Mozart was at the height of his popularity in Vienna when, in March of 1785, he composed the Piano Concerto No. 21 in C Major, K. 467. In a letter dated March 12, two days after the Concerto’s premiere, Mozart’s father, Leopold, wrote to his daughter back home in Salzburg, We never get to bed before one o’clock and I never get up before nine. We lunch at two or half past. …
During the winter of 1777, Mozart spent three months in Mannheim, the German city which was renowned for having one of Europe’s most elite and cutting edge orchestras. Months earlier, the 21-year-old composer had resigned from a position which he found stifling in his hometown of Salzburg. Accompanied by his mother, he set out on a job hunt that would take him to Paris. Ultimately, the trip ended in disappointment. But while …
Blending comedy, melodrama, and the supernatural, Mozart’s 1787 opera, Don Giovanni, tells the story of an arrogant, promiscuous nobleman, who, before the final curtain, receives the ultimate hellish comeuppance. Don Giovanni attempts to seduce the peasant girl, Zerlina, and disarm her jealous fiancé, Masetto. At the beginning of the second act, Masetto and his friends look for Don Giovanni in order to kill him, but they are outsmarted by the cunning, disguised …
In May of 1784, while reflecting on his three most recently completed piano concerti (Nos. 14, 15, and 16), Mozart insisted that he “could not choose between them,” but that “the one in E-flat [No. 14] does not belong at all to the same category. It is one of a quite peculiar kind…” Piano Concerto No. 14 in E-flat Major, K. 499 is intimate chamber music. Unlike Mozart’s later concerti, the wind …
In June of 1789, the 33-year-old Mozart began writing a set of six string quartets for Friedrich Wilhelm II, the King of Prussia, a passionate music lover and a fine amateur cellist. Mozart had played at the King’s Potsdam court during a tour the previous spring. Ultimately, Mozart was unable to fulfill the commission. After completing the first Quartet (K. 575), he became occupied with the opera, Così fan tutte. He returned to …
Mozart’s 1786 comic opera in four acts, The Marriage of Figaro, K. 492, is filled with trickery, deception, overheard conversations, cunning disguises, and crazy schemes. Unfolding over the course of a single “day of madness,” it tells the story of two servants, Figaro and Susanna, who succeed in getting married despite the efforts of their lecherous employer, Count Almaviva. The play by Pierre Beaumarchais, on which the opera was based, faced censorship because …
Jodie Devos, the celebrated Belgian soprano, passed away last Sunday, June 16, as a result of rapidly-progressing breast cancer. She was 35. At the time of her death in Paris, she was surrounded by family. In a social media post, soprano Barbara Hannigan remembered Devos as “a beautiful artist, vibrant and radiant of sound and presence.” In a statement to Belgian news channel VRT, conductor Dirk Brossé said, “We have lost one …