Short History Of... - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Episode Date: July 14, 2024

Mozart occupies a unique place in the history of culture, as his output of over 600 works defined the course of classical music, and remade the face of opera. Mozart’s compositions are staples of our cultural landscape, and his is a name which still, centuries later, sells out concert halls around the world. But how did the tear-away son of a middling family make it to the top? What impact did his commitment to his art have on his health? And what is the truth about his final days? This is a Short History Of….Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. A Noiser production, written by Dan Smith. With thanks to John Suchet, Classic FM radio presenter and author of Mozart: The Man Revealed. Get every episode of Short History Of a week early with Noiser+. You’ll also get ad-free listening, bonus material, and early access to shows across the Noiser network. Click the Noiser+ banner to get started. Or, if you’re on Spotify or Android, go to noiser.com/subscriptions.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It's mid-afternoon on Wednesday the 13th of October 1762 at the Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna, capital of the Habsburg-ruled Holy Roman Empire. A six-year-old boy, small even for his age, sits at the clavier, a harpsichord-like instrument. He is smartly dressed in breeches and a frock coat, his legs dangling above the ground. His fingers glide gracefully across the keyboard. Rich, elegant harmonies drift through the sumptuous hall, magnificently arrayed in gold, red velvet, and mirror glass. His audience applauds enthusiastically.

To hear such music from one so young seems almost divine. It is an illustrious crowd. In one luxuriously upholstered armchair sits Maria Theresa, the head of the Holy Roman Empire and the most powerful woman in Europe, and next to her, her husband Franz I. There are also several of their children and the court composer Georg Christoph Wagensaal. A tough gig by any measure.

But the boy shows no sign of nerves, his rosy cheeks not flashing for a second. He laps up their acclaim. Emperor Franz exclaims that the boy is a little wizard. But what if the keyboard is covered with a cloth so that he cannot see the keys? How will he fare then? The boy squeals with delight at the challenge. A chance to improvise.

Fabric is laid across the keyboard, but the boy plays as if it is not there, as if his hands are guided by some higher power. The applause becomes more rapturous than even before. Overcome with joy, he jumps down from his stool and careers across the polished floor. He races over to the empress, leaps onto her lap, throws his arm around her neck, and lavishes her with kisses. His parents look nervously on from the side of the room. They are strangers to the Viennese court and fear the consequences of such a breach of protocol. But they needn't worry. The empress is clearly charmed, her face lighting up. The empress is clearly charmed, her face lighting up.

Word has spread quickly of the talents of this child prodigy, and he is not disappointed. But now he is to be allowed a few moments to let off steam. Running across the hall, he loses his footing. The empress's daughter, Maria Antonia, races over and helps him to his feet. She is just a few months older than him, and he is touched by her kindness. He peers up at her and vows that one day he will marry her. Before long, the visit is at its end. The boy is sent off with some gold coins and a hand-me-down suit of clothes. Everyone has had a delightful afternoon, but perhaps none of those present realize just

what a momentous occasion has taken place. The day that a child genius proves himself in one of Europe's cultural capitals. A giant step on his journey to musical immortality. The arrival of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Mozart occupies a unique place in the history of culture. His output of over 600 works defining the course of classical music and remaking the face of opera. Mozart's compositions have become staples of our cultural landscape, and his is a name which centuries later can sell out concert halls around the world.

But how did this tearaway son of a middling family in one of Europe's smaller cities make it to the top? How did his commitment to his art impact on his health and personal relationships? And what is the truth about his final days? I'm John Hopkins from the Noiser Network. This is a short history of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. It's early 1762 in the Mozart family apartment in Salzburg, about 200 miles southwest of Vienna. Mozart's father, Leopold,

is with two colleagues from the city orchestra running through a piece for a string trio. But little Wolfgang won't stop pestering him. When Leopold tells him that no, he can't join in on the violin, the boy bursts into tears. Johannes Schachtner, the orchestra's second violinist, takes pity on him, and Wolfgang is handed his fiddle. They begin to play, but then Schachtner stops in astonishment. The little boy is performing the piece faultlessly. Schachtner spots an ink-blotted sheet of paper on the clavier.

On closer inspection, he sees that it is covered in musical notation. Wolfgang explains that he has been working on the first movement of a concerto. Even Leopold is taken aback by this news. His son is only six years old. Concertos are the works of men with years of training and experience, and this composition is so complicated that he doubts anyone could actually play it. That is, until Wolfgang sits down at his keyboard and does just that. Leopold has had inklings of his son's prodigious talent, but tonight has been revelatory. his son's prodigious talent, but tonight has been revelatory.

Their hometown is not in the first rank of Europe's cultural centers, but it is by no means a bad place for a burgeoning talent such as Mozart. John Suchet is a Classic FM radio presenter and author of Mozart, The Man Revealed. Mozart was born in Salzburg, which today is part of Austria, but in his day it was almost an independent little city-state within the German Empire. And Salzburg was a very cultured city. It had its own orchestra, it had its own chorus, and so on. And Mozart's father, Leopold, was a highly accomplished violinist who played in the court

orchestra. The Mozarts, Leopold and his wife Anna Maria, welcomed their son on January 27, 1756. They named him Johannes Christus Thomas Wolfgangus Theophilus, but they knew him as Wolfgang, or more commonly, Wulfo. In later life he will choose to use the Latin version of Theophilus, Amadeus. Though he is their seventh and final child, he is only the second to survive infancy. The other is his sister, known as Nanal, some four and a half years his senior. She too shows extraordinary talent as a clavier player. Their apartment

is in the heart of Salzburg's old town, above a shop selling groceries and spices. The aromas waft up as young Wolfgang masters composition after composition. He needs just half an hour to grasp a minuet, and perhaps an hour for a more difficult piece. hour to grasp a minuet, and perhaps an hour for a more difficult piece. Mozart truly was a child prodigy. I mean, those words perhaps are somewhat overused. We sometimes call footballers or snooker players child prodigy. He really was a child prodigy. And his father was saying, what's he doing? How is he able to do that? So his father recognized the talent very early on. So he then spread the word. So his father recognized the talent very early on.

So he then spread the word. Leopold is proud of the virtuoso pedigree that must run through his veins. He recognizes an opportunity, too. Leopold realized that he could use his children's talents, particularly those of his young son Wolfgang, to bring in money. And he started offering his son to give performances. So he was able to stage small recitals in his apartment in Salzburg and charge ticket money. But Leopold is not content that his family should be big fish in the relatively small pool of Salzburg. He's also aware that child prodigies have a shelf life.

Wolfgang is for now a showstopper, but his appeal will surely wane as he grows. Nannerl is ten, and her little brother is already starting to eclipse her. Leopold formulates a plan to tour around the Holy Roman Empire while youth is on their side. In January 1762, he takes his son and daughter to Munich, the capital of Bavaria, where they play for the Elector Maximilian III Joseph, a local prince with the right to elect the Holy Roman Emperor. a local prince with the right to elect the Holy Roman Emperor. With a royal seal of approval, they are then invited by other local aristocrats to perform in their salons.

Payment, alas, is less often in cash and more often in trinkets, watches, clothing, even ceremonial swords. But there is undoubted potential in the business. Though they return to Salzburg after just a few weeks, Leopold is already plotting his next move. He is eager to try their luck in the imperial capital Vienna. If they can make it there, they can make it anywhere. He secures time off from his position with the orchestra in Salzburg, who are only too happy to see the profile of their little city raised within the empire.

And Mr. Hagenor, owner of the spice shop beneath the Mozart's flat, uses his wealth and influence to secure credit lines in cities en route to Vienna. In effect, he bankrolls their adventure. It's the 18th of September, 1762, and the family, including Anna Maria and a servant, pile into a carriage. The journey takes them three weeks, with various stops along the way. Around halfway there, in Linz, the children give their first public performance together, sponsored by a local aristocrat. Among the audience is a Viennese count who passes on word of the child stars to one of the sons of Empress Maria Theresa.

So when they get to the capital, after a long, treacherous sailing up the Danube in cold and wet conditions, there is already a buzz about their arrival. They have been in the city about a week when they receive an invitation to play for the royal family at the Schönbrunn Palace. They are asked to play for a second time a week later and soon little Wolfgang is the hottest ticket in town. But then a problem arises. He has been harbouring a cough and cold since the river voyage.

He worsens, complaining of pain in his hips and back and developing a rash. His mother sends for a doctor. He is diagnosed with scarlet fever and told to stay in bed for two weeks. Leopold has to mask his frustration. Not only is his star attraction out of commission, but when word spreads of his ailment, bookings to play in the homes of wealthy locals suddenly evaporate. The family return by coach to Salzburg, and Wolfgang is sicker than ever by the time they get back. For a while, the dreaded smallpox is suspected, although a

streptococcal infection and then a bout of rheumatic fever are perhaps the most likely culprits. He makes a good recovery, but a worrying pattern of sickness is emerging. Leopold has undoubtedly been pushing his son, but it is not an entirely one-way street. We can attribute the enormous workload that he had to his ill health, but you have to remember he couldn't help his workload. He wanted to do it. He wanted to compose, compose, compose, compose, perform, perform, perform, perform. It was what he did. It was what came naturally to him.

By June 1763, the family is back on the road again, but on an even grander scale. They go first to Munich, then take in Stuttgart, Frankfurt, and other cities before heading into the Austrian Netherlands. It's truly foreign territory. But Leopold is already looking towards Frankfurt, and other cities before heading into the Austrian Netherlands. It's truly foreign territory. But Leopold is already looking towards perhaps the only two destinations in Europe that can rival Vienna for cultural prestige, Paris and London. On arrival in the French capital, the Bavarian minister in the city

sees to it that they are put up in grand rooms. Leopold is particularly delighted by his first interaction with a flushing toilet, almost as impressive as the city's magnificent opera house. He can feel it in his bones that his son is poised to take the city by storm. But then fate intervenes again when one of King Louis XV's grandchildren contracts smallpox and dies. France is plunged into a period of mourning. There is no question of entertainment being allowed. The Mozart's plans are put on hold, but eventually they are invited to the royal palace at Versailles. Wolfgang, now eight, and his sister are to play for the king and queen.

He wears a little suit and a three-cornered hat in respectful black, but somehow he manages to turn around the somber atmosphere. He utterly charms the queen and the princesses, and as the time for his performance approaches, members of the extended royal family and a host of foreign ambassadors hurry down Versailles' corridor to catch a glimpse of the boy wonder. He wows the crowd, save for one woman who is less than impressed. The king's mistress, Madame de Pompadour, enjoys his playing well enough, being herself a decent harpsichord player. But when he repeats the trick he played with Maria Theresa, launching himself at her to smother her in kisses, she's visibly horrified. It's only a hiccup, though. Wolfgang can tick off Paris on his list of conquered lands.

Wolfgang can tick off Paris on his list of conquered lands. But the effort exacts its now customary toll, and the Mozart children fall ill. It is April before they are sufficiently recovered to make the sea crossing to England and on to London. Within four days they have received an invitation to perform for the royal couple at Buckingham House. As ever, the concert is a success. The Mozarts are invited back twice more, and with this royal endorsement comes a flurry of private recitals for other local dignitaries, as well as a series of public concerts. While no one doubts Wolfgang's prowess as a performer, something else happens in London. His composition skills are coming to be recognized

as equally extraordinary. The boy Mozart was introduced to Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, who I think was the youngest surviving son, or certainly one of them, of the great Johann Sebastian Bach, who had come to London and made his career in London. And the boy met him. There's a famous anecdote that Bach sat the boy on his lap to let him play and was so impressed with him. And it was in London that the boy, I think he was only eight years of age,

composed his first full-length symphony. And Bach just was amazed at this. The Mozarts finally leave London in July 1765. They've stayed for 15 months, maybe a little too long, as everyone who might reasonably have seen them play did so a while back. But Leopold has made good money here, and more importantly, Wolfgang is making strides as a composer. He has completed his first symphonies, several sonatas, and assorted other pieces.

Now it's time to head home. But not before a detour to the Hague for one final Royal Command performance on this tour. The Mozarts have been on the road for over three years, visiting almost ninety different cities. It has been a triumph. But every member of the family has suffered serious ill health at one time or another. In all that time away, Wolfgang has not grown a single inch.

And the side trip back to the Austrian Netherlands almost proves a step too far. It is December 1765. A carriage rattles through the streets of the Hague. Inside, on the way home from yet another performance, Wolfgang sits huddled in one corner. He has a hacking cough, and his breath clouds in the midwinter cold. Anna Maria watches him nervously. She can see her son's shoulders hunched and shivering. Beads of sweat are forming on his forehead, even in this cold. The percussion of the horses' hooves comes to a halt as the carriage draws up outside

their lodgings. Anna Maria puts an arm around the boy and helps him from the carriage through the front door and up the stairs to their rooms. She lays him on his bed and tucks him in, looking every inch like a sickly infant and not the prodigy wooing high society. His mother recognizes the ominous symptoms. It's just a few weeks since Nenel was also bedbound.

The doctors had bled her for days and told her parents to prepare for the worse. A priest had given her the last rites. But then she had rallied. Mostly Anna Maria and Leopold were convinced thanks to a diet of calves' soup and boiled rice. Now it is frail little Wolfgang's turn. Anna Maria prepares him a hot drink, but he can hardly take the liquid down his swollen throat. He coughs and splutters, his normally sparkling eyes bloodshot and bleary.

Already his pillow is drenched with sweat. Words issue from his lips, but she cannot make them out. Just a jumble of nonsensical sounds. Nanelle, too, had suffered from delirium. Anna Maria presses the back of her hand against the boy's forehead. It is like he is on fire. His little frame thrashes on the mattress, his flailing arms send a beaker crashing to the floor. Now she notices his lips. They're

much darker than normal, almost black at the corners. How long have they been like that? It is like they're changing before her very eyes. Panic rises within her. Their schedule is punishing for sure, but Leopold knows their son will be a child prodigy only so long. The window for making money is surely limited. Anna Maria knows her husband is just doing his best to make sure this God-given opportunity doesn't pass them by. But is this the payoff? She leaves Wolfgang on his bed, closing the door behind her. She must send for a doctor.

The boy is just a few weeks away from his tenth birthday. But if he does not get some help soon, she fears he will not live to see it. For four long weeks, medics attend the boy And he gets worse before he gets better His lips discolor black and then peel away No fewer than three times What little weight he carries falls off him And he loses the power of all speech For eight days, he's virtually comatose.

Then, the first signs of improvement. He begins to eat, and his parents help him, first to stand unaided, and then to take a few faltering steps. Although he is never formally diagnosed, it is likely he has contracted typhoid, just like his sister. But gradually his strength returns. Finally they make it back to Salzburg. But if they are expecting a hero's welcome, they are disappointed. The local authorities, who granted Leopold a long leave of absence with an eye to the further glorification of their city, consider they have been rather taken advantage of.

Three and a half years away seems excessive. The family don't feel entirely comfortable there. Their horizons have also been expanded. It seems like they might have outgrown the place. In 1767 they are on the move again, back to Vienna. Wolfgang is now approaching his 12th birthday. But the city has changed much in the four years since he was last there. Emperor Franz has died suddenly in the meantime, and the grief-stricken Maria Theresa is co-ruling

with her son Joseph. He has an eye on expense, and the cultural scene has taken a backseat. Then his sister dies of smallpox and a six-week spell of official mourning is declared. With the theatres closed, it's a terrible time to be headed that way. Worse still, there is a smallpox epidemic. Somewhere on the journey, Wolfgang and Nanurl both contracted. For nine days, his cheeks glow red, his forehead burns, and his hands are like ice. It is almost as if he has gone blind. But once again, he fights his way back from the brink, as does his sister.

Now, some better news. A request from the emperor in Vienna out of the blue. He wants Wolfgang to compose his first opera and direct it too. It's spring 1768 and the work, called The Feigned Simpleton, is ready to go into rehearsals. But it is a disaster. The orchestra resents being instructed by a mere boy,

and several of the singers claim it is unperformable. Leopold is furious and makes a nuisance of himself with the emperor, suggesting some kind of conspiracy. But in truth, young Wolfgang is an acquired taste. He has a knack of rubbing people up the wrong way. Geniuses always pay the price for their genius. And the price that Mozart paid was that he wasn't, I don't know how to phrase it, he wasn't what we would call absolutely normal.

There was something, you know, the film Amadeus portrayed him as a giggling, buffoonish child, over the top and everything. Actually, he was exactly like that. You wouldn't really want to spend an evening with him. The Mozarts have little choice but to return to Salzburg. It's been a tough year and a rare failure for the young genius. But he is determined to bounce back and prove himself in the operatic form.

And Leopold plans to take him to Italy to do just that. The cost of taking the entire family on tour has become prohibitive. So a couple of weeks before Christmas, just Mozart and his father head for Italy, in a 15-month tour that will include nearly 40 cities and towns. Taking the country by storm, Mozart is soon commissioned to write an opera to be performed in Milan, its famous opera house, one of the cathedrals of the art form. At the same time, he writes his first string quartet. In sharp contrast with what happened in Vienna, the locals embrace his new work. The Pope even awards the teen a papal knighthood.

His operas were going down a storm in Italy. So he went back there with his father several times and he was lauded and praised wherever he went. So from an early age, even before he was making a name for himself as a symphonist, he was known as an amazing composer of opera, which of course did his reputation enormous good. The creativity flows,

even as illness and circumstance sometimes continue to conspire against him. There's a wonderful anecdote that father and son were, I think, returning from Italy, a tour of Italy, and they were snowed in, in the Alps, and they were in an inn, and the kitchen took too long to get their food to them. So Wolfgang, I think he was then about 13 or 14, don't worry, Papa, it's a good opportunity for me to start a new symphony. Just took a piece of manuscript paper out, started writing a new symphony, waiting for his dinner to arrive. As he approaches adulthood, Mozart is keen to flex his independence.

So far, his father has governed most aspects of his world. But the son is becoming his own man. And not an altogether easy one at that. Mozart's talent was so extraordinary that it set him apart in a way. He had few friends, school friends. He was taken out of school early, you know, because what's the point in schooling him when he's such a great musician?

And so there weren't many friends he could turn to to play around with, to fool around, as boys growing up would normally do. While touring can be profitable, it is also unpredictable. His father is keen for his son to land a permanent position, as he himself enjoys in Salzburg. But perhaps surprisingly, there is no great clamor to have him as a full-time court musician. After all, the musicians that he was performing with in the orchestra were all a generation older than him. The composers were a generation older than him.

So who is this upstart? Who is this boy who thinks he can do what we do with no experience whatsoever? He was difficult to control. He wouldn't perform to order or compose to order. He'd compose what he wanted to do so all his life his talent his prodigious talent which we revel in to this day set him apart and gave him few friends when mozart is 16 his father helps him wangle a position as concert master in salzburg but on a salary only a third of his father's.

It seems scant reward for such rich talent. Still, Mozart notches achievement after achievement. There are more operas, including commissions from the Habsburg royal family, and he has a prodigious output of symphonies, concertos, sonatas, masses, minuets and more. But the family are struggling financially, eventually forced to take cheaper rooms in Salzburg. In 1775 there is hope that Mozart is about to secure a profitable position in Munich. He is 18, nearly 19, and has a new opera debuting there. But it is a rare dud, its reception merely lukewarm.

He is growing tired of his father's influence too, the way he prescribes everything, from how they travel and where they stay, down to what his son wears. When the pair leave Munich for Salzburg at the beginning of March, neither is aware that it's their last tour together. Mozart remains in Salzburg for a little over two years, composing incessantly. But in 1777, he and Leopold hatch a plan for another tour in the hope of securing impermanent royal patronage somewhere. Leopold can take no more time off from his own position in Salzburg, so Mozart sets out with his mother early on the morning of the 23rd of September. Leopold watches them leave from an upstairs window,

mumbling his paternal blessings. Mozart and Anna Maria head for Munich, but their expedition has an inauspicious start. One morning, Mozart is lurking in the shadows of the royal court, preparing to ambush Elector Maximilian on his way to Mass. But the Elector has been forewarned that the young talent is after a job. He brushes Mozart aside, apologetically reporting that there is no vacancy. Rejected and humiliated, Mozart and Anna Maria now head for Augsburg, with a view to visiting Leopold's family. They stay with his brother, Franz Alois, his wife, and their daughter, Maria Anna, a year and a half Mozart's

junior. Known as the Basler, in other words, young female cousin, she is a pretty young woman with whom Mozart quickly establishes a flirtatious to and fro. The exact nature of their relationship is unclear, but Mozart enjoys some sort of awakening in her company, one that is evidenced in their correspondence. And those letters have survived. And I can tell you that in the 19th century, long after his death, German authorities and Austrian authorities tried to get these letters destroyed because they are so truly extraordinary. And they're extraordinary because they are obsessed with bodily functions. Not sex, not pornographic writing, but bodily functions. So it is real schoolboy humor, scatological humor, which is, as we would say today, frankly puerile and disgusting.

There is good reason to suspect that by the time he and his mother leave Augsburg for Mannheim in October, Mozart and his cousin have been intimate with each other. Mannheim has a reputation as another hotbed of musicality with a celebrated orchestra. But just as in Munich, there is no offer of permanent work. Mozart's arrogant streak seems to be putting off potential employers. Leopold is keen that his wife and son make directive for Paris in hope of better luck there. But winter is already setting in. The roads are icy and Anna Maria is nursing ill health.

Though it eats into their limited funds, they stay in Mannheim until the spring. Mozart has an ulterior motive for staying put, too. And in Mannheim, he fell in love with a girl. And he fell in love with her with the intention of proposing marriage to her. girl. And he fell in love with her with the intention of proposing marriage to her. The focus of his attentions is Aloysia Weber, the 16-year-old daughter of a local musical family. There is talk that Mozart might join them on a tour of Italy. But in March 1778, as his father has ordered, Mozart and his mother set out for Paris.

It's a wretched journey. Their carriage is buffeted by bad weather, and the rain makes it into the cab, soaking them. They finally make it to the French capital, where Leopold has arranged a single room for them. But it's cold and cramped, and neither really wants to be there. Mozart again fails to find an appointment. He composes, of course, and produces some joyous work, not least the so-called Paris Symphony. But it is altogether a troubled stay. Anna Maria's health worsens. She has a sore throat, earache, toothache, digestive problems. Her entire constitution seems under attack. In late June, doctors come to bleed her.

She seems to be bouncing back, but then a fever overtakes her, and a little after 10 p.m. on the 3rd of July, 1778, she dies. Mozart seems unable to process events. Within an hour of her passing, he writes to his father suggesting she's very ill, but still alive. Only a week later does he inform them of the bad news. Leopold at least partly blames Mozart for failing to secure her the right medical attention. In a bid to reclaim some control over his son, he arranges a position for him in Salzburg and demands his return.

Mozart leaves Paris in September 1778, 22 years old and for the first time alone in the world. Word has reached him that the Webers have moved to Munich, so he detours there on his way back home. He turns up wearing a red jacket with black buttons, traditional French mourning attire. He brings a gift for Aloysia, an aria he has composed for her. But when he is shown to the drawing room, she seems hardly to recognize him. It is the most excruciating snub. And she, in front of everyone, turned him down. He went to the piano and immediately played a ditty on the piano,

singing words to it which are translated as May the girl who turned me down kiss my arse. And so he went on. It is a dark time. Not a single job offer in Paris, the death of his mother, rejection by the girl he loves. And now, in 1779, he arrives back in a city he has fallen out of love with, to take up a job he does not really want. He slogs away for two largely unhappy years. In January 1781, he, Leopold and Nannerl debut his latest opera, I Domenio, in Munich. And though he has already written a dozen or so of them, this one is a triumph, establishing him as a master of the form. Whatever else is going on in his life, he always has his work,

and it is consistently brilliant. Now comes a summons to go to Vienna for the coronation of Joseph II. Archbishop Colorado, Mozart's boss, goes to the capital with his orchestra to take part in the upcoming celebrations. But it proves an ignominious moment for Mozart. And of course, Mozart, being a member of the orchestra, was involved. But he managed to get himself sacked right at the beginning. When they first arrived, he refused to attend rehearsals. He wouldn't do the right thing. And Colorado summoned him and sacked him. And his adjutant, his ballet, as it were,

famously kicked Mozart down the stairs. And we know he did that because they're in two letters Mozart refers to. He kicked me in the ass and I tumbled down the stairs. The most famous kick in the ass in classical music history. But what might have been a disaster opens new opportunities. He was on his own, a freelancer, no longer under the control of the archbishop, the prince archbishop. He could do his own thing. So in a way, that kick in the ass did him the world of good. And he knew it. Suddenly, he's in the capital city of the Holy Roman Empire and he loves it. And that's when he really starts making a name for himself. No longer able to stay in the archbishop's accommodation, Mozart looks for a new home. He learns from the music community's grapevine that Aloysia Weber and her sisters have recently moved to Vienna.

Aloysia is by now a much-loved operatic soprano and married to an actor. As they are taking paying lodgers, Mozart puts his previous indignity behind him and moves in with the extended family. He plans to stay just a week or two, but soon finds himself falling in love with Aloysia's younger sister, Constanza. Life is looking up. He plays regularly in the city's many salons and receives an imperial commission for a new opera, which becomes an instant hit. Confident of a bright future, Mozart proposes to Constanza, who accepts. It is not, however, an untroubled betrothal. There is opposition to the match from the families on both sides, with Leopold receiving reports from Vienna that question the bride-to-be's

virtue. Nonetheless, on the 4th of August 1782, in the city's St. Stephen's Cathedral, they wed. Now settled professionally and personally, he goes from strength to strength. He was churning out incredible symphonies, his best symphonies to date. Most importantly, the piano concerto. Mozart was writing extraordinarily complex and beautiful piano concertos and performing them himself. That is not something Vienna was used to seeing. Although only five foot four inches tall, his skin pocked by his bouts of illness over the years, by 1783 Mozart is an undisputed giant on vienna's musical scene older more established

names like antonio salieri are now playing a distinct second fiddle to him leopold wrote home to nanol back in salzburg that i went to see our wolfgang perform his new piano concerto last night it was a packed hall even the emperor was there which greatly impressed leopold it was a bit of a snob but here's the extraordinary thing he said in the rehearsal just before the performance fourth gang was still writing out some of the parts so the ink was not yet dry when the performance came and it was an incredible performance when the performance came and it was an incredible performance. The picture seems almost complete when in June Constanza gives birth to a son.

But the child lives just two months. A second son arrives in September 1784 and survives, but they will lose three further children in infancy, with only one other child making it to adulthood. Despite the strain of these losses, the Mozart marriage proves strong and resilient. Around the middle of the decade, Mozart meets one Lorenzo da Ponte,

a colourful Italian, variously an ordained priest, a notorious philanderer and a pimp, but also a talented librettist. Both outsiders in the imperial capital, the two strike up a friendship. Writing together, the collaborations will change the face of opera forever. Mozart is already well considered in the field, but it is this partnership that produces his most notable works. Their first joint project, premiering in 1786, is Le Nozze di Figaro. Although Vienna is initially nervous.

He had trouble getting his operas accepted in Vienna. For instance, his first truly great comic opera was The Marriage of Figaro. And this servants on stage mocking their masters, well, the aristocratic audiences in Vienna didn't want any of that. However, Prague, much more relaxed, more bohemian, took these operas to their heart. Where Prague leads, the rest of the continent soon follows. All the while, Mozart is composing much other music, including chamber pieces like Eine kleine Nachtmusik.

No one is in any doubt that he is the go-to guy, a figure to whom greatness attaches itself, a man in demand. It is April 1787, and Mozart is in his Vienna apartment. Sitting at his piano, he is furiously composing, working on several chamber pieces and a new operatic commission, a little something called Don Giovanni. A sharp rap at the door breaks his attention. He opens it to find a young fellow, not more than 16, staring back at him. staring back at him. He is short, like Mozart, but sturdier and scruffy, his clothes an afterthought, and his hair unkempt and untamable. When he mutters a greeting, Mozart detects the distinctive guttural accent of Rhineland Germany.

The teen thrusts an envelope at Mozart. It is a letter of introduction from a mutual acquaintance. Mozart has, in truth, been expecting the boy, having heard much about him. Ushering him into the apartment, he gestures for his visitor to sit down at the piano and play something. The youth scrapes the stool across the floor and lowers himself to the keyboard. What he lacks in social graces, he makes up for in the spellbinding nature of his playing. Just as Emperor France had once put the infant Mozart on the spot to test his skills on an unprepared piece, Mozart now instructs his visitor to play something of his own.

The guest rises to the challenge. Asking Mozart for a tune, he improvises upon it in the most spectacular ways, breathing new life into familiar phrases. A smile plays around Mozart's lips. He can see something of himself in this young man, a skill and bravura that only a handful can even aspire to, let alone achieve. The boy finishes with dramatic aplomb, his unruly locks swinging this way and that. With the final chords still vibrating in the air, Mozart walks across the floor and opens the door to an adjoining room.

Constanza is inside, entertaining some friends. They have all heard this masterful display at the piano, assuming it was Mozart himself. But the master knows there is a brilliant new talent who he must introduce to the world. He points over his shoulder in the direction of the boy and tells his wife and her companions that they should take note of him. Because soon his music will have everybody talking. He walks back to the piano, looking the teenager up and down, and promises that he will take him on as a student.

And so ends what is likely the only meeting between Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven. Beethoven is summoned home to his sick mother in Germany, and Mozart will not get the chance to share his wisdom with his natural musical successor. But at least he can focus on his own work. Don Giovanni is a triumphant follow-up to Le Nozze di Figaro. Collaborating again with de Ponta on Cosi Fantute, the works revolutionized the operatic world. Mozart is by now handsomely paid, yet

that does not mean he is without financial worries. The problem was life in Vienna for Mozart was expensive. And the apartment that he lived in, in the center of Vienna, in the Domgasse, which means Cathedral Alley, almost in the shadow of St. Stephen's Cathedral, the rent on it was enormous. And money used to pass through his hands like water. passed through his hands like water. And his dad, when he visited him in Vienna, was astonished to find, how many pianos do you need in your apartment, Wolfgang?

This must be costing you a fortune. He had at least two, if not more. And at one stage, he kept a carriage and horses underneath the apartment building. And his wife, she suffered a lot from ill health, which is understandable, given all the pregnancies that she had, but she needed to go down to Baden, a spa town just south of Vienna, to take the waters.

That all cost money. By the late 1780s, he is forced to write a series of begging letters to friends and acquaintances. But many of them have bigger things on their minds as the imperial capital looks nervously towards Paris, where revolution is in the air. Maria Antonia, the girl to whom six-year-old Mozart proposed marriage, is now better known

as France's Queen Marie Antoinette. Everybody knows what is happening in France might happen here too. Mozart now leaves Vienna for a tour of German cities. These solo trips leave some, including Constanza, to suspect some extramarital dalliances along the way, although there is no concrete proof. His perpetual toil takes its toll on his already fragile health. In summer 1791, back in Vienna, Mozart is hunched over his keyboard, scrawling notes for his latest opera, the Magic Flute.

He is also overseeing preparations for the opening of another opera, La Clemenza di Tito, and has just received a well-paid but anonymous commission to compose a requiem mass. La Clemenza receives a muted reception on its Prague debut, but when the magic flute opens at the end of the month, it is another astonishing success. Mozart, though, is exhausted from constant labor and uncharacteristically despondent. During a carriage ride with his wife in Vienna's beautiful Praeterpark, he confides that he feels he is writing the Mass for his own death. Fearing he will not last much longer, he wonders whether he has not been poisoned.

In November things get worse. His limbs swell and he cannot stop vomiting. Soon, he cannot even hold a pen and he takes to his bed. On the evening of the 4th of December he is being nursed by his sister-in-law Sophie and he tells her that he has the taste of death on his tongue. She goes out into the night in search of a doctor, but it is hours before one comes. By then it is far too late. Just before 1 a.m. on the 5th, he passes away. He is not yet 36. He is not yet 36.

A few days later, in compliance with imperial orders aimed at improving hygiene, he is buried in a shroud, not a coffin, in a shared grave. His body is sprinkled with lime to aid decomposition. It is a low-key exit, and the exact location of his final resting place is not recorded. Soon there are rumors about the circumstances of his death, stemming from Constanza's revelation about his suspicions of poisoning. It is a subject revisited centuries later by Anthony Schaffer in his play and the Oscar-winning movie based upon it, Amadeus. It's entered the realms of legend, even fantasy, that Salieri, who was the most senior musician in Vienna, the Kapellmeister, poisoned him because he was a rival to him and what have you. I don't believe that is true at all. Ultimately, nothing about his end can detract from Mozart's impact on Western culture.

Alongside perhaps only his one-time potential student Beethoven, he is the most famous figure in the history of classical music. And with hundreds of hours of music to his name, his output far surpasses the Germans. Today, the home he shared with his wife in Vienna where he wrote some of his greatest music is a museum. His works are played wherever there are concert halls, studied wherever there are universities, and heard the world over. Whole orchestras devote themselves to playing just his music. Redefining the symphony and opera, Mozart raised choral and chamber music to new heights

and wrote some of the most memorable tunes in human history. An artist around whom the Western musical canon is built and upon whose music an entire industry continues to this day. Mozart, in my view, is the most naturally gifted composer who ever lived. I've said it before, I'll say it again. He could write music the way you and I write emails. And he has left a legacy that is unparalleled in the history of music. And what sets Mozart apart, and indeed, it's Salieri who has given these words in Schaffer's play Amadeus. It's as if God puts the music into his head, it flows down his arm, into his pen, and onto the manuscript paper. And if you listen

to Mozart's music, I always think the music washes over you, you can sit back and close your eyes, and the world is put back to rights. And I believe mankind will be listening to his music, letting it set their mind at peace for the rest of time. Next time on Short History, I will bring you a short history of the Beatles. These are real people and it's a true story. This is how life transpires. We all have hopes and dreams, but you know, one guy will die of cancer. Another will be murdered. Friendships will be torn asunder, never to be put back together again. There'll be bittersweet reunions. It's all here. But that's what makes it so special, is that they harnessed this incredible

power they have. They grew as musicians, as songwriters, and they did it for as long as they possibly could. And when they finally leave, it breaks our heart over and over again. That's next time.