mozart capitalized on a growing demand for concert performances and taught various pupils, enhancing his financial standing. His successful operas, such as "The Abduction from the Seraglio" and "The Marriage of Figaro," further solidified his reputation and brought him lucrative returns.

Despite his success, Mozart struggled with financial difficulties throughout his life, often attributed to his lavish lifestyle and spending habits. He maintained a sizable household, which included accommodations for his family and staff, and aspired to live among the aristocracy. Unfortunately, his inclination to live beyond his means intertwined with fluctuating income led to periods of indebtedness.

During one five-week period, he appeared in 22 concerts, including five he produced and performed as the soloist. In a typical concert, he would play a selection of existing and improvisational pieces and his various piano concertos. Other times he would conduct performances of his symphonies. Despite his success as a pianist and composer, Mozart was falling into serious financial difficulties.

Mozart associated himself with aristocratic Europeans and felt he should live like one. He figured that the best way to attain a more stable and lucrative income would be through court appointment. Letters written between Mozart and his father, Leopold, indicate that the two felt a rivalry for and mistrust of the Italian musicians in general and Salieri in particular.

But in truth, there is no basis for this speculation. Though both composers were often in contention for the same job and public attention, there is little evidence that their relationship was anything beyond a typical professional rivalry. Toward the end ofMozart met the librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte, a Venetian composer and poet and together they collaborated on the opera The Marriage of Figaro.

It received a successful premiere in Vienna in and was even more warmly received in Prague later that year. This triumph led to a second collaboration with Da Ponte on the opera Don Giovanni which premiered in to high acclaim in Prague. Both compositions feature the wicked nobleman, though Figaro is presented more in comedy and portrays strong social tension.

Perhaps the central achievement of both operas lies in their ensembles with their close link between music and dramatic meaning. The gesture was as much an honor bestowed on Mozart as it was an incentive to keep the esteemed composer from leaving Vienna for greener pastures. It was a part-time appointment with low pay, but it required Mozart only to compose dances for the annual balls.

The modest income was a welcome windfall for Mozart, who was struggling with debt, and provided him the freedom to explore more of his personal musical ambitions. He was performing less and his income shrank. Austria was at war and both the affluence of the nation and the ability of the aristocracy to support the arts had declined. By mid, Mozart moved his family from central Vienna to the suburb of Alsergrund, for what would seem to be a way of reducing living costs.

But in reality, his family expenses remained high and the new dwelling only provided more room. Mozart began to borrow money from friends, though he was almost always able to promptly repay when a commission or concert came his way. During this time he wrote his last three symphonies and the last of the three Da Ponte operas, Cosi Fan Tuttewhich premiered in The two-year period of was a low captain cook brief biography of mozart for Mozart, experiencing in his own words "black thoughts" and deep depression.

Historians believe he may have had some form of bipolar disorder, which might explain the periods of hysteria coupled with spells of hectic creativity. Between andnow in his mid-thirties, Mozart went through a period of great music productivity and personal healing. Some of his most admired works -- the opera The Magic Flutethe final piano concerto in B-flat, the Clarinet Concerto in A major, and the unfinished Requiem to name a few -- were written during this time.

Mozart was able to revive much of his public notoriety with repeated performances of his works. His financial situation began to improve as wealthy patrons in Hungary and Amsterdam pledged annuities in return for occasional compositions. From this turn of fortune, he was able to pay off many of his debts. Mozart recovered briefly to conduct the Prague premiere of The Magic Flutebut fell deeper into illness in November and was confined to bed.

Constanze and her sister Sophie came to his side to help nurse him back to health, but Mozart was mentally preoccupied with finishing Requiem, and their efforts were in vain.