hello and welcome to another episode of piano TV today we're going to delve into the history The Life and Times of Wolf Gang Omas Mozart who was one of the craziest most you know well-known composers of the classical era since in the last video we learned a piece by Mozart I thought it was only fitting that we delve a little bit deeper into this guy's personal life which is what I call a good time so let's get [Music] started well gang amadas Mozart who we will henceforth refer to as Wolf Gang on a first name basis because we're really tight that way was born in 1756 in salburg which is now modern day Austria Mozart our Wolf Gang was one of three key composers of the classical era who contributed greatly to the genre as well as to music as we know it today so we've got Mozart we've got beov and we've got heyen those are the three classical era composers who completely changed everything wolf gang's dad Leopold is is the main reason that mozar got into music in the first place Leopold wasn't a famous musician or anything but he was a teacher and a composer and a pretty good violin player he even wrote a book on the violin so in Wolf gang's case if you consider the nature nurture argument for him it was probably a little bit of both cuz he did grew up in a musical family Mozart had just one sibling that survived Beyond infancy because back then times were kind of rough and her name was Maria Anam Mozart also nicknamed nanal for some reason probably because their mom's name was Anamaria and her name was Mar Anna and it just got kind of confusing so anyway nanal was four years older than Mozart so when she was seven she got to take keyboard lessons from their dad Leopold and that was all cool and little baby Wolf Gang was like threey old three years old he was super into it he would just like sit at the piano and watch her play with wrapped attention and he wasn't one of those annoying three-year-olds that just like mashed on keys and made gurgling noises and stuff he was he would sit at the keyboard and make really pleasant sounds and be really happy about it he was like a good kid right and so finally Leopold's like well even though you're basically still a baby I guess I'll Teach You piano anyway cuz you seem to be pretty into it so little baby Mozart started taking lessons with his dad and when he was 5-year-old he was even composing pieces which were written down by his dad and Leopold might have made some creative embellishments cuz it's you know a 5-year-old writing music but still give Wolf Gang some credit that's awesome so if you're Leopold and you've got these two kids who are super talented at the keyboard wouldn't you want to tour them around Europe to get some dollar bills in Fame he sure did and that's what happened when Wolf Gang was six and nanal was 10 they went on a European tour that lasted three and a half years and they went to places as awesome as London and Paris and Munich they went to a whole bunch of places so on the one hand this long tour was really good for Little Wolf Gang because it exposed him to composers that influenced him it exposed him to different genres and styles of music and just inevitably expanded his Horizons as traveling to a bunch of different places places does to everybody he also wrote his first Symphony before the age of 10 while he was on tour so that's pretty cool too but on the other hand all of this crazy travel had the downside of almost killing Nano Wolf Gang and their dad Leopold because you know you could have just hop tour bus and live the life traveling was really rough back then without the Advent of modern medicine after the first European tour Leopold and Wolf Gang went off on their own second tour dumping poor little nurl at home with their probably because she was no longer young enough to tout as a child prodigy but anyway at this point young Wolf Gang was actually a teenager and he was so hardcore that he pirated music which I know doesn't sound like a big deal in this day and age or he just click a button but here's what happened he went to a performance to see a piece called Miser performed it's like a a vocal work so this is no you know simple pop song with like one Melody line and you know catchy chords and everything this is a 13l long piece with four vocals it's really you know complex and what he did is he heard it twice and he wrote it all down from memory so if that is not hardcore I don't know what is and it was on the second tour that Mozart started getting into Opera as well which would end up being one of his life passions so yay so Wolf Gang finally returned home from all the touring and at this point he decides okay I got to get a get me a real job so he ended up working for the Archbishop Prince of the prince Archbishop of salisburg which is his hometown and that's where he had a bunch of friends and admirers so things were pretty good he got to write a bunch of different genres he wrote Symphonies he wrote sonatas string quartets concheros you name it he probably did it at that time except Opera but we'll get to that so life was pretty good for him but as many 20-year-olds tend to be Wolf Gang was Restless his yearly salary was 150 Floren which roughly really roughly translates to about $3,000 a year and things were cheaper back then but still at this point Wolf Gang was like you know what I'm actually pretty awesome and I I think I deserve better than this and he was also really starting to come into the fact that his true passion was Opera he loved Opera and if you lived in salsburg and you loved Opera things weren't really that good because one of their major theaters for Opera just closed and he didn't really have the right opportunities at home so 21-year-old Wolf Gang went on a long actual physical Journey to Find employment he did lots of things he made lots of friends he fell in love with the girl but he didn't actually find any jobs that he wanted in the entire time he was traveling for them he found opportunities like for example he could have been an organist but he was kind of like H I don't really want to be an organist that's not a high enough caliber job for this guy so he ended up getting pretty broke and he had to sell his things because he was broke and at this time his mom died from being ill probably because the family couldn't afford a doctor so times were tough for the Mozart family Leopold was doing what All fathers of unemployed 20 something's due and that was try to get him a job he did up end up finding Wolf Gang a job in his hometown of salsburg that paid 450 Floren a year so score right well Wolf Gang did end up taking the job but let's just say it was probably not his first choice it was probably a last ditch effort because he was experiencing so much failure in Paris he was staying with a friend who kicked him out so that was unfortunate he reunited with the girl he originally fell in love with but this time around she coldly rejected him so that was unfortunate he also never found a job that he actually wanted so that was unfortunate so he did end up going back to his hometown in salsburg to take the position even though he really didn't want to at this point Wolf Gang was probably thinking to himself man my life sucks so I guess I just got to like you know live a normal life and get a real job and stop chasing my crazy crazy dreams but Wolf Gang was still doing lots of writing and when he was 24 he premiered his Opera in ameno in Munich which received really good reviews so he was like Yay my opera did well and at this point his employer the Archbishop coloro was in Venice and he summoned Mozart to Venice and that that's when things started really going sour between the two of them I mean he was already not too happy with his job but things started getting a lot worse during this trip so the first bad thing that happened is okay so wolf gang's like I just premiered this Opera I'm pretty cool but the Archbishop basically treated him like a servant which really ground his gears and what further ground his gears is that he had an opportunity to perform for the emperor for 200 Florence for one performance but his employer didn't let him and that sucked and then another thing that really ground his gears is that Mozart actually tried to quit but they didn't let him quit so he's not having a good time right now and it was even worse because his dad Leopold sided with the Archbishop and he was like okay son just you're being a fool you're being you're being stupid just make up with the Archbishop and come back home resume your job resume your normal life just like settle down and Wolf Gang didn't want to settle down he wanted to quit his job he hated the tyranny of it all so a month later he was actually allowed to quit and he was dismissed with a literal kick to his pardon my French ass he was kicked in the ass that's how he was dismissed from his post and at that point Wolf Gang was like you know what I am so done with the system I am going to be my own free man I'm going to be a freelancer and I'm not going to be the employee of anyone this is I've had enough and that's when he set up shop in Vienna quitting his job and being a freelancer in Vienna ended up being one of wolf gang's really good decision it worked out really well for him he gained a reputation as a great keyboardist and a great composer in Vienna and he started doing well for himself making real money of course the story wouldn't be complete without some personal drama so you remember the girl he fell in love with originally um her name was aloisa Weber all right and at this time in Venice Mozart was living with the Weber family yes he was living with the family of his ex unrequited love who was now married shall I say so they just needed an extra tenant to pay the bills which is why he was there but you got to imagine the situation was kind of awkward and it was probably even more awkward when he decided to go for eloisa's sister constant so you can imagine what that would have been like wolf gangs all like hey hey constant you you were my first choice but he still cool if we still cool if we hook up and I guess she was cool with it because they ended up getting married and having six kids two of whom survived infancy so there you go I guess a true love story so let's just pause this story for a minute to talk about wolf gang's personality and just basically talk about what made him a regular guy as opposed to this like crazy exalted God of music now as far as his personality goes I mean he liked to play pool he liked to dance he had a pet dog and he had a pet bird and he had a horse that he wrode sometimes so he just did normal stuff and in terms of his sense of humor he did have one and it is described as scatological humor which is basically just a fancy term for toilet humor AKA fart jokes so motor was just a regular guy he even wrote scatalogical music for his friends to sing probably when they were drinking so that's kind of funny so Mozart had his human side too in 1784 when Wolf Gang was 28 years old he met up with one of his contemporaries FR Joseph heyen and they ended up becoming really good friends they did impromptu string cour sets together when heyen happened to be in Wolf gang's neck of the woods they dedicated songs to each other and just became really good friends and in a letter that heyen wrote to Leopold Mozart's dad he he said and I quote I tell you before God and as an honest man your son is the greatest composer known to me by person and repute he has taste and what is more the greatest skill in composition so those are very nice words coming from the esteemed Joseph heyen when Wolf Gang was around age 30 he got back into Opera in a really big way and wrote two of his most famous operatic masterpieces that we still know and loveed today he wrote The Marriage of Figaro and he wrote Don Giovani at this point Wolf Gang was doing really well for himself what with the constant performing in Fame so him and his wife constants were seriously living in style the rent of their apartment at the time was 460 Florin a year he he was able to afford a 900 floring piano a 300 floring billiard table and he could send he could afford to send one of his kids to a fancy boarding school so they were seriously living it up of course as is often the case with excessive celebrity wealth it didn't last and for Wolf gang's family it was no exception times did get tough for them and they didn't do a very good job of saving anything at all they just kind of spent all their money luckily Wolf Gang had a position a part-time position as a chamber composer so that helped keep them afloat when things got a lot harder as a side note Beethoven apparently traveled to Vienna in 1787 probably to meet up with Wolf Gang because Beethoven at the time was 17 and probably just really wanted to meet one of his awesome Idols however there are no surviving records of if they actually did ever end up meeting up so that whole experience is a big question mark it's just a fun fact so anyway times were tough for Wolf Gang and constant at this point he was performing less and there was a problem with there being an asure Turkish War which kind of had effect on the economy and made people feel less spendy so it was 1790 and Wolf Gang was like okay you know what maybe if I go on a little mini tour I'll be able to pull in some money and then that'll help but it didn't really work so he had to start borrowing money from friends because apparently he couldn't downside his lifestyle and Liv in like a crappy apartment or something and yeah so he went and Deb and that was not awesome by 1791 when Wolf Gang was 35 years old it's like his life light bulb went back on and he was reinspection living the life again that is things we're looking at for Wolf Gang until he died yeah he died in 1791 at the very end of the year after being sick for a few months and bedridden for basically a month and a half to two months and no one really knows why he died there are tons of theories that just can't be confirmed everything from rheumatic fever to influenza to mercury poisoning yeah it it sucked I mean he was at he was at his prime he was on an upswing and he was only 35 years old when he died so just imagine what what incredible compositions could have been had he lived a little bit longer but then I guess if there's a plus side to everything it's probably better to die when you're on an upswing in life instead of like down in the dumps and super depressed I don't know I'm just I'm just saying it it sucked though he shouldn't have died at 35 another thing that tends to happen to celebrities is that they tend to become more famous once they're dead which is really too bad but that's what happened with Wolf Gang and it's happened to tons of people since so he's probably one of the only composers people could think of by name when they're thinking about classical music so he really left an impression and influenced tons of composers after him he has quite the Legacy and in another video we'll go into depth into the music of moart as opposed to just his life thanks for watching this video I hope you had as much fun with it as I did because I am so all over this history stuff it's fun super fun super interesting anyway if you want to keep up to date with videos subscribe to this Channel and check out the website pianotv Donnet and leave a comment below telling me your thoughts what you think anything anything thanks for watching see you later whoa holy oh my God I just bipped out okay I'm actually testing the angle but now I'm a little woo