Mozart in Italy

The Mozart family made three trips to Italy between 1769 and 1773. Leopold Mozart wanted to continue his son’s musical education in Italy. He also wanted Wolfgang to immerse himself in the Italian language, church music of the highest quality, and extend his network of influential acquaintances.

About Mozart in Italy in brief

Summary Mozart in ItalyThe Mozart family made three trips to Italy between 1769 and 1773. Leopold Mozart wanted to continue his son’s musical education in Italy. He also wanted Wolfgang to immerse himself in the Italian language, church music of the highest quality, and extend his network of influential acquaintances. There was also the possibility of securing positions in the northern Italian Habsburg courts. Wolfgang composed prolifically, gaining the favour of Archbishop Siegmund von Schrattenbach, who gave his son a papal knighthood. The journeys ended not with a triumphant return, but on a note of disappointment and frustration. The family returned to Salzburg after a three-and-a-half year \”grand tour\” of the major Northern European cities, begun when Wolfgang was seven and Nannerl twelve. They returned to Vienna in January 1768, but by now the children were no longer young enough to cause a sensation in their public concerts. In 1773, Wolfgang composed his first opera, La finta semplice, for the Teatro Regio Ducale in Milan, each of which was a critical and popular triumph. He met many of Italy’s leading musicians, including the renowned theorist Giovanni Battista Martini, under whom he studied in Bologna. The journey was financed by performances for the nobility and by public concerts, and took in the most important Italian cities, including Venice, Naples, and Rome, to equip himself for future commissions from Europe’s opera houses, according to Mozart’s biographer Stanley Sadie Sadie.

In November 1766, the MozartFamily returned to Austria, but in 1769, the family left for Italy, where they stayed for three months before returning to Austria again in 1770. The Mozart Family’s last visit to Italy was in 1772, when the family returned home to Austria for a final visit to Austria in 1783. The last time the family visited Italy was on a visit to Rome in 1774, when Wolfgang wrote his second opera, The Marriage of Figaro, which was commissioned by the city’s theatre. The final visit was to Milan in 1775, for Wolfgang to complete operas that had been commissioned there on the first visit. The first and third journeys were a considerable success, and his talents were recognised by honours which included a papAL knighthOOD and memberships in leading philharmonic societies. The children’s performances had captivated audiences, and the pair had made a considerable impression on European society. The return to Austria proved less happy: an outbreak of smallpox, which led to the death of the Archduchess Maria Josepha of Austria, prevented the children from performing in the imperial court and forced the family to seek refuge in Bohemia, a move which did not prevent Wolfgang from contracting the disease. In the end, the children decided to stay at home, which made economic and practical sense, but made a decision they resented which made a practical sense.