PROLOGUE Is genius innate or nurtured?

01 A Gift from God - The Prodigy of Salzburg
02 The Beginning of the Mozart Myth - The First Grand Tour
03 From Child Prodigy to Opera Master - The Second Grand Tour
04 Chains of Bondage and Oppression - Bad Relations with the Archbishop
05 Music and Love Awaiting Completion - Mozart's Three Women
06 The Bird That Flies Out of the Cage - Vienna's Free Musicians
07 The One Who Gave Up and Fell - Third Home, Prague
08 The Genius Who Became an Angel - Death and After

EPILOGUE: The Mozart of Our Time
Keywords of Mozart's art
A defining moment in Mozart's life

References

Thanks to the numerous works about Mozart, including films, plays, and musicals, we consider ourselves well-known.
Mozart's life, which blossomed with talent from a young age, seems like that of a flower in a greenhouse.
But before he escaped the old order of Salzburg and became a freelance musician in Vienna, Mozart's short 35-year life was filled with dazzling successes and bitter frustrations, glory and suffering.
Another goal of this trip was to examine that crucial point of disconnect.
-From the "Prologue"

“Is genius innate or nurtured?”

The figure most often cited as an example supporting the claim that genius is determined by innate ability or genetic factors is Mozart.
The contemporary master Joseph Haydn called the music of Mozart, who was 24 years younger than him, “a work that cannot be imitated,” and the German writer Goethe, who saw the seven-year-old Mozart perform in person, later said that Mozart was “a great figure whom the devil sent into the world to mock (ordinary) men, so charming that everyone aims for him, but never attains him.”
Albert Einstein, another genius and a master of physics, said, “As an artist or musician, Mozart is not of this world.”
The explanation is that Mozart's genius was a gift from heaven and therefore incomparable to that of ordinary humans.

But was Mozart's talent, as is widely known, entirely innate? Were there truly no artistic breaks or twists and turns in his life? What truly fueled his evolution from child prodigy to immortal composer? While there is no disagreement about Mozart's genius, it cannot be definitively attributed solely to innate talent or genetic factors.
There is an unbelievable anecdote that says, "Mozart had all the music in his head before he even composed it," but there are also many cases where he went through repeated revisions, such as the string quartet, which Mozart himself called "the fruit of long and arduous work."

In Mozart's case, he had a father who discovered his talent early on, gave him the opportunity to showcase it in the larger world, and provided him with all the necessary educational environments.
Moreover, the tours he had been on throughout Europe since his childhood were not just a place to show off his talents, but also a stage for his own education that transformed him from a child prodigy into a genius composer who transcended genres.


“If an artist cannot travel, he is simply miserable.”

Mozart went on 17 trips during his short life of 35 years.
The total travel time is 10 years, 2 months, and 2 days, or 3,720 days.
It can be said that he lived a 'life on the road', spending one third of his life traveling.
Mozart's journey, which began in Salzburg in June 1763, did not end until November 1766.
This journey, later called the 'Grand Tour', lasted three years and five months, and during that time Mozart performed in no less than 88 cities.
This is an unprecedented record in the history of Western music.
Mozart then embarked on three trips to Italy between 1769 and 1772, which opened his eyes to religious music and opera.

The author, who personally witnessed Mozart's activities on the spot, explains that 'travel' was the methodology that enabled Mozart to transform from a child prodigy into an immortal composer.
If the first trip was an opportunity to announce Mozart's emergence throughout Europe, the second trip to Italy was the opportunity for Mozart to be reborn as an 'all-round composer' who transcended all genres.
During his travels, which began at the age of six and continued until three months before his death, Mozart met many of the greatest figures in the world of culture and art, and through his interactions with them, he was able to be reborn as an immortal composer who encompassed all genres, including concertos, symphonies, sonatas, chamber music, sacred music, and opera.
Johann Christian Bach, who had a great influence on Mozart's symphonies; Father Giovanni Battista Martini, who opened Mozart's eyes to religious music; Joseph Haydn, the 'father of symphonies' who loved and guided Mozart like a son; and Lorenzo da Ponte, the librettist who had a decisive influence on Mozart's operas, were all people he met in a foreign land, away from his hometown.
The author argues that without the encounters he made with these people during his travels, Mozart would likely have remained a mere local composer in Salzburg.

Moreover, it is noteworthy that all three of Mozart's recorded lovers met while on job-seeking trips.
It is said that Marie Antoinette, whom the six-year-old Mozart proposed to after kissing the back of his hand, also met during his tour, so it is no exaggeration to say that for Mozart, travel was not only a decisive turning point in his transformation into an immortal composer, but also life itself.

For this reason, the author explains Mozart's life and travels, the people he met during his travels, and his musical works in chronological order.
The way he introduces travel destinations, the people he meets there, and the works that emerge from those encounters might seem artificial for other artists, but in Mozart's case, the artistic exchanges, the creation of his works, and the resulting changes in his life were all instantaneous.
The key to Mozart's current status is his ability to immediately apply what he has learned to expand his scope of composition and to create a unique musical world never seen before.


"The unfortunate composer who has lived through construction, dismantling, and reconstruction."
Is the Mozart you know the real Mozart?

“Mozart, forgive me.
“It was I who killed you.”
In the first scene of the movie [Amadeus], ​​this is what Salieri, Mozart's murderer, shouted while attempting suicide (it was later revealed that Salieri did not actually poison Mozart).
As can be seen in the film, Mozart's life and works have given rise to numerous questions and speculations since his time, including the creative process of his unfinished work [Requiem], Mozart's death shrouded in mystery, the connection between the opera [The Magic Flute] and Freemasonry, and rumors of discord with his wife Constanze.
It is also true that as the evaluation of Mozart was later elevated to a cult level, the true Mozart disappeared and only a packaged Mozart existed.
During the Romantic era, he was called 'an angel descended from heaven', during the Nazi era, he was called 'a German national hero', and during the Cold War, in Eastern Europe, he was called 'a people's composer who fought against authoritarianism'. Today, the 'Mozart effect', which claims that Mozart's music is effective in brain development, is replacing the real Mozart.

Here, Mozart's duality as a 'naive and innocent genius' on the one hand and a 'bad boy who tells dirty jokes' on the other has given rise to various interpretations and misunderstandings about him.
The author uses the numerous biographies published after Mozart's death, research by later scholars, letters, newspaper articles, and other contemporary materials to delve into and shed new light on Mozart's life and works, which we either do not know about or have misunderstood, with the objective perspective of a journalist.
As the author says, it presents the true face of Mozart, who “originally had one face, but over time came to wear many masks,” one by one, like putting together a puzzle piece.
As American musicologist Jesloy put it, by looking back at Mozart's history, which went through a "process of construction, dismantling, and reconstruction," we can think again about the background in which Mozart's well-known music was born, and what the true nature of "Mozart the man" was hidden behind his "God-given talent."


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