By Lubna Abdel-Aziz Trouble and turmoil prevail over our restless world. The range is high and wide, the scope is long and deep. From winter woes and killing snows, to tears, bloodshed and disaster, our hardships seem endless. Our social, political and economic ills are exceeded by deaths and threats of a foreboding bird flu epidemic. Yet, despite its pressing concerns, the world finds time to stop and celebrate the miracle and magic of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The year 2006 marks the 250th birthday of Austria's greatest son and the elegant city of Salzburg, the place of his birth, is planning a year-long party. Dressed in all its finery with posters and banners and blooming flowers in the dead of winter, Salzburg is dancing and singing in the streets, as it rolls out the red carpet for Mozart lovers. Millions of tourists, artists, officials, and dignitaries plan to descend upon the city to share in the joyous festivities. Last Friday, 27 January, the date of his birth, and at the precise moment of his birth, more than 100 churches in Salzburg rang their bells for seven minutes, launching the start of the big birthday bash. Special performances, concerts, lectures, exhibits, and conferences will be held throughout his hometown. The highlight was a gala concert at the Festspielhaus, by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra led by Ricardo Muti. Vienna, the city that embraced him, is also planning its own celebration, so is Prague, the city that understood him more than any other. Hundreds of cities, from Japan to Europe, the UK and the US, are planning grand fiestas of their own. Concerts and operas will be performed in Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam, Brussels, London, Edinburgh, New York, San Francisco, and all over the US. Wherever you may be, Mozart's music will ring with joy and ecstasy in your hearts. "Viva Mozart" exhibits rare items from private collections, offering a visual and sensual insight into his genius, his passion, the colourful costumes he wore, the funny games he played, the lively dances he delighted in, the joy of living he spread around. It was neither Salzburg nor Vienna, but Prague, once Europe's most beautiful city, that first recognised Mozart's genius. "Once they heard his Seraglio in 1783, they had ears for no other composer." Prague reveres the Austrian composer, and he had a special place in his heart for the sparkling city -- "my orchestra is in Prague." They too have dedicated 2006 as "the year of Mozart". Milos Foreman, film director, himself a son of Prague, earned an Oscar for directing the 1984 film Amadeus, based on the Peter Schaffer stage hit. The Mozart mystique is unshakeable. What is it, this Mozart mania that has so charmed generations of music lovers? Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in Salzburg, Austria, in 1756 to Leopold, an important and respected musician, and Anna Maria Mozart. He was christened Johan Chrysostum Wolfgang Theophilus, shortened to Wolfgang "Amadeus" (Latin for Gk "Theophilus"). Wolfgang and his sister Nanerl, five years older, lived and breathed music. By the time Wolfgang was three, he was playing his own chords and tunes for hours on the clavier (early small piano). At age four he amazed his father by his ability to learn a whole minuet and trio, in half an hour and displayed "a remarkable sense of absolute pitch". Once Wolfgang embraced music, he could do nothing else. Even his toys and games involved music. His father and good friend Johan Andrea Schactner saw the boy scribbling some notes one day, and asked what he was doing: "I am writing a concerto for the clavier. I will soon be finished with the first part." The older men laughed, but on examining the boy's scribbles they found them correct and in good order. "But of course they are useless," they said, "because they are too difficult to play." "That's why it's a concerto. You have to practice, until you can do it. See, this is how it ought to go." And the four-year-old proceeded to show the older musicians. That same year he sang in an opera, which became his lifelong passion. At age six, Mozart played for the Empress Maria Theresa at her court in Vienna. Leopold travelled with his children to the major capitals of Europe, overwhelming the nobility with their miraculous playing. Young Mozart outdid himself with each performance. "Every aspect of music was as natural to Wolfgang as was eating and sleeping". He needed no teaching. He knew it all instinctively. In Paris, the ever gay and sophisticated city, he left his audiences breathless. "True miracles are so rare that it behooves us to report one when it comes our way," published the Correspondance Littéraire. When Mozart settled in Vienna in 1781, he became the new sensation, but to make a decent living Mozart had to be appointed in court. This need to crawl to the high and mighty infuriated young Mozart who often rebelled against it. Empress Theresa had died and her son Joseph II was now emperor. He had a great love for Italian music, and his court was filled with dozens of Italian musicians who were furiously jealous of Mozart. They spread false rumours and lies about him, prompted by Italian composer Antonio Salieri, who was driven mad with hate, realising his own mediocrity, compared to the genius of the man/child Mozart. "He would have quite readily, together with his other associates, cut Mozart's throat and poisoned him." This was the premise of Peter Schaffer's play, but there is no substantial evidence to prove it. Mozart died of kidney failure. In Vienna, Mozart was never employed at court, He made a meagre living by performing composing and giving lessons, hardly enough to support his wife Constanze Weber, and his six children. His hard work and constant worries made him frequently ill. Though his life was hard, his sense of humour and joie de vivre prevailed, as seen in his lighter compositions like the opera Cosi Fan Tutti (1790) (All Women are Like That). He excelled in every kind of composition. " One of his awesome characteristics is the sheer perfection of technique in whatever he touched." His legacy of 626 works, includes 22 operas, among them such masterpieces as The Magic Flute, The Marriage of Figaro, and Don Giovanni, considered by many critics as the greatest opera ever written. He wrote 41 symphonies, 27 piano concertos, several concertos for wind instruments, numerous church masses, and a whole collection of chamber music, and lighter sonatas as Eine Kleine Nachtmusik (A Little Night Music). His last three symphonies and his Requiem (Funeral Mass), considered some of his finest works, were composed in the last three months of his life, while he was very ill, barely able to write his music. He died before his 36th birthday, poor and neglected. He was buried in a common pauper's grave, with no one in attendance, not even his wife. "Mozart's influence transcends history," wrote Albert Einstein, a great admirer: it is therefore not hard to understand the Mozart mania that has captivated Europe and the rest of the world two and a half centuries later. Perhaps there is a need to give him some of the attention in death, that he was denied in his short life. Never have the gods been as kind and as generous; but for their many gifts they exacted a higher price. "As an artist or a musician, Mozart was not a man of this world," said Einstein. Given the choice, would he have chosen to be more "a man of this world", leading a happier, longer, more prosperous life! He was not given that choice, leaving us the beneficiaries of that great gift. On his death, Haydn (1732-1809), a great musician and Mozart's good friend, lamented: Posterity will not see such a talent as his, for the next hundred years. Haydn was a great musician, but his math was off. After 250 years, the world has yet to see another Mozart, and until then Mozart mania continues!
