← The Rest Is History
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- [00:00]
James O'Brien
Thank you for listening to the Rest Is History. For weekly bonus episodes ad free listening, early access to series and membership of our much loved chat community, go to therestishistory.com and join the club that is thereestishistory.com.
- [00:27]
Tom Holland
Hello, everyone. I hope you had a wonderful Christmas and we have two festive treats coming up for you today and on Thursday. These are two halves of a show that we recorded at the Royal Albert hall on the 18th of October with a full choir, a full orchestra. So this is going to be aside from, of course, those immortal episodes in which I sang the first Rest Is History episodes with musical accompaniment. The first episode, today's episode is on Mozart. Thursday's episode will be on Beethoven. Enjoy.
- [06:14]
Dominic Sandbrook
Good evening and welcome to the Rest Is History.
- [06:22]
Tom Holland
And Dominic, ladies and gentlemen, I think you'll agree that was quite something. We've had many great musical moments on the Rest Is History. One one thinks of Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend, sung by me. And more recently, Don't Cry For Me, Argentina, which was also sung by me. But I think, I mean, that wasn't bad. That was kind of up there, wasn't it?
- [06:42]
Dominic Sandbrook
Ladies and gentlemen, please do not indulge him. That was not in that league at all, Tom. I think it is. I think we can all agree on that. That was Mozart Symphony number 25. It was played by the brilliant orchestra that I have behind me, the Academy of St Martin in the Fields. We have the Philharmonia Chorus. And above all, the most important person who's on the stage tonight, the person whose idea for this evening this was, the person who has made it possible, and that is our majestic conductor, Oliver Zeffman.
- [07:24]
Oliver Zeffman
I've become a fan of the podcast since the beginning, actually. In the past life I had a history undergraduate degree, but not anymore. And I got in touch with Tom and Dominick because there are so many interesting, exciting stories in classical music and people know music a little bit, but actually if you don't go to concerts or you don't have much exposure to it, how do you get into it? And so this was a perfect opportunity to talk about two of the most important composers ever, probably two of the most important cultural figures ever, and their lives also found a very interesting point in history, which I'm going to talk about. So I got in touch. They were keen and we're here today. So thanks, thanks for coming. Actually, the piece you just heard now you might recognise from the opening of Amadex, the film, and actually the orchestra here on stage and Even some of the players on stage were in that recording.
- [08:11]
Dominic Sandbrook
So. Thank you, Oliver. Thank you. Now, those of you who've seen the film Amadeus will know that it is the story of a brilliantly talented man who is hounded to his death by a mediocre rival.
- [08:28]
Tom Holland
Yep.
- [08:28]
Dominic Sandbrook
And, Tom, this is very much the dynamic at Goal Hanger podcasts, is it not?
- [08:34]
Tom Holland
No. I mean, this is not a dynamic that we have to worry about on the rest of history, is it? Yeah. So we wanted to open with a kind of a tipping of the hat to Amadeus, because here we are in the Royal Albert hall, one of the great music festival centers in the whole world. And so we thought that Mozart and Beethoven would be absolutely ideal themes because they are probably the most celebrated, the most iconic composers in the whole history of music. But I think, as Oliver hinted, they're not just iconic, they are also the embodiments of a particular moment in cultural history. So the key thing about Amadeus is that people sitting down to watch this film, they know that Mozart is a genius. If they don't know that, then the film doesn't work. And the sweep of history that is covered by the lives first of Mozart and then of Beethoven, it witnesses the onset of the French Revolution, the Napoleonic wars, the rise of the Romantic movement. And, Dominic, this is the period that kind of enshrines the idea that an artist can be a genius, isn't it? A genius with a capital giant.
- [09:55]
Dominic Sandbrook
Absolutely. And that's why the lives of Mozart and Beethoven are a brilliant window onto the world of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. We'll be exploring in this show the emergence of the idea of the genius and the idea of art with a capital A and the way in which that reflects political and social change and also, frankly, the way that people make money. So it's a continuous story that we've got for you tonight, but we're going to tell it in two halves. We will be coming to Beethoven in the second half. Now, can I just ask, are there any members here of the rest Is History Club. Very good. So you can listen to that second half right away.
- [10:42]
Tom Holland
And, Dominic, I think we should say that that joke is made up by our beloved producer, Theo.
- [10:48]
Dominic Sandbrook
It is. That is Theo's joke. Theo is very cross if people tell that joke and they don't give him the credit. So well done, Theo.
- [10:54]
Tom Holland
In his own way, he's a genius.
- [10:56]
Dominic Sandbrook
So for now, in the first half, it is the story of Mozart, and that will be told to you by Mr. Tom Holland. Tom, take it away.
- [11:04]
Tom Holland
Right. So Mozart, he is born in 1756 in Salzburg, Austria, which is part of the Holy Roman Empire, ruled by, I guess they're friends of the show, aren't they, the Habsburgs.
- [11:18]
Dominic Sandbrook
Definitely, yeah, very much so.
- [11:21]
Tom Holland
And so he's born into a Europe that is becoming ever more obsessed by music. But if it's an era that loves and values music, it's not a period that necessarily loves and values musicians. And if you think of the one other great 18th century composer who can kind of stand on the podium beside Mozart, Johann Sebastian Bach, he spends his whole life as an employee. He's not a genius. He's essentially a kind of salaried servant. And in fact, when he tried to leave the employ of one of his masters, the Duke of Weimar, the Duke responded by locking him up in prison. So there is no room for playing the genius in the first half of the 18th century. There are, however, growing opportunities to perhaps make money under your own steam. And the person who exemplifies this is a fellow German of Bach's. But rather than staying in Germany, as Bach did, this guy Handel comes to the richest, the most culturally significant city in Europe, the great El Dorado of music. And that city, I'm proud to say, is London.
- [12:39]
Dominic Sandbrook
Hurrah.
- [12:40]
Tom Holland
So Handel comes to London and he makes such a success of it that he ends up fabulously rich and he even has a tomb in Westminster Abbey. So there you have a kind of tension between the musician as servant and the musician as entrepreneur. And the father of Mozart, Leopold, who will play a key role in our story, he kind of has feet in both camps. So on the one hand he is a violinist in the service of the Archbishop of Salzburg. He's essentially kind of one rung up from a footman, but at the same time, he has a kind of secret, brooding contempt for aristocratic and indeed arch Episcopal employers. And as time will show, he has a brilliant, brilliant future as an impresario. And the reason for that is that his son, Wolfgang Amadeus, turns out to be a genius. And Dominic, I think your son, Sam Brooke Jr. Is here tonight, isn't he?
- [13:45]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yes, he is.
- [13:46]
Tom Holland
And am I not right in thinking you mentioned to me that he won a regional poetry reading competition with the Charge of the Light Brigade.
- [13:55]
Dominic Sandbrook
He did, he did. And people like. And they shouldn't laugh because it's a sublime performance.
- [14:02]
Tom Holland
So if you had shown a fraction of the entrepreneurial zeal of Leopold Mozart, you could have made an absolute packet by taking Arthur round poetry competitions across the length and breadth of the City of the country. Now, I don't know when Arthur started reciting Tennyson, but young Mozart, his musical career supposedly begins very, very young. So it is said that at the age of two, he's picking tunes out on a keyboard. The age of four, he composes his first concerto. And at the age of six, he goes to the Imperial court in Vienna, where he meets the Habsburg royal family.
- [14:40]
Dominic Sandbrook
Oh, and we've talked about that in the French Revolution series. So that's when he meets Marie Antoinette. She's very young, isn't she?
- [14:45]
Tom Holland
Yeah, she's just a little girl at this point. And little baby Mozart, he climbs up onto the lap of Marie Antoinette's mother, the Empress Maria Theresa, gives her a big hug, gives her a little kiss. It's all absolutely adorable. And Leopold is watching this and he goes, ker ching, we have got a gold mine here. And so he gets permission from his employer, the Archbishop, to go on tour. And they go to all the cities of the Holy Roman Empire, they go to Paris, they go to London, they go to Versailles, and of course they end up in London. And they have a brilliant time here, I'm happy to say. They meet the King and Queen, they hang out in Soho. Leopold becomes so kind of habituated to London life that he catches a very British ailment, which he notes in his journal, the English call a cold. So he has a terrible cold and it's absolutely brilliant. They make absolute packet. And they're not actually generally paid in cash, although there is a bit of cash. It's generally kind of knickknacks and gee gores. So endless snuffbox, silver watches, that kind of thing. And one of the markers of how well Leopold is doing is that he can actually complain, having eaten four roast chickens on the trot, that he is still hungry.
- [16:02]
Dominic Sandbrook
So this is very like the scenes at the Northamptonshire Regional Poetry Competition.
- [16:07]
Tom Holland
Right. Well, you should have thought, you know, if you'd taken Arthur and pushed him in the way that Leopold did, you could have as much roast chicken as you wanted for the rest of your life. So the whole reason that the young Mozart makes Leopold such money is the fact that he is seen by the whole of Europe as being something completely exceptional. And so, because he is the talk of Europe, people across the continent are saying, what's going on here? Where has this extraordinary, precocious talent come from? And there are various theories, and they're not mutually contradictory, but I guess this is a very devout religious age. Probably the most popular theory, and it's the One that Leopold himself cleaves to is the notion that Mozart is a gift from God. And this is certainly what he tells the archbishop. You know, he goes and says, look, I've been given this miracle by God, I should basically take him out and make loads of money because it's what Jesus would have wanted. There are others, however, who kind of slightly cut God out of the equation and say that he's a prodigy of nature. And this is a period where the idea that humanity kind of separate from civilization. So the idea of a child being possessed of kind of great quality, it's very, very important.
- [17:22]
Dominic Sandbrook
So Rousseau, the innocence of childhood.
- [17:24]
Tom Holland
Yes, exactly. So Mozart becomes a kind of icon for this idea. It's also the enlightenment, of course, and there are skeptics, there are people who think that, that Leopold is kind of writing the young Mozart's concertos for him. And so some of these savants take the little boy and lock him up in a room and tell him to write something. And he does and they're satisfied. And actually the ultimate proof of Mozart's genius is that he is inspected by a member of the Royal Society here in London. And he gives Mozart a clean bill of health as well. So it becomes apparent that he is not a fraud. He really is an absolute prodigy of nature, a gift of God, whatever you want to call him. But there is of course a problem coming down the road towards Leopold. You know, he's got to keep himself and his roast chicken and his snuff boxes. And the problem with a prodigy is that while it's amazing to watch a six year old play the violin, it's slightly less amazing to watch a teenager play the violin. And so what Leopold decides as the young Mozart is approaching his teenage years, is that rather than emphasizing his precocity as a musician, as a player of instruments, which is what he had previously been doing, he's going to focus on the young Mozart's ability as a composer. And to that end he goes on the kind of the most extravagant, the boldest tour of all. It's kind of the equivalent of the Beatles. The first time they go to America. Mozart goes to Italy, the home of music. This is an age when Italians would regard the idea that a German speaker could be musically able as kind of comical. But Mozart pulls it off. He dazzles everybody. Lots more snuff boxes, but also lots of Italian maestros going, wow, this guy is incredible. And the ultimate imprimatur of quality, the stamp of approval from Italy comes when Mozart is given a commission from the opera house in Milan. So one of the most famous opera houses in the whole of Europe. And he is told would you like to write us an opera? And Dominic, when he is given this Commission, Mozart is 14 years old.
- [19:53]
Dominic Sandbrook
So if you ever wanted to hear a 14 year old's music, this is your chance. We have for you Mitridati Rei di Ponto by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. We have nel grave Tormento which I believe means in a very grave torment. And it's going to be sung for us by nada. So Williams.
- [20:38]
Nadas Williams
Sa ra Sa ra ra.
- [24:55]
Dominic Sandbrook
Wow, thank you Nadis. That was amazing. And thank you Mozart. So remember Mozart was just 14 years old when he wrote that piece.
- [25:05]
Tom Holland
Yeah, amazing. So everything is going brilliantly for young Mozart. He's got his GCSE in music, he's got loads of new commissions on the back of Mitridate. And back in Salzburg everyone's unbelievably proud of him. The Archbishop absolutely purring. It all looks superb except that there are gathering clouds hanging over project Mozart. Now the first of these is what Leopold really wants for his son. He wants to get him long term security. And the way he thinks he can best do that is to find his son a post as a Kapellmeister which effectively is the kind of the head of music at a court. And so he takes him round various courts and all the dukes and the counts and so on. I mean they're impressed, they recognize that Mozart is quality but they keep saying oh he's too young, he's too young, come back in 10 years time. So this is very disappointing for Leopold. But even more disappointing is the fact that there seems to be no interest in Mozart whatsoever from the imperial court in Vienna. And he's puzzled by this because of course you know, as a six year old little Mozart had hugged the Empress. But the awful truth is that the Empress actually thinks they're a bit vulgar. She says, you know, they've been going around Europe like beggars. It's very, very undignified. And so she is not interested. And then the worst blow of all, the Archbishop of Salzburg who'd been such an indulgent patron, he dies and he gets replaced by a new archbishop who's a very different character. And he rejoices in the splendid name of Count Hieronymus Colloredo. And Count Hieronymus Colloredo, the new Archbishop. He's had enough of the Mozarts gadding around Europe. He wants them to be what they are. He wants them to be essentially his Servants. And so his goal, which he institutes the moment he has been enthroned as archbishop, is to treat Mozart not as a genius, but as an employee.
- [27:12]
Dominic Sandbrook
So, Tom, this is very like our situation, isn't it? This is how we are treated. They're in the audience tonight, our executive producers, Tony Pastor and Jack Davenport. They treat us like employees, don't they? And like Mozart feels humiliated, treated like servants. And this is exactly what happens to Mozart when he goes back to Salzburg, right?
- [27:33]
Tom Holland
Yeah. Well, I mean, I don't want to compare us to Mozart. Let's not go down there.
- [27:37]
Dominic Sandbrook
No, I think we should, absolutely.
- [27:39]
Tom Holland
But just to say there are social humiliations. But I think also what oppresses Mozart more than anything else is that he knows how good he is. You know, he wants to test the limits. He doesn't want to be chained up in Salzburg having to compose whatever rubbish the Archbishop was. He wants basically to do a handle, to go out there and become a freelance. And the Archbishop is furious at this. He sees it, I mean, not unjustifiably, as kind of rank in gratitude. And Leopold, his dad, is also worried for various reasons, I think. One, he doesn't want his son to end up kind of starving to death in a garret. He knows it's going to be very insecure being a freelancer. I think also he's anxious that if his son annoys the archbishop, then this might end up badly for him. He might get dismissed from his own position. And I think also he can't bear the thought of being separated from his son. The relationship between Leopold and the young Mozart, it's the most intense relationship that either of them will have in their entire lives. And the thing that Leopold is becoming increasingly worried about, Mozart's little fellow, as he calls it, Mozart is getting interested in girls. And what Leopold is worried about is that Mozart might actually marry. So this is the real disaster that he's fretting about. But you know Mozart, he's 17, 70, he turns 21 and he decides that he's going to go out into the world and he doesn't care. And when Leopold says no, he goes, oh, dad, I'm off. And so off he goes and Leopold can't go because he's got to stay behind with the archbishop. So Mozart's much loved mother goes with him and they head off and they go to various places across the Holy Roman Empire. Not to any great effect, but I think Mozart's having quite a good time. And then they end up in a city on the Rhine called Mannheim. And in Mannheim they stay in a house that is owned by the Prompter in the local theater, Herr Weber. And Herr Weber has not one, not two, not three, but four gorgeous daughters. And young Wolfie, he falls madly in love with a soprano called Aloysia. And the news of this gets back to Leopold and he absolutely blows a gasket. And he writes to Mozart and to his mother and says, what are you doing? Why are you wasting your time mooning over girls in a no hope place like Mannheim? Go to Paris, go to London. You know, if you want to make a go of being freelanced, do it in a place where you can make enough money for it to be sustainable. And so Mozart obeys and he goes to Paris and it's a disaster. He hates Paris, he hates the French, he hates French music, he hates French taste, he hates everything about it.
- [30:37]
Dominic Sandbrook
That's fair enough, Tom.
- [30:41]
Tom Holland
I was waiting for the gusts of laughter. I'm glad they finally came because we are now. And you'll be ashamed of yourselves for laughing. We're plunging into tragedy because while Mozart is in Paris, his mother dies. And Mozart is prostrated by this. He adored his mother. And he is crippled by grief. And eventually he leaves Paris and he crawls back to Mannheim to bury his face in the comforting chest of Aloysia, only to find that Aloysia's only gone and married someone else. And so what's poor Wolfie to do? He has to go back to Salzburg.
- [31:24]
Dominic Sandbrook
That must be humiliating, Tom.
- [31:26]
Tom Holland
Very, very humiliating. And essentially he kind of knuckles down for several years. You know, he writes the kind of dreary stuff that the Archbishop wants, but all the time he's kind of, he's pulling at his chains and, you know, he still has his dreams. And we've got to follow our dreams, Dominic. We've got to follow our dreams, haven't we? I mean, you as a young man, you were an academic.
- [31:48]
Dominic Sandbrook
I was.
- [31:48]
Tom Holland
But you had dreams of writing enormously long books about the Wilson government. I did recording podcasts about monkeys. And you lived your dream.
- [31:58]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah, I have a nightmare, I think some people would call it.
- [32:01]
Tom Holland
And Mozart is determined to live his dream. And the crucial Moment comes in 1781, when he's 25 and he's summoned to Vienna by the Archbishop of Salzburg, who wants to show him off like a kind of performing monkey. And this is humiliating for Mozart because he is a figure of great consequence in Vienna, much admired by fellow musicians, by fellow composers, and he doesn't want to be at the beck and call of an archbishop. And so he says, no, go on top of that. As well as infuriating the archbishop, he also infuriates Leopold, because when he turns up in Vienna, he finds that the Webers have moved there. And although the soprano Aloysia has, you know, she's got her own man, there is another Weber sister available. And this is Constanza. And Mozart announces that he wants to marry her, and Leopold hits the roof. So he's infuriated both the archbishop and Leopold. He's summoned to a kind of a make or break conference. And it goes so badly that the archbishop's steward, according to Mozart's own account, kicks him up the ass out of the room. And that is it. That is the end of Mozart's term of employment at Salzburg. And from this point on, he will become a freelance.
- [33:24]
Dominic Sandbrook
So he's in a bit of a mess, isn't he, Tom? Because this is all very stressful for him.
- [33:27]
Tom Holland
It is a mess. And I think Mozart's music has such a quality of lightness and often of joy that it can be easy to miss the expressions of stress and unhappiness. But they are definitely there. And the piece we're going to hear now is. I'd never heard it played live before. When we walked in here this morning, this afternoon for our rehearsal, I heard the strains of it coming from the stage and I can't wait to hear it again. It's a piece that he wrote in Paris in the days and weeks after the death of his mother. And it is simply sublime.
- [34:07]
Dominic Sandbrook
So, ladies and gentlemen, this is the Violin Sonata in E Minor. And it is going to be played by Stephanie Gonley on the violin and Mishka Rushdie Momung on the piano. Enjoy.
- [39:17]
Tom Holland
When Dominic. That is a reminder that no recording can compare with power of live music.
- [39:23]
Dominic Sandbrook
That was amazing. That's all.
- [39:26]
James O'Brien
Now, as you have been listening to this episode, you might have noticed that this episode had something a little extra special, didn't it, Tom?
- [39:34]
Tom Holland
It absolutely did.
- [39:35]
Theo
And that's because every piece of music you've heard during this podcast has been performed live by the Academy of St Martin in the Fields.
- [39:43]
James O'Brien
And if you were there, you will remember how absolutely extraordinary their performance was. We are thrilled to have them featured on this episode. And frankly, we're even more thrilled to be able to make that recording of that event open free to everybody in the podcast who wasn't able to attend in person.
- [39:58]
Tom Holland
The Academy of St Martin in the.
- [40:00]
Theo
Fields is one of the most recorded orchestras of all time. Giving more than 80 concerts a year across the world, including a stunning series in London at the historic church of St Martin in the Fields.
- [40:11]
James O'Brien
The Academy of St Martin in the Fields is offering an exclusive complimentary friends membership to all listeners of the Rest Is History.
- [40:18]
Theo
You can attend open rehearsals, enjoy pre concert talks and meet and greets with soloists, access exclusive digital downloads and crucially receive 25% off tickets to their London concerts. To claim your complimentary friends membership and explore all these incredible opportunities, just go to asmf.orghistory so don't miss out. Visit asmf.orghistory and sign up today.
- [40:52]
Dominic Sandbrook
So, Tom Mozart has left Salzburg. Does his gamble pay off?
- [41:00]
Tom Holland
Well, obviously it comes with costs. Leopold has repeatedly reminded Mozart of these costs. They are above all financial. So Mozart is very vulnerable to geopolitical shocks hitting Austria and affecting the ability of aristocratic patrons to sponsor him. Another risk, of course, is that he might fall ill because then he won't be able to write, he won't make any money. And even though he's left the Archbishop of Salzburg, there are still uncomprehending patrons. And the whole point for Mozart to go freelance really is so that he can stretch his wings, he can test the limits of music. And I think because of that he is seen by, by certain patrons as being difficult, as being challenging.
- [41:48]
Dominic Sandbrook
Right, so there's the famous moment for those of you who've seen Amadeus, which apparently is reflected in some of the sources, that Joseph ii, the emperor sees one of Mozart's productions and says, it's great, but there are too many notes.
- [42:01]
Tom Holland
Yeah. So probably apocryphal, but I mean it has the ring of truth because I think Mozart really is impatient with the kind of the musical ancien regiment, if you want to put it like that. And in fact, in 1790, so when the French Revolution is really kicking off, a fellow composer accuses Mozart of being, in musical terms, a sans culotte. Someone who wants to kind of burn.
- [42:25]
Dominic Sandbrook
Down somebody who's wearing trousers rather than breeches.
- [42:29]
Tom Holland
Well, so that's true. I mean, we'll see. Mozart is actually quite, he likes his fashion, so he might like a culotte, he might like a pair of trousers, but he is pushing at the limits. And then the other problem, of course that he faces is a more personal and more emotional one. And that is that he has gone through a huge family bust up. So not only is his father alienated, but his beloved sister Nannerl, who's also a brilliant musician, much loved by Mozart, she kind of ends up so cross with him that basically communication between them breaks off. And in 1782, when he marries Constanze, neither his father nor his sister is there at the wedding. And although Mozart remains in contact with Leopold, they love each other too much for the break to be total. I think that from this point onwards, the love that they undoubtedly both still feel for each other is massively, massively poisoned by a kind of sense of mutual resentment.
- [43:31]
Dominic Sandbrook
But, Tom, let's get down to what really matters. The point of going freelance is often to make more money. Is Mozart making more money?
- [43:38]
Tom Holland
He is making more money, yes. So he has servants. He goes from being a servant to having servants. Like you, Dominic, like me, like Keir Starmer. He loves a suit, so he's always cutting a dash. He has extended, exquisite red coat which excites much admiration. And actually, when his father comes to stay with him in Vienna, Mozart takes great pleasure in kind of saying, look at these apartments. These are costing me more than I would have earned in an entire year had I stayed in the service of the Archbishop of Salzburg, which is, of course, what his father had done. But you said, you know, the most important thing to Mozart is money. I mean, it is important to him, but actually, I think the most important thing to him is that he can test his, his sense of his own genius to the absolute limits. And so the, the. It is claimed that his reply to Joseph II's comment, oh, you know, too many notes, my dear Mozart. Mozart replies, there are exactly as many notes as there need to be, your majesty. And if there are, you know, Joseph II in Vienna and across Europe, people who don't properly appreciate what Mozart is doing, there are lots who do. And it's not just that Mozart is writing masterpieces, these masterpieces are recognized as such. And I think it's from this that you get in the Romantic period. Mozart is not really, you know, he's not a product of the Romantic period, but going into the 1800s, the 1810s, people look back and they say, actually, you know, he was a romantic figure before Romanticism. This is a man who, he defied convention in the cause of following his art. He didn't let anything stand in his way. And I suppose the great work that most famously, in the opinion of his romantic admirers, illustrated this was an opera that was premiered in Prague in October 1787. And it was written, crucially, four months. It was premiered four months after the death of Leopold. So Mozart's father. And this opera was called Don Giovanni. And Don Giovanni told the story of a Man who cared nothing for convention, who seduced, who committed adultery, who killed people. And he never apologizes. But Don Giovanni has serious daddy issues. And the daddy is a figure called the Commendatore whom Don Giovanni had killed in the opening moments of the opera and who he then sees a statue of and in a foolish moment invites to supper and is absolutely stunned. He's sitting down to his meal when there's a great hammering on the door. And in strides the statue of the Commendatore. And the Commendatore points at Don Giovanni and he sings. Don Giovanni a cenoteco.
- [47:05]
Dominic Sandbrook
Shameless.
- [47:06]
Tom Holland
I've now sung opera on the stage of the Albert Hall. Don Giovanni still refuses to apologize. The Commendatore urges him to repent. Don Giovanni won't. He reaches out, takes his hand. You gonna take your hand? And then the Commendatore drags Don Giovanni down to hell. And the last you hear of Don Giovanni, he goes, and that's the story now.
- [47:34]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah, you don't need to say it now.
- [47:36]
Tom Holland
You never need to say it now. So is Mozart. Is Mozart Don Giovanni? I don't think so. I think that is a kind of romantic overreading. And I think, actually, if you want an opera that gives you a sense of where Mozart is coming from, the sense of frustration that he feels as someone who is beholden on the sponsorship of aristocratic patrons. Much better to look at the opera he wrote the previous year in 1786. And this is the Marriage of Figaro, an absolute smash hit. I think it's the oldest opera to have been permanently on the repertoire. And this is based on a very controversial French play which has been banned in Vienna because it is seen as being offensive towards the aristocracy. And the Marriage of Figaro. Figaro himself is a servant to a count and he wants to marry the maid of the countess. The maid is called Susanna. But the count wants to claim the droit de seigneur, the right to take Susanna to bed before she marries Figaro. And Figaro is furious about this, understandably, I think. And the plot of the opera, there's a whole, you know, there's loads of jumping out of windows, swapping clothes, all this kind of thing. And it ends up with the count humiliated in a garden. And this moment of humiliation is then transformed into a moment of the most exquisite reconciliation. The countess, who has been wronged by the count, forgives him. Susanna, who's been wronged by Figaro, forgives him. And I just want to pay tribute to my beloved uncle. He's no Longer with me, who, when I was about 13 or 14, gave me a box set of cassettes of the Marriage of Figaro and talked me through this moment, gave me love not just for Mozart, but for opera, full stop. And it would be my desert island. Dis that moment. But it's not the moment, I think, that best conveys the sense of frustration that Mozart felt with the social setup that he was involved in. Because there is a better aria that does that. And this is the last aria that Figaro, the servant sings. And it's a moment where he thinks that Susanna has betrayed him. And he's so upset, he's so angry that he kind of breaks through the fourth wall and he addresses the men in the audience directly and he says, aren't women awful? They're always betraying us. And of course, he's wrong. But those in the know, those who are familiar with the original French play, would know that this aria is in the place that in the play has Figaro complaining about the aristocracy, addressing the count, saying, you think you're so wonderful, but you're not wonderful at all. The only reason that you can do what you do is because you were born into it. And so if you want to have a sense of not just Figaro but Mozart speaking truth to power, this aria we're about to hear now, this is the one.
- [50:37]
Dominic Sandbrook
Well, the wonderful news is that Tom will not be singing that aria. It's going to be sung by William Thomas. Thank God. And the aria is called Aprite un po kelly occhi, which means, I believe, open a little bit your eyes, William.
- [53:14]
Tom Holland
Papa Namasai.
- [55:09]
Dominic Sandbrook
Tom. Ladies and gentlemen, I hate to say it, but that is how a professional does it.
- [55:13]
Tom Holland
It's got to start somewhere.
- [55:17]
Dominic Sandbrook
So thank you very much. That was wonderful. So Tom Maragia, Figaro and Don Giovanni are both great successes. And obviously the image that we often have of Mozart is this sort of ludicrous spendthrift. But don't they show that actually he's an extremely capable entrepreneur as well as a magnificent composer?
- [55:37]
Tom Holland
Yeah, I think it does. And I think the idea of Mozart as a spendthrift, as a kind of, you know, a genius who in money matters is just a child. I think that that's in large part a reflection of the impact of Leopold's letters, in which he's cast as exactly that. But it is true to say that by 1789 and 1790, things are starting to go slightly downhill. And of course, these are the years that sees the French Revolution breaks out and Austria is very Much impacted by this. Marie Antoinette, of course, is a Habsburg. And on top of that, on the eastern flank of the Habsburg Empire, a war has broken out with the Turks. So this is not good news for someone who depends essentially on kind of stable conditions, conditions of peace to get commissions. But there are also more kind of domestic, more personal reasons for the downturn in Mozart's fortunes. His wife Constanze falls very seriously ill. You know, he has to spend lots of money on medicine, packing her off the spas, all the kind of stuff that happens in the German speaking world when you fall ill. And Mozart himself then falls ill, and this is the real calamity because of course, when he's lying in bed, he can't work. And if he can't work, he's not making any money. And he does recover, but he's really, really short of funds. And so 1790, 1791, his correspondence is full of frankly embarrassing cadging letters, trying to get money out of his rich friends. And then in the summer of 1791, there comes a fateful commission, a commission to write a Requiem.
- [57:21]
Dominic Sandbrook
So the traditional version of this story is that it's a very strange and eerie and haunting moment in his life, isn't it?
- [57:29]
Tom Holland
Yeah, I think the kind of, the eeriest, the most haunting story perhaps in the whole of classical music. And it derives from reminiscences from Constanze in the wake of Mozart's death. And she spoke to the man who would then go on to write the first biography of Mozart. And according to Constanze, the commission to write the Requiem, it's anonymous, it comes from an unknown messenger. Mozart starts writing it and he falls ill, but continues working on it. And as he works on it, he becomes convinced that he is writing the Requiem for himself. And not only that, but that he is being poisoned. Now, he never finishes it because on the 5th of December, 1791, just after midday, he dies and he is buried in a common grave. Almost no mourners attend the ceremony. And after he is buried, there is no memorial, no headstone to mark the place where his body lay. And it's from this that you get again the romantic myth that Mozart died forgotten, unknown, a pauper. And it's very powerful and this is why people believe it. However, in the main, it's not true. Sorry, we've told it and now we're going to debunk it. We're going to have our cake and we're going to eat it. We know exactly who commissioned the Requiem. It was an eccentric count who enjoyed employing musicians to write pieces for him, and he would then pass them off as his own. So he was essentially employing Mozart to be a ghost writer. Mozart was not poisoned. He seems to have died of rheumatic fever. He was not forgotten. When the news spread across Vienna that Mozart had died, huge crowds gathered outside his house to mourn him. He was cherished and admired, and maybe because of that, he wasn't really a pauper either. He was still in financial trouble, but he was starting to recoup his losses. An opera that he wrote in 1791 that got put on the Magic Flute. Absolute smash. Probably his most lucrative opera, the lot. So there were signs that he was kind of hauling himself back from the financial brink. And although it is true that he had a very spare funeral, that people didn't go to the ceremony, that there is no headstone, I think this reflects more than anything his personal piety, his sense that possibly as a reaction to the excesses of the baroque, that an overly flamboyant funeral would be disrespectful to God.
- [60:15]
Dominic Sandbrook
But even so, Tom, this is surely the most tragic moment in the history of classical music, of music generally.
- [60:24]
Tom Holland
I do find it upsetting to comprehend, you know, to ponder the death of Mozart so early. He dies when he's 36. You think of all the music that he could have written if he'd survived. He kept a journal, and in it he was working out things that he might do late in the future and he would write up the date through the 1790s into the 1800s. So he was contemplating living certainly into the 19th century. And of course he doesn't. And it's hard not to feel that as a terrible tragedy. But I think also the kind of impersonality of that funeral, it is upsetting. So the scene in Amadeus where he's kind of chucked into the grave and then lime is thrown over it and they just wander off and there is Mozart's body. I do find that kind of upsetting. And I think the reason for that is that in his lifetime, Mozart was loved. But in the wake of his death, he became even more loved. And he has remained loved to this day. And there is a kind of sorrow about his death, I think.
- [61:28]
Dominic Sandbrook
Well, thank you, Tom. That was, dare I say, a tour de force. And now to say farewell to Mozart. There is no better piece than Mozart's great Requiem for My Money, one of the very best pieces of music ever written. So we're now going to have the Introitus and the Kyrie and that's going to be with the Philharmonia Chorus and the return of Nadas Williams.
- [61:58]
Nadas Williams
Sa sa sa ra ra.
- [69:13]
Tom Holland
Thank you for listening. I hope you enjoyed it. And we will be back on Thursday in 2025, our first show of 2025 with the second half of that show that we recorded at the Royal Albert Hall. And the focus of that show will be Beethoven. I hope you enjoy it. Bye.