Rough Notes on the Life and Career of Mozart
It's now possible to say with some certainty that the public life and career of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-91) was as much due to intrigue and downright falsehood as the birth of a specially gifted child of a Jesuit educated musician at Salzburg.
Having finished some quite detailed studies of the background to the circumstances under which Mozart burst in to prominence as a composer I would like to sketch what I think may be a sustainable outline for future studies of his career. In doing this I realise that on some fundamental issues I will have different views with some great and helpful researchers such as Giorgio Taboga (though we still tread paths that are remarkably parallel in many ways).
Besides, since this year of 2006 is one of non-stop celebration marking the 250th anniversary of Mozart's birth in Salzburg my own comments on his life and career are will be of no signficance to the vast majority of music lovers.
In Italy during the 18th century huge strides were made in almost all areas of music theory and practice, these eventually focusing (as Taboga rightly says) on mathematics, acoustics and music theory. This movement really came together at Padua and it formed the nucleus of a school - one whose achievements in many areas of music would soon have huge significance in Germany and Austria. This Padua school (which was composed of many great scholars including, eventually, Andrea Luchesi, Valotti and others) was well known to the most famous music theoretician of Europe at the time, Padre Martini of Bologna.
Mozart biographers are often surpised by the animosity shown by the composer in the early 1770's (this revealed in his private correspondence) towards certain composers. One such example is his attitude towards Abbe Georg Joseph Vogler (1749-1814) whom Mozart frequently speaks about in very disparaging ways. (In his early 20's the pianistic skills of Beethoven would be compared by more neutral observers only to those of this same Abbe Vogler - but Mozart hated the man and is several times on record as dismissing his music (much of it now lost) as virtually rubbish. This is an important point. Why ? Well, years before in Padua when Luchesi was deeply involved in the musical 'think tanks' of this Jesuit movement to create remarkable music it had been Vogler himself who had arrived there (having earlier been for a time a student of the same Padre Martini). And Vogler had gone gone to Rome to be awarded the order of the Golden Spur - an award that was confered on him some 4 years after that given to Mozart himself. The difference between Vogler and Mozart other than age (Vogler being 7 years older) is that only Vogler was given besides the order of the Golden Spur also the official office of 'Prenotary' and also as a Chamberlain to the Papacy (effectively, the post of a papal legate). Vogler was to be in touch with powerful people throughout the rest of his career. But neither he nor Mozart (at the time of them receiving their awards from the Pope in Rome) had really done much ih the way of music. (Vogler had written at the time only a ballet and a some minor works - hardly enough to justify such a huge reward in Rome). In Mozart's case the award is equally strange. For in July of 1770 Mozart had made tours with his father and had even undertaken some study with Padre Martini - but he was hardly a hugely important figure in music. The two young men were nevertheless knighted into the same Order. Vogler would return from Rome to establish a music school at the prestigious court of Mannheim. Mozart would, from this time onwards, be cultivated as a celebrity.
But the animosity shown by Mozart is surely explained by the fact that Luchesi (who was also of he same Padua school as Vogler) had given to Mozart and his father one of his own piano concertos (this in 1771) during their trip to Italy. It was this Luchesi concerto which Mozart continued to use as his own until well in to the late 1780's. Vogler was aware of this. And Mozart knew that Vogler knew. The hostility between them is matched only by that shown by a few other composers such as Peter Winter.
To date, the dislike of Mozart by other composers has been brushed aside as being due to their great jealousy of his formidable talents. In point of fact, those who were hostile to Mozart seem to have been infuriated that he, Mozart, was clearly being cultivated and helped as a musical celebrity and as a virtual circus across Europe. (In 1781 Mozart had his 'Idomeneo' performed at Munich, at the very court where Peter Winter was in charge of operatic music. Again, Winter's hostility towards Mozart is dismissed as being simple jealousy. But Winter himself had at this time already written some 30 operas and had little reason to be hostile because of 'Idomeneo').
Vogler was aware of the Mozart story. He knew that, in time, what had begun as a 'cottage industry' was destined to become a virtual factory. He was aware that works would soon be attributed to Mozart in his adulthood as they had been right througout his childhood. He knew that Mozart was a greatly gifted musician and performer. But he also knew that the manufacture of Mozart was a corporate project, a public response to the formidable musical legacy of JS Bach.
It was to be Vogler who, in 1790/1 visited Bonn. (He is recorded as having visited Beethoven there during a time when he was ill). But at Bonn too was his old fellow student from Padua, Kapellmeister Andrea Luchesi, a man whose works would soon vanish but who had been actively supplying compositions to both Haydn and Mozart.
This plus the arrival of two large publishing firms in Vienna (Artaria in 1780) and Hoffmeister in 1785 ensured that by the time Mozart began his thematic catalogue in early 1784 (the same time as Max Franz becomes Elector in Bonn) an entire network existed by which musical works from safe sources could appear and be widely distributed to further the aims of the 'Wiener Klassik' - a movement which would in due course ensure the immortality of Mozart and the 'supremacy' of German music - this even to the exclusion of others. It would therefore be wrong to regard this as a debate between Italians and Germans (though this aspect of it certainly featured) but, instead, of a Catholic movement to revive its prestige at a time when it was under great pressure from Protestant Europe and from growing secularisation.
Bonn, Luchesi, Vogler (who was later to be involved in the career of other German composers) Max Franz, and many others set in motion a movement which supplied Mozart with music. Of this I am now sure. Some of this came through Salzburg. Some through Bonn and other places. The degree to which this is true remains to be shown.
Robert Newman
[This message has been edited by robert newman (edited 01-27-2006).]
Having finished some quite detailed studies of the background to the circumstances under which Mozart burst in to prominence as a composer I would like to sketch what I think may be a sustainable outline for future studies of his career. In doing this I realise that on some fundamental issues I will have different views with some great and helpful researchers such as Giorgio Taboga (though we still tread paths that are remarkably parallel in many ways).
Besides, since this year of 2006 is one of non-stop celebration marking the 250th anniversary of Mozart's birth in Salzburg my own comments on his life and career are will be of no signficance to the vast majority of music lovers.
In Italy during the 18th century huge strides were made in almost all areas of music theory and practice, these eventually focusing (as Taboga rightly says) on mathematics, acoustics and music theory. This movement really came together at Padua and it formed the nucleus of a school - one whose achievements in many areas of music would soon have huge significance in Germany and Austria. This Padua school (which was composed of many great scholars including, eventually, Andrea Luchesi, Valotti and others) was well known to the most famous music theoretician of Europe at the time, Padre Martini of Bologna.
Mozart biographers are often surpised by the animosity shown by the composer in the early 1770's (this revealed in his private correspondence) towards certain composers. One such example is his attitude towards Abbe Georg Joseph Vogler (1749-1814) whom Mozart frequently speaks about in very disparaging ways. (In his early 20's the pianistic skills of Beethoven would be compared by more neutral observers only to those of this same Abbe Vogler - but Mozart hated the man and is several times on record as dismissing his music (much of it now lost) as virtually rubbish. This is an important point. Why ? Well, years before in Padua when Luchesi was deeply involved in the musical 'think tanks' of this Jesuit movement to create remarkable music it had been Vogler himself who had arrived there (having earlier been for a time a student of the same Padre Martini). And Vogler had gone gone to Rome to be awarded the order of the Golden Spur - an award that was confered on him some 4 years after that given to Mozart himself. The difference between Vogler and Mozart other than age (Vogler being 7 years older) is that only Vogler was given besides the order of the Golden Spur also the official office of 'Prenotary' and also as a Chamberlain to the Papacy (effectively, the post of a papal legate). Vogler was to be in touch with powerful people throughout the rest of his career. But neither he nor Mozart (at the time of them receiving their awards from the Pope in Rome) had really done much ih the way of music. (Vogler had written at the time only a ballet and a some minor works - hardly enough to justify such a huge reward in Rome). In Mozart's case the award is equally strange. For in July of 1770 Mozart had made tours with his father and had even undertaken some study with Padre Martini - but he was hardly a hugely important figure in music. The two young men were nevertheless knighted into the same Order. Vogler would return from Rome to establish a music school at the prestigious court of Mannheim. Mozart would, from this time onwards, be cultivated as a celebrity.
But the animosity shown by Mozart is surely explained by the fact that Luchesi (who was also of he same Padua school as Vogler) had given to Mozart and his father one of his own piano concertos (this in 1771) during their trip to Italy. It was this Luchesi concerto which Mozart continued to use as his own until well in to the late 1780's. Vogler was aware of this. And Mozart knew that Vogler knew. The hostility between them is matched only by that shown by a few other composers such as Peter Winter.
To date, the dislike of Mozart by other composers has been brushed aside as being due to their great jealousy of his formidable talents. In point of fact, those who were hostile to Mozart seem to have been infuriated that he, Mozart, was clearly being cultivated and helped as a musical celebrity and as a virtual circus across Europe. (In 1781 Mozart had his 'Idomeneo' performed at Munich, at the very court where Peter Winter was in charge of operatic music. Again, Winter's hostility towards Mozart is dismissed as being simple jealousy. But Winter himself had at this time already written some 30 operas and had little reason to be hostile because of 'Idomeneo').
Vogler was aware of the Mozart story. He knew that, in time, what had begun as a 'cottage industry' was destined to become a virtual factory. He was aware that works would soon be attributed to Mozart in his adulthood as they had been right througout his childhood. He knew that Mozart was a greatly gifted musician and performer. But he also knew that the manufacture of Mozart was a corporate project, a public response to the formidable musical legacy of JS Bach.
It was to be Vogler who, in 1790/1 visited Bonn. (He is recorded as having visited Beethoven there during a time when he was ill). But at Bonn too was his old fellow student from Padua, Kapellmeister Andrea Luchesi, a man whose works would soon vanish but who had been actively supplying compositions to both Haydn and Mozart.
This plus the arrival of two large publishing firms in Vienna (Artaria in 1780) and Hoffmeister in 1785 ensured that by the time Mozart began his thematic catalogue in early 1784 (the same time as Max Franz becomes Elector in Bonn) an entire network existed by which musical works from safe sources could appear and be widely distributed to further the aims of the 'Wiener Klassik' - a movement which would in due course ensure the immortality of Mozart and the 'supremacy' of German music - this even to the exclusion of others. It would therefore be wrong to regard this as a debate between Italians and Germans (though this aspect of it certainly featured) but, instead, of a Catholic movement to revive its prestige at a time when it was under great pressure from Protestant Europe and from growing secularisation.
Bonn, Luchesi, Vogler (who was later to be involved in the career of other German composers) Max Franz, and many others set in motion a movement which supplied Mozart with music. Of this I am now sure. Some of this came through Salzburg. Some through Bonn and other places. The degree to which this is true remains to be shown.
Robert Newman
[This message has been edited by robert newman (edited 01-27-2006).]
Comment