W.A.Mozart "Beyond Human"

Mozart’s Life

“Mozart is the greatest composer of all. Beethoven “created” his music, but the music of Mozart is of such purity and beauty that one feels he merely ‘found’ it- that has always existed as part of the inner beauty of the universe waiting to be revealed”

These words were composed by, an amateur musician as well as a seer physicist, Albert Einstein. Einstein was not alone in this accusation many others of the time and still today will regard Mozart as a “musical genius.”

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born on January 27, 1756 in the Austrian city of Salzburg. His Father, Leopold Mozart, was a well esteemed professional violinist and composer. Mozart’s older sister Maria Anna was nicknamed “Nannerl” played exceptionally well on the keyboard. With all this talent amongst him it was inevitable that there be a great interest in music at an early age. By the age of four Mozart performed short solo pieces on the piano. At the age of five or six he had begun to compose his own music. During this time his father, Leopold, guided Mozart’s musical growth during his influential years, and continued this throughout the young composer’s adolescence. Also he began to make use of his child’s talent by putting him in concerts as child prodigy.

From 1762 to 1766 Leopold traveled with his family across central and Western Europe. Making stops at prestigious cultural centers to exhibit his son’s extraordinary talents. Mozart played the piano, harpsichord and organ, captivating all who heard him. He contributed to this captivation by playing his own compositions and by using his own flare and technique at the keyboard. Usually, there would be a prearranged musical theme with which he would create variations or some other composition upon it. At other times he would be given a set of verses, and would instantly form a song or an aria with it.

Wolfgang’s tour as a child genius took him to England and the Netherlands and gave him an inside view of the royal courts in Europe. His father cherished each of these performances; with each of them they brought valuable gifts. But by the end of 1766 Mozart’s father brought his family back to Salzburg where they settled to a more standard way of life and habitual musical routine. Mozart’s time was divided for the next eight years between Vienna and Italy. With these escapades he not only impressed musical ideas on others but gained knowledge as well. His father’s employment with the court orchestra gave Mozart early insight into the realm of orchestra music. He composed some well accomplished symphonies and concertos in his adolescent years.

When, Mozart was twenty he was considered to be one of the most skillful composers of his time. He not only wrote symphonies and concertos he also composed piano pieces, serenades, arias, operas and smaller versions of musical theater, and church music. By this time he understood that it was time for to go out into the world not as a “Wunderkind”, but as a very suitable adult musician seeking out employment. In 1777-1778, He went out with the company of his mother, but this trip proved to be a musical and personal disaster. In the German cities that once opened doors to the child prodigy they were now closed in his face. With this rejection he composed less, and also his first adult love, Aloysia Weber rejected, and to add to these numerous heart aches his mother took ill and consequently died.

So Mozart all broken and tattered with grief humbled himself and returned back to Salzburg in January of 1779 to be reinstated as the court organist and composer. The two years Mozart was in his hometown, he felt under-appreciated and the environment around him irritated him. Working with his current employer Salzburg’s Prince Archbishop, Heronymus Colloredo, many felt including Mozart himself felt as if the Archbishop held the best musicians at the lowest regard.  Poorly paid and he didn’t allow Mozart to put on a concert which in consequence of this Mozart resigned again and moved on to Vienna.

Now in Vienna Mozart appeared in many concerts, began teaching others, and also started to write operas and made propositions to have them commissioned. In the midst of his new beginning he found a new love which was the sister of the lady he was rejected by a while ago. So in August of 1782 Constanze Weber and Wolfgang A. Mozart were married, even though his father did not approve of her. The couple had six children of which only two survived through infancy Karl Thomas Mozart and Franz Xavier Wolfgang Mozart. Even through this segment of Mozart’s life it seemed to be the most promising time of his life. He had began to create a reputation in the Austrian capital as both a pianist and composer and becoming a beneficial composer to the imperial Austrian courts.

The years 1784-1786, Mozart’s career was at its peak all of his concerts were a tremendous success both monetarily and critically. Then as we all know all good things come to an end. His setbacks began to happen when his opera “The Marriage of Figaro,” wasn’t received well at its premiere in May of 1786. Historians’ seeking more reasons as why Mozart began to lose support and the information gathered was that the war put a financial burden on Austria which caused them to lose passion for music that they once had. Others speculate that Mozart’s personality alienated him from the audience.

Over the next four years there was a slow decline in Mozart’s career. His wife Constanze began to have medical issues which became a financial burden, being that they had to travel and pay for her treatment in the town of Baden.

Sadly on November 20, 1791 he had become ill and was ordered to remain in bed. And on December 5, 1791 Mozart died at thirty-five. The cause of his death is still being debated today.

                       

                               Mozart’s Symphonies

                     Mozart and Symphonies, the Final Trilogy.

               
                 Mozart’s Appearance; Musical Style

                                  Mozart’s Legacy

During Mozart’s time he was a major influence on other musicians. He was influenced by his peer Haydn and in turn he was to in the same regard.

 Also, Beethoven many of his youthful works by Mozart, his symphonic pieces were based n the foundation laid by Mozart and Haydn. Tchaikovsky named Mozart the “Christ of Music. Mozart today is still acknowledged as one of the greatest composers of his time. His main goal was not novelty but that of perfection. He used the language, Beethoven would use to question or to be a revolutionary composer, to fill the familiar compositional forms (sonata, rondo, aria, etc.), creating music of unsurpassed strength and beauty.

Don Giovanni

Lorenzo Da Ponte, a librettist and poet wrote the lyrics for this opera date is unknown. Mozart finished the score on October 28 the same year Da Ponte was summoned to Vienna to work on another opera.  But the opera was performed on October 29 under its full title “Il Dissoluto punito ossia il Don Giovanni Drammo giocoso in due atti.” It was greatly received by the audience; it was said by those who were in it that “the opera is extremely difficult to perform.”

                        Discussion Of Don Giovanni

Dufay and The Council of Trent

The Council of Trent was believed to be peak of the Counter-Reformation’s influence on church music in the 16^th century. The Catholic Church had spoken out against the perceived abuse of music used in the mass before the Council of Trent ever met to discuss music in 1562. The fueling cry was for reform from many of the ecclesial figures was the compositional technique popular in the 15^th and 16^th, using musical material and even accompanying texts from other works such as motets, madrigals and chansons, with several voices singing different lyrics in different languages made the text difficult to understand. The Council of Paris and the Council of Trent were both making attempts to restore a sense of sacredness to the church setting. But the Council of Trent did not only focus on the style of music, but the attitudes of worship during the mass. This brings the composer Guillame Dufay to the forefront of this discussion.

Guillame Dufay was born near Cambrai, in Hainaut. He was a choir by at the Cambrai Cathedral of Notre Dame in 1409-1412. Dufay spent a large part of his adult life living and traveling Europe. He also was a singer in the Papal choir in Rome 1428 and 1436. He later became the leading composer of the culturally important Burgundian court, in this court it is said to have been the birth place of Renaissance of the 15 century, and his patrons extend to the highest level of Church and State including France, the Netherlands, and Italy. Thus his development was subject to a great number of influences. Dufay’s musical style grew from the late medieval French tradition (Ars Nova), and early Renaissance from which he gathered while traveling throughout Italy.

Dufay was one of the last composers to make use of the medieval technique such as isorhythm, but the first to use harmonies, phrasing and expressive characteristics of the early Renaissance. The compositions within larger genres (masses, motets, and chansons) are quite similar to one another. What made them renowned was largely due to what was perceived as perfect control of the forms in which he worked. Additionally, it was his gift for writing a memorable and sing-able melody. As stated before there are not marked differences in these categories, plainchant settings where the chant is paraphrased in the cantus or the upper voice, free-composed settings of liturgical, non-liturgical or ceremonial texts and cantus firmus including motets and The Ordinary of the Mass. Coincidently, there are works where the categories are blurred. For example the isorhythmic motet “Supremum est mortalibus” and “Christe, redemptor omnium”, uses the fauxbourdon which allows a monotonous quality of the parallel chords causing the liturgical lyrics to be understood.

The cantilenas such as “Inclita stella maris” present complex rhythmic surfaces comparable to those of the isorhythmic motet. More than half of Dufay’s remaining works consists of chant settings where one of the voices follows the other in text and phrasing with a small amount of embellishment. The melody is then supported by the tenor in which the contra tenor expands the texture.

As with many other composers you will see sacred and secular music, Dufay wrote secular pieces that showed influences from Busnois and Ockeghem. In his secular music there where typically the use of rondeau form and the rhythmic and melodic differentiation between voices are less. He was more drawn to the smooth polyphony which became an aggressive style fifteen years later.

In objection to this style of music before the Council of Trent took place was Pope John XX II, according to him the rhythmic flexibility of the Ars Nova promoted “wantonness at the expense of devotion.” He declared in the papal bull that the “notes of small values were disturbing the divine office.” This document gives evidence of the churches ongoing complaints and issues about the role of music in worship. The pope argues that the plainchant melodies should be left intact.

In the Council of Trent they would not approve of Dufay’s music simply because he added so much of what they considered to be notes of the devil, meaning the dissonance in the music and the minor thirds presenting the sound that displeased the church officials and Popes. His music was influenced by the early Renaissance technique, and he was considered the fore-most Franco-Flemish composer of the fifteenth century.  Being that in Italy where polyphonic singing was allowed in his music creating richer harmonies, the council would appeal to that form or style they were used to, the homophonic singing was appeasing to the high priests with each part moving by step with each other everything is the same. I believe that the Council of Trent wouldn’t agree with Dufay’s way of depicting the mass arrangements and the style he chose to elaborate upon, because it was new and they didn’t approve of new things just as there are discussion still today on the style of music sung in today’s worship services. For example the hymns are first and foremost in our worship services, meaning that those words are used to address our praise and adoration unto God. But in most rewrites of hymns the sentimental language in which God talks with us and comforts us, “Be not afraid, for I am always with you,” are comforting gestures made by God unto us. And there may be times to sing such songs but during Mass it’s considered to be a time of worship. Another problem that persists is the contemporary music that is originally written for a solo artist or a choir to perform. And many of the elders believe that a good hymn has music that is steady and predictable so everyone can join in.

To conclude as the Popes in the Councils believed and the priest of today as well, Mass is meant to take us to the threshold of heaven, a glimpse of glory and partaking in the worship of the spheres of heaven itself. And that the new music and styles won’t work not because they are bad but because they aren’t good and true enough. They believe that worship that takes us to the “throne of glory” needs to be Glorious.

Guillaume Dufay (1397-1474) - Inclita stella maris

Guillaume Dufay - Nuper rosarum flores