After spending one year at home in Salzburg, Leopold and Wolfgang left for Italy. The trip took from December 1769 to March 1771, and its purpose was, like the earlier journeys, to display the now-teenage Mozart's abilities as a performer and as a rapidly maturing composer. Mozart was accepted as a member of the famous Accademia Filarmonica in Bologna, and in Rome, he heard Georgio Allegri's Miserere once in performance in the Sistine Chapel then wrote it out in its entirety from memory; thus producing the first illegal copy of this closely-guarded property of the Vatican. He was fourteen. In 1773, aged seventeen, he was offered, and accepted a post as a court musician in Salzburg. Mozart soon became discontented with his low pay and the limited opportunities that his job presented, and so frequently traveled over the next eight years in search of a more suitable position. He composed abundantly, and at this time in his life, was creating works such as his String Quintet in E-flat, the motet ‘Exsultate, jubilate’, and the Offertory in D, ‘Venite, populi’. In January 1781, Mozart’s opera ‘Idomeneo’ premiered in Munich with ‘considerable success.’ Not long after this, in March, he was summoned by his employer to Vienna. Here, Mozart fell out with the aristocracy, who did not care for his style, and most probably his character too; after all, Mozart was a man full of swagger and was not timid when it came to showing off his talents. Eventually, his quarreling with the higher echelons resulted in the loss of his job. Luckily, he had noticed good opportunities to earn in Vienna and so decided to settle and develop his own freelance career. He began as a pianist, and according to the New Grove, he soon ‘had established himself as the finest keyboard player in the city.’ It was not only his abilities as a musician, but also his aptitude as a composer which prospered. Mozart wrote the opera ‘Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail’; this premiered in 1782 and achieved a great success. It was this work, and its popularity throughout German-speaking Europe which fully established Mozart’s reputation as a composer. Also in this year, the young musician married Constanze Webber, his landlady’s daughter. This was very much against his father’s wishes, and ever the romantic, Mozart wrote of her in a letter to his father: ‘She is not ugly, but by no means a beauty. She is not witty but has enough common sense to enable her to fulfill her duties as a wife and mother.’ During 1782-1783, he became much familiarized with the works of J.S.Bach and G.F.Handel. Mozart’s study of their work firstly led to a number of pieces imitating the Baroque style and later had a profound effect on Mozart’s own musical language. The fugal passages in ‘The Magic Flute’ and in the finale of ‘Symphony No.41’ are prime examples of this influence.
Mozart had the ability to use his music to ‘look into the human heart’. Indeed, this is particularly relevant when looking at his operas; in which, for the first time, we meet and hear the characters as they are, not as they ought to be. Bruno Walter points out ‘behind a seemingly graceful playfulness, the dramatist’s inexorable seriousness and wealth of characterization’; he calls Mozart the ‘Shakespeare of the opera’. In his operas, Mozart's uncanny psychological insight is unique, and his music informed the work of the next generation of composers, most notably Beethoven. The brilliance of his work continued until the end, although darker themes of poignancy and isolation grew more marked in his last years. His late works include three of his most famous operas, ‘The Marriage of Figaro’, ‘Don Giovanni’ and ‘Cosi fan tutte’. The success of ‘The Magic Flute’ in Prague in 1786 led to the commission of ‘Don Giovanni’. ‘The Magic Flute’ is thought of as being a wholly Masonic work, and in contrast to his other operas, was seen by a cross-section of society. This is important in showing how Mozart’s last German opera broke new ground, the basic message- the triumph of light over darkness, good over evil- was clear to all. Einstein described the music as ‘a new sound to opera, far removed from churchliness; it might be called a kind of secular awe.’ Indeed, the opera displayed ensemble and choral writing like no other, and there is a sense of renewal throughout, particularly through the character of ‘Queen of the Night’, who was a figure displaying ‘passionate coloratura’. It was Mozart’s friend Schikaneder who first presented the opera in the Freihaus. Mozart conducted these first performances himself, but the audience were slow to respond, this was the beginning of a chain for ‘Don Giovanni’ received even less success. It is thought that at the time, the musical complexity of these works presented difficulty for both listeners and performers. Mozart’s contemporaries found the restless ambivalence and complicated emotional content of his music difficult to understand. They were familiar with the functional harmonies and the lighter and seemingly superficial style of rococo music. Unlike the music of Mozart, this was complex on the surface but simple within, and so easier to understand. Much of the time, his aristocratic audiences could not accept or understand the complexity and depth of his music.
It is speculated that ‘Don Giovanni’, which premiered shortly after the death of Mozart’s father, was composed not only as a study of human frailty but also as an elegy to the man who, however devoted a teacher in his son’s youth, became oppressive, especially after his son’s unfavourable marriage. After this opera’s ill-greeting, and the death of Joseph II that things started to go downhill for Mozart; audience numbers were down due to the recent outbreak of war, there was a vast decline in his popularity and his financial state was becoming increasingly adverse. Mozart’s hopes were high for taking over Salieri’s position as court composer and even the Kapellmeister for Leopold II. These hopes were shattered however, when he was not asked to contribute in any way. The winter of 1790 was active but penurious, in December he wrote the String Quintet in D, followed by the Piano Concerto in B flat and three works for a mechanical organ. And so his final year began a busy one, in it he wrote two operas, a string quintet, a clarinet concerto and the Requiem, to mention only the major works. It is perhaps his drive to push himself to the limit at this time which hastened his death. Mozart was usually in low sprits, prey to anxiety and became dependant on the cheery spirit of Schikaneder, a man with whom Mozart became closely related during the final months of his life. The Requiem was commissioned in July, and the facts surrounding this are much romanticised; particularly in the ‘Amadeus’ film, which presents the myths surrounding Salieri’s plot to kill Mozart and take credit for the Requiem Mass. The opera ‘Mozart and Salieri’ written in 1897 displays the story in a similar way, Salieri is characterised as a jealous man, and was possibly envious of Mozart in his day.
Constanze gave birth to her fourth son on the 26th July, one of the children who survived, the other being Karl Thomas, born in 1784. Mozart became stricken with uraemia, causing him to suffer fainting fits, deliria, lassitude and even an obsession with death. His deteriorating mental state made composition near-impossible. Constanze did what she could for him, consulting a physician and trying to discourage him from writing the Requiem ‘death’ mass. The composer continued regardless, his last days were dominated by desperate attempts to complete the mass. The Requiem is said to be based again on Masonic themes; the music is dark, with emphasis on bassoons, horns and trombones. Certain whole movements, such as the ‘Hostias’ are hymn-like in setting and the ‘Recordare’ is described as ‘luminous’, with its blend of homophony and simple polyphony. When Mozart died, only three of the movements were wholly complete and fully scored, namely the Sanctus, Agnus Dei and the Benedictus, of the remaining eight numbers, all but one were complete in essentials, but lacking in full scoring. Only the Lacrimosa remained incomplete, just the first eight bars are his work. And so the great composer died, he was buried in a third-class peasant’s grave on the 7th December 1791. His wife was too ill to be present and the few mourners were swift to leave his burial due to the sleet and snow.
Mozart did not go unappreciated for long; as soon as Count Deym (the man who commissioned the works for a mechanical organ) heard, he added a figure to his display of waxworks: Mozart in his own clothes. After his death, Constanze became very shrewd in business, keeping careful control of his manuscripts and arranging their publication. She later re-married a diplomat and amateur musician, Georg Nikolas Nissen, who wrote a biography of Mozart. Both Nissen and Constanze lived long and happy lives, and Nissen’s epitaph reads: ‘Here lies Mozart’s Widow’s second husband.’ Perhaps epitomizing his greatness, this in many ways was left unsaid in his day. Mozart started young and dies early, which many consider the reason for his success