August 19, 2025 • 22 mins
Mozarts earthly journey was remarkably brief, yet it was rich with extraordinary achievements that left an indelible mark on the world. In this booklet, the author grapples with the challenge of capturing the essence of a life so densely packed with events—from early triumphs to profound tragedies. Rather than attempting a comprehensive evaluation of Mozarts immense creative legacy, the author offers a glimpse into the pivotal moments that shaped the master’s unforgettable story. - Summary by Authors Preface
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Part four of Bolfgang Amadeus Mozart by Howard Payser. This
LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Part four Death
of Leopold Mozart. In February seventeen eighty seven, Mozart was
back in Vienna in a joyous frame of mind. One
(00:21):
may question that this jubilant mood was of long duration.
That the new opera was to be ready as early
as the following October was hardly the greatest of his worries,
for Mozart, like heiden Bach and other masters of that century,
was accustomed to a speed of creative production that puts
our machine age to shame. The welcome the Viennese accorded
(00:46):
the returning traveler, flushed by the recollection of his recent triumphs,
was frosty. Also there came the news that his father's
health was failing. Naturally reflected Leopold, old people do not
grow younger. Bof Kang wrote his parents in words that
nobly convey the essence of his own mature philosophy. I
(01:09):
need not tell you with what anxiety I await better
news from you, although I am wont in all things
to anticipate the worst, since death is the true goal
of our lives. I have made myself so well acquainted
during the past two years with this true and best
friend of mankind that the idea of it no longer
(01:30):
holds any terror for me, but rather much that is
tranquil and comforting. And I thank God that he has
granted me the good fortune to obtain this opportunity of
regarding death as the key to our true happiness. I
never lie down in bed without considering that young as
I am, perhaps I may on the morrow be no more.
(01:52):
Yet not one of those who know me say that
I am morose or melancholy. And for this I thank
my creator and wish heartily that the same happiness may
be given to my fellow men. When is moved to
think of Schubert's words to his father a few years later,
when looking upon the lakes and peaks of the Austrian Alps,
(02:13):
he wrote, as if death were the worst thing that
could befall, one, could one but look on these divine
lakes and mountains, he would deem it a great happiness
to be restored for a new life to the inscrutable
forces of the earth. All the same, Mozart was profoundly
shaken when, on May twenty eighth his father passed away
(02:36):
without the opportunity to see his son once more. You
can realize my feelings, he wrote his friend Godfried von Jachen.
We shall not go far wrong when we surmise that
these deep and solemn emotions colored to a considerable degree
some of the more tragic pages of the Nascent Don Giovanni,
(02:57):
the book of which da Ponte was now writing for him.
While working at the same time on the brettos for
Salieri and Martin, in the spring of seventeen eighty seven,
the composer had a brief but memorable encounter, for at
this time there came briefly to Vienna from Bonn a
sixteen year old youth, Ludovig von Beethoven, a protege of
(03:19):
the Count Wolstein, presumably to study with Mozart. The latter
heard his visitor improvise and was at first unimpressed because
he believed the extemporization had been memorized, but was converted
as soon as he gave the young Rhinelander a complicated
theme to treat on the spot. The originality and seriousness
(03:40):
of what he heard stirred the older musician to the prophecy,
this young man is going to make the world talk
about him. But Mozart had at the moment no leisure
for this prospective pupil, who returned shortly to Bonn and
on his later trip after Mozart's death, placed himself under
the direction of Haydn don Giovanni. In mid September, Mozart
(04:07):
and Constanza went to Prague, bringing the partly finished Don
Giovanni score. Bondini had found the composer lodging at the
house on the coalmark called the Three Lion Cubs. Across
the way at the Inn Zumplatais, rooms were engaged for
Da Ponte, and as the windows faced each other, composer
(04:28):
and librettist had long discussions across the narrow street about
details of the book, in the preparation of which Mozart,
with his keen dramatic instincts, played a dominating role. He
and Constanza appeared, however, to have spent quite as much
time with the Dutch keys at the Beetranka as at
(04:49):
the Three Lion Cubs. Rehearsals consumed a great amount of energy.
There were numerous modifications to be made in the music.
The young baritone Luigi Bassi, who had the title role,
demanded five recastings of the duet La Si Darum before
he was satisfied with the music, and Mozart had all
(05:11):
manner of trouble with Katerina Micheli the Alvira. In addition,
the singer of Zerlina, Katharina Bondini, could not utter the
peasant girl's shriek in the first finale, to the composer's satisfaction,
until he terrified her by grasping her roughly and thus
causing her to scream exactly as he wanted. After one
(05:33):
of the last rehearsals, the conductor Couchar's, being asked by
the master for his candid opinion of the opera, replied encouragingly,
whatever comes from Mozart will always delight in Bohemia. I
assure you, dear friend, I have spared myself no pains
to produce something worthy for the people of Prague, declared
(05:54):
the composer, who had already boasted that my proguers understand me.
Here is the place, no doubt, to tell once more
the oft repeated tale of the overture put on paper
according to a hoary legend the night before the premiere,
while Constanza kept the master awake by plying him with
punch and telling him stories. As a matter of fact,
(06:18):
the overture was written the night before the dress rehearsal,
and it was nothing unusual from Mozart to write down
at the last moment a work mentally finished in every detail.
A few days after the first performance, the Prague oberpostamps
Datum published a review that probably excels anything ever written
about the opera. It read simply, connoisseurs and musicians say
(06:43):
that nothing like it has ever been produced in Prague.
The opinion is probably as true today as in seventeen
eighty seven, for there is literally nothing like Don Giovanni,
either among its composer's creations or elsewhere. One can only
share them the emotion of Rossini, when being shown the
manuscript score, he said to its owner, the singer Pauline
(07:07):
verdol Garcia, I want to bow the knee before this
sacred relic and echo the words of Richard Wagner. What
is more perfect than every number in Don Giovanni? Where
else has music one so infinitely rich an individuality been
able to characterize so surely so, definitely, and in such
(07:28):
exuberant plenitude as here Figaro is, if you will, the
more perfect artistic entity of the two. Don Giovanni is looser,
less consistent, on the surface, even grossly illogical. But so
too is human nature. And if all the world's a stage,
what more than a drama giocosso is the experience of life.
(07:53):
Whatever the narrow intent of Lorenzo da Ponta, when he
carpentered the book out of well worn odds and ends,
it was with the profound knowledge of the sorrows and
absurdities of humankind that Mozart breathed into it an abiding soul,
Long lived Ponte, Long Live. Mozart had written the stage
(08:14):
director Domenico guarasone all impresarios, all artists, must exalt them
to the skies, for as long as such men live,
there can be no more question of theater miseries. The
ducheks outdid themselves to make life pleasant for their guests.
Mozart found time to compose several songs and even a
(08:37):
superb concert air Bella mia fia ma adio for Josefa.
After that lady had locked him up in the garden
house till he had finished the promised music on November fifteenth,
seventeen eighty seven, which virtually coincided with the composer's return
to Vienna. Gluck died less than a month later. Joseph
(08:59):
the second appointed Mozart to the older master's post of
commer Compositeur, with an annual salary of eight hundred gulden
Gluck had received two thousand, and Before long, Mozart was
complaining that his pay was too much for what he did,
too little for what he could do. What he did
was principally to supply minuets, contradances and toucha for court
(09:24):
balls and similar occasions. The year seventeen eighty eight donned
in gloomy fashion for Mozart. To be sure. Don Giovanni
had its first Viennese hearing on May seventh, with a
cast including his sister in law, Aloischialange as Donna Agna,
Katarina Cavaleri, the original Costanza in the Infurium as Elbira,
(09:47):
and Francesco Benucci the first Figaro as Leapparello. Mozart had
cut out some numbers, replacing them with new ones, eliminating
the platitudin as epilogue, and ended the work with the
prodigious hell music of Don Giovanni's disappearance. The Emperor remarked,
the opera is divine, perhaps even finer than Figaro, but
(10:11):
it is a rather tough morsel for the teeth of
my Viennese, to which Mozart replied, let us give them
time to chew it. Symphonies an E flat, G minor
and C major. Yet from now on he was to
pay for his progue triumphs with a kind of fateful persistence.
(10:31):
Things seemed to go wrong. That an infant daughter died
was a rather familiar affliction of the children of the
Mozart couple. Only the sons Carl and Raymond Leopold survived infancy.
Money troubles plagued him unremittingly. Again and again. He had
to appeal for loans to Michael Puschberg, a merchant and
(10:53):
brother mason, and later to Franz Hoftemo, a jurist of
his acquaintance, whose wife was one of his pew pupils.
But by and large these pupils were becoming scarcer, and
there seemed steadily less patronage for the academies. He planned
to make matters worse. Costanza's management of the household appeared
(11:13):
to go from bad to worse. The arrangements of works
like Hendel's Assis and Galatia and Messiah, which he was
making about this time for the parsimonious Baron Bonsfeten, brought
in as good as nothing. Mozart's affairs were falling into
a sordid, not to say tragic state. Small wonder therefore,
(11:36):
that he grasped at the opportunity to settle outside of
Vienna proper, in a house in the varying district, where
the air was purer than in the heart of the city,
and where he had the added advantages of quiet and
a garden. A change of residence had never been a
particular hardship for the Mozarts. In the space of nine years,
(11:56):
they moved eleven times in Vienna alone. Their life, says
Alfred Einstein, was like a perpetual tour, changing from one
hotel room to another. In one of the handsomer dwellings,
schuleagasa Ate, the ceiling of Mozart's work room had fine
plaster ornamentation with sprites and cherubs. I am convinced that
(12:19):
Mozart never wasted a glance on it. He was ready
at any instant to exchange Vienna for another city, or
Austria for another country. He was thinking of a trip
to Russia as a result of conversations with the Russian
ambassador in Threisden in seventeen eighty nine, but he had
to be satisfied with smaller journeys and with journeys within Vienna.
(12:45):
In his varying surroundings, however, he boasted of being able
to accomplish more work in a few days than elsewhere
in a month. The finest fruit of this suburban sojourn
is the glorious symphonic trilogy The Masterpieces in E flat,
G minor and C major, composed in June, July, and August, respectively.
(13:06):
The third the Sublime Jupiter, the last of Mozart's forty
one symphonies, and given its deathless name. No one knows
exactly by whom or why. The three, which have a
profound psychological connection, were written in all probability for a
series of academies that never took place. However this may be.
(13:29):
They are the crown of Mozart's symphonic compositions, and rank
indisputably as the greatest symphonies before Beethoven Cosifan Tutti. In
April seventeen eighty nine, a ray of hope suddenly appeared
to illuminate his depressing horizon. A friend and pupil, the
young Prince Karl Ichawski, who had estates in Silesia and
(13:53):
an important rank in the Prussian army, invited Mozart to
accompany him on a trip to Berlin. Lichnowski enjoyed influence
at the court of the music loving Prussian King Frederick
William the Second, and seemed ready to recommend his teacher
to the good graces of the monarch. At last, Mozart
had reason to anticipate a well paying post. The pleasure
(14:17):
loving Constanza resigned herself with the best grace possible to
remain behind. The travelers stopped off in Prague, in Dresden,
in Leipzic, where Mozart played the organ in Saint Thomas
Church in so masterly a fashion that Bach's erstwhile pupil,
the aged cantor Johann Friedrich Doles, believed for a moment
(14:39):
that his old master had come back to life, and
hastened to show his delighted guest one of the bach
motets the church possessed. On April twenty five, Mozart arrived
at the court in Potsdam, where the king gave him
a hundred Friedrich store ordered six string quartets and some
easy claviers sonatas for his daughter, but did nothing about
(15:03):
a Kappelmeister position or a commission for an opera. Mozart
did go to the theater in Berlin, where he heard
his own Intfurung, was applauded by the audience and audibly
scolded a blundering violinist in the orchestra. But his fortunes
had not materially changed, and in May he was riding
(15:24):
to Constanza, my dear little wife, you will have to
get more satisfaction from my return than from any money
I am bringing. When he reached home and found her
suffering from a foot trouble, he sent her, regardless of
his depleted purse, to nearby Baden for a cure, at
the same time admonishing her to beware of flirtations. Then
(15:47):
he set to work on the quartets for the Prussian King,
of which he finished three, the last he was to write,
and a single easy sonata instead of the Promised six
or the Princess Frederica. In September seventeen eighty nine, he
was to compose for his friend the Clarinet Virtuoso enten
(16:09):
Stadler the Celestial Clarinet Quintet K Five eighty one, which
for sheer euthany is almost without parallel in its composer's writings.
The success of a revival of Figaro in August seventeen
eighty nine appears to have moved the Emperor to approach
Mozart with a commission for a new opera. The outcome
(16:31):
was Cosifon Tuti, the incentive to the plot being an
incident said to have taken place in Viennese society. Once again,
Lorenzo d'a ponte was called upon to put the piece
into shape. The fundamentals of the story are to be
found in Boccaccio, and it may well have been in
the de Cameroon that du Ponte discovered the real basis
(16:53):
of his dexterous and amusing, though highly artificial comedy. We
know little about this circumstances surrounding the composition of the piece.
On January twenty one, seventeen ninety, Kosifantuti was performed at
the Bergtiater. The reviews, if middling, were not outright unfavorable.
(17:14):
The music of Mozart is charming, the plot amusing enough,
wrote Count Zinzendorf in his diary, and the journal Des
Luksus under Mohden remarked, it is sufficient to say of
the music that it was composed by Mozart. Until the
following autumn, the work achieved only ten performances. It is
(17:35):
not unreasonable to explain this by the fact that in
seventeen ninety Joseph the Second, who for some time had
been ailing, died and was succeeded by a ruler of
very different tendencies, his brother, Leopold the Second later works.
With the accession of the new emperor, Mozart briefly imagined
(17:57):
the gates of his good luck were about to go open.
He was quickly disillusioned. Leopold the Second was hard, cold, unmusical.
He instantly dismissed some of his predecessor's most faithful artistic servitors.
To Ponte, for one, was dropped. Mozart's opponent Salieri cautiously
(18:18):
withdrew into obscurity and waited behind the scenes for a
new opportunity. Van Schviten tried to obtain for Mozart a
position as teacher of the Archduke Franz, but nothing came
of the well meant effort, and presently the composer found
his pupils reduced to two. His health began to trouble
him alarmingly, with headaches and tooth troubles. He had the
(18:42):
mortification of being ignored when the King of Naples visited Vienna.
While Salieri and Haiden enjoyed special honors, he was not
even asked to participate in the musical festivities in connection
with the Emperor's coronation in October seventeen ninety, or to
travel to Frankfort, where the ceremony was to take place.
(19:03):
So he decided to make the journey at his own expense,
hoping against hope for some distinction or reward. Though he
did not obtain either, he at least had the satisfaction
of knowing that his Don Giovanni Figaro in Furung and
even the early Finta gierd Nira were relished in neighboring mines.
(19:24):
The opera chosen for the actual coronation was Ratchnitzky's Oberon. However,
the Frankfort Town Council graciously allowed Mozart to give a
concert on his own responsibility at a local theater October thirteenth,
at eleven in the morning. Plenty of honor, but little money,
(19:46):
he wrote. He played two concertos, probably the F major
K four fifty nine and the D major K five
thirty seven and Rondo. As ever, his improvisation impressed deeply.
Only a royal luncheon party and a maneuver of Hessian
troops were counter attractions that cut down the attendants. On
(20:08):
the way home, he stopped off in Manheim and Munich,
saw his old friends Cannabich and Ram played at an
academy The Elector Carl Theodore gave for the returning King
of Naples, and went home to Vienna, where Constanza had
moved their effects into a new apartment in the Rauenstein Gossa,
(20:30):
destined to be his last home on earth. In his
new dwelling, the composer completed by December two superb works,
the string quintet in D K five nine three and
the stunning Adagio and Allegro in F Minor K five
nine four for an oregon cylinder in a clock About
(20:53):
that same time, the director of the Italian Opera in London,
one O'Reilly, suggested that he come for half a year
to England to write two operas for that theater and
give concerts, and promised him three hundred pounds sterling. Nothing
stood in the way of o'riley's suggestion except operas that
the master was soon to provide for Vienna and Prague.
(21:15):
Soon afterwards, Haydn, on his way to London, took leave
of his younger friend, who bade him farewell with the
heart shaking words, I fear, Papa, this is the last
time we shall see each other. Solomon, Hayden's manager, had
planned to bring Mozart to England on the older composer's
return to the continent to be sure. There was other
(21:38):
work to be done, if in large part trifling. But
early in January seventeen ninety one, Mozart completed his last
clavier concerto, the singularly affecting One in B flat K
five ninety five, which harks back to earlier models and
lacked some of the more original and dramatic elements of
(21:58):
the incomparable World Ones in D minor E flat, a
major C major and C minor. And in June seventeen
ninety one, on a visit to Constanza in Baden, where
she had gone for another cure, he wrote for a
local choir master, Anton Stoul, that short of vera motete,
(22:20):
than which nothing of Mozart's, is more unutterably seraphic, and
of part four
Part four of Bolfgang Amadeus Mozart by Howard Payser. This
LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Part four Death
of Leopold Mozart. In February seventeen eighty seven, Mozart was
back in Vienna in a joyous frame of mind. One
(00:21):
may question that this jubilant mood was of long duration.
That the new opera was to be ready as early
as the following October was hardly the greatest of his worries,
for Mozart, like heiden Bach and other masters of that century,
was accustomed to a speed of creative production that puts
our machine age to shame. The welcome the Viennese accorded
(00:46):
the returning traveler, flushed by the recollection of his recent triumphs,
was frosty. Also there came the news that his father's
health was failing. Naturally reflected Leopold, old people do not
grow younger. Bof Kang wrote his parents in words that
nobly convey the essence of his own mature philosophy. I
(01:09):
need not tell you with what anxiety I await better
news from you, although I am wont in all things
to anticipate the worst, since death is the true goal
of our lives. I have made myself so well acquainted
during the past two years with this true and best
friend of mankind that the idea of it no longer
(01:30):
holds any terror for me, but rather much that is
tranquil and comforting. And I thank God that he has
granted me the good fortune to obtain this opportunity of
regarding death as the key to our true happiness. I
never lie down in bed without considering that young as
I am, perhaps I may on the morrow be no more.
(01:52):
Yet not one of those who know me say that
I am morose or melancholy. And for this I thank
my creator and wish heartily that the same happiness may
be given to my fellow men. When is moved to
think of Schubert's words to his father a few years later,
when looking upon the lakes and peaks of the Austrian Alps,
(02:13):
he wrote, as if death were the worst thing that
could befall, one, could one but look on these divine
lakes and mountains, he would deem it a great happiness
to be restored for a new life to the inscrutable
forces of the earth. All the same, Mozart was profoundly
shaken when, on May twenty eighth his father passed away
(02:36):
without the opportunity to see his son once more. You
can realize my feelings, he wrote his friend Godfried von Jachen.
We shall not go far wrong when we surmise that
these deep and solemn emotions colored to a considerable degree
some of the more tragic pages of the Nascent Don Giovanni,
(02:57):
the book of which da Ponte was now writing for him.
While working at the same time on the brettos for
Salieri and Martin, in the spring of seventeen eighty seven,
the composer had a brief but memorable encounter, for at
this time there came briefly to Vienna from Bonn a
sixteen year old youth, Ludovig von Beethoven, a protege of
(03:19):
the Count Wolstein, presumably to study with Mozart. The latter
heard his visitor improvise and was at first unimpressed because
he believed the extemporization had been memorized, but was converted
as soon as he gave the young Rhinelander a complicated
theme to treat on the spot. The originality and seriousness
(03:40):
of what he heard stirred the older musician to the prophecy,
this young man is going to make the world talk
about him. But Mozart had at the moment no leisure
for this prospective pupil, who returned shortly to Bonn and
on his later trip after Mozart's death, placed himself under
the direction of Haydn don Giovanni. In mid September, Mozart
(04:07):
and Constanza went to Prague, bringing the partly finished Don
Giovanni score. Bondini had found the composer lodging at the
house on the coalmark called the Three Lion Cubs. Across
the way at the Inn Zumplatais, rooms were engaged for
Da Ponte, and as the windows faced each other, composer
(04:28):
and librettist had long discussions across the narrow street about
details of the book, in the preparation of which Mozart,
with his keen dramatic instincts, played a dominating role. He
and Constanza appeared, however, to have spent quite as much
time with the Dutch keys at the Beetranka as at
(04:49):
the Three Lion Cubs. Rehearsals consumed a great amount of energy.
There were numerous modifications to be made in the music.
The young baritone Luigi Bassi, who had the title role,
demanded five recastings of the duet La Si Darum before
he was satisfied with the music, and Mozart had all
(05:11):
manner of trouble with Katerina Micheli the Alvira. In addition,
the singer of Zerlina, Katharina Bondini, could not utter the
peasant girl's shriek in the first finale, to the composer's satisfaction,
until he terrified her by grasping her roughly and thus
causing her to scream exactly as he wanted. After one
(05:33):
of the last rehearsals, the conductor Couchar's, being asked by
the master for his candid opinion of the opera, replied encouragingly,
whatever comes from Mozart will always delight in Bohemia. I
assure you, dear friend, I have spared myself no pains
to produce something worthy for the people of Prague, declared
(05:54):
the composer, who had already boasted that my proguers understand me.
Here is the place, no doubt, to tell once more
the oft repeated tale of the overture put on paper
according to a hoary legend the night before the premiere,
while Constanza kept the master awake by plying him with
punch and telling him stories. As a matter of fact,
(06:18):
the overture was written the night before the dress rehearsal,
and it was nothing unusual from Mozart to write down
at the last moment a work mentally finished in every detail.
A few days after the first performance, the Prague oberpostamps
Datum published a review that probably excels anything ever written
about the opera. It read simply, connoisseurs and musicians say
(06:43):
that nothing like it has ever been produced in Prague.
The opinion is probably as true today as in seventeen
eighty seven, for there is literally nothing like Don Giovanni,
either among its composer's creations or elsewhere. One can only
share them the emotion of Rossini, when being shown the
manuscript score, he said to its owner, the singer Pauline
(07:07):
verdol Garcia, I want to bow the knee before this
sacred relic and echo the words of Richard Wagner. What
is more perfect than every number in Don Giovanni? Where
else has music one so infinitely rich an individuality been
able to characterize so surely so, definitely, and in such
(07:28):
exuberant plenitude as here Figaro is, if you will, the
more perfect artistic entity of the two. Don Giovanni is looser,
less consistent, on the surface, even grossly illogical. But so
too is human nature. And if all the world's a stage,
what more than a drama giocosso is the experience of life.
(07:53):
Whatever the narrow intent of Lorenzo da Ponta, when he
carpentered the book out of well worn odds and ends,
it was with the profound knowledge of the sorrows and
absurdities of humankind that Mozart breathed into it an abiding soul,
Long lived Ponte, Long Live. Mozart had written the stage
(08:14):
director Domenico guarasone all impresarios, all artists, must exalt them
to the skies, for as long as such men live,
there can be no more question of theater miseries. The
ducheks outdid themselves to make life pleasant for their guests.
Mozart found time to compose several songs and even a
(08:37):
superb concert air Bella mia fia ma adio for Josefa.
After that lady had locked him up in the garden
house till he had finished the promised music on November fifteenth,
seventeen eighty seven, which virtually coincided with the composer's return
to Vienna. Gluck died less than a month later. Joseph
(08:59):
the second appointed Mozart to the older master's post of
commer Compositeur, with an annual salary of eight hundred gulden
Gluck had received two thousand, and Before long, Mozart was
complaining that his pay was too much for what he did,
too little for what he could do. What he did
was principally to supply minuets, contradances and toucha for court
(09:24):
balls and similar occasions. The year seventeen eighty eight donned
in gloomy fashion for Mozart. To be sure. Don Giovanni
had its first Viennese hearing on May seventh, with a
cast including his sister in law, Aloischialange as Donna Agna,
Katarina Cavaleri, the original Costanza in the Infurium as Elbira,
(09:47):
and Francesco Benucci the first Figaro as Leapparello. Mozart had
cut out some numbers, replacing them with new ones, eliminating
the platitudin as epilogue, and ended the work with the
prodigious hell music of Don Giovanni's disappearance. The Emperor remarked,
the opera is divine, perhaps even finer than Figaro, but
(10:11):
it is a rather tough morsel for the teeth of
my Viennese, to which Mozart replied, let us give them
time to chew it. Symphonies an E flat, G minor
and C major. Yet from now on he was to
pay for his progue triumphs with a kind of fateful persistence.
(10:31):
Things seemed to go wrong. That an infant daughter died
was a rather familiar affliction of the children of the
Mozart couple. Only the sons Carl and Raymond Leopold survived infancy.
Money troubles plagued him unremittingly. Again and again. He had
to appeal for loans to Michael Puschberg, a merchant and
(10:53):
brother mason, and later to Franz Hoftemo, a jurist of
his acquaintance, whose wife was one of his pew pupils.
But by and large these pupils were becoming scarcer, and
there seemed steadily less patronage for the academies. He planned
to make matters worse. Costanza's management of the household appeared
(11:13):
to go from bad to worse. The arrangements of works
like Hendel's Assis and Galatia and Messiah, which he was
making about this time for the parsimonious Baron Bonsfeten, brought
in as good as nothing. Mozart's affairs were falling into
a sordid, not to say tragic state. Small wonder therefore,
(11:36):
that he grasped at the opportunity to settle outside of
Vienna proper, in a house in the varying district, where
the air was purer than in the heart of the city,
and where he had the added advantages of quiet and
a garden. A change of residence had never been a
particular hardship for the Mozarts. In the space of nine years,
(11:56):
they moved eleven times in Vienna alone. Their life, says
Alfred Einstein, was like a perpetual tour, changing from one
hotel room to another. In one of the handsomer dwellings,
schuleagasa Ate, the ceiling of Mozart's work room had fine
plaster ornamentation with sprites and cherubs. I am convinced that
(12:19):
Mozart never wasted a glance on it. He was ready
at any instant to exchange Vienna for another city, or
Austria for another country. He was thinking of a trip
to Russia as a result of conversations with the Russian
ambassador in Threisden in seventeen eighty nine, but he had
to be satisfied with smaller journeys and with journeys within Vienna.
(12:45):
In his varying surroundings, however, he boasted of being able
to accomplish more work in a few days than elsewhere
in a month. The finest fruit of this suburban sojourn
is the glorious symphonic trilogy The Masterpieces in E flat,
G minor and C major, composed in June, July, and August, respectively.
(13:06):
The third the Sublime Jupiter, the last of Mozart's forty
one symphonies, and given its deathless name. No one knows
exactly by whom or why. The three, which have a
profound psychological connection, were written in all probability for a
series of academies that never took place. However this may be.
(13:29):
They are the crown of Mozart's symphonic compositions, and rank
indisputably as the greatest symphonies before Beethoven Cosifan Tutti. In
April seventeen eighty nine, a ray of hope suddenly appeared
to illuminate his depressing horizon. A friend and pupil, the
young Prince Karl Ichawski, who had estates in Silesia and
(13:53):
an important rank in the Prussian army, invited Mozart to
accompany him on a trip to Berlin. Lichnowski enjoyed influence
at the court of the music loving Prussian King Frederick
William the Second, and seemed ready to recommend his teacher
to the good graces of the monarch. At last, Mozart
had reason to anticipate a well paying post. The pleasure
(14:17):
loving Constanza resigned herself with the best grace possible to
remain behind. The travelers stopped off in Prague, in Dresden,
in Leipzic, where Mozart played the organ in Saint Thomas
Church in so masterly a fashion that Bach's erstwhile pupil,
the aged cantor Johann Friedrich Doles, believed for a moment
(14:39):
that his old master had come back to life, and
hastened to show his delighted guest one of the bach
motets the church possessed. On April twenty five, Mozart arrived
at the court in Potsdam, where the king gave him
a hundred Friedrich store ordered six string quartets and some
easy claviers sonatas for his daughter, but did nothing about
(15:03):
a Kappelmeister position or a commission for an opera. Mozart
did go to the theater in Berlin, where he heard
his own Intfurung, was applauded by the audience and audibly
scolded a blundering violinist in the orchestra. But his fortunes
had not materially changed, and in May he was riding
(15:24):
to Constanza, my dear little wife, you will have to
get more satisfaction from my return than from any money
I am bringing. When he reached home and found her
suffering from a foot trouble, he sent her, regardless of
his depleted purse, to nearby Baden for a cure, at
the same time admonishing her to beware of flirtations. Then
(15:47):
he set to work on the quartets for the Prussian King,
of which he finished three, the last he was to write,
and a single easy sonata instead of the Promised six
or the Princess Frederica. In September seventeen eighty nine, he
was to compose for his friend the Clarinet Virtuoso enten
(16:09):
Stadler the Celestial Clarinet Quintet K Five eighty one, which
for sheer euthany is almost without parallel in its composer's writings.
The success of a revival of Figaro in August seventeen
eighty nine appears to have moved the Emperor to approach
Mozart with a commission for a new opera. The outcome
(16:31):
was Cosifon Tuti, the incentive to the plot being an
incident said to have taken place in Viennese society. Once again,
Lorenzo d'a ponte was called upon to put the piece
into shape. The fundamentals of the story are to be
found in Boccaccio, and it may well have been in
the de Cameroon that du Ponte discovered the real basis
(16:53):
of his dexterous and amusing, though highly artificial comedy. We
know little about this circumstances surrounding the composition of the piece.
On January twenty one, seventeen ninety, Kosifantuti was performed at
the Bergtiater. The reviews, if middling, were not outright unfavorable.
(17:14):
The music of Mozart is charming, the plot amusing enough,
wrote Count Zinzendorf in his diary, and the journal Des
Luksus under Mohden remarked, it is sufficient to say of
the music that it was composed by Mozart. Until the
following autumn, the work achieved only ten performances. It is
(17:35):
not unreasonable to explain this by the fact that in
seventeen ninety Joseph the Second, who for some time had
been ailing, died and was succeeded by a ruler of
very different tendencies, his brother, Leopold the Second later works.
With the accession of the new emperor, Mozart briefly imagined
(17:57):
the gates of his good luck were about to go open.
He was quickly disillusioned. Leopold the Second was hard, cold, unmusical.
He instantly dismissed some of his predecessor's most faithful artistic servitors.
To Ponte, for one, was dropped. Mozart's opponent Salieri cautiously
(18:18):
withdrew into obscurity and waited behind the scenes for a
new opportunity. Van Schviten tried to obtain for Mozart a
position as teacher of the Archduke Franz, but nothing came
of the well meant effort, and presently the composer found
his pupils reduced to two. His health began to trouble
him alarmingly, with headaches and tooth troubles. He had the
(18:42):
mortification of being ignored when the King of Naples visited Vienna.
While Salieri and Haiden enjoyed special honors, he was not
even asked to participate in the musical festivities in connection
with the Emperor's coronation in October seventeen ninety, or to
travel to Frankfort, where the ceremony was to take place.
(19:03):
So he decided to make the journey at his own expense,
hoping against hope for some distinction or reward. Though he
did not obtain either, he at least had the satisfaction
of knowing that his Don Giovanni Figaro in Furung and
even the early Finta gierd Nira were relished in neighboring mines.
(19:24):
The opera chosen for the actual coronation was Ratchnitzky's Oberon. However,
the Frankfort Town Council graciously allowed Mozart to give a
concert on his own responsibility at a local theater October thirteenth,
at eleven in the morning. Plenty of honor, but little money,
(19:46):
he wrote. He played two concertos, probably the F major
K four fifty nine and the D major K five
thirty seven and Rondo. As ever, his improvisation impressed deeply.
Only a royal luncheon party and a maneuver of Hessian
troops were counter attractions that cut down the attendants. On
(20:08):
the way home, he stopped off in Manheim and Munich,
saw his old friends Cannabich and Ram played at an
academy The Elector Carl Theodore gave for the returning King
of Naples, and went home to Vienna, where Constanza had
moved their effects into a new apartment in the Rauenstein Gossa,
(20:30):
destined to be his last home on earth. In his
new dwelling, the composer completed by December two superb works,
the string quintet in D K five nine three and
the stunning Adagio and Allegro in F Minor K five
nine four for an oregon cylinder in a clock About
(20:53):
that same time, the director of the Italian Opera in London,
one O'Reilly, suggested that he come for half a year
to England to write two operas for that theater and
give concerts, and promised him three hundred pounds sterling. Nothing
stood in the way of o'riley's suggestion except operas that
the master was soon to provide for Vienna and Prague.
(21:15):
Soon afterwards, Haydn, on his way to London, took leave
of his younger friend, who bade him farewell with the
heart shaking words, I fear, Papa, this is the last
time we shall see each other. Solomon, Hayden's manager, had
planned to bring Mozart to England on the older composer's
return to the continent to be sure. There was other
(21:38):
work to be done, if in large part trifling. But
early in January seventeen ninety one, Mozart completed his last
clavier concerto, the singularly affecting One in B flat K
five ninety five, which harks back to earlier models and
lacked some of the more original and dramatic elements of
(21:58):
the incomparable World Ones in D minor E flat, a
major C major and C minor. And in June seventeen
ninety one, on a visit to Constanza in Baden, where
she had gone for another cure, he wrote for a
local choir master, Anton Stoul, that short of vera motete,
(22:20):
than which nothing of Mozart's, is more unutterably seraphic, and
of part four
Popular Podcasts
NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal
Gregg Rosenthal and a rotating crew of elite NFL Media co-hosts, including Patrick Claybon, Colleen Wolfe, Steve Wyche, Nick Shook and Jourdan Rodrigue of The Athletic get you caught up daily on all the NFL news and analysis you need to be smarter and funnier than your friends.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com