Volume 9–2 (Low Res).pdf

OLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART. Anna and
Leopold Mozart were happy to announce his
birth in Salzburg on January 27,1756. Joseph
Haydn was happy to be his friend. Franz
Schubert was happy to listen to his music.
Ludwig van Beethoven (who was rarely happy) smiled with
admiration when he heard Mozart's name.
Mozart himself was a mostly happy fellow. He started
playing the piano and violin when he was four years old, and
he became amazingly expert at it because he liked music. It
was his life. When he was five, he began to compose music.
He never stopped until the night he died in December, 1791.
Wolfgang came from what was then called the "lower
classes," but he was a"high-class" guy. He toured the castles
and concert halls of Europe, and in the process, he performed
for kings, princes, and counts. He really preferred being with
"The People." In his time, musicians were considered to be
on the same level as servants. Music—Mozart's music—was
for the rich only, since they were the ones who paid for it.
Mozart put up with that idea only when he had no
other choice: when he needed the money, or when he really
wanted to work for the enjoyment it gave him. Much of his
short life was spent seeking to answer the problem ofchoice.
He wanted to build his name and reputation to the point
where he would be immune to these social stratifications and monetary naggings. He never
did beat the system. (Beethoven did, however, finally accomplish this in his later life by
making himself a reputation as being a wild man if he were crossed.)
But, in total, Mozart had a good life. He was a plain-looking man in the Woody Allen
style. He was short, of medium build, pale, and he had thinning hair under his powdered
wigs. Clothes were a necessity, not a passion. He wasn't robust, yet he survived scarlet fever
and the rigorous travels he made all around Europe under the hard conditions of the times.
He loved good food and wine, good friends and conversation, and working hard as
a composer/performer. Throughout his life, Wolfgang wrote an unceasing flow of urbane
letters to his family and friends, in which he revealed his earthy humor, insight, compas-
sion, and intelligence. Through them we can see the world as he did and better under-
stand his feelings about music and life. He was surely a genius with whom we can all
identify because he was very human.
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