The sources Modern scholars rely on various source materials in writing
Mozart's biography. First, there are about 1500 pages of family letters, often vivid and entertaining, mostly written when travel separated Mozart from his kin. There are also early biographies, written with input from Mozart's sister
Nannerl, his wife
Constanze, and others who knew him well. Old documents, such as newspaper stories and government records, have been located in libraries and archives, annotated, and published. Lastly, the composer's surviving manuscripts shed light on the history and dating of his compositions: there are
sketches, drafts, dated autographs of completed works, and Mozart's
personal catalog. Mozart biographers all work from these same sources, but they often disagree on crucial points. The disagreements arise in part from the need to judge how much to believe a source who had strong motivation to diverge from the truth. A source once widely used but now judged untruthful is the publisher
Friedrich Rochlitz, who sought to increase posthumous sales of Mozart's works by publishing false, vivid stories about him. A trend across time, noted in , is for biographers to be less credulous (e.g., in believing Rochlitz), less sentimental, and more sensitive to information about Mozart's own society and times.
Early life Family and childhood Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born on 27 January 1756 to
Leopold Mozart and
Anna Maria, née Pertl, at
Getreidegasse 9 in Salzburg. Salzburg was the capital of the
Archbishopric of Salzburg, an ecclesiastical principality within the
Holy Roman Empire, located in what is now Austria. He was the youngest of seven children, five of whom died in infancy. His elder sister was
Maria Anna Mozart, nicknamed "Nannerl". Mozart was
baptised the day after his birth, at
St. Rupert's Cathedral in Salzburg. The baptismal record gives his name in Latinised form, as
Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart. He generally called himself "Wolfgang Mozart" as an adult, but his name
had many variants. Leopold Mozart, a native of
Augsburg, then an
Imperial Free City in the Holy Roman Empire, was a minor composer and an experienced teacher. In 1743, he was appointed as the fourth violinist in the musical establishment of Count
Leopold Anton von Firmian, the ruling
Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg. Four years later, he married Anna Maria in Salzburg. Leopold became the orchestra's deputy
Kapellmeister in 1763. During the year of his son's birth, Leopold published a successful violin textbook,
Versuch einer gründlichen Violinschule. When Nannerl was seven, she began keyboard lessons with her father, while her three-year-old brother looked on. Years later, after her brother's death, she reminisced: He often spent much time at the
clavier, picking out thirds, which he was ever striking, and his pleasure showed that it sounded good.... In the fourth year of his age his father, for a game as it were, began to teach him a few minuets and pieces at the clavier.... He could play it faultlessly and with the greatest delicacy, and keeping exactly in time.... At the age of five, he was already composing little pieces, which he played to his father who wrote them down. , These early pieces,
K. 1–5, were recorded in the
Nannerl Notenbuch. Leopold was their only teacher. Along with music, he taught his children languages and academic subjects. his first ink-spattered composition and his precocious efforts with the violin were of his own initiative and came as a surprise to Leopold, who eventually gave up composing when his son's musical talents became evident. Leopold dubbed Wolfgang "the miracle whom God allowed to be born in Salzburg."
1762–1773: Travel While Wolfgang was young, his family made several European journeys in which he and Nannerl performed as
child prodigies. These began with an exhibition in 1762 at the court of
Prince-elector Maximilian III of Bavaria in Munich, and at the Imperial Courts in Vienna and Prague. A long concert tour followed, spanning three and a half years, taking the family to the courts of Munich,
Mannheim, Paris, London, The Hague, Amsterdam, Utrecht, and again to Paris, and back home via
Zürich,
Donaueschingen, and Munich. During this trip, Wolfgang met many musicians and acquainted himself with the works of other composers. A particularly significant influence was
Johann Christian Bach, whom he visited in London in 1764 and 1765. When he was eight years old, Mozart wrote
his first symphony, most of which was probably transcribed by Leopold. ) The family trips were often challenging, and travel conditions were primitive. They had to wait for invitations and reimbursement from the nobility, and they endured long, near-fatal illnesses far from home: first Leopold (London, summer 1764), then both children (The Hague, autumn 1765). The family again went to Vienna in late 1767 and remained there until December 1768. After one year in Salzburg, Leopold and Wolfgang set off for Italy, leaving Anna Maria and Nannerl at home. This tour lasted from December 1769 to March 1771. As with earlier journeys, Leopold wanted to display his son's abilities as a performer and a rapidly maturing composer. Wolfgang met
Josef Mysliveček and
Giovanni Battista Martini in
Bologna and was accepted as a member of the famous
Accademia Filarmonica. According to a letter Leopold wrote home to Salzburg, while in Rome Wolfgang heard
Gregorio Allegri's
Miserere twice in performance in the
Sistine Chapel. He subsequently wrote it out from memory, thus producing the "first unauthorised copy of this closely guarded property of the
Vatican". The details of this account are, however, disputed. In Milan, Mozart wrote the opera
Mitridate, re di Ponto (1770), which was performed with success. This led to further opera
commissions. He returned with his father twice to Milan (August–December 1771; October 1772March 1773) for the composition and premieres of
Ascanio in Alba (1771) and
Lucio Silla (1772). Leopold hoped these visits would result in a professional appointment for his son, and indeed ruling
Archduke Ferdinand contemplated hiring Mozart, but owing to his mother
Empress Maria Theresa's reluctance to employ "useless people", the matter was dropped and Leopold's hopes were never realised. Most of the music Mozart wrote at this early stage of his career is little known today, but there is one exception: toward the end of the last Italian journey, Mozart wrote the solo
motet Exsultate, jubilate,
K.165 for the
castrato Venanzio Rauzzini; this work is a favourite for performance by sopranos today.
1773–1777: Employment at the Salzburg court , Salzburg, Mozart family residence from 1773; reconstructed in 1996 After finally returning with his father from Italy on 13 March 1773, Mozart was employed as a court musician by the ruler of Salzburg,
Prince-Archbishop Hieronymus Colloredo. The composer had many friends and admirers in Salzburg and had the opportunity to work in many genres, including symphonies, concertos, sonatas, string quartets,
masses, serenades, and a few minor operas. An important part of Mozart's output at this time was violin concertos: he wrote one in 1773 and four more in 1775. These are the only violin concertos he ever wrote, and through the series they increase in their musical sophistication. The last three—
K. 216,
K. 218,
K. 219—are staples of the modern repertoire. In 1776 he turned his efforts to
piano concertos, culminating in the E concerto
K. 271 of early 1777, considered by critics to be a breakthrough work. Despite these artistic successes, Mozart grew increasingly discontented with Salzburg and redoubled his efforts to find a position elsewhere. One reason was his low salary, 150
florins a year; Mozart longed to compose operas, and Salzburg provided only rare occasions for these. The situation worsened in 1775 when the court theatre was closed, especially since the other theatre in Salzburg was primarily reserved for visiting troupes. Two long expeditions in search of work interrupted this long Salzburg stay. Mozart and his father visited Vienna from 14 July to 26 September 1773, and Munich from 6December 1774 to March 1775. Neither visit was successful, though the Munich journey resulted in a popular success with the premiere of Mozart's opera
La finta giardiniera.
1777–1778: Journey to Paris which he received in 1770 from
Pope Clement XIV in Rome '', (attrib.
Johann Nepomuk della Croce); the portrait on the wall is of Mozart's mother. In August 1777 Mozart resigned his position at Salzburg and on 23 September ventured out once more in search of employment, this time accompanied by
his mother, with visits to Munich,
Augsburg, Mannheim, and Paris. The first stop, in Munich, proved to offer Mozart no sort of permanent position, and the mother and son moved on to Augsburg on 11 October. This was the city where Leopold had grown up, and still living there was Mozart's uncle Franz Aloys Mozart and his daughter, Mozart's first cousin
Maria Anna Thekla Mozart. She and Mozart engaged in what
Abert calls a "charming and innocent flirtation" and
Solomon treats as a more serious and more sexual encounter. After Mozart departed Augsburg, the two exchanged letters, of which Mozart's have survived. These are mostly devoid of news and consistently silly. They contain some veiled sexual references, but mostly are scatological, with frequent mentions of what is translated in English as "muck". The letters have astonished, and sometimes dismayed, modern readers. While some scholars suggest some sort of mental disorder on the basis of Mozart's letters, others have noted the greater prevalence of scatological humour in Mozart's place and time, including among his own family members; see
Mozart and scatology. Mozart and his mother reached Mannheim on 30 October. There, Mozart became acquainted with members of the
famous orchestra in Mannheim, the best in Europe at the time. He also fell in love with
Aloysia Weber, one of four daughters of a musical family. There were prospects of employment in Mannheim, but they came to nothing, and Mozart left for Paris on 14 March 1778 to continue his search. One of his letters from Paris hints at a possible post as an organist at
Versailles, but Mozart was not interested in such an appointment. He fell into debt and took to pawning valuables. The nadir of the visit occurred when Mozart's mother was taken ill and died on 3July 1778. There had been delays in calling a doctor—probably, according to Halliwell, because of a lack of funds. Mozart stayed with
Melchior Grimm at
Marquise d'Épinay's residence, 5
rue de la Chaussée-d'Antin. While Mozart was in Paris, his father was pursuing opportunities of employment for him in Salzburg. With the support of the local nobility, Mozart was offered a post as court organist and concertmaster. The annual salary was 450 florins, but he was reluctant to accept. By that time, relations between Grimm and Mozart had cooled, and Mozart moved out. After leaving Paris in September 1778 for
Strasbourg, he lingered in Mannheim and Munich, still hoping to obtain an appointment outside Salzburg. In Munich, he again encountered Aloysia, now a very successful singer, but she was no longer interested in him. Mozart finally returned to Salzburg on 15 January 1779 and took up his new appointment, but his discontent with Salzburg remained undiminished. Among the better-known works which Mozart wrote on the Paris journey are the
Piano Sonata No. 8, K. 310/300d, the
Symphony No. 31 (Paris), which were performed in Paris on 12 and 18 June 1778; and the
Concerto for Flute and Harp in C major, K. 299/297c.
Vienna 1781: Departure In January 1781 Mozart's opera
Idomeneo premiered with "considerable success" in Munich. The following March, Mozart was summoned to Vienna, where his employer, Archbishop Colloredo, was attending the celebrations for the accession of
Joseph II to the Austrian throne. For Colloredo, this was simply a matter of wanting his musical servant to be at hand (Mozart indeed was required to dine in Colloredo's establishment with the valets and cooks). He planned a bigger career as he continued in the archbishop's service; for example, he wrote to his father: My main goal right now is to meet the emperor in some agreeable fashion, I am absolutely determined he . I would be so happy if I could whip through my opera for him and then play a fugue or two, for that's what he likes. Mozart did indeed soon meet the Emperor, who was to support his career substantially with commissions and a part-time position. In the same letter to his father just quoted, Mozart outlined his plans to participate as a soloist in the concerts of the
Tonkünstler-Societät, a prominent benefit concert series; and he soon "had established himself as the finest keyboard player in Vienna". Mozart wrote: "All the good and well-intentioned advice you have sent fails to address the case of a man who has already gone so far with a maiden. Further postponement is out of the question."
Heartz relates, "Constanze's sister
Sophie had tearfully declared that her mother would send the police after Constanze if she did not return home [presumably from Mozart's apartment]." On 4 August, Mozart wrote to Baroness von Waldstätten, asking: "Can the police here enter anyone's house in this way? Perhaps it is only a ruse of Madame Weber to get her daughter back. If not, I know no better remedy than to marry Constanze tomorrow morning or if possible today." The couple were finally married on 4August 1782 in
St. Stephen's Cathedral, the day before his father's consenting letter arrived in the mail. The couple had six children, of whom only two survived infancy: • Raimund Leopold (17 June19 August 1783) •
Karl Thomas Mozart (21 September 178431 October 1858) • Johann Thomas Leopold (18 October15 November 1786) • Theresia Constanzia Adelheid Friedericke Maria Anna (27 December 178729 June 1788) • Anna Maria (died soon after birth, 16 November 1789) •
Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart (26 July 179129 July 1844)
Eisen judges that the marriage was basically happy, based in part on Mozart's letters to Constanze, which are generally very affectionate, often funny, and occasionally erotic. There is one letter that suggests the family's precarious finances may have been a source of matrimonial tension. In a letter she wrote in old age Constanze described her marriage to Mozart as having been "completely happy".
1782–1785 In 1782 and 1783 Mozart became intimately acquainted with the work of
Johann Sebastian Bach and
George Frideric Handel as a result of the influence of
Gottfried van Swieten, who owned many manuscripts of the
Baroque masters. Mozart's study of these scores inspired compositions in the Baroque style and later influenced his musical language, for example in
fugal passages in
Die Zauberflöte. In 1783 Mozart and his wife visited his family in Salzburg, for the first and only time after their marriage. It is possible that the visit was tense, since Leopold had been sharply opposed to the marriage, and Mozart's sister
Nannerl had evidently snubbed Constanze in correspondence. Nannerl's diary records a busy agenda of socializing and tourism, but no information remains about how the family members got along. The visit prompted the composition of one of Mozart's great liturgical pieces, the
Mass in C minor K. 527. Though not completed, it was premiered in Salzburg, with Constanze singing a solo part. Mozart met
Joseph Haydn in Vienna around 1784, and the two composers
became friends. When Haydn visited Vienna, they sometimes played
chamber music together with other friends. Mozart's
six quartets dedicated to Haydn (K. 387, K. 421, K. 428, K. 458, K. 464, and K. 465) date from the period 1782 to 1785, and are judged to be a response to
Haydn's Opus 33 set from 1781, and are today considered key works of the string quartet literature. Both Haydn and Mozart's father Leopold (visiting from Salzburg) were present in 1785 at a gathering where three of the quartets were played, and Haydn remarked to Leopold, "I tell you before God, and as an honest man, your son is the greatest composer known to me by person and repute, he has taste and what is more the greatest skill in composition." From 1782 to 1785 Mozart mounted concerts with himself as piano soloist, presenting three or four new concertos in each season. Since space in the theatres was scarce, he booked unconventional venues: a large room in the Trattnerhof apartment building, and the ballroom of the Mehlgrube restaurant. The concerts were very popular, and
his concertos premiered there are still firm fixtures in the repertoire. Of these works, Solomon writes that Mozart created "a harmonious connection between an eager composer-performer and a delighted audience, which was given the opportunity of witnessing the transformation and perfection of a major musical genre". Mozart bought a fine
fortepiano from
Anton Walter for about 900 florins, and a
billiard table for about 300.
1786–1787: Return to opera played by Mozart in 1787, Czech Museum of Music, Prague Despite the great success of
Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Mozart did little operatic writing for the next four years, producing only two unfinished works and the one-act
Der Schauspieldirektor. He focused instead on his career as a piano soloist and writer of concertos. Around the end of 1785, Mozart moved away from keyboard writing and began his famous operatic collaboration with the
librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte. The year 1786 saw the successful premiere of
Le nozze di Figaro in Vienna. The work was then produced in Prague, with an invitation to Mozart to attend and give concerts. It was on this occasion that Mozart premiered his
38th symphony, now known as the
Prague Symphony. Both the opera and the symphony were received enthusiastically, and the visit was an unusually happy episode in Mozart's life; see
Mozart and Prague. The success of
Le Nozze di Figaro led to a commission for an opera to be performed by the resident opera company of Prague; the work thus spawned was
Don Giovanni, Mozart's second collaboration with Da Ponte. It premiered in October 1787 to acclaim in Prague, and was produced again, though without the same degree of success, in Vienna during 1788.
Le Nozze di Figaro and
Don Giovanni are among Mozart's most famous works and are mainstays of operatic repertoire today, though at their premieres their musical complexity caused difficulty both for listeners and for performers. In December 1787, Mozart finally obtained a steady post under aristocratic patronage. Emperor Joseph II appointed him as his "chamber composer", a post that had fallen vacant the previous month on the death of
Christoph Willibald Gluck. It was a part-time appointment, paying just 800 florins per year, and required Mozart only to compose dances for the annual balls in the
Redoutensaal (see
Mozart and dance). This modest income became important to Mozart when hard times arrived. Court records show that Joseph aimed to keep the esteemed composer from leaving Vienna in pursuit of better prospects. It is a biographical tradition to view this position as a mere sinecure; but a more recent view, put forth by Wolff (2012), is that Mozart's position was a more substantial one and that some of Mozart's chamber music from this time was written as part of his imperial duties. In 1787 the young
Ludwig van Beethoven spent several weeks in Vienna, hoping to study with Mozart. Beethoven almost certainly heard Mozart perform, but (despite a widely told anecdote to this effect) it is not certain that the two actually met in person; see
Beethoven and Mozart. The same year was marked by the death of Leopold on 28 May 1787 – in a way, six months too early, since Leopold would never learn that his lifetime goal for his son, a paid court position, was finally achieved. Despite longstanding tensions with his father, Mozart had remained in contact by correspondence to the end of Leopold's life, and Leopold's death was likely a blow to him. Eisen suggests that the death "triggered a fallow period for the composer", noting that Mozart was similarly unproductive following the death of his mother in July 1778. The task of dealing with Leopold's estate was one of the last matters of mutual concern for Wolfgang and Nannerl; not long after, they became estranged and ceased to correspond.
Later years 1788–1790 , made by
Dora Stock during Mozart's visit to Dresden, April 1789 Toward the end of the decade, Mozart's circumstances worsened. Around 1786, he ceased to appear frequently in public concerts, and his income shrank. This was a difficult time for musicians in Vienna because of the
Austro-Turkish War: both the general level of prosperity and the ability of the aristocracy to support music had declined. According to Solomon, in 1788, Mozart saw a 66% decline in his income compared to his best years in 1781. By mid-1788, Mozart and his family had moved from central Vienna to the suburb of
Alsergrund. He is thought to have benefited from the sale of dance music written in his role as Imperial chamber composer. The
New Grove describes his funeral: Mozart was interred in a common grave, in accordance with contemporary Viennese custom, at the
St. Marx Cemetery outside the city on 7December. If, as later reports say, no mourners attended, that too is consistent with Viennese burial customs at the time; later
Otto Jahn (1856) wrote that
Salieri,
Süssmayr,
van Swieten and two other musicians were present. The tale of a storm and snow is false; the day was calm and mild. The expression "common grave" refers to neither a communal grave nor a pauper's grave, but an individual grave for a member of the common people (i.e., not the aristocracy). Common graves were subject to excavation after ten years; aristocrats' graves were not. The cause of Mozart's death is not known with certainty. The official record of
hitziges Frieselfieber ("severe fever", referring to a rash that looks like
millet seeds) is more a symptomatic description than a diagnosis. Researchers have suggested more than a hundred causes of death, including acute
rheumatic fever,
streptococcal infection,
trichinosis,
influenza,
mercury poisoning, and a rare kidney ailment. The contemporary Viennese public health official , who consulted with Mozart's doctors at the time, insisted that Mozart most likely died in an
epidemic, asserting that many people in Vienna had died at the same time with the same symptoms. Modern work by Zegers et al., tracing death records of the time, found a modest spike in the death rate for late 1791, supporting Guldener's claim. Mozart's modest funeral did not reflect his standing with the public as a composer, but memorial services and concerts in Vienna and Prague were well attended. In the period immediately after his death, his reputation rose substantially. Solomon describes an "unprecedented wave of enthusiasm" for his work;
biographies were written first by
Friedrich Schlichtegroll,
Franz Xaver Niemetschek, and
Georg Nikolaus von Nissen, and publishers vied to produce complete editions of his works. ==Appearance and character==