The prodigal son of music has no more secrets to hide? Well, I recently went a little further in my research (obsession!) and found out ten new things I didn´t know and that make me love him even more.
Mozart Was A Mason
Well it didn’t happen until later on in his adult life but for the last seven years, he was a Freemason. His father, Leopold Mozart, colleague Joseph Haydn, brother-in-law Joseph Lange and many other close to him were Masons too. I discovered this fact because in my favorite Opera: The Magic Flute, but then I went on investigating about the number three, the dotted figures and the suspensions and it all happens to be true.It´s all present throughout his last works (which are a lot!). As documents say, he was the best musician among all Mason brothers and therefore was welcome to every Lodge in Vienna and outside it. The good thing about Mozart being a Freemason is that he was not involved in the mysticism and religious practices the regular Masons were.
He Had To Prove He Was “Even Better Than The Real Thing”
In a time were privacy was much more private than it is now, many people in Vienna was doubting young Mozart and believed that he was a fraud changing names on his father´s compositions. Remember he wrote his first symphony (Symphony N°1) when he was eight years old, quite an unusual thing for a boy his age. He had to shut everyone up by writing La FintaSemplice, a comic opera, impromptu in front of the deniers of his talent. Of course he was successful in his enterprise and it was enough for everybody to understand they were in front of a talent they hadn´t seen before. “Haters gonna to hate”, true since the XVIII Century!
Mozart You Genius, You!
Mozart was the first person known to humanity that learnt how to write music before he could write any other language, like the one we all know that is composed by letters and punctuation marks. Then, we can also throw in these little facts: he learnt his first instrument: the clavier at age 3 and was playing it plus the violin and the harpsichord as a professional by age 5.
200 Hours Of Music
The largest recording project ever devoted to a single composer was to Mozart by the brand Philips and the result was 180 compact discs in the year 1991, which, if you decide to buy, would take up to 6.5 feet of your house. Needless to say those were just the authenticated works of this great composer.
He Is Not The Most Prolific Composer In History!
He did write a lot in very little time, he is one of the most important and prolific composers, but the podium is leaded by Schubert. Both composed six hundred-something pieces in their life, but Schubert died at age 31, which makes him hour-by-hour more prolific than Mozart.
Where Are You?
Mozart was one of the most prodigious composers and players in the history of humankind but died in extreme poverty and while his requiem was played in Beethoven´s funeral, Mozart himself couldn´t afford one and his corpse is in an unknown location since he was buried in a common grown.
An Odd Pair
Mozart had a sister who travelled with him and their father playing music for the courts and she was a very talented pianist, but when Maria Anna reached 18, a marriageable age, she was no longer allowed to perform. She was very obedient, unlike her brother who never listened to his father.
Almost A King
When he was a very young child, Mozart performed music for Empress María Theresa and amused her a lot when asked one of her daughters to marry him.They all laughed about it. The little girl was Marie Antoniette, the future queen of France.
Prolific In Everything
At the age of his death, 35, Mozart had already had six children but only two survived infancy. As for them, none got married or had children. Those magnificent genes are lost forever.
Biographer And Wife
After Mozart died, his wife Constantine married again, 18 years later. She helped her new husband write a book about Mozart, a very accurate one, of course!
