The Freemason Cantata was Mozart’s last composition, and was first performed on 18 November 1791. His brother Masons were a constant source of financial support to him. Mozart was a keen member and had been promoted to the status of journeyman Mason in 1785. They supported liberal ideals and made music together. His contemporaries often noted that Mozart seemed to have already heard, edited, listened to, and visualized entire musical works in his mind before raising a pen to com- pose them on paper.Together with the librettist Lorenzo da Ponte, Emanuel Schikaneder and numerous high-ranking members of the nobility and army, Mozart was a brother with equal rights in the Masonic lodge called Zur Wohltätigkeit (‘benificence’. 464įrom Mozart’s youth, his musical intellect and capability were unmatched. Thus, “without a note of music, forsaken by all he held dear, the remains of this Prince of Harmony were committed to the earth, not even in a grave of their own, but in the common fosse affected to the indiscriminate sepulture of homeless mendicants and nameless waifs.”įootnote: 2 Crowest, “An Estimate of Mozart,” The Eclectic Magazine: Foreign Literature Vol. ![]() In debt at the time of his death, Mozart was given a common burial. Mozart’s favorite student, Franz Xaver Sűssmayr, completed the mass from Mozart’s sketch scores, with some insertions of his own, while rumors spread that Mozart was possibly poisoned by another contemporary composer. Mozart’s health failed shortly after receiving this commission and the composer died, just before his thirty sixth birthday, before completing the piece. The Requiem was commissioned by a count who intended to pass the work off as his own. Mozart returned home depressed and broken, and began working on a Requiem, which, coincidentally, would be his last composition. Its audience, overly indulged and exhausted from the coronation, was not impressed with Mozart’s work. ![]() The festive opera that Mozart composed for this event was called The Clemency of Ti- tus. The newly acclaimed famous composer was quickly hired to write a piece (as well as attend) the coronation of the new Emperor, Leopold II, as King of Bohemia. In the final year of his life, Mozart with librettist (actor/poet) Emanuel Schikaneder, wrote a very successful opera for the Viennese theatre, The Magic Flute. Mozart quickly fired back, responding that the Viennese perhaps needed more time to understand it. In a letter to Mozart, Emperor Joseph II wrote of Don Giovanni that the opera was perhaps better than The Marriage of Figaro but that it did not set well on the pallet of the Viennese. Mozart was pushing the musical envelope beyond the standard entertainment expected by his aristocratic audience, and patrons in general did not appreciate it. Therefore, his music sometimes had to be viewed more than once by the audience in order for them to understand and appreciate it. As a composer, Mozart was trying to expand the spectrum, or horizons, of the musical world. Mozart’s luster and appeal seemed to have passed. The second opera left the audience somewhat confused. Mozart, with da Ponte again as librettist, then composed Don Giovanni. ![]() The city of Prague, so impressed with the opera, commissioned another piece by Mozart. The opera was a hit in Prague and Vienna. The peak of Mozart’s career success occurred in 1786 with the writing of The Marriage of Figaro (libretto by Lorenza da Ponte). Their programs would also include some arias, solo improvisation, and possibly an overture of piece by another composer. He would write piano concertos for annual concerts. He also relied on the entertainment genre of the concert. While in Vienna, Mozart relied on his teaching to sustain him and his family. ![]() \): Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart by Barbara Krafft.
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