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In 1787, he was appointed imperial chamber composer at the meager salary of 800 florins, went to Prague for a performance of his opera, le nozze di figarro(The marriage of figaro) composed in 1786, and was commissioned to write Don Giovanni.  Three years later, at the Austrian emperor’s request, Mozart wrote the opera buffa cosipan tutte(Thus Do They All). In 1791, the year of his death, he created La Clemenza di Tito( The Clemency of Tito) for the coronation of  Emperor Leopold II in Prague. In this Opera, he was unable to rise to the heights of his previous dramatic creations. His genius is once again at its apex, however, in his German opera Die Zauberflote(The Magic Flute), composed in the same year for a Viennese suburban theater. This work is a mixture of comic elements.  As early as 1784, Mozart had joined the masons and a number of his compositions were written for them. His last important work was the Requiem which he was unable to complete.  The causes of M...

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was an outstanding composer born in Salzburg, Austria on January 27, 1756. His father Leopold Mozart was count composer at Salzburg, and from 1762 on was assistant Kappellmeister of the Archbishop of Salzburg. As a child prodigy, Mozart was perhaps unique in history displaying the most outstanding musical gift both as a composer and performer in his early childhood.  In 1762, his father took the six year old, Wolfgang and his older sister, Maria Anna, also known as Nanneri, on highly successful concert tours throughout Europe. Mozart became concert master of the Archbishop of Salzburg’s orchestra in 1769, but interrupted his work for three trips to Italy, where his operas, Mitridate (1770) and Lucio Sila (1772), were performed.  In spite of being refused a leave of absence by the Archbishop’s successor, the count of Colloredo, Mozart together with his mother, went to Munich and Mannheim where he unsuccessfully courted the singer Aloysia Weber. They then...

Opera During his life time, Handel’s fame rested on his achievements as a composer of Italian opera. In this he followed Alessandro Scarlatti, but also absorbed elements of style from Jean Baptiste Lully and his followers. Apart from the few early operas composed in Hamburg on partly German librettos, and  with one exception of the Venetian Agrippina, Handel’s operas were all written for and produced at London opera houses.They employed castrati and prima donnnas and excelled in the beautiful contrapuntal texture of their da capo arias(arias with an ABA form). However, Handel had no confidence in the possibility of an English national opera. When his Neapolitan brand of opera finally failed, especially as it was satirized in “The Beggar’s opera” and in “The  Dragon of Wantley”, Handel’s creative interest shifted to oratorios. Oratorio The oratorios which had a strong popular appeal, encouraging the British audience to identify themselves with the heroic Jewish people of ...

In 1710, Handel was appointed court conductor in Hanover, and also visited London. Around this time, he produced his opera Ronaldo (1711). However, after travelling several times between Hanover and London in the following years, he decided to settle in Great Britain after the spectacular success of his Te Deum, which was first performed to celebrate the peace of Utrecht in 1713. At this point in his career, he established a link with the court of St. James, although still nominally in the service of the Grand Elector of Hanover, who eventually became George I of Great Britain. Following a last visit to Hanover in  1716 when the Brockes Passion was composed, Handel’s connection with his native country, Germany, ended. He became a British citizen by the act  of parliament in 1727, and anglicized his name. The next few years, he dedicated to composing the first and second water music, the anthems for the Duke of Chandos, and the early masques. Handel’s struggle for supremacy a...

Meanwhile, Handel started experimenting with oratorio by the middle 1730’s which he took more seriously. The apex of his creative career was reached shortly after his physical recovery in Aix-la-Chapelle, when he produced his greatest music oratorios: Saul(first performed in London 1739) and Israel in Egypt (London 1739 and revised before their publication in April 1740);Ode for St.Cecilia’s day (London 1739); the set of 12 concerti grossi of 6 composed in four weeks in the autumn of 1739; and the sacred oratorio ‘Messaiah’, first performed in Dublin on April 13 1742. The growing popularity of the latter work firmly established Handel’s interest in oratorio, and during the following decade, all the great oratorios based mainly on heroic episodes of Biblical history were composed. In 1749, Handel’s last and greatest contribution to orchestral music, the music for the Royal Fireworks was first performed to celebrate the peace of Aix-la- Chapelle. He paid his last visit to Germany in 17...