Category: Biographies
NEXT to pianoforte music for amateur musical entertainments, the quartet for stringed instruments was the favourite form of chamber music. The performers were occasionally highly cultivated amateurs, but more often professional musicians, thus giving scope for more pretentious...
MOZART had been so well satisfied with Da Ponte's libretto for "Figaro" that he had no hesitation in intrusting the new libretto to him, and immediately on his return to Vienna...
11. CHAPTER XLIII. "DIE ZAUBERFLÖTEDISAPPOINTED and suffering, Mozart returned to Vienna in the middle of September. While his wife again repaired to Baden, he divided his time between the labours involved in the...
4. CHAPTER XXXVI. "LE NOZZE DI FIGARO.play had excited unusual interest, both on account of the name and political position of the author and of the curious circumstances under which it had been produced in Paris. B...
9. CHAPTER XLI. "COSÌ FAN TUTTE,UPON his arrival in Vienna on June 4, Mozart at once set to work upon a quartet for Frederick William II.; the Quartet in D major (575 K.) was completed in the same month, and i...
14. CHAPTER XLV. THE REQUIEM.ONE of the first cares of Mozart's widow was the Requiem (626 K.).[1] Mozart having left it unfinished, she could not but fear that the Unknown would not only refuse to complete...
3. CHAPTER XXXV. MOZART AS AN OPERA COMPOSER.THE unexampled success of the "Entführung," which brought fame to the composer and pecuniary gain to the theatrical management, justified Mozart in his expectation that the Empe...
1. CHAPTER XXXIV. MOZART'S INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC.NEXT to pianoforte music for amateur musical entertainments, the quartet for stringed instruments was the favourite form of chamber music. The performers were occasionally highl...
10. CHAPTER XLII. LABOUR AND POVERTY.THE accession of Leopold II. to the Imperial throne (March 13, 1790) was not an event of good omen for music and the opera. Up to the month of July he had not entered the theatr...
15. CHAPTER XLVI. AT THE GRAVE.MOZART'S early and unexpected death, removing him from the eyes of the world at the moment when he might seem to have attained the height of his artistic greatness, had the effe...
8. CHAPTER XL. A PROFESSIONAL TOUR.MOZART'S unsatisfactory position in Vienna, both from a pecuniary and a professional point of view,[1] doubtless inclined him for a professional tour, to which the immediate ind...
7. CHAPTER XXXIX. OFFICIAL AND OCCASIONAL WORKS.FROM a practical point of view, Mozart's "Don Giovanni" did no more than his "Figaro" towards improving his position in Vienna. His painful pecuniary circumstances may be gather...
12. CHAPTER XLIV. ILLNESS AND DEATH.NO sooner was the "Zauberflöte" completed and performed than Mozart set to work with restless eagerness upon his still unfinished Requiem.[1] His friend, Jos. von Jacquin, calli...
13. CHAPTER XLIV. ILLNESS AND DEATH.NO sooner was the "Zauberflöte" completed and performed than Mozart set to work with restless eagerness upon his still unfinished Requiem.[1] His friend, Jos. von Jacquin, calli...
2. part 2). Sorrow and complaining take the place of joy and gladness. Thepianoforte quartet (composed August, 1785) and the Quintet (composed May 16, 1787) in G minor are allied in tone, but their sorrow passes in the end to gladness or calm, whereas...
5. CHAPTER XXXVII. MOZART IN PRAGUE.THE success of "Figaro" did not materially improve Mozart's position in Vienna. He lived, it is true, in very pleasant intercourse with a large circle of friends, especially wit...