Mozart the Dramatist (2024)

FAQs

What did Tchaikovsky say about Mozart? ›

For Tchaikovsky, Mozart's music was like an incarnation of divine beauty in a human form that inspired love, rather than awe (as was the case with Beethoven), and in a remarkable diary entry of 1886 (quoted below) he described Mozart as a "musical Christ".

Requiem – 'Confutatis'

By its very definition, Mozart's Requiem is an immensely powerful, moving work. Best known of all its movements are the 'Requiem aeternam', earth-shattering 'Lacrimosa', and fateful 'Dies irae'.

Mozart was born in Salzburg to a musical family. From an early age, the young Mozart showed all the signs of a prodigious musical talent. By the age of 5 he could read and write music, and he would entertain people with his talents on the keyboard. By the age of 6 he was writing his first compositions.

Mozart composed music in several genres, including opera and symphony. His most famous compositions included the motet Exsultate, Jubilate, K 165 (1773), the operas The Marriage of Figaro (1786) and Don Giovanni (1787), and the Jupiter Symphony (1788). In all, Mozart composed more than 600 pieces of music.

Beethoven held Mozart in high regard; some of his music recalls Mozart's, he composed several variations on Mozart's themes and he modeled a number of his compositions on those of the older composer.

Haydn eulogized Mozart, saying: “Posterity will not see such a talent again in 100 years.” With the benefit of more than two centuries of hindsight, few would argue with Haydn's assessment of his young friend's remarkable talents.

His last symphony—the Jupiter Symphony—is perhaps his most famous. Mozart completed the Jupiter Symphony in 1788, just three years before his death. At his death, Mozart left incomplete his Requiem in D Minor, K 626. The requiem was later completed by Mozart's student, Franz Xaver Süssmayr.

Constanze was a trained musician and played a role in her husband's career.

The Requiem in D minor, K. 626, is a Requiem Mass by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791). Mozart composed part of the Requiem in Vienna in late 1791, but it was unfinished at his death on 5 December the same year.

The composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was a Catholic, and the Church played an important role in his life.

What is a funny fact about Mozart? ›

Mozart loved playing pranks on people. He even created a piece titled “A Musical Joke,” where passages were played out of tune. He did this to make fun of who he believed to be bad composers. Mozart claimed that he taught his pet bird, a starling, to sing the opening of his Piano Concerto Number 17, K 453.

Some sources mention both nationalities: the Brockhaus Riemann Musik Lexikon (1975) begins its article "composer, on the father's side of Augsburg-south German ancestry; on the mother's side Salzburg-Austrian".

At the age of 26, Mozart married Constanze Weber from Mannheim. He had six children with her, but only two survived: the two sons Carl Thomas and Franz Xaver Wolfgang. However, they remained childless themselves, which is why there are no direct descendants of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart today.

Classical composer Ludwig van Beethoven suffered hearing loss, leading to his complete deafness. Yet he was still able to compose masterpieces of music.

Mozart was not like any other prodigy. His was not just a big talent, it was that of genius. At the age of four, he could learn a song on the piano in just 30 minutes. He also taught himself the harpsichord, organ and violin.

I bow before the greatness of some of his works, but I do not love Beethoven. My attitude towards him reminds me of how I felt as a child with regard to God, Lord of Sabaoth.

Herman Laroche hinted at these when he noted how Chopin belonged to those composers towards whom Tchaikovsky always felt a certain antipathy: "Of course he could not deny Chopin's talent, and it seems that some works by Chopin, such as the Barcarolle, the Fantasy in F minor, and some Nocturnes, appealed to him to some ...

However, some or all of the symphony was not pleasing to Tchaikovsky, who tore up the manuscript "in one of his frequent moods of depression and doubt over his alleged inability to create".

In Tchaikovsky's Music Review Articles

TH 287 — discussing one of the many works by Schubert discovered after his death, Tchaikovsky refers to him as a "composer of genius".