Johann (Hans) Hölzel (
German: [ˈjoːhan (hans) ˈhœlt͡sl̩]) (19 February 1957 – 6 February 1998), better known by his stage name
Falco, was an Austrian pop and rock musician and rapper.
[1]
Falco had several international hits, "
Rock Me Amadeus",
[1] "
Der Kommissar", "
Vienna Calling",
[1] "
Jeanny", "
The Sound of Musik", "Coming Home (Jeanny Part II, One Year Later)" and posthumously, "Out of the Dark".
"Rock Me Amadeus" reached No. 1 on the
Billboard charts in 1985, making him the only artist whose principal language was German to score a vocal number-one hit in the United States (
Bert Kaempfert reached No. 1 in January 1961 with the instrumental "
Wonderland by Night").
According to his estate, he has sold 20 million albums and 15 million
singles, which makes him the best selling Austrian singer of all time.
| Falco |
|---|
Falco and actress Ursela Monn (1986)
|
| Background information |
| Birth name |
Johann (Hans) Hölzel |
| Born |
19 February 1957
Vienna, Austria |
| Died |
6 February 1998 (aged 40)
Between Villa Montellano and Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic |
| Genres |
New wave, Neue Deutsche Welle, rock, pop, hip hop |
| Occupation(s) |
Singer, songwriter |
| Instruments |
Vocals, piano, bass guitar, guitar |
| Years active |
1977–1987, 1992–1998 |
| Labels |
Sony, EMI, Warner |
| Associated acts |
Thomas Lang |
| Website |
officialfalco.com |
Early years
Falco began to show signs of unusual musical talent very early. As a
toddler,
he was able to keep time with the drumbeat in songs he heard on the
radio.
He was given a baby grand piano for his fourth birthday; a year
later, his birthday gift was a record player which he used to play music
by Elvis Presley, Cliff Richard, and the Beatles.
At age five, he
auditioned for the Vienna Music Academy, where it was confirmed that he
had
perfect pitch.
[citation needed]
In 1963, Hölzel began his schooling at a Roman Catholic private
school; four years later, at age ten, he switched to the Rainer
Gymnasium in Vienna.
Shortly thereafter his father Alois Hölzel left the
family. From then on, Hölzel was raised by his mother and grandmother
and remained very close to them all his life.
[citation needed]
He left school at sixteen in 1973 due to absenteeism. His mother then
insisted he begin an apprenticeship with the Austrian employee pension
insurance institute, but this only lasted a short time.
At seventeen, he
volunteered for eight months of military service with the Austrian
army.
[citation needed]
He entered the Vienna Music Conservatory in 1977, but left after one
semester to "become a real musician".
For a short time, he lived in
West Berlin while singing in a
jazz-rock
band and exploring the club scene.
When he returned to Vienna he was
calling himself "Falco", reportedly in tribute to the East German ski
jumper
Falko Weißpflog
(he changed one letter to make the name more international), and
playing in the Austrian bands Spinning Wheel and Hallucination Company.
[citation needed]
En route to becoming an international rock star in his own right, he was bass player in the Austrian
hard rock-
punk rock band
Drahdiwaberl
(from 1978 until 1983).
With Drahdiwaberl he wrote and performed the
song "Ganz Wien" ("All of Vienna"), which he would also include on his
debut solo album,
Einzelhaft (
Solitary Confinement ).
He also played bass with the
space disco band
Ganymed in 1981.
[citation needed]
Individual success
At a Concert of Drahdiwaberl in 1981, Falco was discovered by
Austrian producer Markus Spiegel who offered him his first record
contract.
Falco's first hit was "
Der Kommissar" from the 1982 album
Einzelhaft. A German language song about
drug
consumption that combines rap verses with a sung chorus, Falco's record
was a number-one success in many countries but failed to break big in
the US.
The song, however, would prove to have a life of its own in two
English-language versions.
British rock band
After the Fire recorded an English
cover version,
somewhat loosely based on Falco's lyrics and also called "Der
Kommissar" (with "uh-oh", "ja, ja", "alles klar Herr Kommissar" and the
shout "cha" the only other lyrics held over from the original).
This
time, the song shot to number five in the United States (their only
major hit there) in 1983, though it failed to crack the UK Top 40.
That
same year, American singer
Laura Branigan recorded a version of the song with new English lyrics under the title "Deep in the Dark" on her album
Branigan 2.
After a second album,
Junge Römer (
Young Romans)
failed to provide a repeat to his debut single's success (outside of
Austria and Germany, where the album topped the charts), Falco began to
experiment with English lyrics in an effort to broaden his appeal, and
chose a new production team:
Bolland & Bolland. The result would be the most popular album and single of his career.
Falco recorded "
Rock Me Amadeus" inspired in part by the
Oscar-winning film
Amadeus,
and the song became a worldwide hit in 1986.
This time, his record
reached No. 1 in the US and UK, bringing him the success that had eluded
him in that major market a few years earlier.
The song remained in the
top spot of the
Billboard Hot 100 for three weeks and his album,
Falco 3
peaked at the number three position on the Billboard album charts
reached number six in the Billboard Top R&B Singles Chart.
Falco 3 peaked at number 18 on the
Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums
charts. Ultimately, "Rock Me Amadeus" went to the No. 1 spot in over a
dozen countries including Japan.
Follow-up single "Vienna Calling" was
another international pop hit, peaking at No. 18 of the Billboard Charts
and No. 17 on the US
Cash Box Charts in 1986. A double A-side 12" single featuring remixes of those two hits peaked at No. 4 on the US Dance/Disco charts.
[citation needed]
"
Jeanny", the third release from the album
Falco 3,
brought the performer back to the top of the charts across Europe.
Highly controversial when it was released in Germany and the
Netherlands, the story of "Jeanny" was told from the point of view of a
possible rapist and murderer.
Several DJs and radio stations refused to
play the ballad, which was ignored in the US, though it became a huge
hit in many European countries, and inspired a sequel on his next album.
In 1986, the album
Emotional was released, produced by Rob and Ferdi Bolland (
Bolland & Bolland).
Songs on the album included "Coming Home (Jeanny Part II, One Year Later)", "The Kiss of
Kathleen Turner", and "Kamikaze Capa" which was written as a tribute to the late photojournalist
Robert Capa. "
The Sound of Musik" was another international success, and a Top 20 US dance hit, though it failed to make the US pop charts.
[citation needed] .
In 1987 he went on the "Emotional" world tour ending in Japan. In the same year he sang a duet with
Brigitte Nielsen, "Body Next to Body"; the single was a Top 10 hit in the
Germanic countries.
The album
Wiener Blut (
Viennese Blood) was released in 1988 but it did not get much publicity outside Germany and Austria.
[citation needed]
In 1990, he wrote a song about
Cindy Crawford and
Tatjana Patitz, "Tanja P. not Cindy C.", which appeared on the album
Data de Groove.
[citation needed]
After 1986 there were a number of European hits, but Falco was rarely
heard in the US and the UK.
His 1992 comeback attempt, the album
Nachtflug (
Night Flight) including the song "Titanic", was successful in Austria only.
[2]
Death
Falco died of severe injuries received on 6 February 1998, 13 days before his 41st birthday, when his
Mitsubishi Pajero collided with a bus on the road linking the towns of
Villa Montellano and
Puerto Plata in the Dominican Republic.
It was determined that Falco was under the influence of alcohol and cocaine.
[3]
At the time of Falco's death, he was planning a comeback.
He was buried in the
Zentralfriedhof (Central Cemetery) in Vienna, Austria.
[4]
Tributes
In 1998,
Rob and Ferdi Bolland (Dutch producers and co-writers of about half of Falco's albums) released the EP
Tribute to Falco
under the name The Bolland Project feat. Alida. The title track
featured samples of Falco's music; the other tracks were "We Say
Goodbye" and "So Lonely".
The film
Falco – Verdammt, wir leben noch! was released in Austria on 7 February 2008, ten years and one day after Falco's death.
This title is also the name of
a posthumously-released album by Falco
which translates to "Damn, we're still alive!"
Written and directed by
Thomas Roth, the movie features musician Manuel Rubey as adult Johann
'Falco' Hölzel.
[5]
The end credits include the line "With love, Ferdi & Rob", his frequent collaborators the Bollands.
Falco's good friend
Niki Lauda named one of the Boeing airplanes in his
Lauda Air fleet "Falco" after the singer.
[6]
Although "
Der Kommissar" saw nearly contemporaneous and fairly straightforward mainstream covers including the loose translation by
After The Fire and the reinterpretation by
Laura Branigan, both in 1982/1983, Falco's song "
Rock Me Amadeus" has seen more frequent use.
The track has been sampled by groups including the
Bloodhound Gang, who also refer to Falco in their 1999 song "
Mope", and by German rapper
Fler in "NDW 2005" from
Neue Deutsche Welle.
The restaurant Marchfelderhof in Vienna, Austria, maintains a permanent reserved table for Falco.
[7]
Popular culture
"Rock Me Amadeus" has been frequently used as a comedic source in a
number of parody versions, films, television shows, and commercials.
In
1985 a parody version of "
Rock Me Amadeus" entitled "Rock Me Jerry Lewis" was credited to
Bud Latour and fellow
Phoenix, Arizona disc jockey,
Mike Elliott.
"Rock Me Jerry Lewis" climbed to Number 1 on The Dr. Demento's Funny
Five chart and grew to a notoriety that prompted mentions and airplay on
Casey Kasem's Top 40 Radio Show as well as a call from
Jerry Lewis himself.
Furthermore, Jerry Lewis would begin to use the song at his personal appearances and stage shows.
In 1986,
"Weird Al" Yankovic
included a portion of the song in the polka medley "Polka Party!", from
the album of the same name. The song and clips from the video were
portrayed in the animated series
The Brothers Grunt.
In
The Simpsons episode "
A Fish Called Selma" (1996), an offbeat variation is featured in a musical presentation of
Planet of the Apes with the repeated tag of "Amadeus, Amadeus" transferred to "
Dr. Zaius, Dr. Zaius".
A similar usage appears in another satirical US cartoon series,
Family Guy (season 4
episode 6, 2005).
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
featured a parody, "Iraq Me Dave Petraeus", as a musical intro to a
briefly recurring segment involving the US General's doctrine regarding
the war in 2007/2008.
[8]
The 1986 comedy
The Whoopee Boys featured one of the main characters singing
Rock Me Amadeus, in a scene involving a buffet dinner.
In 2012,
Boston Red Sox Catcher
Jarrod Saltalamacchia used the song as his at-bat song.
[9]
A later episode of
The Simpsons, "
Behind the Laughter", features
Willie Nelson saying, "Thank you,
Taco,
for that loving tribute to Falco," within another fictional tribute.
Falco has been referenced in the US satirical cartoon series
American Dad! and
The Tick.
The 2009 film
Adventureland
features "Rock Me Amadeus" multiple times as part of an amusement
park's background music, to the eventual disdain of its denizens.
In
2014, German metal band
Edguy included a cover version of "Rock Me Amadeus" in their album
Space Police: Defenders of the Crown.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (
German: [ˈvɔlfɡaŋ amaˈdeːʊs ˈmoːtsaʁt],
English see fn.;
[1] 27 January 1756 – 5 December 1791), baptised as
Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart,
[2] was a prolific and influential composer of the
Classical era.
Born in
Salzburg, Mozart showed prodigious ability from his earliest childhood. Already competent on
keyboard and
violin, he composed from the age of five and performed before European royalty.
At 17, Mozart was engaged as a musician at the Salzburg court, but
grew restless and traveled in search of a better position.
While
visiting
Vienna
in 1781, he was dismissed from his Salzburg position. He chose to stay
in the capital, where he achieved fame but little financial security.
During his final years in Vienna, he composed many of his best-known
symphonies, concertos, and operas, and portions of the
Requiem,
which was largely unfinished at the time of his death.
The
circumstances of his early death have been much mythologized. He was
survived by his wife
Constanze and two sons.
He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of
symphonic,
concertante,
chamber,
operatic, and
choral music.
He is among the most enduringly popular of
classical composers, and his influence on subsequent Western art music is profound.
Ludwig van Beethoven composed his own early works in the shadow of Mozart, and
Joseph Haydn wrote that "posterity will not see such a talent again in 100 years".
[3]
Life and career
Early life
Family and childhood
Anonymous portrait of the child Mozart, possibly by
Pietro Antonio Lorenzoni; painted in 1763 on commission from Leopold Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born on 27
January 1756 to
Leopold Mozart (1719–1787) and
Anna Maria, née Pertl (1720–1778), at
9 Getreidegasse in
Salzburg.
This was the capital of the
Archbishopric of Salzburg, an ecclesiastic principality in what is now
Austria, then part of the
Holy Roman Empire.
[4]
He was the youngest of seven children, five of whom died in infancy.
[5]
His elder sister was
Maria Anna (1751–1829), nicknamed "Nannerl". Mozart was baptized the day after his birth at
St. Rupert's Cathedral.
The baptismal record gives his name in Latinized form as
Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart.
He generally called himself "Wolfgang Amadè Mozart"
[6] as an adult, but
his name had many variants.
Leopold Mozart, a native of
Augsburg,
[7] was a minor composer and an experienced teacher.
In 1743, he was appointed as fourth violinist in the musical establishment of
Count Leopold Anton von Firmian, the ruling
Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg.
[8]
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 violin textbook,
Versuch einer gründlichen Violinschule, which achieved success.
[9]
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.[10]
These early pieces,
K. 1–5, were recorded in the
Nannerl Notenbuch.
There is some scholarly debate of whether Mozart was four or five
years old when he created his first musical compositions, though there
is little doubt that Mozart composed his first three pieces of music
within a few weeks of each other: KVs 1a,
[11] 1b
[12] and 1c.
[13]
Solomon notes that, while Leopold was a devoted teacher to his
children, there is evidence that Mozart was keen to progress beyond what
he was taught.
[14]
His first ink-spattered composition and his precocious efforts with the
violin were of his own initiative and came as a surprise to his father.
[15]
Leopold eventually gave up composing when his son's musical talents became evident.
[16]
In his early years, Mozart's father was his only teacher. Along with
music, he taught his children languages and academic subjects.
[14]
1762–73: Travel
During Mozart's youth, 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 the
Prince-elector Maximilian III
of Bavaria in Munich, and at the Imperial Court in Vienna and Prague.
A
long concert tour spanning three and a half years followed, taking the
family to the courts of Munich,
Mannheim, Paris, London,
[17] The Hague, again to Paris, and back home via Zurich,
Donaueschingen, and Munich.
[citation needed]
Mozart wrote his first symphony when he was eight years old. It is probable that his father transcribed most of it for him.
[18]
The Mozart family on tour: Leopold, Wolfgang, and Nannerl. Watercolor by
Carmontelle, ca.
1763
[19]
During this trip, Mozart met a number of musicians and acquainted
himself with the works of other composers.
A particularly important
influence was
Johann Christian Bach,
whom Mozart visited in London in 1764 and 1765.
The family again went
to Vienna in late 1767 and remained there until December 1768.
These trips were often difficult and travel conditions were primitive.
[20]
The family 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)
[21] then both children (The Hague, autumn 1765).
[22]
After one year in Salzburg, Leopold and Mozart set off for Italy,
leaving Mozart's mother and sister at home. This travel 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.
Mozart met
Josef Mysliveček and
Giovanni Battista Martini in
Bologna and was accepted as a member of the famous
Accademia Filarmonica.
In Rome, he heard
Gregorio Allegri's
Miserere twice in performance in the
Sistine Chapel and wrote it out from memory, thus producing the first unauthorized copy of this closely guarded property of the
Vatican.
[23][24]
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 later twice to Milan (August–December 1771;
October 1772 – March 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 in Italy, but these hopes were never realized.
[25]
Toward the end of the final Italian journey, Mozart wrote the first of his works to be still widely performed today, the solo
motet Exsultate, jubilate,
K. 165.
1773–77: Employment at the Salzburg court
Tanzmeisterhaus, Salzburg, Mozart family residence from 1773; reconstructed 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 a great number of friends and admirers in Salzburg
[26] and had the opportunity to work in many genres, including symphonies, sonatas, string quartets,
masses,
serenades, and a few minor operas.
Between April and December 1775,
Mozart developed an enthusiasm for violin concertos, producing a series
of five (the only ones he ever wrote), which steadily increased in their
musical sophistication.
The last three—
K. 216,
K. 218,
K. 219—are now staples of the repertoire.
In 1776 he turned his efforts to
piano concertos, culminating in the E-flat concerto
K. 271 of early 1777, considered by critics to be a breakthrough work.
[27]
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;
[28]
Mozart longed to compose operas, and Salzburg provided only rare
occasions for these.
The situation worsened in 1775 when the court
theater was closed, especially since the other theater in Salzburg was
largely reserved for visiting troupes.
[29]
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 6 December 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.
[30]
1777–78: Journey to Paris
In August 1777, Mozart resigned his position at Salzburg
[32] and on 23 September ventured out once more in search of employment, with visits to
Augsburg, Mannheim, Paris, and Munich.
[33]
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,
[34] and Mozart left for Paris on 14 March 1778
[35] 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.
[36]
He fell into debt and took to pawning valuables.
[37] The nadir of the visit occurred when Mozart's mother was taken ill and died on 3 July 1778.
[38]
There had been delays in calling a doctor—probably, according to Halliwell, because of a lack of funds.
[39]
Mozart stayed with
Melchior Grimm, who, as personal secretary of the
Duke d'Orléans, lived in his mansion.
[40]
While Mozart was in Paris his father was pursuing opportunities of employment for him in Salzburg.
[41]
With the support of the local nobility, Mozart was offered a post as
court organist and concertmaster. The annual salary was 450 florins,
[42] but he was reluctant to accept.
[43]
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.
[44]
Mozart finally returned to Salzburg on 15 January 1779 and took up his
new appointment, but his discontent with Salzburg remained undiminished.
[45]
Among the better known works which Mozart wrote on the Paris journey are the
A minor piano sonata, K. 310/300d and the
"Paris" Symphony (No. 31), which were performed in Paris on 12 and 18 June 1778.
[46]
Vienna
1781: Departure
The Mozart family c. 1780. The portrait on the wall is of Mozart's mother.
In January 1781, Mozart's opera
Idomeneo premiered with "considerable success" in Munich.
[47]
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.
Fresh from the adulation he had earned in
Munich, Mozart was offended when Colloredo treated him as a mere servant
and particularly when the archbishop forbade him to perform before the
Emperor at
Countess Thun's
for a fee equal to half of his yearly Salzburg salary.
The resulting
quarrel came to a head in May: Mozart attempted to resign and was
refused.
The following month, permission was granted but in a grossly
insulting way: the composer was dismissed literally "with a kick in the
arse", administered by the archbishop's steward, Count Arco. Mozart
decided to settle in Vienna as a freelance performer and composer.
[48]
The quarrel with the archbishop went harder for Mozart because his
father sided against him. Hoping fervently that he would obediently
follow Colloredo back to Salzburg, Mozart's father exchanged intense
letters with his son, urging him to be reconciled with their employer.
Mozart passionately defended his intention to pursue an independent
career in Vienna. The debate ended when Mozart was dismissed by the
archbishop, freeing himself both of his employer and his father's
demands to return.
Solomon characterizes Mozart's resignation as a
"revolutionary step", and it greatly altered the course of his life.
[49]
Early years
Mozart's new career in Vienna began well.
He performed often as a pianist, notably in a competition before the Emperor with
Muzio Clementi on 24 December 1781,
[48] and he soon "had established himself as the finest keyboard player in Vienna".
[48]
He also prospered as a composer, and in 1782 completed the opera
Die Entführung aus dem Serail
("The Abduction from the Seraglio"), which premiered on 16 July 1782
and achieved a huge success.
The work was soon being performed
"throughout German-speaking Europe",
[48] and fully established Mozart's reputation as a composer.
Near the height of his quarrels with Colloredo, Mozart moved in with
the Weber family, who had moved to Vienna from Mannheim.
The father,
Fridolin, had died, and the Webers were now taking in lodgers to make
ends meet.
[50]
Aloysia, who had earlier rejected Mozart's suit, was now married to the actor and artist
Joseph Lange.
Mozart's interest shifted to the third Weber daughter,
Constanze.
The courtship did not go entirely smoothly; surviving correspondence
indicates that Mozart and Constanze briefly separated in April 1782.
[51]
Mozart faced a very difficult task in getting his father's permission for the marriage.
[52]
The couple were finally married on 4 August 1782 in
St. Stephen's Cathedral, the day before his father's consent arrived in the mail.
[52]
The couple had six children, of whom only two survived infancy:
- Raimund Leopold (17 June – 19 August 1783)
- Karl Thomas Mozart (21 September 1784 – 31 October 1858)
- Johann Thomas Leopold (18 October – 15 November 1786)
- Theresia Constanzia Adelheid Friedericke Maria Anna (27 December 1787 – 29 June 1788)
- Anna Maria (died soon after birth, 16 November 1789)[53]
- Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart (26 July 1791 – 29 July 1844)
In the course of 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
Baroque style, and later influenced his personal musical language, for
example in
fugal passages in
Die Zauberflöte ("The Magic Flute") and the finale of
Symphony No. 41.
[8]
In 1783, Mozart and his wife visited his family in Salzburg.
His
father and sister were cordially polite to Constanze, but the visit
prompted the composition of one of Mozart's great liturgical pieces, the
Mass in C minor.
Though not completed, it was premiered in Salzburg, with Constanze singing a solo part.
[54]
Mozart met
Joseph Haydn
in Vienna around 1784, and the two composers became friends. When Haydn
visited Vienna, they sometimes played together in an impromptu
string quartet.
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.
[55]
Haydn in 1785 told Mozart's father: "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."
[56]
From 1782 to 1785 Mozart mounted concerts with himself as soloist,
presenting three or four new piano concertos in each season.
Since space
in the theaters was scarce, he booked unconventional venues: a large
room in the Trattnerhof (an apartment building), and the ballroom of the
Mehlgrube (a restaurant).
[57]
The concerts were very popular, and the
concertos he premiered at them
are still firm fixtures in the repertoire. Solomon writes that during
this period 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".
[57]
With substantial returns from his concerts and elsewhere, Mozart and
his wife adopted a rather plush lifestyle.
They moved to an expensive
apartment, with a yearly rent of 460 florins.
[58] Mozart bought a fine
fortepiano from
Anton Walter for about 900 florins, and a
billiard table for about 300.
[58]
The Mozarts sent their son
Karl Thomas to an expensive boarding school,
[59][60]
and kept servants. Saving was therefore impossible, and the short
period of financial success did nothing to soften the hardship the
Mozarts were later to experience.
[61][62]
On 14 December 1784, Mozart became a
Freemason, admitted to the lodge Zur Wohltätigkeit ("Beneficence").
[63]
Freemasonry played an important role in the remainder of Mozart's life:
he attended meetings, a number of his friends were Masons, and on
various occasions he composed Masonic music, e. g. the
Maurerische Trauermusik.
[citation needed]
1786–87: Return to opera
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
[64][page needed] and began his famous operatic collaboration with the
librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte.
1786 saw the successful premiere of
The Marriage of Figaro in Vienna. Its reception in
Prague later in the year was even warmer, and this led to a second collaboration with Da Ponte: the opera
Don Giovanni, which premiered in October 1787 to acclaim in Prague, but less success in Vienna in 1788.
[65]
The two are among Mozart's most important works and are mainstays of
the operatic repertoire today, though at their premieres their musical
complexity caused difficulty for both listeners and performers.
These
developments were not witnessed by Mozart's father, who had died on 28
May 1787.
[citation needed]
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
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.
This modest income became important to Mozart when hard times arrived.
Court records show that Joseph's aim was to keep the esteemed composer
from leaving Vienna in pursuit of better prospects.
[66]
In 1787 the young
Ludwig van Beethoven spent several weeks in Vienna, hoping to study with Mozart.
[67] No reliable records survive to indicate
whether the two composers ever met.
Later years
1788–90
Toward the end of the decade, Mozart's circumstances worsened. Around
1786 he had ceased to appear frequently in public concerts, and his
income shrank.
[68]
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.
[64]
By mid-1788, Mozart and his family had moved from central Vienna to the suburb of
Alsergrund.
[68]
Although it has been thought that Mozart reduced his rental expenses,
research shows that by moving to the suburb, Mozart had not reduced his
expenses (as claimed in his letter to
Puchberg), but merely increased the housing space at his disposal.
[69]
Mozart began to borrow money, most often from his friend and fellow Mason
Michael Puchberg; "a pitiful sequence of letters pleading for loans" survives.
[70]
Maynard Solomon and others have suggested that Mozart was suffering from depression, and it seems that his output slowed.
[71]
Major works of the period include the last three symphonies (Nos.
39,
40, and
41, all from 1788), and the last of the three Da Ponte operas,
Così fan tutte, premiered in 1790.
Around this time, Mozart made long journeys hoping to improve his fortunes: to
Leipzig,
Dresden, and Berlin in the spring of 1789, and to
Frankfurt,
Mannheim, and other German cities in 1790.
The trips produced only
isolated success and did not relieve the family's financial distress.
[citation needed]
1791
Mozart's last year was, until his final illness struck, a time of
great productivity—and by some accounts, one of personal recovery.
[72]
He composed a great deal, including some of his most admired works: the opera
The Magic Flute; the final piano concerto (
K. 595 in B-flat); the
Clarinet Concerto K. 622; the last in his great series of string quintets (
K. 614 in E-flat); the motet
Ave verum corpus K. 618; and the unfinished
Requiem K. 626.
Mozart's financial situation, a source of extreme anxiety in 1790,
finally began to improve. Although the evidence is inconclusive,
[73]
it appears that wealthy patrons in Hungary and Amsterdam pledged
annuities to Mozart in return for the occasional composition.
He is
thought to have benefited from the sale of dance music written in his
role as Imperial chamber composer.
[73]
Mozart no longer borrowed large sums from Puchberg, and made a start on paying off his debts.
[73]
He experienced great satisfaction in the public success of some of his works, notably
The Magic Flute (which was performed several times in the short period between its premiere and Mozart's death)
[74] and the Little Masonic Cantata K. 623, premiered on 15 November 1791.
[75]
Final illness and death
Mozart fell ill while in Prague for the 6 September 1791 premiere of his opera
La clemenza di Tito, written in that same year on commission for the Emperor's coronation festivities.
[76]
He continued his professional functions for some time, and conducted the premiere of
The Magic Flute
on 30 September. His health deteriorated on 20 November, at which point
he became bedridden, suffering from swelling, pain, and vomiting.
[77]
Mozart was nursed in his final illness by his wife and her youngest
sister, and was attended by the family doctor, Thomas Franz Closset.
He
was mentally occupied with the task of finishing his
Requiem, but the evidence that he actually dictated passages to his student
Franz Xaver Süssmayr is minimal.
[78][79]
Mozart died in his home on 5 December 1791 (aged 35) at 1:00 am. 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 7 December. If, as later reports say, no mourners
attended, that too is consistent with Viennese burial customs at the
time; later 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.[80]
The expression "common grave" refers to neither a communal grave nor a
pauper's grave, but to an individual grave for a member of the common
people (i.e., not the aristocracy).
Common graves were subject to
excavation after ten years; the graves of aristocrats were not.
[81]
The cause of Mozart's death cannot be known with certainty. The
official record has it as "hitziges Frieselfieber" ("severe miliary
fever", referring to a rash that looks like
millet seeds), more a description of the symptoms than a diagnosis.
Researchers have posited at least 118 causes of death, including acute
rheumatic fever,
[82][83] streptococcal infection,
[84][85] trichinosis,
[86] influenza,
mercury poisoning, and a rare
kidney ailment.
[82]
Mozart's modest funeral did not reflect his standing with the public
as a composer: memorial services and concerts in Vienna and Prague were
well-attended. Indeed, in the period immediately after his death, his
reputation rose substantially: Solomon describes an "unprecedented wave
of enthusiasm"
[87] for his work;
biographies were written (first by
Schlichtegroll,
Niemetschek, and
Nissen); and publishers vied to produce complete editions of his works.
[87]
Appearance and character
Incompletely enlarged
[88] portrait of Mozart by his brother-in-law Joseph Lange
Mozart's physical appearance was described by tenor
Michael Kelly, in his
Reminiscences:
"a remarkably small man, very thin and pale, with a profusion of fine,
fair hair of which he was rather vain".
His early biographer Niemetschek
wrote, "there was nothing special about [his] physique. [...] He was
small and his countenance, except for his large intense eyes, gave no
signs of his genius."
His facial complexion was pitted, a reminder of
his
childhood case of smallpox. He loved elegant clothing. Kelly remembered him at a rehearsal: "[He] was on the stage with his crimson
pelisse and gold-laced
cocked hat,
giving the time of the music to the orchestra."
Of his voice his wife
later wrote that it "was a tenor, rather soft in speaking and delicate
in singing, but when anything excited him, or it became necessary to
exert it, it was both powerful and energetic".
[89]
Mozart usually worked long and hard, finishing compositions at a
tremendous pace as deadlines approached.
He often made sketches and
drafts; unlike Beethoven's these are mostly not preserved, as his wife
sought to destroy them after his death.
[90]
He was raised a Catholic and remained a loyal member of the Church throughout his life.
[91]
Mozart lived at the center of the Viennese musical world, and knew a
great number and variety of people: fellow musicians, theatrical
performers, fellow Salzburgers, and aristocrats, including some
acquaintance with the Emperor
Joseph II.
Solomon considers his three closest friends to have been Gottfried von
Jacquin, Count August Hatzfeld, and Sigmund Barisani; others included
his older colleague
Joseph Haydn, singers
Franz Xaver Gerl and
Benedikt Schack, and the horn player
Joseph Leutgeb.
Leutgeb and Mozart carried on a curious kind of friendly mockery, often with Leutgeb as the butt of Mozart's
practical jokes.
[92]
He enjoyed
billiards and dancing, and kept pets: a canary, a
starling, a dog, and a horse for recreational riding.
[93]
He had a startling fondness for
scatological humor, which is preserved in his surviving letters, notably those written to his cousin
Maria Anna Thekla Mozart around 1777–1778, and in his correspondence with his sister and parents.
[94]
Mozart also wrote scatological music, a series of
canons that he sang with his friends.
[95]
Religious views of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Works, musical style, and innovations
Style
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Both performed by the Fulda Symphonic Orchestra, Conductor: Simon Schindler
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Mozart's music, like
Haydn's, stands as an archetype of the Classical style. At the time he began composing, European music was dominated by the
style galant, a reaction against the highly evolved intricacy of the
Baroque.
Progressively, and in large part at the hands of Mozart himself, the
contrapuntal complexities of the late Baroque emerged once more, moderated and disciplined by new
forms, and adapted to a new aesthetic and social milieu.
Mozart was a versatile composer, and wrote in every major genre, including
symphony, opera, the solo concerto, chamber music including
string quartet and
string quintet, and the piano
sonata.
These forms were not new, but Mozart advanced their technical
sophistication and emotional reach.
He almost single-handedly developed
and popularized the Classical
piano concerto. He wrote a great deal of
religious music, including large-scale
masses, as well as dances,
divertimenti,
serenades, and other forms of light entertainment.
[citation needed]
The central traits of the Classical style are all present in Mozart's
music. Clarity, balance, and transparency are the hallmarks of his
work, but simplistic notions of its delicacy mask the exceptional power
of his finest masterpieces, such as the
Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor, K. 491; the
Symphony No. 40 in G minor, K. 550; and the opera
Don Giovanni.
Charles Rosen makes the point forcefully:
It is only through recognizing the violence and sensuality at the
center of Mozart's work that we can make a start towards a comprehension
of his structures and an insight into his magnificence. In a
paradoxical way, Schumann's superficial characterization of the G minor Symphony
can help us to see Mozart's daemon more steadily. In all of Mozart's
supreme expressions of suffering and terror, there is something
shockingly voluptuous.[96]
Especially during his last decade, Mozart exploited
chromatic harmony to a degree rare at the time, with remarkable assurance and to great artistic effect.
[citation needed]
Mozart always had a gift for absorbing and adapting valuable features
of others' music. His travels helped in the forging of a unique
compositional language.
[97]
In London as a child, he met
J. C. Bach
and heard his music. In Paris, Mannheim, and Vienna he met with other
compositional influences, as well as the avant-garde capabilities of the
Mannheim orchestra.
In Italy he encountered the
Italian overture and
opera buffa,
both of which deeply affected the evolution of his own practice.
In
London and Italy, the galant style was in the ascendent: simple, light
music with a mania for
cadencing;
an emphasis on tonic, dominant, and subdominant to the exclusion of
other harmonies; symmetrical phrases; and clearly articulated partitions
in the overall form of movements.
[98]
Some of Mozart's early symphonies are
Italian overtures, with three movements running into each other; many are
homotonal (all three movements having the same key signature, with the slow middle movement being in the
relative minor). Others mimic the works of J. C. Bach, and others show the simple
rounded binary forms turned out by Viennese composers.
A facsimile sheet of music from the Dies Irae movement of the
Requiem Mass in D minor (K. 626) in Mozart's own handwriting. It is located at the
Mozarthaus in Vienna.
As Mozart matured, he progressively incorporated more features adapted from the Baroque. For example, the
Symphony No. 29 in A major
K. 201 has a contrapuntal main theme in its first movement, and
experimentation with irregular phrase lengths.
Some of his quartets from
1773 have fugal finales, probably influenced by Haydn, who had included
three such finales in his recently published Opus 20 set.
The influence
of the
Sturm und Drang ("Storm and Stress") period in music, with its brief foreshadowing of the
Romantic era, is evident in the music of both composers at that time. Mozart's
Symphony No. 25 in G minor K. 183 is another excellent example.
Mozart would sometimes switch his focus between operas and
instrumental music. He produced operas in each of the prevailing styles:
opera buffa, such as
The Marriage of Figaro,
Don Giovanni, and
Così fan tutte;
opera seria, such as
Idomeneo; and
Singspiel, of which
Die Zauberflöte
is the most famous example by any composer.
In his later operas he
employed subtle changes in instrumentation, orchestral texture, and
tone color,
for emotional depth and to mark dramatic shifts.
Here his advances in
opera and instrumental composing interacted: his increasingly
sophisticated use of the orchestra in the symphonies and concertos
influenced his operatic orchestration, and his developing subtlety in
using the orchestra to psychological effect in his operas was in turn
reflected in his later non-operatic compositions.
[99]
Influence
Mozart's most famous pupil, whom the Mozarts took into their Vienna home for two years as a child, was probably
Johann Nepomuk Hummel, a transitional figure between Classical and Romantic eras.
[100]
More important is the influence Mozart had on composers of later
generations. Ever since the surge in his reputation after his death,
studying his scores has been a standard part of the training of
classical musicians.
Ludwig van Beethoven,
Mozart's junior by fifteen years, was deeply influenced by his work,
with which he was acquainted as a teenager. He is thought to have
performed Mozart's operas while playing in the court orchestra at
Bonn,
[101] and he traveled to Vienna in 1787 hoping to study with the older composer.
Some of
Beethoven's works have direct models in comparable works by Mozart, and he wrote
cadenzas (
WoO 58) to Mozart's D minor piano concerto
K. 466. For further details see
Mozart and Beethoven.
A number of composers have paid homage to Mozart by writing sets of
variations on his themes.
Beethoven wrote four such sets (Op. 66, WoO 28, WoO 40, WoO 46). Others include
Fernando Sor's
Introduction and Variations on a Theme by Mozart (1821),
Mikhail Glinka's Variations on a Theme from Mozart's Opera "
Die Zauberflöte" (1822),
Frédéric Chopin's
Variations on "Là ci darem la mano" from
Don Giovanni (1827), and
Max Reger's
Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Mozart (1914), based on the variation theme in the piano sonata
K. 331;
[102]
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky wrote his Orchestral Suite No. 4 in G,
Mozartiana (1887), as a tribute to Mozart.
Köchel catalogue
For unambiguous identification of works by Mozart, a
Köchel catalogue number
is used.
This is a unique number assigned, in regular chronological
order, to every one of his known works. A work is referenced by the
abbreviation "K." or "KV" followed by this number.
The first edition of
the catalogue was completed in 1862 by
Ludwig von Köchel.
It has since been repeatedly updated, as scholarly research improves
knowledge of the dates and authenticity of individual works.
Source: Wikipedia.org
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