A supernatural early and early child, barely out of the small size, in powdered and knee wig, capricious in the major 18th century Europe houses between virtuoso performance on the harpsichord. A young boy who can play any room someone puts in front of him, and compose symphonies very easily…. Few scenes better capture the myth of the child prodigy than those reported in the childhood of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
If Milos Forman Amadeus is a reliable guide to his character, if not his story, Mozart may have never lost his childish charm and exuberance, but his musical capacity seemed to ripen in an exponential way when he composed hundreds of sonatas, quatuors, concertos and operas, ending with the RequiemA surprising work of any measure, despite the unfinished respect in the year of his death, 1791, at the age of 35.
While these feverish scenes of RequiemForman's composition can be tied to the truthThe stories of Mozart preschool and childhood genius are well -assembled. Not only did he play with incredible skills for “emperors and imperatives in European lessons”, but “at the time he was six years old, he had composed dozens of remarkable pieces for the keyboard as well as for other instruments,” notes Willard Palmer in An introduction to Mozart's most popular works. “His first composition efforts began when he was only four years old.”
He composed several short pieces the following year, and you can hear them all interpreted above. On the site of the Morgan Library, you can also see a digitized handwritten image of four of these compositionswritten in the hand of Mozart's father. Léopold Mozart – Parental Driving Force, as we know, behind Wolfgang's childhood career as a wonder marvel – recorded these first attempts, creating them in “Wolfgangerl”, in what is known as the Nanner notebookFrom the nickname of Mozart's older sister, Maria Anna.
Léopold, Kapellmeister of Salzburg Court Orchestra, recognized not only the musical talents of Wolfgang, but also those of Nannerl, and he spent his time supervising the training of his children. For sadly obvious reasons, the elder Mozart did not continue to occur, and the notebook named for her does not contain any of her compositions, only the leopold exercises for children and the first original work of her brother. In addition to Mozart's first pieces, he can also contain music composed by him at 7 or 8 years old – more extensive works that could, said researcher Mozarteum Ulrich LeisingerBridge The first short and simple parts and its first major compositions.
Nevertheless, we have Dozens of Mozart compositions Throughout his childhood and adolescence. Several of these previous parts come from the so-called London notebookA sketchbook held at the time of Mozart in England between 1764-1765. Here, Writes Elena AbendWe find him “extend his musical themes in relation to his previous compositions”. And yet, music “almost always has a playful on this subject”. It is a quality that has never left Mozart's work, excluding the brilliant RequiemOf course, but this final masterpiece was completed by other composers, none of them with the lightness of Mozart, which we can trace to this first piece, “a small courteous composition”. Writes Abend, “Grace is essential to perform the part”.
Note: a previous version of this article appeared on our site in 2017.
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Mozart's Journal where he composed his final masterpieces is now digitized and available online
Josh Jones is a writer and musician based in Durham, NC. Follow him to @jdmagness