Free Essays on Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born on January 27, 1756 and died December 5, 1791. (Solomon pg.1) He showed many musical talents at a very early age, composing when he was five and when he was six playing before the Bavarian elector and the Austrian empress. Mozart astonished his audiences with his precocious skills when he played to the French and English royal families. (www.Stringsinthemountains.org) The family arrived home late in 1766; nine months later they were off again, to Vienna, where hopes of having an opera by Mozart performed were frustrated by intrigues. His family spent 1769 in Salzburg; 1770-73 saw three visits to Italy, where Mozart wrote two operas, Mitridate and Lucio Silla, and a serenata for performance in Milan. (Solomon pg.77) Summer 1773 he saw another visit to Vienna, probably in the hope of securing a position. When he was there Mozart wrote a set of string quartets and wrote a group of symphonies including his two earliest, nos.25 in g Minor and 29 in A. (Hutchings pg.41) The period from 1774 to mid-1777 was spent in Salzburg, where Mozart worked as Konzertmeister at the Prince- Archbishop's court; his works of these years include masses, symphonies, all his violin concertos, six piano sonatas, several serenades and divertimentos, and his first great piano concerto. (Hutchings pg.42) In 1777 Mozart’s family, seeing limited opportunity in Salzburg for a composer so hugely gifted, resolved to seek another place for Wolfgang. He was sent, with his mother, to Munich and to Mannheim, but was offered no position, but he stayed over four months at Mannheim, composing for piano and flute and falling in love with Aloysia Weber. (Solomon pg.113) His father then dispatched him to Paris. While he was there he had minor successes, notably with his Paris Symphony, no.31, which he designed for the local taste. Prospects there were poor and his father made him come home, where a superior positi... Free Essays on Mozart Free Essays on Mozart Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born on January 27, 1756 and died December 5, 1791. (Solomon pg.1) He showed many musical talents at a very early age, composing when he was five and when he was six playing before the Bavarian elector and the Austrian empress. Mozart astonished his audiences with his precocious skills when he played to the French and English royal families. (www.Stringsinthemountains.org) The family arrived home late in 1766; nine months later they were off again, to Vienna, where hopes of having an opera by Mozart performed were frustrated by intrigues. His family spent 1769 in Salzburg; 1770-73 saw three visits to Italy, where Mozart wrote two operas, Mitridate and Lucio Silla, and a serenata for performance in Milan. (Solomon pg.77) Summer 1773 he saw another visit to Vienna, probably in the hope of securing a position. When he was there Mozart wrote a set of string quartets and wrote a group of symphonies including his two earliest, nos.25 in g Minor and 29 in A. (Hutchings pg.41) The period from 1774 to mid-1777 was spent in Salzburg, where Mozart worked as Konzertmeister at the Prince- Archbishop's court; his works of these years include masses, symphonies, all his violin concertos, six piano sonatas, several serenades and divertimentos, and his first great piano concerto. (Hutchings pg.42) In 1777 Mozart’s family, seeing limited opportunity in Salzburg for a composer so hugely gifted, resolved to seek another place for Wolfgang. He was sent, with his mother, to Munich and to Mannheim, but was offered no position, but he stayed over four months at Mannheim, composing for piano and flute and falling in love with Aloysia Weber. (Solomon pg.113) His father then dispatched him to Paris. While he was there he had minor successes, notably with his Paris Symphony, no.31, which he designed for the local taste. Prospects there were poor and his father made him come home, where a superior positi... Free Essays on Mozart How did the great Depression of the 1930’s change the values and outlook of Americans? Although the Great Depression of the 1930’s brought forth many economic hardships, Americans faced these obstacles as an opportunity to improve their social conditions. People worked harder than ever and faced adversity with confidence. According to many, â€Å"American social values changed relatively little in response to the depression.† Many working people realized that they were out of employment. As a result of their discontent, most of them placed the blame on the economic system. On the other hand, many were willing to blame themselves. They thought of themselves as â€Å"personal failures,† yet they were willing to go out and restore themselves economically. There were many men who ran away from home as a result of not being able to provide for their families. Many simply committed suicide. They could not bare the humiliation of not being a proper husband/ provider. Amidst the economic downturn, many families sought time to spend together. Through board games, listening to the radio, or by going to the movies, families created stronger bonds. Divorce rates went down as well; mostly due to its high prices. This shows the willingness of people to look at the brighter side of their marriages, and set their differences aside. Anything that could be done to save money was well worth it. The depression encouraged family members to turn â€Å"toward each other with greater, more intelligent interdependence. They depended on each other for emotional and physical support. Furthermore, families continued to act upon their beliefs. For example, the Lefever family of York, Pennsylvania, believed that, â€Å"They were put on this earth to help others.† By no means was the Lefever family wealthy, on the contrary, Mr. Lefever worked half-time for twenty dollars a week. In spite of the fact that they lived sparsely, the family always rem... Free Essays on Mozart Mozart Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in Salzburg in Austria on January 27th, 1756. The son of Leopold, Kapellmeister to the Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg, he was christened Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart. By the age of three he could play the piano, and he was composing by the time he was five; minuets from this period show remarkable understanding of form. Mozart's elder sister Maria Anna (best known as Nannerl) was also a gifted keyboard player, and in 1762 their father took the two prodigies on a short performing tour, of the courts at Vienna and Munich. Encouraged by their reception, the next year they went on a longer tour, including two weeks at Versailles, where the children enchanted Louis XV. In 1764 they arrived in London. Here Mozart wrote his first three symphonies, under the influence of Johann Christian Bach, youngest son of Johann Sebastian, who lived in the city. After their return to Salzburg there followed three tr ips to Italy between 1769 and 1773. In Rome Mozart heard a performance of Allegri's Misere; the score of this work was closely guarded, but Mozart managed to transcribe the music almost perfectly from memory. On Mozart's first visit to Milan, his opera Mitridate, rà © di Ponto was successfully produced, followed on a subsequent visit by Lucia Silla. The latter showed signs of the rich, full orchestration that characterizes his later operas. A trip to Vienna in 1773 failed to produce the court appointment that both Mozart and his father wished for him, but did introduce Mozart to the influence of Haydn, whose Sturm und Drang string quartets (Opus 20) had recently been published. The influence is clear in Mozart's six string quartets, K168-173, and in his Symphony in G minor, K183. Another trip in search of patronage ended unhappily. Accompanied by his mother, Mozart left Salzburg in 1777, travelling through Mannheim to Paris. But in July 1778 his moth... Free Essays on Mozart Looking back we have come to recognize Mozart as undoubtedly one of the brightest musical minds that we have ever studied, but our picture of Mozart depends upon where we focus. Was he a brilliant, successful composer or a child prodigy who never grew up? Was he a facile composer who created nothing original or a composer of great emotional depth? He was all of these and more. For many of us, our focus is guided by our exposure to Mozart's personality in the film Amadeus, but is that an accurate picture? Mozart's life remains a complicated puzzle. As a child, he seemed gifted beyond all measure, playing at age six before the empress, and composing at an even earlier age. By twelve he had written an opera, and his talents seemed to know no bounds. From this auspicious beginning, one would have predicted a future filled with prestigious royal appointments, the brilliant composer and performer constantly sought out by emperors and kings. But his career, which ended tragically with his death at age thirty-five, was a constant disappointment. When once asked about a meager court appointment he held, Mozart replied: "I get paid far too much for what I do, and far too little for what I could do." His music did not always please those in power: "Too many notes," Emperor Joseph II was reported to have said. And Mozart himself, who always felt that his talents were never adequately recognized, was often difficult. The difficulties of Mozart the man, however, are eclipsed by the enormous power of Mozart the musician. His music was often joyous and almost raucous, and yet he could also write melodies of simple and haunting beauty. Like Haydn and Beethoven, Mozart was just as comfortable writing simple, direct melodies as he was writing complicated contrapuntal works. There seems to have been no genre in which he was not comfortable, and we can rightly point to his best work in any of them as the epitome of that genre. Mozart later quoted:...