http://classical.mysic.com/B0000058HT.html
The
incomparable and inimitable
Mozart, who signed himself
W.A. or
Wolfgang Amadé
(never "Amadeus" except in jest after 1773), was the lone surviving son of
a proud, shrewd, exploitative father.
Leopold toured the boy and his
sister, Nannerl, as prodigies between 1762 and
1773, from London to Italy via Germany, France, England, the Netherlands,
Switzerland, and, of course, Vienna, the Hapsburg capital.
Mozart, although frequently and
seriously ill, including with typhus and smallpox, spent less than four
years at home in Salzburg before 1773. The arrival of
a haughty, stingy new archbishop in 1771 curtailed father-son travel time.
Grudgingly,
Leopold sent his wife in 1777 - 1778
to chaperone an ill-fated trip to Paris (where she died). En route,
Mozart fell in love at Mannheim with
Aloisia Weber, whose sister
Constanze he happily married in 1783, without
papa's approval.
Mozart's reprieve from provincial
Salzburg came from the Elector of Bavaria: a commission to compose
Idomeneo
for Munich's 1780 - 1781 carnival season. From
there, the archbishop summoned
Mozart to Vienna for the coronation
of Joseph II, Maria Theresa's successor, where he dismissed his
exasperating employee. From 1782 on,
Mozart was his own man (although
perpetually nagged by papa, whose funeral in 1787
Mozart boycotted). Vienna emancipated
him from a stultifying routine, although before age 20 he had written nine
operas, five violin concertos, at least 30 symphonies,
and perhaps even more unknown works.
