Mozart Moves to Vienna: 1781

The Adult Composer Leaves Salzburg and Freelances, Solo Work

Mar 7, 2007

W.A Mozart 1789, Mozart 1789 C Vogel, Music with Ease

In 1781, Mozart the adult composer left Salzburg and moved to Vienna. The years 1781-1791 were his Vienna years, as freelance musican, tutor, and family man.

The year was 1781. The astonishing Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, child prodigy, now an adult composer, aged 25, decides to leave Salzburg and move to Vienna – to freelance and go solo. It was the turning point for the Wunderkind.

Mozart Leaves Salzburg

Mozart's relationship with the Archbishop of Salzburg deteriorated over few years. He thought enough was enough when he got fired at Salzburg court for the third time. His relationship with his father Leopold Mozart, although one of love and mutual respect, was not subservient either.

The Freelancer

Mozart freelanced by composing, playing in concerts and teaching. Although he hoped for a well-paid job at court, he made a reasonable living as a freelance musician. At last he was getting the success he deserved – not as the boy genius, but as a serious and talented classical composer.

At this time he befriended the older composer Joseph Haydn, who recognized his immense musical talent and equally reciprocated his friendship.

Golden Years in Vienna

As a freelance musician in Vienna, the height of Mozart's fame especially as a pianist was in 1782-1786. He also composed many concertos.

Mozart fell in love with Aloysia Weber, a cousin of the composer Carl Maria von Weber, but she rejected his advances. In August 4, 1782, he married her sister Constanze Weber. A month before the marriage, Mozart produced his German opera Die Entführung aus dem Serail (The Abduction from the Seraglio.)

Mozart decided he didn't need to take on a paid job with a wealthy patron, and set himself up as an independent composer. By playing the piano, publishing piano and violin sonatas (also for solo piano), and the occasional opera commission, he lived pretty well. Between 1782 and 1786 he wrote fifteen piano concertos including some of his finest works, giving him the opportunity to establish his name as both composer and pianist. More important to him was the set of six string quartets that he dedicated to Haydn. Written more for his own satisfaction than as a moneymaker, this showed the serious side of Mozart, with a mastery of the genre.

The ever prolific Mozart also found time to write other instrumental music – string quartets and string quintets, concertos for various instruments. Taking what he learned from the older Haydn and others, he gave new meaning to the Classical symphonic style.

The Last Years

The last five years of his life were primarily spent writing operas: Le Nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro, 1786), Don Giovanni (1787), and Così fan Tutte (1790), and Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute, 1791), which took traditional Italian opera and German singspiel to such soaring heights.

First Performances from 1781

Idomeneo, Munich 1781
Die Entführung aus dem Serail (The Abduction from the Seraglio), Vienna 1782
Le Nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro), Vienna 1786
Don Giovanni, Prague 1787
Cosi fan tutte, Vienna 1790
La Clemenza di Tito 1791
Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute), Vienna 1791

Mozart's Major Works (Operas Excluded)

Serenade No.10 in B Flat for 13 Wind Instruments 1781
Six Haydn String Quartets No.14-20 1782
Symphony No.35 in D "The Haffner" 1782
Mass No.18 in C Minor "The Great" 1783
String Quartet No.17 in B Flat "The Hunt" - another of Haydn Quartet) 1784
Piano Concerto No.20 in D Minor 1785
Piano Concerto No.21 in C "Elvira Madigan" used in Swedish film 1785
Fantasia and sonata in C minor 1785
Piano Concerto No.23 in A 1786
Piano Concerto No.24 in C minor 1786
Symphony No.38 "Prague Symphony" 1786
Serenade No.13 in G "Eine kleine Nachtmusik" ("A Little Night Music") 1787
Symphony No.39 in E Flat 1788
Symphony No.40 in G minor 1788
Symphony No.41 i C "Jupiter Symphony" 1788
Clarinet Quintet in A 1789
Piano Concerto No.27 in B Flat 1791
Ave verum corpus 1791
Clarinet Concerto in A 1791
Requiem (Unfinished) 1791

The Lean Times

Although his operas were well received especially in Prague, Mozart was plagued by financial difficulties, not necessarily his doing but the reality of surviving in Vienna, that even his appointment in 1787 as court part-time composer did not do much to ease his money worries. He relied on commissions to maintain his lifestyle.

Being a freelancer, Mozart can be considered the first artist and musician to organize his own subscription concerts. The very idea may not have been mentioned in books but he might have been a good businessman or well-advised by his wife who was in charge of selling the subscriptions from their home.

After several years of overwork and ill-health, Mozart received a commission to write a requiem mass. The Requiem remained unfinished at his death and completed by a pupil Franz Süssmayr. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who gave the world his musical genius, died at the young age of only 35, an extremely overworked freelancer.

Sources:

Constanze, Mozart's Beloved by Agnes Selby (1999)

Mozart The Golden Years by H.C. Robbins Landon (1989)

Great Composers by Golden Press Pty (1989)

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