W.A. Mozart
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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

(1756 - 1791)

  W.A. MOZART

Mozart was a remarkable musician and composer whose legend continues to grow more than two centuries after his death.  Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in Salzburg, Austria in 1756.  Before he reached the age of four, he had already exhibited  such extraordinary powers of musical memory and ear-sophistication that his father, Leopold (a highly esteemed violinist and composer in his own right) decided to sign young Wolfgang up for harpsichord lessons.

  HIS FAMILY

Almost from day one, the boy's reputation as an unequalled musical prodigy spread faster than wildfire.  At the age of five, he was composing music; by the time he was six, he was a keyboard virtuoso, so much so that Leopold took Wolfgang and his sister Maria Anna on a performance tour to Munich and Vienna.

   HIS FATHER

From that time on, young Mozart was constantly performing and writing music.  He was the toast of Austria, and gave many concerts of prepared works and improvisation.  Wherever he appeared, people gaped in awe at his divine gifts.  By his early teens, he had mastered the piano, violin and harpsichord, and was writing keyboard pieces, oratorios, symphonies and operas.  His first major opera, "Mitridate", was performed in Milan in 1770 (when he was still only fourteen!), to such unqualified raves that critics compared him to Handel.

At fifteen, Mozart was installed as the concertmaster in the orchestra of the Archbishop of Salzburg.  Things did not go very well; Mozart didn't get along with the Archbishop, and relations deteriorated to the point where, in 1781, he quit this lofty position and headed for Vienna - quite against his father's wishes.

  AS A YOUNG MAN

Mozart wrote Masonic music before joining Freemasonry.  His first work was named "Ode to a solemn Saint Johns lodge" and was written in Salzburg in 1772.  The second was "Thamos, King in Egypt" which he wrote in 1773 and rewrote in 1779.

BOOKS ABOUT MOZART & FREEMASONRY 

Not much more is known about Mozart's joining Freemasonry than an administrative note that he was initiated as an Apprentice on December 14, 1784 by a Vienneese Lodge ´Zur Wohltätigkeit´.  The next note about Mozart is that the Ceremony of Passing took place on January 7 in 1785 in another Lodge ´Zur wahren Eintracht´.   Somewhere between that 7th of January and the 22nd of April the following year he must have been raised to Master Mason as he was present as a Master Mason when his father Leopold was initiated in the Lodge ´Zur Neugekrönte Hoffnung´.

Now a grown man, Mozart initially thrived in Vienna.   He was in great demand as a performer and composition teacher, and his first opera, "The Abduction from the Seraglio", was a hit.  But life was not easy.  He was a poor businessman, and finances were always tight, especially after his marriage to Constanze Weber.  Political infighting at the Vienna court kept him from the patronage that composers of the period so relied upon, and he descended to a life of genteel poverty.  His music from the next decade - and it came at a blisteringly prolific rate - was only sporadically popular, and he eventually fell back on his teaching jobs and on the charity of friends to make ends meet.  In 1788 he stopped performing in public, preferring to compose. But his fortune never turned, and when he died in 1791 at the age of thirty-five, he was buried in a pauper's grave.

   HIS WIFE

To say that Mozart was a composer of unequalled genius is scarcely scratching the surface of this man's remarkable gifts.  He wrote music - complete and perfect, down to the last accent and inflection - as fast as he could think, and this astonishing rate of production continues to stupefy scholars today.  In his short life, he composed over 600 works, including 21 stage and opera works, 15 Masses, over 50 symphonies, 25 piano concertos, 12 violin concertos, 27 concert arias, 17 piano sonatas, 26 string quartets...the list is endless.  And what makes these numbers doubly unfathomable is the peerless craft with which each piece of music was created.   Mozart was a master of counterpoint, fugue, and the other traditional compositional devices of his day; more than this, he was perhaps the greatest melody writer the world has ever known. His operas range from comic baubles to tragic masterpieces.  His "Requiem", composed not long before his own death, stands with Bach's "St. Matthew Passion" as the supreme example of vocal music.  His last opera "Die Zauberflöte" could have become a new breakthrough because this would have been very successful even in his own day, had he not shortly thereafter died.  But even today this opera is awe inspiring.

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In recent years, Mozart's fame has reached new heights on the popularity of the film Amadeus.  Music scholars love to poke holes in what is admittedly a fantastical portrait of Mozart's life, and ensuing arguments over his relationship with his musical "rival" Salieri, his method of composing, and the events surrounding his death have created more public misunderstandings about this divine figure than ever existed before.  What the recent Mozart vogue has created for the good, however, is increased awareness of his music, which must be counted among the absolute wonders of the world.

THANKS !!