By the time he reached puberty , Mozart already had three oratorios , nine great deal , twenty - three sonata , and many shorter work under his swath ( to say nothing of the partridge in his pear tree Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree ) . But it was n’t until he was twenty - five — the year before he get married Constanze Weber — that he drop a line his first opera house , Idomeneo .
During the 18thcentury , operas were the combining weight of today ’s film , minus the overprice bottled body of water and tubs of Zea mays everta the size of hippopotami . Opera was popular and everybody came out to see the latest productions when they toured through townsfolk . This was in stark contrast to his concert pieces ( the bulk of Mozart ’s compositions untilIdomeneo ) , which were only heard and apprise by the fussy nobility .
Mozart only made money when said concert medicine was commissioned . deputation were generally dolled out by kings , queen , counts , or empresses and were few and far between .
With opera , on the other hand , he not only made money on the commission , but also got a decent portion of the house . The more democratic the opera house , the longer it ran , the more money he made . And with his fancy Viennese lifestyle and six nestling on the way , the more money the better . ( Okay , four snuff it in infancy , but still … you think midwives were cheap back then ? )
Besides the already mentionedIdomeneoandThe Marriage of Figaro , Mozart composed four other major operas : Don Giovanni , Così fan tutte , La clemenza di TitoandDie Zauberflöte – orThe Magic Flute , a phantasmagoric chef-d’oeuvre inspire by Masonic idea , symbols , and rituals .
Yes , Mozart was a penis of the Masonic Lodge — probably had to wear the whacky little outfit sometimes , as well .
But it ’s not his operas we ’re go to explore here , rather his symphonies . Mozart do of age at the same time the symphonic music orchestra itself came of eld . As we learned earlier , an orchestra in the churrigueresque period comprise mostly of stringed pawn such as the violin and the cello , oftentimes joined by a harpsichord . By the time Mozart wrote his first symphony orchestra , woodwinds such as flutes and oboes start appearing in the orchestra . Gradually , the orchestra grew in size and mass . In addition to a twelve or more strings , his Symphony No . 32 in G Major , for example , written when he was twenty - three eld old , feature two flutes , two oboes , two bassoons , four horns , two horn and timpani drums .
But it was n’t just the addition of these instruments that gave Mozart ’s orchestra a unlike sound ; it was the way in which he used them . The bassoon , for representative , previously used as an ensuant musical instrument to take out the harmony , suddenly found its way to pore level , foreground by Mozart with an actualsoloin his Symphony No . 41 . Of naturally not as drastic a variety as Bob Dylan going galvanic at The Newport Folk Festival in ’ 65 , but for Mozart ’s day , challenging and imaginative nevertheless .
