Mozart why was he important

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was one of the most influential, popular and prolific composers of the classical period. He composed over works, including some of the most famous and loved pieces of symphonic, chamber, operatic, and choral music.

Mozart was born in Salzburg to a musical family. From an early age, the young Mozart showed all the signs of a prodigious musical talent. 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.

Mozart was generally considered to be a rare musical genius, though Mozart said that he was diligent in studying other great composers such as Haydn and Bach. Approximately three hours and 10 minutes including one minute intermission. His father, Leopold Mozart, a noted composer, instructor, and the author of famous writings on violin playing, was then in the service of the archbishop of Salzburg.

Leopold and Anna Maria, his wife, stressed the importance of music to their children. Together with his sister, Nannerl, Wolfgang received such intensive musical training that by the age of six he was a budding composer and an accomplished keyboard performer. In Leopold presented his son as performer at the imperial court in Vienna, Austria, and from to he escorted both children on a continuous musical tour across Europe, which included long stays in Paris, France, and London, England, as well as visits to many other cities, with appearances before the French and English royal families.

Mozart was the most celebrated child prodigy an unusually gifted child of this time as a keyboard performer. He also made a great impression as a composer and improviser one who arranges or creates. In London he won the admiration of musician Johann Christian Bach — , and he was exposed from an early age to an unusual variety of musical styles and tastes across Europe. From the age of ten to seventeen, Mozart's reputation as a composer grew to a degree of maturity equal to that of most older established musicians.

Listen to this overture from his opera The Abduction from the Seraglio , set in a Turkish harem — featuring the pounding of military percussion like a Janissary army, it would have sounded fashionably exotic to Viennese audiences in The following piece is one of a couple that would have been sung by Mozart and his friends in the bar:.

His music portrays all the highs and lows of life experience, and shows a character that is fascinatingly complex. Is it the balance of comedy and death-defying drama in his uncategorizable opera Don Giovanni? The supreme elegance and chromaticism of his Piano Concerto No. Listen as an opening plaintive melody winds its way to massive pillars of sound, heralding a chorus that seems to put Mozart face-to-face with his creator:.

He was revered by the composers of his time and was inspirational to many others throughout history. The Russian composer references Mozart in a few of his works, but most directly in the Suite No. In and beyond, Mozart may be decomposing sorry but he shows no sign of slowing down. His indomitable character has been woven into our popular culture, from a major Academy Award-winning motion picture to a Golden Globe-winning series.

His music remains a core part of the repertoire of every major opera house, symphony orchestra, string quartet, and solo performer. January 14, Staff Classical Notebook. Just listen to the bold opening of his Sinfonia Concertante in E-flat for violin and viola, and revel in the elegance and combined passion of the two solo instruments: 2. Spoiler alert: the ghost demands Don Giovanni repent and relinquish his lascivious ways, and when Giovanni refuses, we hear the trombones and a ghoulish chorus literally dragging him down to hell: 3.

He transfixed audiences far and wide, performing concertos he had written himself, like the immortal C minor Piano Concerto: 7. If there is an example of a composer who used the rules and traditions of his time to the point, then it is him. One who wishes to understand what classical music is — and by classical, it is the period — then one needs to listen to Mozart and Mozart only.

Mozart wrote to patrons, out of necessity one would say, and therefore his work would follow instructions, and common structures and directions.

It was more about satisfying rather than surprising — which perhaps explains the smaller room for improvement and development in his music. 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 — he is well-known for using chromaticism at a time where it was still considered a strong dissonance, and two centuries before Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie used it as the foundation of bebop!

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