Mozart is the classic classical composer - his music neither unduly fettered by the archaic sing-song of Baroque counterpoint, nor affected by the heavy-handed self-conscious emotionalism of the late classical era. In fact, along with contemporary, Franz Joseph Haydn, he practically invented the form. The modern concerto is Mozart’s creation, as well as the comic opera. He composed beautiful melodies and was a master of orchestration.
He had the good fortune of being born into a musical family, and maturing at a time when the orchestral form was gaining sufficient cultural clout in Europe to afford the young composer ensembles of sufficient size and skill to carry his work. But it was his unbelievable talent that placed Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in the pantheon of Western cultural expression; the man could do everything and anything...and do it well!
What’s more, he was a fast worker, seldom brooding over a piece or engaging in endless re-writes - a process that affected so many composers of latter eras. For this reason, he produced an enormous body of work in practically every existing form - symphony, opera, concerto, chamber and mass. He was widely recognized for his skills during his lifetime, and Haydn declared his young colleague to be a genius.
Still, Mozart lived during a time when musicians, no matter their quality, worked at the mercy of court or church patronage, and were treated as little more than servants. Mozart struggled most of his life to make ends meet for himself and his family. He lived hard and fast, and died in poverty at the age of thirty-one. One wonders what musical miracles he would have conjured up had he lived another twenty or thirty years, and how the careers of Beethoven and Shubert might been affected by such an occurrence.
Mozart’s music is characterized by a feeling of immediacy. It seems filled with light, air and exuberance. Even his heavier pieces are fresh and uncontrived. More than a century after Mozart’s passing the greatest symphonist of all time, Gustav Mahler, said it all with his last living breath... “Mozart”. He knew that, more than the work of any other composer, Mozart’s music simply is.

- Greg Knepp, ClassicT-Shirt.com

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