Course Description:
This course will examine Mozart’s precociousness, his impressive assimilation of Italianate and Germanic styles, and his relationship to the turbulent social transitions of his time. Divided between biographic study and music analysis, the course will discuss seminal masterworks including the operas Don Giovanni and The Marriage of Figaro, the piano concertos, and the Jupiter Symphony. Music literacy is not required.
Week 1
Leopold Mozart
Mozart the prodigy
“The Grand Tour”
Week 2
Travels to Italy · assimilation of Italian opera
Early operas
Early career in Salzburg
The violin concertos; early piano sonatas
Week 3
Mozart in Paris
Mozart’s first lover, Baesle
Death of Mozart’s mother
“Trouble in Paradise” (Maynard Solomon)
Week 4
Early maturity
“Jeunehomme” concerto
Mozart leaves Salzburg · rift with Leopold
Freemasonry
Religious music: masses, etc.
Week 5
Mozart the family man
Journeys to Prague and Berlin
“Prague” Symphony; string quintets
Week 6
Complete mastery: Six quartets “dedicated to Haydn”
Mozart’s reputation and relationship with contemporaries
Mature piano concertos
Week 7
The Da Ponte operas: The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, Cosi fan Tutte
Mozart and the politics of his time
Don Giovanni as autobiography
Transformation of operatic styles
Week 8
The last symphonies
Requiem
The Magic Flute
Mozart’s death
Mozart’s legacy
Books:
The Cambridge Companion to Mozart (Cambridge Companions to Music)
Cambridge University Press
Mozart
by Peter Gay
Mozart and His Piano Concertos
by Cuthbert Girdlestone
Famous Mozart operas;: An analytical guide for the opera-goer and armchair listener,
by Spike Hughes
1791: Mozart's Last Year
by H. C. Robbins Landon
The Creative World of Mozart
W.W. Norton & Co.
Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
The Classical Style: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven
by Charles Rosen
Mozart: A Life
by Maynard Solomon