27th January 2019
wolfgang amadeus mozart
Or Wolferl, that's how his father called him, was born today 27th January 263 years ago, in 1756 in Salzburg, Austria, where his father Leopold was a violinist and a composer. At the age of 3, he saw how his father taught music to his sister Anna Maria, and asked him to teach him too. "You're still too young Wolferl, when you are older I will teach you".
But he didn't give up and one day, when his sister finished her lesson, he sat at the clavichord (a kind of piano from that period) and repeated the lesson that his father just had told to Anna. It was at that moment when Leopold got amazed by the young Mozart and started to give him lessons too.
Mozart learned very very fast, and before being 5 years old he had already composed his first pieces. At the age of 6, he even played not only the clavichord but also the violin! Together with his sister Anna Maria, who was also talented, and his father, they traveled through Europe giving concerts to the nobility.
His successes had only started. At the age of 10, he composed his first symphony and at the age of 12 his first opera. With all of this, he got a job as a court musician in Salzburg, his city. Later, when he was 25 he moved to Vienna, where he got married, had children, and composed the majority of his most famous works, like the Magic Flute or the string quartets.
His life was very short: he got sick and dead at the age of 35, on the 5th December
1791 in Vienna. Short before his death, he had been busy with the composition of
his R e q u i e m, that could not be finished and his student Franz Xaver Süssmayr
did it for him.
Let's talk about music...
Curiosity!
Mozart loved games, he knew many card tricks. He was also an animal lover and had many pets!
Although we don't know about any cello solo works by Mozart, we can perform his works in an orchestra, string quartet or quintet, or in his trios.
Let's listen for instance to the piano concerto num. 24 in C minor:
Interesting data
It's the piano concert in which he uses more instruments from the orchestra. In the première, he himself played the piano part.
Una altra de les seves obres més conegudes avui dia és el Requiem en re menor. Potser la part més famosa és el Lacrimosa, que podeu escoltar en aquest vídeo:
The legend
One day, a hooded man went to his house and ordered him to write the Requiem. Mozart, already sick, believed that the hooded man was a faith messenger and that he had to write the Requiem for his own funeral.
Finally, you have probably heard about the Magic Flute, one of the most popular operas by Mozart, together with Don Giovanni. Let's listen to the aria "Queen of the Night":
Curiosity!
Mozart wrote those high notes for the soprano because the role would be performed by his sister in law, and he knew that she would be able to sing that high.
Activities
Here you can do some activities to learn more about Mozart. Choose the one that you like the most (you only have to do one, the one you prefer!) and fill in the form to send me the answer by email. If you did the drawing, put it in the file and we will watch it in our lesson!
1. Listen to the three works and make a list of minimum 4 instruments that appear in the three of them.
2. Imagine a 3-year-old Mozart sitting at the clavichord and make a drawing of it. Search on the internet how does a clavichord look to have an idea (look at the color of the keys!). Listen to the three videos to get inspired to be into the time period.
3. Listen to the piano concerto up to the minute 4:34, the Lacrimosa and the "Queen of the Night" aria, and make a dynamics graphics for each fragment, similar to this one:
4. Match the following sentences to each piece of music that you listened to (take care that each sentence can be true for more than one music piece!):
Only the string section starts - there's a soloist - the text is in Latin - the conductor and the soloist is the same person - in 00:58 we hear a oboe solo - multiple characters appear - at the end the lyrics say "amen"