The Music of Mozart

Celebrating Mozart: from child prodigy to the Mozart Effect

POSTED JANUARY 24, 2023

Mozart's 267th birthday will be in a few days. Although he died young at age 35, the great composer created more than 600 works, including many of the most recognizable and loved in the classical repertoire. With his lyrical and memorable melodies, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is one of the most accessible of the classical composers.

Writing at Interlude, Doug Thomas explains the popularity of his music this way:

"[Mozart's music] is simple, understandable, accessible, familiar and deals with concepts that are accessible to all — e.g. his operas. It does not aim at musical progress and innovation, at bringing the listener out of his comfort zone; it is melodic — and melody is key to popularity. It is diverse and appeals to all tastes — from opera, to chamber and symphonic music. Finally, it has musical interest — behind this apparent simplicity, Mozart would sprinkle his music with interesting musical surprises and twists"

A true example of a child prodigy, the young composer could pick out tunes on the piano at the age of three, and began composing by age four. By the time he was 12, he had written 10 symphonies and performed for royalty.

Neither a rule maker like Bach nor a revolutionary like Beethoven, Mozart did not innovate. Rather, he perfected existing forms and, in so doing, raised the symphony, sonata, and opera to new heights.

Widely recognized as the greatest composer of his time during his lifetime, Mozart's popularity has continued through the ensuing centuries.

During the 19th century, the three operas least susceptible to changes in public taste—Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni, and Die Zauberflöte, the orchestral works closest in spirit to the Romantic era—the minor-key piano concertos (Beethoven wrote a set of cadenzas for the one in D Minor), and the last three symphonies, composed in rapid succession during the summer of 1788 and argued by some that Mozart composed the three symphonies as a unified work, remained securely in the repertory.

In the twentieth and twenty-first century, many more of his works became popular with wider audiences - with at least 132 songs used in movies or television based on his compositions. "Mostly Mozart" festivals have sprung up around the world, most notably in New York City, where each year tens of thousands listeners attend the summer concerts put on by the Lincoln Center. The Lincoln Center's "Mostly Mozart" Festival has diversified over the years, but the music of Mozart remains firmly at the center. And it was a piece by Mozart, sonata for two pianos (K448) that researchers chose for their study on music's effect on reasoning skills. [sidebar "The Mozart Effect"]

Mozart was an artist of a formidable expressive range, but it was not until the late 20th century that musicologists began to fully recognize the depths of his compositions. The traditional image of the child prodigy turned refined drawing-room composer, who could miraculously conceive an entire work in his head before setting pen to paper, gave way to the image of the serious and painstaking creative artist with acute human insight.

In future posts, we'll take a look at some of Mozart's greatest works, his life and his enduring legacy. Classic FM's "15 facts about the great composer" is linked in the sidebar.

Sources: Classic FM, Interlude, Britannica - 1, Britannica-2, Incadence,

The Mozart Effect

In 1993, researchers at the University of California asked individuals to listen to Mozart’s Sonata for Two Pianos for 10 minutes, while others listened to either silence or relaxation audio designed to lower blood pressure. The study found the subjects who listened to Mozart showed significantly increased spatial reasoning skills for at least 10-15 minutes.

The findings were widely misinterpreted and the late 20th century saw parents and nursery schools in the United States playing classical music, particularly works by Mozart, to children in the hopes that it would increase the babies' intelligence. Though the so-called "Mozart Effect" did not pan out - i.e., playing Mozart does not result in a big gap between children’s spatial testing, active music instruction does.

In 2000, Dr. Lois Hetland, a cognitive psychologist, conducted 15 studies with 700 preschool and elementary age children that showed this to be true. The children received 15 minute periods of active musical instruction weekly. The control group of children either received arithmetic instruction or no instruction. The analysis showed a large gap in spatial reasoning scores between the control group and those who had musical instruction.

The "Mozart Effect" is often referred to in pregnancy. While Mozart may not be the exact cause of your baby’s intelligence, music does make their brains more active. In 2013, research emerged showing that exposing unborn babies to music had a long-term effect on their brain - these newborn babies could actually remember versions of songs that were played to them in the womb.

Mozart: 15 facts about the great composer

Mozart's Concertos

POSTED MARCH 7, 2023

Born in Salzburg in 1756 to a musical family, Mozart's talents were apparent from his earliest years. By the age of 5 he could read and write music, and he would entertain people with his talents on the keyboard. By the age of 6 he was writing his first compositions. In 1762, his father Leopold , a noted composer and musical instructor, presented his son as a performer at the imperial court in Vienna, Austria, and from 1763 to 1766 he escorted young Mozart on a continuous musical tour across Europe, which included long stays in Paris, France, and London, as well as visits to many other cities, with appearances before the French and English royal families.

Besides being a great composer, Mozart was a consummate performer and an enthusiastic crowd pleaser. So it comes as no surprise that he composed more than 40 concertos. The concerto, an instrumental composition with three movements, is the ultimate showcase of musical virtuosity, where soloist and orchestra compete in a compelling musical dialogue. The soloist’s part is written to impress, to explore the bounds of technical ability, and often includes spectacular cadenzas* and difficult extended pieces.

Today, the concerto remains one of the greatest crowd-pleasers among classical music audiences, and Mozart's are well-loved standards of the classical repertoire. Developing and refining the form of the concerto across a wide range of instruments, his contribution to the form of the concerto is extraordinary. Besides the 27 he wrote for piano and the 5 he wrote for violin, Mozart created concertos for clarinet, horn, flute (and for the flute and harp), and oboe. In this post we look at several of his most famous and admired.

Piano Concerto No 24 in C minor

Mozart was a great pianist, and initially made his name in Vienna as a composer of piano concertos that he wrote for himself to play at public concerts.

He composed Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor in the winter of 1785–1786, one of twelve he composed during the years from 1784 to 1786. The work is one of only two minor-key piano** concertos that Mozart composed, and none of Mozart's other piano concertos features a larger array of instruments: the work is scored for strings, woodwinds, horns, trumpets and timpani. It is considered by many to be the greatest of all of his concertos. Mozart's concertos vary in difficulty - from the harder ones which he himself would play to easier ones which he would use for teaching piano students. This particular concerto ranks among the hardest.

A performance of this work is below*** and you can learn more about it here.

Violin Concerto No. 3

Written when the composer was just 19 years old, Mozart's Violin Concerto No. 3 is the most popular of his five violin concertos and ranks among the greatest in the classical repertoire. Mozart composed all of his violin concertos in 1775 while he was Konzertmeister at the Salzburg court, apparently for his fellow-violinist Gaetano Brunetti for performance at court. After that burst of violin concertos, Mozart showed no interest in string concertos turning his attention to the piano and other instruments.

A performance of this work is below and you can learn more about it here.

Clarinet Concerto in A Major

Invented in 1690 by Johann Christoph Denner, a German instrument maker from Nuremberg, the clarinet was a relatively new instrument in the late 18th century. Mozart was fascinated by the instrument and composed several works for it prior to this great concerto.

Mozart's Clarinet Concerto in A Major, widely regarded as the greatest clarinet concerto ever composed, was completed in October 1791, less than two months before the composer's death at the age of just 35. It was to be his last instrumental work.

Mozart composed his Clarinet Concerto for his close friend Anton Stadler, who performed the work at the premiere in Prague on October 16, 1791. In fact, all of Mozart's great works for the instrument – the Clarinet Concerto, the Clarinet Quintet, the Kegelstatt (Skittle Alley) Trio, and the obbligato parts in two arias from La Clemenza Di Tito – were composed for Stadler, who was the superstar clarinetist of his day.

A performance of this work is below and you can learn more about it here.

Piano Concerto No. 21 in C major ("Elvira Madigan")

Mozart was a great pianist, and initially made his name in Vienna as a composer of piano concertos that he wrote for himself to play at public concerts. Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 21 in C major was completed in March 1785 and is one of his best-known and technically demanding concertos. The concerto belongs to Mozart’s so-called “symphonic piano concertos”. In his late piano concertos, Mozart developed a style in which the role of the orchestra became increasingly important, with the solo piano “accompanying” the orchestra for long stretches (rather than vice versa).

The famous second movement was featured in the 1967 Swedish film Elvira Madigan and, as a result, the work became widely known as the Elvira Madigan Concerto.

A performance of the work is below and you can learn more about it here.

Notes:

*A cadenza is, generically, an improvised or written-out ornamental passage played or sung by a soloist or soloists, usually in a "free" rhythmic style, and often allowing virtuosic display.

**The instrument we call a piano has evolved over the centuries since its invention in 1698 by by harpsichord maker Bartolomeo Cristofori in Florence. Mozart wrote his piano music for the historical instrument we now call the fortepiano (or confusingly enough, the pianoforte). Like the modern piano, the fortepiano can vary the sound volume of each note, depending on the player's touch. The tone of the fortepiano is quite different from that of the modern piano, however, being softer with less "sustain". Fortepianos also tend to have quite different tone quality in their different registers – slightly buzzing in the bass, "tinkling" in the high treble, and more rounded (closest to the modern piano) in the mid range. For more on the fortepiano see here.

***This is a superb performance. Don't let the unfortunately placed ad at about the 24th minute distract you from you rlistening pleasure.

Sources: U discover music-1 , Opera Philadelphia, Wikipedia, U discover music - 2, LA Phil, Stark Conductor

Mozart's Piano Sonatas

POSTED APRIL 25, 2023

The sonata form is one of the most influential ideas in the history of classical music. Originating from the Italian word “suonare”, which means, “to sound”, the sonata first appeared in the 16th century to designate a purely instrumental musical piece. While it continued to evolve during the Baroque period in the works of composers like Bach, Scarlatti, and Handel, it was the Classical Era that defined its form. Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart were at the heart of this development. The practice of these great Classical masters forms the basis for the description of the sonata form. Their works served both as the model for the form, and as the source for new works conceived in the sonata form itself.

Sonata form* is a musical structure generally consisting of three main sections: an exposition, a development, and a recapitulation of one or two themes. A sonata is usually composed for a single instrument - usually piano or violin - or for a small ensemble. The excellent Beginner's Guide video below left explains the sonata form using a work from Mozart, Piano Sonata No 16 C major.

Over his short life of 35 years, Mozart composed 18 numbered piano sonatas, several sonatas for four hands, 36 violin sonatas, and 17 Church Sonatas, as well as trio sonatas for chamber instruments. The musicologists at FM Classic note, "As well as sounding great, each sonata offers a little window into the composer's character." Many of them began as improvisations with the young man sitting down at the piano, experimenting, and eventually creating a wonderfully inventive musical work.

Mozart's piano sonatas are considered his best, and K545, Piano Sonata No 16 C major, performed in its entirety below right by pianist-composer Corey Hall is considered one of Mozart's best** piano sonatas,. Mozart composed Piano Sonata No. 16 in C Major in the summer of 1788, a period in which Mozart displayed almost superhuman productivity.

In the eight weeks between late June and mid-August of 1788, Mozart completed Piano Sonata No 16 C major, his Trio for piano, violin and cello in E Major, the Trio in C Major, the Sonata for piano and violin in F major and his last three symphonies including his Symphony in C major and nicknamed the “Jupiter”. It was to be Mozart’s final symphony, a towering, innovative masterwork, the greatest symphony ever composed to its time and by any standard one of a handful of greatest symphonies ever composed.

What is even more stunning is that Mozart managed this compositional feat while under a black cloud of grief, physical ill-health, and mounting financial disaster!

Mozart's piano sonatas have been characterized as "delicate". You won't find the passion and emotion of Beethoven here, but Mozart's sonatas have their own marvelous beauty as evidenced by the two performances below - Piano Sonata No. 11 in A Major, composed in Vienna in 1783, and Piano Sonata No. 13 in B flat, composed in Linz at the end of 1783.

Composed in 1783 and published in 1784, Mozart's famous Piano Sonata No. 11 in A major is also known as Rondo Alla Turk, due to its fiery Turkish finale. Consisting of three movements that are in the key of A major, the sonata has been called by musicologist Alex Burns a "great introduction to the mind of Mozart and his enviable style of the time." The third movement of Sonata No. 11, the "Rondo alla Turca", or "Turkish March", is often heard on its own and regarded as one of Mozart's best-known piano pieces.

The LA Phil describes Piano Sonata No.13 in B flat as "a warm and lovely piece, galant*** throughout" and continues, "As is so often the case even in Mozart’s lightest works, there are moments in them which reach beyond mere charm; in the present Sonata these occur in the middle section of the slow movement, when the chromaticism evolves into an intense expressiveness. For the rest, one is content to revel in the sheer loveliness and openness of a splendid gem of a creation."

Notes:

*Besides being a standalone work with a single instrument (or small ensemble), the sonata form is the standard first movement of nearly all symphonies. Apropos of nothing, this reminds me of this description of a symphony from some long-forgotten reference: "In the first movement, the composer shows how brilliant he is; in the second, how emotional he is; in the third, how happy he is; and in the fourth, how glad he is that it is finally over."

**"Best" is often a matter of personal opinion and taste. The Mozart Project has this to say: "There are a few factors that are typically considered when trying to determine the best Mozart piano sonatas. The first is technical difficulty – some of Mozart’s sonatas are incredibly challenging to play, while others are more manageable. The second is overall quality – some of Mozart’s sonatas are simply better composed than others, and have stood the test of time more effectively."

***In music, galant refers to the style which was fashionable from the 1720s to the 1770s. This movement featured a return to simplicity and immediacy of appeal after the complexity of the late Baroque era - e.g., simpler, more song-like melodies.

Sources: LA Phil, Alex Burns, The Three Best Mozart Piano Sonatas – Mozart Project, Classic fm, Medium, Wikipedia

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