Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Was Mozart really the boy genius of mythology? He was stunningly talented, dazzling audiences across Europe with his playing and precocious compositions before he turned 10. But perhaps the greatest miracle is that he kept on developing, reaching new dazzling heights and plumbing new emotional depths until his tragically premature death at 35. Born in 1756 in Salzburg, Mozart quickly began to spread his wings. Although in his early adult life he composed most of his sacred music for his home city, including his “Coronation” Mass and Solemn Vespers, his ambitions were increasingly thwarted by his employer, the Archbishop of Salzburg. It wasn’t until 1781 that he was able to break free and set himself up as a freelance composer and pianist in the Imperial capital Vienna. The years that followed were among the richest of his life. In 1782 he married Constanze Weber, against his father’s wishes, and the couple settled into Viennese life as Mozart’s reputation as a composer and keyboard virtuoso grew rapidly. He became a fixture of the city’s concert scene, writing a dazzling sequence of piano concertos that he premiered himself, each one a showcase for his own brilliance at the keyboard and his gift for melodic invention. During this period he also formed a close friendship with Haydn, 24 years his senior, whom Mozart revered and who in turn recognised the younger composer’s genius. Mozart’s admiration found expression in the six string quartets he dedicated to Haydn, works of such craftsmanship that they remain touchstones of the form. This fertile decade in Vienna also produced most of Mozart’s enduring masterpieces: notably four sublime operas, beginning with The Marriage of Figaro whose premiere in 1786 was met with tremendous acclaim, his last three symphonies, and a remarkable series of works for his friend, the virtuoso clarinettist Anton Stadler. Although Mozart enjoyed considerable success and popularity in Vienna, both as a composer and as a performer, in time his debts mounted, and his health began to suffer, worn down by overwork and the strain of his financial troubles. Yet even as his personal circumstances darkened, his creative powers showed no sign of waning. The final year of his life produced some of his most extraordinary music, including The Magic Flute and the Clarinet Concerto for Stadler. At his death in Vienna in 1791, aged just 35, he was working on his magnificent Requiem, left unfinished and eventually completed by his pupil Franz Xaver Süssmayr. It turned out to be his own epitaph, a haunting farewell from a composer whose genius had, by then, become the stuff of legend, a reputation that has only grown in the centuries since.