Wednesday, September 12, 2007

"I'M A VULGAR MAN, BUT I ASSURE YOU MY MUSIC IS NOT."

Well, he only lived 35 years, but he more than made his mark on the world. I'm talking about that Austrian dude who composed some 600 works during his very brief but amazing lifetime. Who else, but the incomparable Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart?! WOLFIE! Some facts about this amazing man:

-His full official name was Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophillus Amadeus Gottlieb Sigismundus Mozart.

-Mozart could write music notes before he could write words.

-Mozart composed: 50 symphonies, 25 piano concertos, 12 violin concertos, 27 concert arias, 26 string quartets, 103 minuets, 15 masses, 21 opera works.

-Mozart's first compositions, a small Andante (K. 1a) and Allegro (K. 1b), were written in 1761, when he was just five years old.

-Mozart made decent money during his lifetime, but was a terrible spender and was constantly in debt and had to borrow from others.

-Like in the film Amadeus, although a genius composer, Mozart could actually be quite crude and vulgar in his behavior, and his laugh was notoriously unique.

-Many theories and myths surround his death, but it is generally accepted that he died of rheumatic fever.

-No one know where Mozart's body is buried, as he ended up in a common grave.

-Mozart was 30 years old when he met 16 year-old Beethoven.

-Was married only once to Constanze with whom he had six children, but only two survived into adulthood.

Although the 1984 masterpiece motion picture Amadeus takes many liberties and is highly inaccurate in its depiction of Mozart's supposed rivalry with the Italian composer Salieri, it is still a wonderfully enjoyable film with terrific acting and music of course:





7 comments:

Anonymous said...

That was a great movie.
Why the interest in Mozart?

Ladrón de Basura (a.k.a. Junk Thief) said...

It's odd to watch this today with Christine Ebersole as Constanze, such an unlikely preparation for "Grey Gardens".

WAT said...

I'm weird like that, I'll obsess over something or someone for a while, then move on to the next fad. Well, fad in my life that is. And right now, I've been bitten by the Mozart bug.

Anonymous said...

Perhaps your interest in Mozart was peaked by a shared friend who called herself "Wolfie" online - good old Publications, eh Wil???

M- Filer said...

I loved that movie and assummed it was 100 percent accurate. Just gullible I guess.

Wolfie said...

Who is this wolfie person? Perhaps I shall rent the DVD. This Mozart fellow, is he any good? Worth a listening to?

Get back to me on that.


TIA.

Leesa said...

I loved the movie, though it was inaccurate. It did capture who Mozart was, though.