Mozart Biography

People have always been curious about the lives of the composers,especially about the ones who have extraordinary talents.We study composers’ biographies basically to learn about the conditions that helped form the genius.These conditions may be personal,cultural social or physcological. The main motivation of the reader is to be able to understand these conditions that made our composer extraordinary.The biographies of certain composers are considered to be more fascinating than others,and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is certainly t one of them.He was a genious,an exceptionally gifted and creative human being who had all the traits which made his biography more appealing than others.As a result,there is a huge collection of Mozart’s biographies,but two of them,Norbert Elias’ Portrait of a Genius and Alfred Einstein’s Mozart His Character,His Work draw attention in terms of the methodology used in order to understand the concept of genius of Mozart ,his personal relations and social relations with the aristocratic society,his health issues and early death.

The CONCEPT OF GENIUS

No other musician deserves to be called as genius more than Mozart.In both biographies the authors mention this trait,but Alfred Einstein reflect his genius in a supernatural way.The whole secon chapter called Genius and Human Frailty gives specific examples of how he managed to be able to play at a such a young age.He does this intentionally to increase readers’ involvement,but his repetitive remarks of how talented Mozart was as a child creates a supernatural character,which I think disables the reader to create a realistic impresssion about Mozart. Elias also underlines his talent a couple of times but he doesn’t exaggarate the situation.Rather than trying to impress the reader with ‘god-like’ talent of Mozart,he shows us how this talent was used by leopold to take part in a higher social status.Leopold was a musician,yet a servant musician of the bishop,even when Mozart was six he organised a ‘world tour’ around the courts and palaces of Europe to show his child’s talent.Elias sticks to this sociological point of view throughout his biography.According to Elias,although Mozart was socially dependent subordinate of court aristocrats,his awareness of his talent made him feel equal,if not superior,to them.As a consequence,in Elias’ biography his talent becomes a means to fight with the aristocracy as a bourgeoise musician.

HIS PERSONAL RELATIONS

The most significant relation in both biographies is the one with his father.According to Elias,the deep bond between the father and the son provides the lietmotif of Mozart’s early genius and complicated physche.He uses psycoanalytic insights to examine lepold’s ambitions