Happy birthday, Wolfgang!

Today is our favorite composer's birthday! To celebrate this special day, I decided to make free desktop and iPhone backgrounds for my readers. To use, simply click on the picture, then right click and select "Set as Desktop Background". Please share with your friends on Facebook and Twitter!

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Happy Birthday!

        Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart was born 258 years ago today to his father Leopold, his mother Anna Maria and his sister Nannerl. The child was small and sickly; many feared he wouldn't make it through the night. His mother had trouble delivering the placenta and almost died herself. Both grew stronger each day however; the baby growing to become one of the greatest composers this world has ever known.
        In Germany and Austria, especially back in the 18th century, birthdays were not celebrated so much as "Name Days," the feast of the child's patron Saint. Mozart most likely would have been given a greater celebration on October 31, the feast of Saint Wolfgang even though he was traditionally given the first name of the Saint on whose feast he was born, Saint John Chrysostom.
        Here is a brief video showing the apartment where Mozart was born. If you have been fortunate enough to have seen this in real life, I would love to hear about it! Please leave a comment below!

       

Happy Birthday, Wolfgang!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

to the world's greatest composer,

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart!

Happy Birthday, Salieri!

Today, Antonio Salieri would have been 261 years old!
He was 6 years older than Mozart.

       Antonio Salieri was an Italian composer who lived during the same time as Mozart. He was a great teacher, most notably in voice. In performance and composition, he trained some very famous people: Franz Liszt, Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Schubert and Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart.

       While the play and 1984 film Amadeus fictionalizes almost every aspect of the real composer's life, one humorous fact that was kept as part of Salieri's character was his great love of sugar. Once as a child, Salieri ran away from home to hear his older brother play the violin at a church. His father told them that if he ran away again, he would lock him in his room for a whole day with nothing to eat but bread and water. This didn't scare Salieri; planning to run away yet again, he hid a sack of sugar in his room. As long as he had sugar, he was fine with being locked in his room! The plan didn't work out too well however, since before he left, he told his sister of his secret. His sister then told his mother, who told his father, who took the sugar out of his room before he came back. Poor Salieri found himself locked in his room for the day, with nothing but bread and water!

       When he was 24 years old, Salieri began to work as the imperial royal chamber composer for Emporer Joseph II of Austria. He was also appointed Kapellmeister to the Italian opera.

       In 1775, when he was 25 years old, Salieri met his future wife, Therese von Helfersdorfer. Before he could marry her, Salieri had to prove to her guardian (whom her deceased father had appointed) that he was able to care for her finacially. When Therese's guardian found that Salieri could only count on 100 ducats annually, he turned him down. Emporer Joseph II heard of Salieri's problem, and raised his salary to 300 ducats a year! Salieri returned to Therese's guardian, who then consented to the marriage, which eventually produced 8 children.

       In his lifetime, Salieri composed 37 operas; his most famous probably being Axur, re d'Ormus, which in its time was performed more times than Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro or Don Giovanni. He also composed concertos, Masses, and several other Sacred works.

       Contrary to what most people have been led to believe, Salieri was not a poor composer, nor was he jealous of Mozart's gifts (at least not jealous enough to plot murder!).

       It has been said that as an old man, Salieri confessed to the murder of Mozart and tried to commit suicide. If he ever did confess to such a crime, let it be noted that during this time, Salieri suffered dimentia and was admitted to a mental hospital.

       Salieri died on May 7, 1825.

Antonio Salieri - Axur re d'Ormus - Finale

(1788)

Happy Birthday, Nannerl!

Nannerl in 1763, wearing a dress given to her by
Empress Maria Theresa when she and Wolfgang performed for her.

Mozart's sister, Maria Anna Walburga Ignatia Mozart, or Nannerl for short, was born on July 30, 1751 in Salzburg. She was the fourth child born to Leopold and Anna Maria Mozart, but the first to survive infancy.

Nannerl was one of Mozart's greatest heroes. As a child he would watch her play the piano and take lessons from Leopold, and then he would try to play her pieces. Like her brother, Nannerl was a child prodigy, but since she was a woman, she couldn't pursue a career like him. 

On August 23, 1783, Nannerl married twice-widowed Johann Baptist Franz von Berchtold zu Sonnenburg and moved to St. Gilgen (the town where her mother was born). She took care of his five children and eventually had three of her own, two daughters and one son. 

Nannerl in 1785.

Wolfgang often composed piano duets to perform with his sister while they were young. In 1765, at nine years old, he composed this piece, which the two performed together:

On October 29, 1829, Nannerl passed away in Salzburg, where she lived after her husband died in 1801. 

Happy Birthday, Wolfgang, Jr.!

Mozart's youngest son, Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart (also known as Wolfgang, Jr.), was born on July 26, 1791 in Vienna, around five months before his father's death. Franz Xaver's never really getting to know his father seemed to have no impact on his veneration for him. His whole life, Franz Xaver had a great devotion to his father's music. He not only inherited Mozart's love for music; he became a fine composer/musician himself, studying under several teachers...most notably Antonio Salieri. 

In this video, one can certainly hear whose son he is! This is Franz Xaver Mozart's Violin Sonata in B Flat Major, 3rd Movement, Presto.

Franz Xaver passed away on July 29, 1844 in Karlsbad. His veneration for his father was so great that his tombstone reads:

May the name of his father be his epitaph, as his veneration for him was the essence of his life.

Happy Birthday, Bach!

Today is the birthday of the man I like to call the "Father of Music"...

Johann Sebastian Bach.

Johann Sebastian Bach was born 326 years ago in Germany. He had a very interesting life.

At a young age, his older brother taught him to play the organ. It wasn't long before Bach was better at playing than his brother!

At one point in his life, he was even imprisoned for writing music for one king while he was working for another.

He had 20 children -- seven with his first wife, Maria Barbara (who died in 1720), and thirteen with his second wife, Anna Magdalena (unfortunately, only six of these children would survive to adulthood). Two of his children became very famous composers themselves: Philipp Emanuel Bach and Johann Christian Bach, who would later teach young Mozart.

Due to illness Bach lost his sight shortly before he died and underwent an unsuccessful eye surgery to regain it. He died at the age of 65 in the year 1750.  

Below is a recent computer construction of what Bach may have really looked like:

Happy 255th Birthday, Mozart!