Transcript Document

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
(1756-1791)
Malaspina Great Books
Death Mask
Mozart Age 7
Leopold Mozart (1719-1787)
Anna Maria Mozart (1720-1778)
Anna Maria (1751-1829)
Karl and Franz
Karl Mozart age 74 (1856)
Constanze Weber Mozart (1762-1842)
Costanze Mozart by Lange 1782
Classical Music
- 1750 –1820
- Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven
- Loses “Continuo”
- Emphasis on Phrasing & Dynamics
- Internal emotional coloring
- Symphonic style
- Piano Forte
Mozart’s Contribution
- 528+ works
- Masses, Vespers, Cantatas, Oratorios,
- 21 Stage works (Don Giovanni, Magic Flute)
- 47 Vocals
- 40 Leider
- 41 Symphonies
- Several dozen Seranades
- 21 Marches
- 24 Dances
- Concertos (20+)
- Chamber Music
- Piano quartets (11)
- etc.
First Symphony 1764
25th Symphony – Age 18
Musikverein in Vienna
Letter to Mozart from his Mother (Munich)
"Addio, ben mio. Keep well, my love. Into your mouth your
arse you'll shove. I wish you good-night, my dear, but first
shit in your bed and make it burst. It is long after one o'clock
already. Now you can go on rhyming yourself. "
Mozart Rhyme to Mother
Oh, mother mine!
Butter is fine.
Praise and thanks be to Him,
We're alive and full of vim.
Through the world we dash,
Though we're rather short of cash.
But we don't find this provoking
And none of us are choking.
Besides, to people I'm tied
Who carry their muck inside
And let it out, if they are able,
Both before and after table.
At night of farts there is no lack,
Which are let off, forsooth, with a powerful crack.
The king of farts came yesterday
Whose farts smelt sweeter than the may.
His voice, however, was no treat
And he himself was in a heat.
Well, now we've been over a week away
And we've been shitting every day.
Wendling, no doubt, is in a rage
That I haven't composed a single page;
But when I cross the Rhine once more,
I'll surely dash home through the door
And, lest he call me mean and petty,
I'll finish off his four quartetti.'
The concerto for Paris I'Il keep,'tis more fitting.
I'll scribble it there some day when I'm shitting.
Indeed I swear 'twould be far better fun
With the Webers around the world to run
Than to go with those bores, you know whom I mean,
When I think of their faces, I get the spleen.
But I suppose it must be and off we shall toddle,
Though Weber's arse I prefer to Ramm's noddle.
A slice of Weber's arse is a thing
I'd rather have than Monsieur Wendling.
With our shitting God we cannot hurt
And least of all if we bite the dirt.
We are honest birds, all of a feather,
We have summa summarum eight eyes together,
Not counting those on which we sit.
But now I really must rest a bit
From rhyming. Yet this I must add,
That on Monday I'Il have the honour, egad,
To embrace you and kiss yours hands so fair.
But first in my pants I'll shit, I swear.
Adieu Mamma
Antonio Salieri (1750 – 1825)
Salieri’s Music
-His pupils included Beethoven and Schubert, Czerny, Hummel,
Moscheles and one of Mozart's sons. He was a prolific composer,
principally in vocal music of all kinds.
- 45 Operas
- As well as a significant quantity of ballet music, Salieri wrote
concertos, including an organ concerto and a piano concerto, a
Birthday Symphony and a set of variations on La folia di Spagna,
(The Folly of Spain) the dance tune used by Corelli and many other
Baroque composers.
-Salieri wrote a quantity of church music, as well as oratorios. He
left still more secular vocal music, ranging from cantatas and
choruses to duets and solo arias.
- As his style became old-fashioned his works lost favour, and he
composed relatively little after 1804, but he remained a central and
influential figure in Viennese musical Iife…Naxos Web Site
Allegations by Mozart
- Mozart accused of plagiarism and of attempting to
murder him with poison.
- As Mozart's music became more popular over the
decades Salieri's music was forgotten.
- Mozart blamed Salieri for the failure of his Figaro –
yet, Salieri was in France with his own opera at the time.
- the intrigues surrounding the failure of Figaro were
instigated by the poet Giovanni Battista Casti against
the Court Poet, Lorenzo da Ponte, who wrote the Figaro
libretto.
- When Salieri was appointed Kapellmeister in 1788,
instead of bringing out an opera of his own, he revived
Figaro
- In late life there were rumors that Salieri confessed to
Mozart's murder.
-Rumors that Salieri confessed to the murder - Salieri's two
nurses attested that Salieri said no such thing.
- After Salieri's death, the opera by Rimsky-Korsakov, Mozart
et Salieri (1898) started a tradition of dramatic license based on
this slander.
- Salieri’s portrayal as a mediocre composer and blasphemer is
part of that tradition. Salieri’s devotion is undisputed by his
biographers.
Mozart had numerous obsessions:
clocks, cats, shoe sizes, his wife's
safety - he had an unnatural fear of
letting her out of the house. There
is evidence of him twitching,
grimacing, tapping his feet
together and behaving oddly. As
Peter Shaffer noted in Amadeus, he
loved diversions and was always
the life and soul of the party; he
enjoyed rhymes, silliness and
playing with words; he liked jokes
and sometimes went too far, in the
way that Tourettes sufferers often
do…James McConnel (Tourette’s
condition)