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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
5. Having heard the famous Miserere of Gregoris Allegri in the Sistine Chapel, Mozart
returned home and __________ .
A. told everybody about it B. wrote down the entire work from memory
C. started composing his own pieces D. fell asleep
6. His wife, Constanze Weber, was __________ .
A. his cousin B. his student
C. the cousin of the composer Carl Maria von Weber D. his servant
7. Mozart honored Haydn by composing six string quartets and __________ .
A. stealing all other his compositions B. selling them to him
C. performing them D. dedicating them to him
8. Mozart’s nal work, the Requiem, __________ when he died in Vienna in 1791.
A. was sold B. was not completed C. was hidden D. was stolen
7. Choose the correct form.
1. Leopold, Mozart’s father, was a__________ court musician.
A. respectable B. respected C. respecting D. respect
2. Mozart dazzled court patrons with his ability __________ in many styles.
A. in improvising B. improvising C. to improvise D. by improvise
3. While _________ Rome in 1770, Mozart heard the choir in the Sistine Chapel singing
the famous Miserere of Gregoris Allegri.
A. having visiting B. having visited C. to visit D. visiting
4. Because of Mozart’s __________ accomplishment, the Pope made the 14-year-old
Mozart aKnight of the Golden Spur.
A. amazing B. amazed C. amaze D. amazable
5. __________ they were very poor, these years spent with Constanze were important.
A. ought B. ough C. Despite D. However
6. Mozart’s last years were __________ with nancial diculties and health problems.
A. lling B. ll C. lled D. fallen
8. Complete the sentences with necessary prepositions.
1. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born _____ the beautiful town _____ Salzburg,
Austria, _____ 1756.
2. Mozart was six when his father took him _____ Vienna where he played _____ the
Austrian emperor and was introduced _____ the public _____ achild prodigy.
3. He dazzled court patrons _____ his ability to improvise _____ many styles and sight-
read as well as any adult.
4. _____ _____ London, he met Johann Christian Bach, J.S.Bach’s youngest son, who
had agreat inuence _____ Mozart’s rst symphonies.
51
MEET THE FAMOUS COMPOSERS
5. _____ visiting Rome _____ 1770, Mozart heard the choir _____ the Sistine Chapel
singing the famous Miserere _____ Gregoris Allegri.
6. _____ returning home, he wrote _____ the entire work _____ memory.
7. _____ _____ this amazing accomplishment, the Pope made the 14-year-old Mozart
aKnight _____ the Golden Spur.
8. _____ _____ Paris _____ 1778, he composed aset _____ variations _____ piano
_____ the folk tune known today _____ «Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star».
9. Mozart honored Haydn ___ composing six string quartets and dedicating them ___
him _____ 1785.
10. Penniless and _____ debt, he was buried _____ acommon grave, the exact location
_____ which is unknown.
9. Complete the sentences.
1. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was four years old when his father, Leopold,
__________________ .
2. At the age of six Mozart ______________________________________________ .
3. Mozart’s ability to _________________________________________________ .
4. Being successful in London, Mozart _____________________________________.
5. Being impressed by the Miserere of Gregoris Allegri, Mozart _________________ .
6. Using the folk tune, Mozart composed ___________________________________ .
7. His wife was ______________________________________________________ .
8. Mozart surpassed any composer of his time ____________________________ .
9. Mozart’s meeting with Haydn ________________________________________ .
10. Because of his nancial diculties, Mozart ______________________________ .
10. Translate the following sentences into English.
1. Моцарт является одним из самых популярных классических композиторов.
2. Учителем Моцарта был его отец.
3. Ввозрасте шести лет Моцарт был представлен публике как необыкновенно одаренный ребенок.
4. Во время визита вЛондон Моцарт познакомился ссыном Иоганна Себастьяна
Баха.
5. За исполнение «Помилуй мя, боже!» Моцарт был награжден папским рыцарским орденом «Золотой шпоры».
6. В1782 году Моцарт женился на племяннице композитора Карла Марии Вебера.
52
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
7. Совместные годы сКонстанцией были самыми счастливыми.
8. Моцарт посвящает Гайдну свой сборник из шести квартетов.
9. Впоследние годы жизни уМоцарта были финансовые трудности.
10. Без гроша ивдолгах Моцарт умер в1791.
11. Retell the story:
a) in the name of his father
b) in the name of Constanze Weber
12. Make up adialogue:
a) Between Mozart and Salieri (Marie Antoinette, you, etc.).
b) You have played Mozart’s works and is to explain to your fellow-student the
performance features.
13. Imagine what if …
a) Mozart were alive today… What would he be doing?)
b) Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri were rivals today?
c) … (make your own assumption)
* For intermediate level students and above: see Supplementary Texts 1, 2
SUPPLEMENTARY TEXTS
Text 1
THE FEUD THAT NEVER WAS
Tradition and the love of agood yarn have
long cast Antonio Salieri as the murderer of
Mozart and amusical hack. Erica Jeal explodes
the myth.
It’s hard to say which view of Antonio
Salieri is more rmly embedded: that he was
the tormentor who drove Mozart to an early
grave— perhaps even using aspot of arsenic
just to make sure— or that he was alousy
composer. A few clunky numbers on the
soundtrack of Amadeus, Milos Forman’s 1984 lm of Peter Shaer’s play, are all most
of us will have heard of Salieri’s music. Was there any more to him as acomposer than
that?
ere are inuential musicians who say that there was. Indeed, Salieri’s operas have
been undergoing aslow but steady exhumation. Next year the renovated La Scala in
Milan is to reopen its doors with the work Salieri wrote for its very rst performance
back in 1778. And now Cecilia Bartoli has recorded an album devoted to his music.
53
MEET THE FAMOUS COMPOSERS
With an artist of Bartoli’s clout on his side, it’s safe to say that we’re going to be hearing
alot more of Salieri the composer. And Salieri the poisoner? Sadly for those who like
agood conspiracy theory, there’s no evidence that he was any such thing. It’s time to
reappraise the man as well as his music.
If Salieri wasn’t the enviously wrathful schemer of Forman’s imagination, who
was he? We have frustratingly little rst-hand information. But the picture drawn by
Volkmar Braunbehrens’s 1989 biography is of aserious, steady, occasionally irascible
man. ere are, however, mentions of him as friendly and cheerful, and the Irish singer
Michael Kelly, agood friend of Mozart, assures us that Salieri «would make ajoke of
anything». What is certain is that by 1781, when the 25-year-old Mozart set up home in
Vienna, Salieri, six years his senior, was an established star.
Born in the northern Italian town of Legnano in 1750, he had been brought to
Vienna aged 15, where he was introduced to his later mentor, Gluck, and to the emperor,
Joseph II. Salieri was invited to join in chamber music sessions with the emperor, and
soon found himself launched on acareer in the imperial court. His appointment in
1774 as court composer and conductor of the Italian opera made him one of the most
inuential musicians in Europe.
An ambitious young composer such as Mozart could conceivably have wished Salieri
out of the way, but the other way round? Hardly. So what if Mozart collaborated on Le
Nozze di Figaro with Beaumarchais, the doyen of the Paris stage? Salieri was already
working on Tarare, to alibretto by Beaumarchais himself, awork that would be ahit in
Paris. And if Mozart’s collaborations with the librettist Lorenzo da Ponte bore greater
fruit than Salieri’s? Well, no matter— it was Salieri, aer all, who could claim credit for
bringing Da Ponte to Vienna. True, aer their rst opera together opped the composer
swore he would rather have his ngers chopped o than work with him again, but he
relented in time to write several that were far more successful.
However, if what Mozart’s wife Constanze reported was true, there was one incident
that might conceivably have sparked arivalry. She claimed that Salieri had been oered
Da Ponte’s libretto for Cosi Fan Tutte— and had rejected it as being not worth setting.
When Mozart got his hands on it, ahumiliated Salieri had to eat his words.
Otherwise, though, any tensions between the two seem more like oce politics.
Salieri had to turn down the prestigious commission for La Clemenza di Tito, but had no
real reason to resent Mozart for being the second choice. For his part, Mozart complains
in letters to his father of being thwarted by Italian «cabals», but it oen seems that he
felt he had to make excuses to his grumpy, overambitious parent for any small failure.
Far from blocking its performance, Salieri frequently conducted Mozart’s work. And
Mozart’s death, as one respected musical journal wrote, was almost certainly caused not
by poison but by «arduous work and fast living among ill-chosen company».
It was only aer Mozart’s demise that Salieri began to have any real reason to hate
him. Unlike that of any before him, Mozart’s music kept on being performed. Cut down
at the peak of his powers— and with the added frisson of whispered rumours that he
54
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
might have been murdered— he became the rst composer whose cult of celebrity
actually ourished aer his death.
Salieri, however, had outlived his talent. He wrote almost no music for the last two
decades of his life. Instead he spent time revising his previous works. He did have
an impressive roster of pupils: Beethoven, Schubert, Meyerbeer and Liszt— not to
mention Franz Xaver Mozart, his supposed adversary’s young son. But the composer
who had once been at the vanguard of new operatic ideas was not necessarily teaching
his students to be similarly innovative; we can only be grateful that Schubert ignored his
diatribes against the «intolerable» genre of Germanic lieder.
So how did this respected musician become the rumoured murderer of the great
Mozart? Nobody knows for certain. But in his nal weeks Mozart is reported to have
believed he had been poisoned, and had gone so far as to blame hostile Italian factions
at the Viennese court. People put two and two together and pointed the nger at Salieri.
And who could resist astory this good? Certainly not his fellow composers. ere are
mentions of it in Beethoven’s Conversation Books. Weber, Mozart’s father-in-law, had
heard it by 1803, and cold-shouldered Salieri ever aer. And 20 years later it was still
doing the rounds; Rossini joked about it when he met Salieri in 1822.
As the rumour gathered strength, all denials only served to reinforce it. en, in
1823, Salieri — hospitalised, terminally ill and deranged— is said to have accused
himself of poisoning Mozart. In more lucid moments he took it back. But the damage
was done. Even if few believed the ramblings of aconfused old man, the fact that Salieri
had «confessed» to Mozart’s murder gave the rumour some semblance of validity.
Today, although we know it’s almost certainly false, the image of Salieri as poisoner
persists. It’s largely because so many artists have been drawn to it— and their responses
can reveal more about themselves than about the story. Pushkin, who wrote his Little
Tragedy on the subject just ve years aer Salieri’s death, made him unambiguously
amurderer. But still, there’s asense of identication with both the deep-thinking Salieri
and the light-hearted Mozart. Rimsky-Korsakov, writing about it 67 years later, mostly
imitated classical styles, except when Mozart plays something Salieri hails as «genius’—
which is where, funnily enough, we get our only real taste of pure Rimsky.
And then, of course, there’s Amadeus. e success of the lm has done more than
anything to promote the image of Salieri as malefactor, even though the play on which
it is based rests on the fact that he wasn’t actually amurderer. But in identifying with
Salieri, Shaer has made the composer’s little tragedy into something far, far bigger:
something that holds up amirror to aside of human nature we’d rather not confront.
All these works, though, miss out one important point: that Shaer’s «patron saint
of mediocrities’ wrote some ne music. It’s true that his output is inconsistent, that he
rarely reaches the same heights Mozart scaled. But, equally, some of it is original and
inventive— and the best is very good indeed. Salieri may have made agreat cinematic
villain, but perhaps in the future we can remember him for something he actually did.
55
MEET THE FAMOUS COMPOSERS
Text 2
68 INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT MOZART
1. In 2002, on the one-year anniversary of the September 11th
attacks, choirs around the world sang Mozart’s Requiem Mass
in Dminor for 24 hours in aglobal eort to honor those who
died.
2. By the age of 3, Mozart had learned to play aclavier,
which was an old-fashioned stringed instrument that had
akeyboard. By the age of 5, he was playing the harpsichord
and violin as well as aprofessional. He was playing in front of
royalty when he was just 6 years old. Mozart was arare musical
genius.
3. Mozart could write music before he could write words.
4. Mozart wrote half the number of total symphonies he would create between the
ages of 8 and 19.
5. Mozart’s nickname was «Wole».
6. Ludwig von Köchel (1800–1877) produced the rst scholarly catalog of the works
of Mozart.
7. Mozart composed his last symphony (no. 41) in 1788. It is known as the «Jupiter»
symphony.
8. In the largest-ever recording project devoted to asingle composure, Philips Classic
produced 180 compact discs in 1991 containing the complete set of authenticated
works by Mozart. It comprises over 200 hours of music and would take over 6.5 feet of
shelving.
9. e soundtrack to the1984 lm Amadeus made it to #56 on the Billboard album
charts, making it one of the most successful classical music albums ever.
10. Composer Gustav Mahler’s (1860–1911) last word before he died was «Mozart».
11. Wolfgang Mozart was baptized Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus eophilus
Mozart.
12. Mozart could listen to music just once and then write it down from memory
without any mistakes.
13. e only country that begins with the same rst three letters at Mozart is
Mozambique.
14. One anagram of «Wolfgang Mozart» is «A famous German waltz god».
15. Mozart’s sister Maria Anna (1751–1829) was a talented pianist, but aer she
reached marriageable age, she was not allowed to perform in public. In contrast to
Mozart, who disobeyed his father’s wishes about his career and marriage, Maria Anna
was very obedient to her father.
16. Mozart was amaster of every type of music he wrote. He was achild star, one of
the greatest pianists of his generation, and the most well-known composer in Europe by
the age of 20. However, even with all this, he spent most of his life searching for ajob.
56
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
17. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) died in his 36th year, at the peak of his
musical power— without any money.
18. Mozart wrote more music in his short career than many other composers who
lived much longer.
19. Mozart’s father, Leopold, described Mozart’s birth as a «miracle from God»
because he seemed too small and weak to survive.
20. Count Hieronymus von Colloredo (1732–1812), archbishop of Salzburg, is
famous for being one of Mozart’s patrons and employers. He eventually became annoyed
with Mozart’s frequent absences and dismissed him with the famous words: «Soll er
doch gehen, ich brauche ihn nicht!» (“He may leave, Idon’t need him!)»
21. At one time, Mozart was an employee of the archbishop of Salzburg. Relations
with his employer ended when the archbishop’s secretary gave Mozart akick in the
behind.
22. Debate surrounds the temperament of Mozart’s father, Johann Georg Leopold
Mozart (1719–1787). Some scholars cast him as being tyrannical, mendacious, and
possessive, while others argue Leopold was a sensible guide for an irresponsible
Wolfgang.
23. Wolfgang Mozart’s second name, eophilus, means «loved by God» in Greek.
He liked to use the Latin translation, «Amadeus».
24. Mozart, his father, and his sister traveled around the noble courts of Europe to
perform music. Travel was dicult in those days, and all three Mozarts suered serious
illnesses on the road. Wolfgang never grew to be astrong man, and researchers believe
his many illnesses as achild le him small, pale, and delicate.
25. e music Mozart played as achild was called the «gallant style,» which was
apart of alarger artistic movement known as Rococo. It was noted for its more jocular,
orid, and playful style. Mozart would later move away from the gallant style to become
an archetype of the classical style.
26. Mozart traveled extensively. He spent 14 of his 36 years away from home.
27. When Mozart was just 14, he composed the opera Mitridate re di Ponto (Mithridates,
King of Pontus). It was atriumph when it was performed in December 1770 in Milan.
28. e term «Mozart’s ear» describes adefect of the ear. Researchers believe Mozart
and his son, Franz, had acongenital ear defect.
29. Mozart was born in Salzburg, Austria, in 1756. He died in Vienna, Austria, in
1791 at the age of 35.
30. In addition to composing perfect fugues and operas, Mozart also has asense
of humor that frequently included references to scatology (feces). In one letter to his
19-year-old cousin Marianne, the 21-year-old Mozart wrote, «I now wish you agood
night, shit in your bed with all your might». However, it appears the entire Mozart
family «wrote strange things to each other».
31. First coined in 1993, the «Mozart Eect» is the belief that listening to Mozart’s
music can improve aperson’s IQ.
57
MEET THE FAMOUS COMPOSERS
32. Mozart’s music has been credited with helping those with epilepsy, boosting
the milk production of cows, and boosting the IQ of unborn babies. ASwiss sewage
treatment center has now claimed that Mozart can help microbes break down sewage
waste. e center’s preferred composition is e Magic Flute.
As achild, Mozart asked Marie Antoinette to marry him
33. While in Vienna as achild, Mozart performed for Empress
Maria eresa. He amused her when he asked one of her
young daughters to marry him. She was Marie Antoinette,
the future queen of France.
34. No one is sure where Mozart’s body is. He was
buried according to the custom of the time in asimple
grave. He had no graveside ceremony or even agrave
marker.
35. Mozart had six children, but only two survived
infancy. Neither of his two sons, Karl omas and Franz
Xaver, married or had children.
36. Mozart was the rst person to compose piano concertos as
we know them today. Piano concertos are like lively conversations between the piano
and orchestra.
37. While Mozart earned substantial money from his successful operas, he was an
extravagant spender and oen ended up in nancial straits.
38. Count Franz von Walsegg commissioned Mozart to write his famous requiem.
However, he wanted Mozart to leave his name o of the requiem mass so that the count
could pass it o as his own work.
39. Mozart composed over 600 works, and most of them are pinnacles of symphonic,
concerto, chamber, operatic, and choral music.
40. Among Mozart’s prolic musical creations are 41 symphonies, 27 piano concertos,
5 violin concertos, 27 concert arias, 23 string quartets, 18 masses, and 22 operas.
41. While Mozart was in Rome as achild, the pope awarded him the Order of the
Golden Spur, avery high honor.
42. Mozart’s impact on Western music is profound. Joseph Haydn noted «posterity
will not see such atalent again in 100 years».
43. Mozart was the youngest of seven children; however, ve of his siblings died
in infancy. e only other sibling to survive was Maria Anna (1751–1829), who was
nicknamed «Nannerl».
44. When he was young, Mozart’s only teacher was his father. Along with music,
Mozart’s father also taught his children languages and other academic subjects.
45. Mozart wrote his rst symphony when he was just 8 years old.
46. When Mozart visited the Sistine Chapel as achild, he astonished everyone when
he remembered and wrote down, note for note, Allegri’s Miserere. is composition
had been previously kept asecret.
58
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
47. Much to his father’s horror, Mozart married 19-year-old Constanze on August
4, 1782. Some scholars depict her as ighty; others view her more sympathetically.
Eighteen years aer Mozart’s death, she married again and helped her new husband
write abook about Mozart.
Constanze Mozart was atrained amusician
48. Mozart’s famous partnership with Lorenzo Da Ponte
resulted in the Marriage of Figaro, which is based on aplay by
Beaumarchais. eir partnership is one of the most famous
in the history of music.
49. Mozart’s main rival was the Italian composer
Antonio Salieri, who wrote more than 40 operas. Years
later, Salieri claimed that he had poisoned Mozart, though
most people believe it was the ramblings of aconfused old
man.
50. When Mozart died, his wife Constanze was so upset
that she crawled into bed with her dead husband so she could
catch his illness and die with him.
51. Mozart studied Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric
Handel, both of whom inuenced his music— specically the fugal passages in Die
Zauberöte (e Magic Flute) and the nale of Symphony No. 41.
52. Mozart’s Mass in C Minor was largely prompted by his father’s and sister’s cool
reception of his wife, Constanze.
53. When Mozart met Joseph Haydn in Vienna in 1784, they became friends. ey
would sometimes play together in impromptu string quartets. Mozart dedicated six
quartets to his friend.
54. e Marriage of Figaro (1786) and Don Giovanni (1787) are two of Mozart’s most
important works and are still opera mainstays today. At their premieres, their musical
complexity was surprising for both listeners and performers.
55. While Mozart was working under Emperor Joseph II in 1787, ayoung Ludwig
van Beethoven spent several weeks in Vienna, hoping to study under Mozart. No one is
sure whether the two famous composers ever met.
56. Mozart fell ill while in Prague for the September 6, 1791, premier of his opera
La clemenza di Tito. He died in his home on December 5, 1791. Even while ill, he was
occupied with the task of nishing his Requiem.
57. Mozart was buried in a«common grave» at the St. Marx Cemetery. A«common
grave» is not the same as apauper’s grave or acommunal grave, but agrave for people
who were not the aristocracy. One main dierence is that common graves were subject
to excavation aer 10 years while the graves of aristocrats weren’t.
58. Researchers have hypothesized at least 118 causes of death for Mozart, including
rheumatic fever, inuenza, trichinosis, mercury poisoning, kidney ailment, and
streptococcal infection.
59
MEET THE FAMOUS COMPOSERS
59. Aer Mozart’s death, his wife, Constanze, successfully petitioned the emperor
for widow’s pension for herself and her two children. She also organized aseries of
concerts of Mozart’s music and the publications of his works.
60. According to Mozart’s wife, Constanze, at the end of Mozart’s life, he believed he
was being poisoned and that he was composing his Requiem for himself. He died before
nishing it. His student Franz Süssmayr completed the work, and it is this version that
is most oen heard today. Scholars still debate which parts Mozart truly wrote.
61. Mozart became increasingly popular aer his death. In fact, as 20th century
biographer Maynard Solomon notes, there was an «unprecedented wave of enthusiasm»
for his work postmortem.
62. In 1801, gravedigger Joseph Rothmayer allegedly dug up Mozart’s skull from
acemetery in Vienna. However, even aer various testing, it remains uncertain whether
the skull is, in fact, Mozart’s. For now, it is locked away at the Mozarteum Foundation
in Salzburg, Austria.
63. Mozart was born aCatholic and remained amember his entire life. Some of his
greatest works are religious.
64. According to several biographers, Mozart was asmall man with intense eyes. He
had small pox when he was achild, which le some facial scars. He was thin and pale
with ne hair and he loved elegant clothes.
65. Mozart was atenor. He was also le-handed.
66. Mozart once said, «I pay no attention whatever to anybody’s praise or blame.
Isimply follow my own feelings».
67. Mozart’s wife destroyed many of his sketches and dras aer his death.
68. Mozart had several pets, including adog, astarling, acanary, and ahorse.
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