Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Research Papers (original) (raw)

Born in Salzburg in 1756, from his early childhood Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was received as a guest in the most important European cities and courts, admired and praised for his extrardinary musical gifts. When he was only four years old,... more

Born in Salzburg in 1756, from his early childhood Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was received as a guest in the most important European cities and courts, admired and praised for his extrardinary musical gifts. When he was only four years old, he composed his first minuet and at the age of six he played in front of the monarchs in the courts of Vienna, Pairs and London. When he was fourteen, he went on the first among his three journeys to Italy, and Bologna was definitely one of the most important stops of that one; during one first short staying in March 1770, Wolfgang, together with his father Leopold, skillful musician and composer, got in touch with the Bolognese musical circles, by performing at a Musical Academy in Count Gian Luca Pallavicini’s palace in Strada San Felice; then, he returned to Bologna in July and stayed until mid-October, sojourning in the magnificent Villa Pallavicini at the Croce del Biacco; at that time, Wolfgang was preparing for the examination in view of the aggregation to the famous Accademia Filarmonica of Bologna, under the guide of Father Martini, at that time tutelary deity of the European musical culture. The aggregation to the Accademia Filarmonica of Bologna was a particularly important title for composers all over Europe and could be obtained by taking a demanding examination, which consisted in realizing one four-voice antiphon from the Roman gradual psalms. Since young Mozart did not own the counterpoint rules in full, his admission test did not on the whole comply with the strict academic rules, so that Father Martini’s intervention was necessary; having perceived the child’s genius, he secretly handed him the correct version of the exam work. Several characters are linked to Mozart’s staying in Bologna, from Count Gian Luca Pallavicini and his family to the famous castrato singer Carlo Broschi named Farinelli, who used to reside in a sumpuous house outside Porta Lame in Bologna, nowadays unfortunately lost; from composers Vincenzo Manfredini and Joseph Myslivecek, to the historian of the English music Charles Burney, who right in the summer 1770 was passing through Bologna; from the austere Philarmonic Academicians to Father Giambattista Martini, central figure of the European musical 1700s, to whom Mozart had always been so grateful as to write in 1776: “I give my humble respects to all Messrs Philarmonics; I always recommend myself to your favours and I do not cease to distress myself in seeing me far from the one person in the world whom I mostly love, revere and esteem, and of whom I inviolably protest myself of Your very Reverend paternity”.