Loading summary
Transcript56 lines
- [00:03]
Depop Advertiser
Kids, they grow up so fast. One day they're taking their first steps and the next they don't fit into the tiny sneakers they took them in. You blink your eyes and their princess dress is two sizes too small. And their dinosaur backpack isn't cool anymore. But don't cry because they're growing up. Smile because you can profit off of it. For real. There are a bunch of parents on depop looking for the stuff your kid just grew out of. Download depop to start selling.
- [00:33]
MGM Series Narrator
John Legend, Sheryl Crow, Elvis Costello and Alanis Morissette star in the MGM Original series Words and Music. Iconic artists share intimate performances and the stories behind the songs. New episodes, Sundays on mgm. This episode is brought to you by Jack Daniels. Jack Daniels and music are made for each other. They share a rhythm in the craft of making something timeless while being a part of legendary nights. From backyard jams to sold out arenas, there's a song in every toast. Please drink responsibly. Responsibility.org, jack Daniels and Old Number 7 are registered trademarks. Tennessee Whiskey, 40% alcohol by volume. Jack Daniel Distillery, Lynchburg, Tennessee.
- [01:19]
Coca Cola Advertiser
Coca Cola for the big, for the small, the short and the tall. Peacemakers, risk takers for the optimists, pessimists for long distance love for introverts and extroverts, the thinkers and the doers for old friends and new Coca Cola for everyone. Pick up some Coca Cola at a store near you.
- [01:53]
Lauren Good
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozarts is celebrated for his musical genius. But how did he rise to fame? What inspired him? And what was he like as a man beyond the concert halls and compositions? In conversation with Lauren Good for this episode of History Extra's Life of the Week series, Musicologist and cultural historian Hannah Templeton explores the life of Mozart, tracing his journey from a child prodigy on European tours to the mystery surrounding his death.
- [02:25]
Hi Hannah. Thank you for joining me today for our Life of the Week series. This week we'll be exploring the life and work of one of the most iconic names in musical history, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Let's start at the very beginning. When and where was Mozart born?
- [02:43]
Hannah Templeton
He was born on 27 January in 1756 in Salzburg. His parents had seven children, but only two survived. So he had an older sister called Nannel Mozart, who was five years old and then he was the seventh. But all of the other children died when they were infants, when they were babies. Still, his father was a court composer as well. He was a really highly educated man. He was an intellectual. Before Mozart was born, he'd written A whole like Violin Treatise, which had been published in several different languages. And then Leopold Mozart oversaw his children's whole education. So he taught his children everything they knew musically. Also, they were educated in maths, languages, religion. They were a Catholic family. They were very religious family, reading. So he was a very educated man and he ensured that his children were as well.
- [03:32]
Lauren Good
Mozart began showing his musical ability from a very young age. When did he begin learning to play instruments?
- [03:39]
Hannah Templeton
So Nannel, because she was five years older, she was already having keyboard tuition from her dad. And he had like, he kept a notebook where he'd write out pieces for her to play. So that is actually how Wolfgang started to play as well, because he'd hear them playing and his sister practice. So from when he was three years old, he could play simple pieces on the keyboard. And very quickly he started to progress. And Leopold realized that he was really gifted. And I think he composed his earliest pieces by 4 or 5 years old. And then when he was 5, then they went on tour to Vienna and played for the Empress Maria Theresa. And that early period was really successful for them in terms of their impressive capabilities. So he. Yeah, from a really young age, he started to show really, like, prodigious musical talent.
- [04:26]
Lauren Good
I mean, composing music at the age of five is pretty impressive.
- [04:30]
Hannah Templeton
It is. And I mean, we have to remember as well that it was very much. His father was tutoring him. So right up until he was a teenager, there was rarely a piece of music he composed that Leopold hadn't maybe made some corrections in. And you can see that sort of tuition going on from the scores from the manuscript of his compositions. So it was when he was very young, it was a very heavily overseen process. But certainly he was all the time experimenting with ideas and taking on what his. His father was teaching him. And so it is astounding, really, isn't it?
- [05:02]
Lauren Good
It's clear that his father had so much involvement in his teaching. Did his mother have any involvement?
- [05:08]
Hannah Templeton
We know much less about her background before she became. Before she married Leopold. She certainly wasn't as educated as him and her letters don't read quite as intellectually as. But, you know, she could read and write. And so she wasn't involved in their education, but she accompanied them on the tours and she was very much, very present, but she wasn't teaching them in the way that Leopold was. And she had, as far as we know, she had no musical background.
- [05:35]
Lauren Good
You've mentioned the tours that Mozart did go on a little bit, and you mentioned that he went to Vienna. Can you talk a bit more about what these actually involved.
- [05:44]
Hannah Templeton
So yeah, he'd been to Vienna in 1762, just a short tour. But then because that was so successful and Leopold partly came from religious motivations in that he really thought his son was a miracle, a gift from God. And he almost felt it was his duty, duty to share this miracle with the world. So they went on a great big tour of Western Europe from 1763 to 1766. You know, they went through lots of different countries, what's now like Germany, France. They spent the longest time of this three year tour, they spent 15 months in London and then Holland, Belgium, Switzerland. So they traveled all around. And a large motivation was getting his children the best possible musical education. They saw different musicians in all of these European capitals that they went to. But then. And the family letters are really, really fascinating here. They're almost like just a journey, like an enlightenment journey, grand tour kind of travel, they write about all kinds of different things that they saw. So Leopold, his travel writing, he'll talk about like the architecture and the food in different places, the politics, scientific inventions that he's encountered in different places sometimes. So in London, some of his letters, they'll be backed up with statistics from London guidebooks and it very much fits into that kind of 18th century letter writing culture. You know, they were sent home the most Mozart at this time, when in Salzburg, Lorenz Hagenauer was there, he was a merchant and businessman in Salzburg and he was their landlord. So Leopold would be writing letters back to Hagenauer and then they would. They were intended to be passed around their circle of acquaintances back home. So his friends would be reading, so sharing that knowledge they were acquiring on tour with their friends back in Salzburg, which I always think is really fascinating to read them. So yes, music was, you know, a primary motivation, but also just getting his like an all round education for the whole family was in those early tours a significant motivation.
- [07:41]
Lauren Good
When Mozart returned from tour, am I right in saying his first professional employment going alone, I suppose was at Salzburg Court?
- [07:49]
Hannah Templeton
Yeah. So when he returned from the early European tour, he had an honorary position as a concertmeister in the Salzburg Court. So he was obviously he was still a child then. So it wasn't a paid position, but it was an honorary position. But then, then a few years later, Wolfgang and Leopold went on tour again. They went three times over the space of about three, four years to Italy again to broaden Wolfgang's musical education. So when he returned from that, he had a paid position at the Salzburg Court.
- [08:20]
Lauren Good
How did this Paid, position, influence, his musical career.
- [08:23]
Hannah Templeton
It started off so on these early tours it was Schrattenbach was the Archbishop of Salzburg then, and he was really generous with leave. He was very happy to allow Leopold and Wolfgang to go off to these different places and he would grant Leopold leave of absence. But he died in 1771. And then Archbishop Colloredo, he became the new archbishop. And if you compare Mozart's musical output or religious music output to the likes of Michael Haydn, who was the younger brother of Joseph Haydn, he was a composer at the Salzburg court as well. He composed really, really prolifically compared to Wolfgang at that time. So even though Mozart's musical output was really significant, he wasn't composing as much in terms of religious music as Michael Haydn was. So I think the Mozarts, they became quite quickly dissatisfied with Collaredo. They didn't like him as an employee and maybe that's why he wasn't being quite as prolific in what was expected of him. Leopold gets quite frustrated. He says he perceives that Colorado has a preference for Italian musicians. Leopold himself, he'd been like deputy Kapellmeister since 1763, but he hadn't been promoted, even though he'd had ambitions within that concert court life and was a really prolific composer himself. So his letters do show some frustration there. And they did become increasingly dissatisfied with that court life. And part of the motivations behind the Italian tours, they were trying to seek maybe positions elsewhere so that the family could ultimately move away from Salzburg and away from his employment. Just to go back to what you were saying, there was also in Salzburg restrictions on instrumental music being played in churches and then the length of masses, they were shortened under Colorado, so there was sort of a bit less scope there in terms of that composition.
- [10:13]
Lauren Good
During his travels, after he's worked at Salzburg and before he goes to Vienna, what sort of pieces does he compose?
- [10:22]
Hannah Templeton
It depends really. So sometimes he might write symphonies. So when he traveled to Italy and he'd been. They'd become particularly dissatisfied at Coloredo then and they really were looking to seek a position elsewhere. Mozart and his mum went on a tour they went to like Munich, Mannheim, Paris. So Mozart, he composed some sonatas for people he met. He composed a symphony in Paris when they were in Italy. When Mozart was in Italy with Leopold, he was commissioned to write an opera for the carnival in Milan. Lucia Silla, his first full scale opera. So again, because the pieces were always written for specific intentions, it really varied as to what he composed. He wouldn't think, oh, I'm just going to have a go at writing a symphony for the sake of it. It would always be for a particular performance.
- [11:06]
Lauren Good
You spoke a bit of his frustrations at Salzburg. Do we see more musical influences and inspiration come out at this when he's travelling?
- [11:15]
Hannah Templeton
So when he's been going to Italy with Leopold, that's still very much his musical education. He's still sort of a late, kind of mid to late teenager when he's doing that. And it was kind of considered crucial as a court composer that you would have encountered some of these Italian musicians had that education. He became a member of the musical academies in Italy as well, in Verona and Bologna. There's a story of him being in the Sistine Chapel and hearing Allegri's Miserere and transcribing it after one hear. So it was all sorts of little influences that creep in. But then if we go back further before that, when he was a child in Europe, in each place they were hearing different musical styles, they were meeting different composers. In London he composed his first symphony really heavily, probably influenced by the style of Johann Christian Bach and Carl Friedrich Abel. And then he also composed a little opera aria there too. There was the big sort of opera scene in London and lots of opera musicians were listed in Leopold's travel notes. So. So everywhere they went they were meeting musicians all the time. And Mozart, it was like a sponge, just absorbing all of these styles, listening to these different styles. So it's hard to necessarily pinpoint any like, specific, oh, this piece is influenced by this person or unless there's sort of direct tuition there. But if we're thinking about his dissatisfaction with the Salzburg court musical life and the wanting to seek a position elsewhere in, you know, it's not immediately clear why they were dissatisfied with Collaredo other than as we spoke about before, Leopold refers to his preferences for maybe Italian musicians, but I think they just wanted maybe more freedom, flexibility in his output, in what he was able to produce. But then when they were going to go on the tour to Munich, Mannheim, Paris, Leopold initially asked for leave of absence and Colloredo had responded by sort of dismissing both of them. But then Leopold couldn't afford to do without his court salary this time because on previous trips under Schattenbach he'd still received his court salary when they were travelling. So the whole time they were on their three year tour of Western Europe. When they went to Italy, Leopold was still being paid by the Salzburg court. But then this time they weren't going to be. So Leopold stayed at home in Salzburg with Nannel. And Nannel stopped coming on the tours after that childhood tour because, you know, she was never being trained up to be a court composer. That was. That wouldn't have been a possible career path for her at the time. So she was a really virtuosic performer, but she was not being trained in the same, like composition, improvisation over bass lines, those kinds of compositional skills that Wolfgang was. So, you know, she stayed behind as they became older. So that's how Wolfgang and Maria Anna, Mozart's mum, traveled alone.
- [14:05]
Lauren Good
Now, again, like his tours when he's younger, this all sounds very romantic, but. But Mozart again, did experience a lot of hardship whilst traveling. Could you explain what happens at this point of his life?
- [14:17]
Hannah Templeton
Yeah. So when Mozart's on tour with his mum, I mean, to be quite frank, the whole tour was a disaster, really, if we think the primary motivation behind it was to try and secure a position elsewhere so that the family could move. So I think Mozart's family were really relying on him in a sense as well. But Mozart, you know, he's 21, 22 years old, and he has his own ideas as well, I suppose. So, you know, when they're in Mannheim, he. Well, he falls in love. There's a family of opera singers and he falls in love with Aloysia Weber, who's a singer. And he writes back to Leopold saying, actually, I think, you know, I might go to Italy with the Weber family. And, you know, because Aloysia Weber, prima donna, I'll go to Italy with her. And Leopold writes back saying, you know, accusing him really of being disloyal to his family, of being really reckless. And it had been planned that Wolfgang was going to go on to Paris alone after Mannheim and that Maria Anna would go home, back to Leopold and Nannel. But as a result of this, Leopold insisted that, you know, she go to Paris. Oh, no, she didn't insist. She suggested that she go on to Paris with Wolfgang. So they went on to Paris together. And actually, Wolfgang didn't love Paris. He didn't like the musical styles at the time that were in fashion in Paris. He wasn't very successful in terms of what he wanted to achieve. There were so many musicians and composers there and I think he just didn't really manage to integrate so well into that. He wasn't given as much notice. Maybe he thought he would be. When he'd gone there as a child, he'd been really successful as a sort of child, child prodigy, but it wasn't quite the same going back as an adult and I think Leopold worried that Wolfgang was not successful at adapting his compositional style to the French tastes and gave him some advice about that in his letters. He compose a symphony there, we'd call it the Paris Symphony. And he writes about it and he writes about how awful he thought the orchestra were and he was minded to pick up the leader's violin and direct it himself. And he thought he might walk out because it was so awful, but actually they loved it so much that they cheered for an encore, like, as they were playing the music. So. And, you know, he writes about then going to have a say the rosary because obviously was that the religion's still a really big theme throughout the letters and have a large ice ice afterwards. So, you know, there are moments of success there. But the big catastrophe that happens is when they're in Paris. Wolfgang's mum dies. She becomes really, really poorly and, you know, awful fever. She loses consciousness eventually and she dies. So Wolfgang is only 22 years old. He's having to make all those decisions surrounding her illness and her treatment himself. And then he has to work out how to break that news to Leopold and Nannel back home in Salzburg. It's often seen as a big rift, really, between Leopold and Wolfgang, but really obviously then Leopold has to try and process the death of his wife from, you know, over 600 miles away. And we see the letters, they're really sad. We see Leopold initially responding. Obviously he's very, very upset, but he's checking that Wolfgang is okay. But then. And Wolfgang has been really worried about breaking the news of this to Leopold. So he actually writes to a friend first, asking if they would. One of Leopold's friends, asking if they would break that news to Leopold or just prepare, not break the news of the death, but preparing Leopold that she was very, very ill. And then Leopold sort of thinks, oh, the chronology. He writes back being quite accusatory, accusing Wolfgang of lying to him about the chronology, about his wife's death, because actually he'd been writing a previous letter when she was actually already dead. It takes a long time for these letters to get back and forth accusing Wolfgang of not being attentive enough to his mother as she's dying. So it was really, really, really sad. Really hard for Wolfgang, really, really hard for Leopold and Nannel back home. So just an awful end to what was not a very successful tour. Anyway, he traveled back via Mannheim. This time he was, you know, outright rejected by a rosier Weber, so returned to the Salzburg court again, where he was given the position of a court organist then back in Salzburg. So he remained in Salzburg for a couple of years after that and he, you know, he was fairly productive composition wise in back then, but then when he returned as a court organist. But Colloredo again seemed quite unsatisfied with him maybe still making comparisons to Michael Haydn, who was seemingly more diligent in terms of his output. So we see several compositions. But then, yeah, it's a bit of a sad end to that period of his life.
- [19:03]
Lauren Good
That description of his thought process when his mum dies and trying to explain to his father how to do it is so heartbreaking. And it's such an intimate look at this figure who we just associate with music rather than a humanness.
- [19:16]
Hannah Templeton
Well, do you know exactly what you say there? That is what really got me enthusiastic and, you know, interested in researching Mozart to start with because I didn't encounter the family letters until university say, and I was just so struck when I read them. And you really see just the everyday life and the humanity and the feelings of this family and this person who composes all this amazing music. And you really do get such a true sense of who these people were when you're reading their letters, their words. Not what some biographer thinks about them, but their words. I think it's always so touching at points, but also really interesting. Yeah.
- [20:03]
Progressive Insurance Advertiser
This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies just to see if you could save some cash? Well, Progressive makes it easy. Just drop in some details about yourself and see if you're eligible to save money. When you bundle your home and auto policies. The process only takes minutes and it could mean hundreds more in your pocket. Visit progressive.com after this episode to see if you could save Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states.
- [20:37]
Shopify Advertiser
If you've shopped online, chances are you've bought from a business powered by Shopify. You know that purple shop pay button you see at checkout? The one that makes buying so incredibly easy? That's Shopify. And there's a reason so many businesses sell with it. Because Shopify makes it incredibly easy to start and run your business. Shopify is the commerce platform behind 10 of all e commerce in the U.S. sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.com promo. Go to shopify.com promo close your eyes.
- [21:11]
Hannah Templeton
Exhale.
- [21:12]
Coca Cola Advertiser
Feel your body relax and let go.
- [21:15]
Hannah Templeton
Of whatever you're carrying today.
- [21:17]
1-800-Contacts Advertiser
Well, I'm letting go of the worry that I wouldn't get my new contacts in time for this class, I got them delivered free from 1-800-contacts. Oh, my gosh, they're so fast.
- [21:26]
Coca Cola Advertiser
And breathe. Oh, sorry.
- [21:28]
1-800-Contacts Advertiser
I almost couldn't breathe when I saw the discount they gave me on my first order.
- [21:32]
Hannah Templeton
Oh, sorry.
- [21:33]
1-800-Contacts Advertiser
Namaste.
- [21:34]
Depop Advertiser
Visit 1-800-contacts.com today to save on your first order.
- [21:38]
Hannah Templeton
1-800-Contacts.
- [21:40]
Lauren Good
When we reach his time in Vienna, we reach a time in Mozart's life that is often described as his golden decade. Why is it referred to as.
- [21:52]
Hannah Templeton
Well, he had a really productive period in Vienna. He initially was summoned there in 1781, when he was still in the service of Collorado. He was dismissed from the service. And Leopold is really concerned about this and tries to persuade Wolfgang to make amends with Colloredo, but he won't have it. And he wants to leave that service now. So. And he decides to stay in Vienna. He then moves in with the Weber family. So if we think back to Mannheim, when he fell in love with Aloysia Weber, that. That failed Roman, they moved in with the Weber family. And this is actually how he met his wife Constanze. She was Aloysia's younger sister. She was also a singer, an opera singer. So he really starts to establish his life there. He is commissioned to write Singspiel, an opera. So basically it's a German language opera called Singspiel, because it's. Well, it uses like dialogue, so speech to help move the plot forward, where. Whereas opera, it's the Italian genre, written in Italian and there's no spoken word, it would all be kind of recitative to move that plot forward instead of speaking. So Mozart's commissioned to write Dien Frugen Amstermsreheil, the Abduction from the Seraglio. And that is an international success. It's performed in different places in Europe. And that really helps to establish him as well as a composer in Vienna. He also establishes himself as like really the foremost keyboard player in Vienna. They used to have like keyboard jewels, kind of improvisation competitions. So he had. There's a story of like a famous one that he had with Clementi, the composer Clementi. And it was, I guess, a jewel to see kind of who is the best foremost keyboard player. When they would have, you know, Mozart would play something, then Clementi would play something, and then be doing different improvisations and things like that. So he establishes himself as sort of the forest keyboard player in Vienna. He starts to publish his own music as well. He starts to do lots of subscription concerts in Vienna. So. So a subscription concert it would be you know, your patrons, they would subscribe to a series of concerts. So that's a really good way to make money, like a secure financial income. So he was really just flourishing musically. In 1783 onwards, he wrote more than a dozen piano concertos for his subscription concerts. He would play those himself. He wrote them for himself to perform at these concerts. So I think in terms of his golden decade, it was just a really prolific time for him. He was really successful financially. He was married to Costanza. His marriage to Costanza is what had caused a rift with Leopold. And I will use the word rift this time because Leopold was really against that match. I think it was difficult in terms of the family dynamic. If you think of when Wolfgang was in Salzburg, you know, people tend to view Leopold as very controlling over Wolfgang. And if you think when he was a child, that's sort of natural in the sense that he's his dad and he's his son's educator and he was organizing these tours. So he did have a lot of natural control. And I think Wolfgang first moving to Vienna and then getting married to someone that his father didn't approve of, it's caused some tricky dynamics in that father, son relationship, I suppose. We only have their letters to look at, really, and the back and forth of their letters. So from this period when Wolfgang is in Vienna, we have all of the letters that Mozart wrote to Leopold, but we don't have the letters that Leopold wrote back to Wolfgang. They've gone missing. Maybe Constanze got rid of them, we don't know. But we don't have those letters. We only have Wolfgang's side of that correspondence. So we can only ever sort of analyse what one person is saying there. And if you analyze anyone's messages, you know, you can, you can read into it, can't you? If we think now in our modern society, if we overanalyze maybe emails that are worded slightly the wrong way or text messages, and we think, oh, that's, that's a bit, you know, if someone else were to read those and analyze our friendships and our relationships between other people, they would come to all sorts of conclusions, wouldn't they? And so it was. There was a little bit of a rift there, but a little bit of tricky dynamics. But it was overall a really successful time in Wolfgang's life.
- [26:14]
Lauren Good
Can we just talk a little bit more about Mozart's life with Constanza? What was their family setup like? Did they have any children? Was it a happy marriage?
- [26:24]
Hannah Templeton
We have a fair bit of correspondence between Wolfgang and Constanze from later on in their marriage by all accounts that, you know those letters they read, read really sort of tenderly, quite witty between them they have clearly have a really good relationship. They like. They were very sociable, they liked going dancing, they liked playing games. They, they lived quite well. Mozart was never without a. Like a servant, a maid, always had a horse. So they had a good setup. They liked fashion as well. Wolfgang often writes about fashion right from when that's a theme right through the family letters right from when they were in London and Leopold was writing about the different clothes and things Mozart does often write about like his specific coats he had and things like that. So they had like good taste. I think they had five children but only two of them survived. So we see that sort of parallel with Leopold and Maria Anna where they had their seven children but only two survived. But in fact they'd had their first child Raymond. He was left when Wolfgang and Constanze quite soon after their marriage they went back to Salzburg to see Leopold and Nannel but the baby was left in, in Vienna with a nurse. But while they were away the baby died. We don't really get much of this in letters at all. So we know that only two of their children survived but the children didn't marry. So those kind of direct lines they ended with the Wolfgang's children. So Constanze possibly as a result of sort of multiple pregnancies within a fairly short time period she was often quite poorly and she would have frequent trips to the spa at Baden. She went to take the waters. And that's where we see the correspondence between Wolfgang and Constanze when he's right, when they're writing to each other, when she's there. So yeah, they had by all accounts a loving, pretty solid relationship.
- [28:14]
Lauren Good
So we've seen Mozart in Vienna enjoy quite an illustrious career. He's married, it does seem overall pretty successful. Successful. Does it always stay this golden in Vienna?
- [28:28]
Hannah Templeton
So I think like anybody's life there are sort of peaks and peaks and dips, aren't there? He towards the end of that decade In Vienna, late 1780s it comes a little bit more tricky financially certainly. You know, he's always pretty firmly middle class. We've talked about him liking fashion, always owning a maid, being very social, liking games and dancing. But then he did have some cash flow problems and we do see him writing to some of his patrons asking, begging for them to lend him money. And partly with Constanza going to the spa. That was a big financial outlay. But Then there were some changes to Viennese concert culture. For example, there was a new policy that allowed theatrical performances, like theatre performances during Lent, whereas previously that had been prohibited. So that had meant that there was quite a lot of demand for benefit concerts and for, you know, those kind of subscription concerts. But then there was maybe slightly less demand for that. Vienna was also part of the Turkish War. They were actively involved in the Turkish War then. So they're just all around slightly fewer opportunities, therefore less money coming in. So just a bit of a cash flow problem, really. So that's when we see him borrowing money from his friends. But at the time, it was actually really common to borrow money. But when Mozart died, I think, you know, two different people, people actually owed him money. His fortunes had started to increase again and he had a really successful couple of years right before his death. So we do see that working both ways. And it's very tempting to think, oh, you know, he'd had this really successful period in Vienna to start with, and then it had just all gone downhill. And we have this narrative in the early biographies of the Viennese public. Getting tired of Mozart. And then he travels, he does go on a tour to Berlin and Prague wasn't particularly successful. We don't quite know what the motivations were behind that. He had some opera performances, he wrote, some really successful. You know, he had Don Giovanni didn't, and he had his Daponte operas. So there was sort of successful moments there. But we see one of Mozart's first biographers in the 19th century, he was Czech, so he had this big narrative of the, you know, the Czech public welcoming Mozart when he'd been rejected by the Viennese public. And so many of the ideas about Mozart we have now come from these really, really early writings when either people had really clear agendas behind what they were writing or they were working from quite a limited range of sources. So that's really interesting as well. So we do tend to have in our minds, in this sort of popular culture of Mozart, the idea that by the end of his time in Vienna, there was just this kind of downward trajectory. And we have this myth of him being buried in a pauper's grave when he died. We even, you know, we have this myth of him writing the Requiem for himself. You know, he believed he was writing for himself. And all these stories that have crept in that actually we just come to believe as though they were fact. So it's a really interesting final period. So we've talked about those financial difficulties, but then Actually towards the end of his life it's really taken a turn up again. So by 1789, 1790, things were really on the up for Mozart. By the time he died, he was one of the most successful composers of his time in Europe and his pieces were being performed in several different countries. He had invitations to go on tour. He wrote the Magic Flute, Zauberflte, the most popular German opera of its time. So it's not the kind of sob story that we've come to believe it is. There's this lot of myth and stuff surrounding the Requiem and it's very tied up in his death. So he gets this commission of the Requiem. It's an anonymous commission, but actually Wolfp almost certainly, certainly along the way composing it learned the identity of the person who had commissioned it. It was from an account to commemorate his wife's death. But then just after Mozart died, there'd been a newspaper report come out that claimed that Mozart had felt he was writing the Requiem for himself and that he wrote it with tears in his eyes, just like finishing it a few days before his death. And you know, we know he didn't even finish it. His pupil finished it for him because he died before he'd even finished it. So, you know, most likely he knew the identity of the person who he was composing this Requiem for. And you know, the rumors of him being then, you know, buried in this pauper's grave, they're not true. He is buried in an unmarked grave in Vienna because that was the custom of the time for just, you know, ordinary middle class people. So there's nothing spectacular about that. That was just perfectly in line with the customs of the time. But again, we do have all that kind of mythology surrounding, before we talk.
- [33:16]
Lauren Good
About this final period of his life, how many works in total did Mozart produce? Is that a question that we can answer?
- [33:26]
Hannah Templeton
Oh, that's a really difficult question. I mean he kept his own record of compositions but then there's this sort of Kershaw catalogue of his compositions and there are 626 pieces listed in that. But then as well as that there are lots of fragments of different works and there are pieces, pieces that, oh, we don't know. It could be by Mozart, but we're not sure. So the, the ones listed in that catalogue, you know, they have, they are, have been verified that they are by Wolfgang. But then it's, it's tricky, isn't it, because do you include the fragments or the improvisations or the studies on different works? So it's quite a Tricky question in terms of what you include in that. But the Kirkle catalogue lists the sort of 626 works. But then there are, you know, lots more over and above that that have not been listed in that. There be sort of sketches or fragments or pieces that thinker by him, but we're not totally sure. So the actual numbers were going to be significantly higher than that.
- [34:24]
Lauren Good
You mentioned the mythology perhaps surrounding Mozart being buried in a pauper's grave. We know that he had a very short life. He died at the age of 35. Do we know how he died?
- [34:35]
Hannah Templeton
Well, as much as we can. I think we probably died from sort of rheumatic fever. That would have been consistent with maybe pretty previous bouts he could have had. So he wasn't poisoned by Salieri? There's no. That's another myth that we have that he was poisoned by his sort of rival. So we haven't really talked about Salieri at all. But he was again, Italian composer, court composer in Vienna, but sort of had the sort of top position really in Vienna. And they were, you know, friendly colleagues. There was a little bit of rivalry there as well, but no more than professional rivalry. But there's this rumor that came about after he died that Salier had poisoned him. So I think he was not poisoned by Salieri. He was ill. He gets poorly initially in the sort of the autumn of 1791, but then he does recover and he seems in really good spirits. But then he gets poorly again in the December and he. Yeah, with probably just the rheumatic fever finally.
- [35:30]
Lauren Good
Hannah, why do you think Mozart has become one of the most famous classical musicians? What made him different? Different from the rest?
- [35:38]
Hannah Templeton
Well, do you know, I think it's because obviously you've got his music, which is wonderful, and that in itself is enough really. But then his death and all that. We talked about the mythology surrounding that and his early biographers, so many different stories about him were told and that became so publicized and there's so many different accounts of his personality that have just kind of these themes that have run through Mozart biography. I mean, his Czech biographer had written about the Viennese public tiring of Mozart and that kind of downward trajectory in Vienna. But there was a biographer from Salzburg who only had access to sources from when Mozart was a child and he had like NANL and the childhood letters. So we get this impression of Mozart as childlike, fully just only immersed in his music, unable to engage with like the wider world around him, when actually, you know, we haven't talked so much about, about this. But he was an intellectual himself in Vienna. He had a great circle of intellectuals and you know, not least he was a freemason. So he was really actively engaged with contemporary politics and art and literature. You look at his, his library that he had. So just like his dad in that sense really. But then, you know, so it completely at odds with this perception of this genius who can't function in the world outside of his music. That's just not an accurate representation of his character at all. And you have these themes that kind of, of go through Mozart biography and you know, you could ask a number of different people and they could give you a completely different account of him of all the things that we've, we've talked about based on just like what they've read, how they've interpreted it. So I think that's why, you know, they can't really be, except for maybe Wagner, a composer who is more talked about, more written about, more present in popular culture now as you say, how his biography has been treated. And you know as well as those early biographers, like all the sort of mystique surrounding the Requiem as well. It's such a good story. And then obviously that really influenced the sort of 19th century composers as well. So he never gets lost in that sense. He's always such a strong presence throughout the 19th century, the romantic period, right the way through. There's always those stories there.
- [37:52]
Lauren Good
That was musicologist and cultural historian Hannah Templeton speaking to Lauren Good. If you'd like to learn more about Mozart or the history of music, head over to historyextra.com.
- [38:16]
Liberty Mutual Advertiser
LIMU IMU and Doug, here we have the Limu emu in its natural habitat helping people customize their car insurance and save hundreds of with Liberty Mutual. Fascinating. It's accompanied by his natural ally, Doug.
- [38:33]
Hannah Templeton
Uh, Limu is that guy with the binoculars watching us.
- [38:36]
Liberty Mutual Advertiser
Cut the camera. They see us. Only pay for what you need@libertymutual.com Liberty Liberty Liberty Liberty Savings vary Underwritten by Liberty Mutual Insurance Company and affiliates Excludes Massachusetts.
- [38:46]
Depop Advertiser
In a world shaped by algorithms, bots and predictive models, Liberties offers a different kind of intelligence. Human, reflective, original. These essays ask the biggest questions about justice, freedom, identity and offer insights that machines can't replicate. There is nothing artificial about our intelligence. Libertiesjournal.com Quick Choose a meal deal with.
- [39:08]
Liberty Mutual Advertiser
McValue the five dollar McChicken meal deal, the $6 McDouble meal deal or the new $7 Daily Double meal deal, each with its own small fries, drink and four piece McNuggets there's actually no rush. I'm just excited for McDonald's for a limited time only. Prices and participation may vary. Not by Albert McDelry.