![]() ![]() I could tell from his comments that he believed I would not be able to do much with his organ I would, for example, play it like a Clavier. The organ is in my eyes and ears the king of all instruments. When I told Herr Stein I would love to try out his organ because organ playing was my real Passion, he was a bit skeptical, and said: what? a man like you? such a great Clavierist, wants to play an instrument that has no douceur (gentle action), no Expression, no piano, no forte, but always sounds the same? - That makes no difference. In an often-quoted letter of 17 October 1777, he wrote to his father some of his thoughts about playing it: Throughout his life Mozart retained a love for the organ. Indeed this is a fresh act of God’s grace, which many a one only receives after much labor (quoted in Emily Anderson, The Letters of Mozart and His Family, 3rd edition. Whereupon he tried it stante pede, shoved the stool away and played standing at the organ, at the same time working the pedal, and doing it all as if he had been practising it for several months. The latest news is that in order to amuse ourselves we went to the organ and I explained to Woferl the use of the pedal. In a letter dated 11 June 1763, Leopold described Mozart’s first attempt at playing this instrument when the boy was seven years old: Not only was he a virtuoso at the harpsichord, the young Mozart also amazed all who heard him play the organ, apparently without formal instruction. Franz Xaver Niemetscheck, Mozart’s first biographer, recounts how the little boy amazed all who heard him play so that “people could hardly believe their ears and eyes at the performance” of this “magician.” Mozart even had prepared tricks (choreographed by his father?), and played flawlessly with only one finger on a covered keyboard. 39).Īll of this tenacity and dedication soon paid off. he always played the clavier or composed (quoted in Solomon, Mozart, p. In the morning between 6 o’clock and 9 o’clock he wrote, mostly while in bed then he got up and didn’t compose throughout the entire day, except when he had to write something quickly. one couldn’t take him away before midnight I think he would have played through the whole night. If he sat down at the clavier (or keyboard) at 9:00 P.M. Nannerl wrote:įrom early childhood on he liked best to play and to compose at night and in the morning. Only a few weeks later Leopold copied his only son’s earliest compositions into the music book.įor young Mozart, playing the harpsichord and composing were equally important forms of making music. Even more precisely, “This minuet and trio were learned by Wolfgangerl in half-an-hour, at half-past nine at night on 26 January 1761, one day before his fifth birthday” (quoted in Solomon, Mozart, p. He reports, with careful detail, that “Wolfgang learned this minuet in his fourth year” from Nannerl’s music book. Leopold must have sensed early on the importance of his son’s amazing accomplishments. The three-year old Wolfgang was immediately drawn to these lessons, spending hours “picking out thirds and sounding them” on the keyboard. Leopold began giving keyboard lessons on the harpsichord to his daughter Nannerl when she was seven. Although his compositions were competent but not great, he was an excellent and knowledgeable music teacher proficient at an array of instruments. His greatest musical accomplishment was the violin method book that he published in 1756, the year of Wolfgang’s birth it was widely used and subsequently translated into Dutch and French, and had two later German editions. By 1763 he had risen to the position of deputy Kapellmeister (the second-highest position in the court musical establishment). ![]() His father Leopold was appointed as fourth violinist in the court orchestra of the Archbishop of Salzburg. The HarpsichordĪs we learned in our previous lessons, Mozart grew up surrounded by music. ![]() Then we’ll take a look at Mozart’s Concerto No. We’ll also examine some of his first compositions and the earliest accounts of his performances. Today’s lesson focuses on Mozart’s relationship with keyboards using his own letters to reveal his discovery of the piano and his views about playing. Lesson 4 examined Mozart’s developing craft as an opera composer, beginning with his earliest works through what is considered his operatic masterpiece, The Marriage of Figaro. We will begin by examining Mozart’s earliest compositions and the earliest accounts of his performances, then follow the development of his genius at the keyboard as composer and performer. The Developing Genius: Mozart and the Piano This lesson will focus on Mozart and the keyboard. ![]()
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