Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Austria, 1761–1791

Austrian composer of the Classical period. He produced more than 600 works across opera, symphony and concerto in a life of 35 years, and his handling of melody and form became a reference point for the style.

MusicRoots documents 3 artists who influenced Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and 11 artists Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart influenced in turn. Every connection cites a published source.

Who influenced Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart?

• Johann Sebastian Bach — Mozart discovered Bach's fugues at Baron van Swieten's salons in 1782 and arranged several for string ensemble — a documented turning point in his contrapuntal writing.
• Joseph Haydn — Mozart dedicated six string quartets to Haydn 'from whom I learned to write quartets', calling him his dearest friend and teacher.
• George Frideric Handel — Mozart re-orchestrated Messiah and three other Handel oratorios — 'Handel understands effect better than any of us.'

Which artists did Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart influence?

• Ludwig van Beethoven — Beethoven travelled to Vienna intending to study with Mozart and modelled his early concertos and chamber music on him.
• Gioachino Rossini — Rossini called Mozart 'the admiration of my youth, the desperation of my mature years' — a lifelong acknowledged model.
• Franz Schubert — Schubert's 1816 diary records his rapture at Mozart's music — 'O Mozart, immortal Mozart' — a documented formative model.
• Frédéric Chopin — Chopin held Mozart above all other composers and asked for Mozart's Requiem to be performed at his funeral.
• Camille Saint-Saëns — Saint-Saëns was a Mozart prodigy from childhood — he offered to play any of the concertos from memory at his debut aged ten — and held Mozart as the ideal of clarity.
• Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky — Tchaikovsky worshipped Mozart — he called him 'the musical Christ' and composed the suite Mozartiana as an act of homage.
• Maurice Ravel — Ravel held up Mozart's classical clarity and structure as his true model, against the Impressionist label often pinned on him.
• Vincenzo Bellini — The Naples curriculum centred on the Italian classical masters and the works of Haydn and Mozart, the formal grounding beneath Bellini's melodic gift.
• Richard Strauss — Mozart was Strauss's lifelong ideal — he conducted him constantly and modelled Der Rosenkavalier's ensemble writing on Le nozze di Figaro.
• Johann Nepomuk Hummel — The child Hummel lived and studied in Mozart's Vienna household for two years — Mozart taught him free of charge.
• Yngwie Malmsteen — One of the composers Malmsteen's sister put in front of him as a boy, and one he still names.