For the most part, Mozart and Constanze had a happy marriage. Often they struggled to make ends meet. There are stories about how the couple danced in their unheated house to keep warm and how they used their wooden furniture as firewood.
When Mozart ran out of money and could not pay his bills, he would teach, give concerts, and compose music at a frantic pace. He needed to make more and more money to keep up with his extravagant life. Often, he asked friends for a loan.
Even during the hard times, Constanze and Mozart loved each other and were glad to be together. Mozart described her as a woman with common sense and the kindest heart in the world. When they were apart, he wrote to her constantly, saying over and over how much he missed her.
Other times they had lots of money, but Mozart spent it as quickly as he made it. He bought fancy clothes and gave big parties with music, dancing, and lots of food. He even had his own coach, which cost a great deal of money.
Constanze and Wolfgang had six children, though only two sons, Karl Thomas and Franz Xaver, lived more than a year. Mozart taught his older son Karl Thomas to play the clavier and to sing. The whole family sang and played music together often. Sometimes, their pet bird, a starling, would join in the songs.
One day, Mozart received a visit from Franz Joseph Haydn. Haydn was twenty-four years older than Mozart. People thought he was the greatest living composer. After hearing Mozart play, he later told Leopold, “Your son is the greatest composer I know.”
Mozart and Haydn became very close friends. Eventually, Mozart went on to compose many pieces of music that he dedicated to his “dear friend” Haydn. Some were piano concertos. These are pieces of music written for an orchestra with highlights for the piano. Others, eight in all, were for string quartets—two violins, a viola, and a bass.
Despite all the praise heaped on him, Mozart never became too proud. He valued his own music but also appreciated the music of others. He knew that other composers had something to teach him. After hearing the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, he exclaimed, “Now here’s something one can learn from!”
In 1787, Mozart became the chamber composer for Emperor Joseph II. This was a very important job—the most important one Mozart had ever held. He composed music and gave performances. The emperor paid his salary. At last he had a steady income. Some of his greatest work dates from this time.
In 1786, Mozart wrote The Marriage of Figaro, an opera that had beautiful music and yet was very funny. It tells the story of Figaro and Susanna, both servants to the Count and Countess. Figaro and Susanna are planning to marry. Meanwhile, the Countess is unhappy because her husband has been ignoring her. Susanna and Figaro think up a complicated plot to get the Count to pay attention to his wife. The plot involves disguises and false identities, but all ends happily.
The Marriage of Figaro opened at the Grand Opera House in Vienna and was a big success. The company went on to Prague, which was then part of Bohemia and is now in the Czech Republic. The opera was an even bigger hit there. Everywhere in Prague, people were humming the music from Mozart’s opera or dancing to one of its lively tunes.
Mozart was thrilled by the reaction to his opera and wanted to thank the people of Prague. So he wrote a special symphony for them—the Prague Symphony—to express his gratitude. But even more important, he was asked to write another opera. Written in 1787, the new opera, Don Giovanni, was not a comedy. It tells a much darker story, recounting the life and death of a wicked nobleman named Giovanni.
This opera, too, was a great success and brought Mozart more praise and fame.
In 1790, he wrote yet another popular opera. It was called Così fan Tutte, which, in English, means “everybody does it.” The Italian poet Lorenzo Da Ponte wrote the opera’s libretto—or the words—while Mozart composed the score. Così fan Tutte is another comic opera. It features a pair of officers, Ferrando and Guglielmo, and their sweethearts, Dorabella and Fiordiligi. The two young men want to test the love of the two women, and they invent many complicated tricks to do so. But all ends well for the two couples.
“Don Giovanni”
The last of Mozart’s great operas, The Magic Flute, was written in 1791. Emanuel Schikaneder wrote the libretto. As its title suggests, The Magic Flute is like a fairytale: there is the evil Queen of the Night, her beautiful daughter, a handsome prince who loves her, wild animals, a set of chimes, and a golden flute. The prince faces many dangers, but in the opera’s happy ending, he wins the hand of the princess. Once again, Mozart’s hauntingly beautiful music enchanted all those who heard it.
Many people think that these operas are Mozart’s finest works and that the years in Vienna were the most productive in his whole life. They were also probably the happiest years of his short life.
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