Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
27 Jan 1756 – 6 Dec 179171 items
musicviennaFrom the Getreidegasse to the Rauhensteingasse
Mozart lived thirty-five years and ten months, and spent about a third of them on the road. Before he was eighteen his father had shown him to the Empress in Vienna, the King of France at Versailles, George III in London, and the opera houses and churches of Milan, Bologna, Rome and Naples. Then came the part of the life that made the music: a restless decade in the Archbishop of Salzburg’s service, a failed job hunt that cost him his mother, and ten years as a freelance in Vienna that ended with The Magic Flute playing to full houses and the Requiem unfinished on his desk.
How it is built
The childhood and teenage journeys are periods drawn on the map as routes, with the concerts, audiences and premieres of each nested inside. Three longer bands frame the rest: the Salzburg court years, the Mannheim–Paris journey of 1777–79, and the Vienna decade. Premieres are day-precise, in the theatre where they happened. Works carry their Köchel (K.) numbers, and many notes quote the family’s letters, in new translations from the Mozarteum’s online edition.
Threads to follow
tours: the journeys, from Munich in 1762 to Frankfurt in 1790opera: from Mitridate at fourteen to The Magic Flutesymphony: from the first, in Chelsea, to the last threeconcertos: the violin concertos, the piano concertos, the clarinetreligion: the Miserere, the masses and the Requiemfamily: Leopold, Anna Maria, Nannerl and Constanze
One calendar
Every date is Gregorian. Salzburg and the Habsburg lands used it, and so did England by then: Britain switched in 1752, so the London dates of 1764–65 need no conversion.
Before God and as an honest man, I tell you that your son is the greatest composer known to me in person or by name. He has taste, and what is more the greatest knowledge of composition. — Joseph Haydn to Leopold Mozart, 12 February 1785
Items
Born in the Getreidegasse, Salzburg
Baptised Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus
- ≈ 5 years, 5 months
First pieces, in Nannerl’s music book
Schönbrunn: into the Empress’s lap
Wasserburg: the organ pedals, standing up
Frankfurt: concerts Goethe remembered
New Year’s Day at Versailles
Before George III at Buckingham House
Opus 1: sonatas printed in Paris
A first symphony, in Chelsea
Examined by Daines Barrington
Both children near death at The Hague
A mass for the orphanage church
Rome: Allegri’s Miserere in the Sistine Chapel
Knight of the Golden Spur
Admitted to the Accademia Filarmonica of Bologna
Mitridate, re di Ponto, Milan
Ascanio in Alba
The Empress advises against hiring him
Colloredo becomes Prince-Archbishop
Lucio Silla, Milan
Exsultate, jubilate
La finta giardiniera, Munich
The violin concertos
The “Jenamy” piano concerto
Augsburg: the Bäsle and Stein’s pianos
Mannheim: Aloysia Weber
The Paris Symphony at the Concert Spirituel
His mother dies in Paris
Munich: Aloysia turns him down
Back in Salzburg as court organist
Idomeneo, Munich
Kicked out of the Archbishop’s service
Die Entführung aus dem Serail
Marries Constanze Weber
The Great Mass in C minor, sung in Salzburg
The Linz Symphony, written in days
He starts a catalogue of his works
Initiated a Freemason
The D minor concerto, with Leopold in the hall
Haydn to Leopold: “the greatest composer”
Le nozze di Figaro
Prague: “nothing but Figaro”
Leopold Mozart dies in Salzburg
Don Giovanni, Prague
Chamber composer to the Emperor
Leipzig: Bach’s church
Così fan tutte
Frankfurt: a concert of honour, not money
His last piano concerto
Ave verum corpus, Baden
An anonymous commission: the Requiem
La clemenza di Tito, Prague
Die Zauberflöte
The Clarinet Concerto for Stadler
A last cantata, for his lodge
Dies in the Rauhensteingasse
Funeral at St Stephen’s