And Famous Catholic Fridays are officially back on line with
our first foray into the musical world.
Catholic Credentials:
Cradle Catholic; wrote a lot of sacred music that makes you realize just how
lame the songs in your hymnal are.
Nerd Credentials:
An insanely gifted child prodigy.
Johannes
Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart was born on January 27th,
1756 in Salzburg, Austria. It was a time of transition; the ancient Holy Roman
Empire had disintegrated into loosely independent states and city-states, the
Archduchy of Austria was one of the many regions ruled by the formidable
Empress Maria Theresa (might do a piece on her sometime; she makes Queen
Elizabeth I look like Betty Crocker), and the Seven Years War was only on year
two. In short, Mozart was born and grew up in what we call ‘interesting
times.’
He
was the only surviving son of Leopold and Maria Pertl Mozart. Leopold was a successful
composer and violinist in his own right at the Salzburg court, and Wolfgang,
together with his beloved sister, Maria Anna (“Nannerl”), began to study music
very early. When Maria was seven, their father began teaching her the keyboard.
Three-year-old Mozart watched in fascination and, by mimicking her playing,
quickly picked up the art himself. Leopold, realizing this, started instructing
the precocious little dickens as well. Under his father’s tutorship, Wolfgang
produced his first composition at age five.
When
Wolfgang was six and Nannerl eleven, their father took them on a whirlwind tour
of Europe, from Munich to Paris to London to Zurich, where they performed and
mixed with established musicians, including Johann Christian Bach (the son of
Johann Sebastian Bach), who was especially influential to the no-doubt awed
Wolfgang and helped him compose some of his first symphonies.
By
the time he was thirteen, Mozart was not only fluent in the musical language,
but he could even imitate the different ‘dialects’ of the various regions of
Europe. That is, he could give his music an Austrian tone, or a Bavarian note,
or a Parisian flavor as he saw fit. Also by this time poor Nannerl’s musical
career ended due to her approaching marital age. Nevertheless, the siblings
remained very close friends and correspondents for the rest of their lives.
It
was about this time that Leopold took Wolfgang down to Italy to show him off
some more. While in Rome, Wolfgang listened to Gregorio Allegri’s soaring Miserere performed in the Sistine
Chapel. After hearing it performed once, he wrote down the entire score from
memory; something that caused a bit of a stir, since only the Sistine Choir was
permitted to know or perform the piece. So, to summarize; when he was still a
teenager, Mozart memorized and copied the most exclusive musical composition in
the world after a single hearing.
Mozart
made a number of other Italian journeys during his teenage years to study,
compose, and perform his music. When he returned from his final trip in 1773, it
was to find that his father’s benefactor, Archbishop von Schrattenbach, had
died and been succeeded by Hieronymous von Colleredo (who was probably already
bitter over his ridiculous name). Archbishop von Colleredo hired the young
Mozart as his assistant concertmaster for a small salary. While working under
the Archbishop, Mozart composed his only five violin concertos in a three-year
obsession. Once he had gotten his wild violin concerto phase out of his system,
he turned to piano concertos, producing his exquisite Piano Concerto Number 9 in E
flat major in 1777, just after his 21st birthday.
While
all this was going on, Mozart and the Archbishop were growing increasingly
impatient with one another. Mozart was restless and dissatisfied with his
low-paid, unglamorous position. He wanted to get out, to shine, to excel
outside of the crummy little town™ of Salzburg. The Archbishop, for his part,
was sick of his constant whining and bad attitude. Finally, not long after
completing his piano concerto, Wolfgang resigned his post and set out to seek
his fortune, accompanied by his mother (after an earlier trip nearly got him
into trouble with a young lady). They traveled from Munich to Paris to
Mannheim, but each time it looked as though he was about to find work, the deal
fell through. Mozart started running low on cash and had to pawn his
possessions to make ends meet. Then he hit absolute rock-bottom when his mother
fell ill and died in Paris. Depressed and grief-stricken, he turned down the
job offer he had finally managed to receive in Paris and returned to Salzburg,
where his father managed to snag him a position as court organist.
In
this capacity, he composed a number of Church pieces, including his famous Coronation Mass. He also crafted another
opera: Idomeneus, King of Crete,
which he performed in Munich to great acclaim.
While
he was in Munich, the Empress Maria Therese died and Mozart was summoned by the
Archbishop to be part of his retinue to the coronation of her successor, Joseph
II, in Vienna. The Archbishop’s opinion of the young man hadn’t improved at all
in the intervening years, and he treated him as a servant. Mozart, who had just
produced a successful opera and was used to mixing freely with noblemen, was
furious. He resigned. The Archbishop initially refused, then abruptly accepted
and had the composer literally thrown out of his room.
Having pretty neatly burned his
bridges in Salzburg, Mozart determined to remain in Vienna, where he lodged
with old friends he had made during his job-hunting tour. He had success in the
capital; taking on students, writing music, and playing in private concerts
(concerts in those days were often given in nobleman’s homes).
Yet, even as his career began to
rise, he ran into a problem. It seems the family he was staying with – the
Webers – had a very attractive daughter named Constanze. Not only was Mozart
drawn to her himself, but her mother very much liked the idea of the girl
marrying a brilliant musician.
So what was the problem? Marriage
would mean more burdens on the still-struggling artist and possibly
considerable damage to his career. This made Mozart wary. It made his father
flatly forbid him to get married. When Mozart finally wrote to ask for his
blessing, Leopold refused. Despite this, the couple became engaged, and after a
long, angry correspondence between father and son, Leopold finally consented in
time for their wedding on August 4, 1782. The couple had six children, only two
of whom survived infancy.
As
his star rose and his personal life settled, Mozart began to live lavishly on
his musical prowess. He lived in a magnificent apartment, sent his son to the
finest boarding school, and, of course, kept up an active social life among the
elite of Vienna. To pay for all this, he redoubled his musical output,
producing operas such as Die Entfuhrung
and Le Mariage de Figaro, as well as
numerous concertos, sonatas, and Masses. In 1784 he joined the Freemasons
(which was not yet forbidden by the Church). That year was the most prolific of
his life; in one five-week period, he appeared in twenty-two concerts, a number
of which were essentially one-man
shows that he had produced and performed himself.
Even
so, his spending habits, coupled with the fickle Viennese public, soon put him
in dire financial straits, a situation made worse by the fact that, popular as he was, he couldn’t win a
court appointment. The Emperor’s taste in music ran more towards the Italian
style, particularly that of a composer named Antonio Salieri, with whom Mozart
had an intense, though entirely professional rivalry (the idea that they hated
each other personally is a myth; each respected the other’s talents and admired
the other’s work).
Finally,
the Emperor deigned to recognize Mozart’s skill by appointing him “chamber composer.”
It was only a part-time position, but it came not a moment too soon, as Mozart
was now swamped with debt. To make matters worse, the Austro-Turkish War was
now in full swing, meaning there was little money to be spared for musicians.
Mozart was now borrowing money to make ends meet, though he was always prompt
at paying it back when he managed to snag a concert or sell a piece of music.
He began to travel, seeking ways to improve his fortune. But neither Leipzig
nor Dresden nor Berlin held any opportunities for him.
With
his troubles surmounting, Mozart slipped into dark depression. He would
alternate between periods of moody, reflective idleness and frenzied activity.
Then,
all of a sudden, he rallied. He began churning out piece after piece all
throughout the first half of 1791; concertos, string quintets, the opera The Magic Flute and, finally, his great
unfinished Requiem Mass. The success
of this massive outpouring of effort began to restore his family’s fortune at
last.
These
pieces tended to show a more marked spiritual nature than his previous works.
It seems that, during his long “dark night” he had experienced a spiritual
revival. His faith, which had always been sincere, appears to have rallied in
that final, tremendous year of his life.
And
it was the end. On September 6th, 1791, while in Prague for the
premiere of his opera La Clemenza di Tito,
Mozart fell ill. He rallied and managed to keep working, including conducting
the premier of The Magic Flute, but
his health steadily diminished. His wife nursed him as he struggled to complete
his Requiem, foiling her efforts to
maintain his health in the process. He died, his final masterpiece still
incomplete, on December 5th, 1791. He was thirty-five years old.
Mozart
was a genius of the kind that only appears once in a hundred years. As his
contemporary Johann Woflgang von Goethe put it, “A phenomenon like Mozart
remains an inexplicable thing.” The soaring beauty that poured from his mind
and fingers from the very earliest age reminds us of the reality beyond the
mere world of sight and sound. Mozart could channel heart-rending beauty
through his person and lay it down complete with the power to move us centuries
hence. This talent was so complete, so inexplicable that it can only point us
beyond itself to the Reality that it so often praised and celebrated.
Vive Christus Rex!
1 comment:
Thanks, that was most interesting & informative.
Post a Comment