Rise of a Genius ep. 1

LUCI1
LUCI1
  • 3 days ago
Rise of a Genius ep. 1
Transcript
00:00Even when he knew that he was so ill and dying, his need to express himself is so perfect
00:29and poignant.
01:29It is gorgeous, it is painful, it is wondrous, and that's genius.
01:59This is the story of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, a child prodigy, a flawed human, and a composer
02:17the like of which the world has never seen.
02:21Now, with the help of experts, Mozart lovers and world-class musicians, using his private
02:47letters and original manuscripts, it's possible to piece together who he really was.
02:57A man who battled society.
03:01Your world is not this, your world is this, that's it.
03:06Battled his family.
03:07You hear his rage against the world.
03:11You must go this way.
03:12No, I won't.
03:13Yes, you will.
03:14No, I won't.
03:15And ultimately, battled himself.
03:18He is complicated, Mozart, and slightly crazy.
03:22It's a grand history of child stars who go off the rails.
03:28A genius who channeled all this to chart the human condition.
03:34I'm going to be an artist regardless of how it is received.
03:38I'm so going to create art.
03:40This bad-ass mic drop moment right there.
03:46Mozart's music makes us question why we're put on this earth.
03:50What is it all about?
03:52It makes us question our existence, I think.
03:54It really is mind-blowing just how far above that bar Mozart is.
04:10Mozart's path to success was far from straightforward.
04:26Even though he's been seen as a child prodigy, by the age of 21, he can only find work for
04:32a provincial archbishop, Hieronymus von Colorado.
04:38Colorado doesn't really care about music.
04:42He's quite a pompous fellow, and he and Mozart do not get on.
04:46They rub each other up absolutely the wrong way.
04:56Mozart believes he should be writing major symphonies and operas.
05:01Mozart is desperate to break free.
05:05There's this need, like an addictive need, to be creative, to compose, to write.
05:18But Colorado has Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart playing background music during his meals.
05:30You know, my dear father, I'm only in Salzburg out of consideration for you.
05:35Oh, by God, if it was up to me, I would have wiped my arse with this appointment.
05:40The problem is Mozart doesn't just think he's a genius.
05:45He knows he is.
05:53It started when he was just a child.
05:58Mozart's parents live in a small apartment.
06:03His father, Leopold, is a violinist and composer.
06:09The Mozart family house is modest.
06:12Leopold works for the court.
06:13He doesn't make a whole heck of a lot of money.
06:17But Leopold himself was terrifically ambitious.
06:21Leopold believes his daughter, Nannerl, is a musical prodigy.
06:26She can effortlessly learn new tunes.
06:30So he gives her a book of his own compositions to play.
06:35Five-year-old Wolfgang joins in.
06:42As it happens, Mozart is not just working his way through Nannerl's little book of pieces,
06:49but suddenly Leopold discovers that Wolfgang has been writing his own.
07:03He just watched this extraordinary small child produce it for himself.
07:09It's absolutely remarkable.
07:16He just is a natural.
07:25For Wolfgang, I think, this was like a sort of childhood game.
07:28But for Leopold, this was a bit of a ticket to an outside world.
07:38The Mozarts travel nearly 200 miles to Vienna.
07:45Leopold arranges an audience with Empress Maria Theresa,
07:49one of Europe's richest and most powerful leaders.
07:53He wants to show the Empress what his son can do.
08:05Leopold gets this all-valuable introduction to the royal family.
08:10They're entering a whole new world, a world of status and money,
08:15which Leopold certainly wants to be part of.
08:19If Wolfgang can make a good impression at the palace,
08:22it could change the family's fortunes.
08:27The Empress, she is divine.
08:28She is of God.
08:30She is enormously powerful.
08:33I picture Wolfgang with Leopold constantly saying,
08:38sit still, don't fidget.
08:40When you get to the palace, the first thing you do, Wolfgang, is you bow.
08:43You remember the bow?
08:45Yes, Daddy, yes, Daddy.
08:47And then comes this extraordinary moment.
08:57Oh, no, God, what are you, oh.
09:00He gives her a big old smack on the cheek.
09:09But then this tiny little kid sits down and just starts to play.
09:25Mozart's talent was blinding, unworldly for Empress Maria Theresa.
09:32The entire experience is a revelation.
09:37She loved that little Mozart.
09:42I think it would have been so extraordinary for her
09:46to see a fabulous genius bottled in a tiny, small, charming boy.
09:51Here he is at the centre of everything.
09:54Mozart's faux pas is quickly forgotten.
09:58His father, Leopold, leaves Vienna with a gift of 450 florins,
10:04more than his annual salary.
10:09You get this sense that Leopold has really heard the cash register
10:15chinging.
10:19Wolfgang is the goose that lays the golden eggs for the family.
10:24Leopold is really obsessed with money.
10:27And that's not surprising.
10:29Money matters.
10:30If you don't have any money and you're also not an aristocrat,
10:33then you're nobody.
10:38Encouraged by Wolfgang's success, Leopold plans an ambitious European tour.
10:46The whole family will leave Salzburg behind them to promote the child miracle.
10:59What Leopold's doing when planning a great tour
11:01is something which was really daring because really only rich people
11:05travelled.
11:06Travel is expensive.
11:08It can be dangerous.
11:09In a way, Leopold's realised something which every modern musician
11:12has to know, which is that the only way to make real money is to tour.
11:18And it's not just a matter of money.
11:21He recognises in his children's talent a possibility
11:26of climbing a social ladder and of showing the world something
11:32he could never have done on his own.
11:35For the child Mozart, it means a tour of 88 European cities.
11:42And in each one, he has to be the star of the show.
11:48Imagine the pressure on him, the exhaustion, the travelling,
11:54the travelling, the travelling, and then performing.
11:57But Mozart doesn't complain because he longs to have his father's
12:00love and approval.
12:04He has no world apart from that created by his father, guided by his father.
12:08In 1764, Mozart comes to London.
12:13The family take rooms above a barber's shop in Westminster,
12:17in the heart of theatre land.
12:23And it's in London that, for the first time, Mozart's father,
12:27the composer, is invited to join him on a tour of the city.
12:33And it's in London that, for the first time,
12:36Mozart has access to a small orchestra.
12:41Wolfgang thinks, hmm, maybe I should write a symphony now,
12:44rather than just keyboard pieces for me and my sister.
12:49And Leopold knows darn well that nothing's going to put butts in seats
12:53more quickly than a symphony by an eight-year-old.
12:57ORCHESTRA PLAYS
13:27ORCHESTRA PLAYS
13:33Now, I tell you, I've performed this symphony a lot.
13:36And it's amazing. I mean, it's in three movements,
13:39it's written for strings and horns and oboes.
13:43And the structure is perfect.
13:46ORCHESTRA PLAYS
13:57ORCHESTRA PLAYS
14:08What I love about this is the energy of the beginning,
14:11the forthright opening, and he's moving with such confidence.
14:20But, for heaven's sake, he's eight years old.
14:27APPLAUSE
14:32Mozart is the ultimate child prodigy.
14:37And has displayed an inexplicable ability
14:40that goes way beyond his age
14:42and apparently beyond his own personal experience.
14:45The family is in demand everywhere.
14:49Mozart's first symphony seems too good to be true.
14:53Rumours start flying around London.
14:56Some suggest the boy is really a grown man
14:59with a condition that makes him look like a child.
15:03Others say his dad wrote the whole thing.
15:07London society is pretty cynical about what this talent is.
15:11They think the child is a fake, they think the dad's a con man.
15:15So they put Mozart through a series of tests.
15:19The Royal Society is brought in.
15:22Their vice-president is given the task of judging.
15:27Is Mozart a natural-born genius?
15:31There was no way for him to prepare
15:33what they were going to ask him to do.
15:35There's no way he would have known
15:38what they were going to ask him to do.
15:41ORCHESTRA PLAYS
15:44Mozart is asked to sight-read, and he does.
15:48He's asked to improvise.
15:50At one point, can you play
15:52if there's a blanket over the keyboard?
15:55And young Mozart says, well, of course I can.
16:00He is doing things on a keyboard
16:03that seem physically impossible.
16:06And your jaws drop.
16:08By the way, halfway through the test,
16:11he sees the family cat, and he's so distracted,
16:14he jumps down and starts playing with the cat.
16:17Took them forever to get him back to the keyboard.
16:21It's a wonderful reflection of the fact
16:24that we're still dealing with a child.
16:32After carefully examining the keyboard,
16:36after careful deliberation,
16:39the Royal Society come to a conclusion.
16:42The child is a genius.
16:49Mozart is a miracle of nature.
16:52And Leopold believes he knows just
16:55how to deal with that miracle.
17:01The boy wonder is performing almost every day.
17:05And Leopold, as manager and promoter,
17:08rakes in the profits.
17:16But after over a year in the capital,
17:19the Mozarts must find a new audience.
17:23Leopold first had his children performing
17:26for the creme de la creme of the aristocracy,
17:30but then familiarity.
17:33Has bred a kind of disinterest.
17:43Leopold ends up having to perform in pubs
17:46just to try and flog the act
17:49for as much as he possibly could.
17:57Mozart sees his father hustling, basically.
18:00Trying to make money.
18:03And Leopold is forced into more and more desperate measures,
18:06eventually setting them up as a kind of party piece.
18:09You can go down to the Swan and Hoop
18:12and see them playing every lunchtime for half a crown.
18:23They're working constantly,
18:26performing constantly,
18:29performing constantly.
18:32Leopold is at this point completely wrapped up
18:35in the notion that Wolfgang
18:38is his to use any way he wants.
18:50Mozart is now back in his hometown,
18:53Salzburg.
18:56But even as an adult,
18:59he is still under his father's thumb.
19:02And he fears his days of adventure and stardom
19:05are far behind him.
19:08Mozart, the young man, has lived two lives, really.
19:11He's had this extraordinary time as a child
19:14where he was celebrated and spoiled and petted.
19:17And now he's discovered, as he gets older,
19:20that the cub and the puppy can be admired,
19:24but then the working dog
19:27has to do what he's told.
19:33Mozart understands that you can only be a prodigy
19:36when you're a kid.
19:39Eventually, you stop being a prodigy
19:42and you're just another adult who can play really well.
19:45And then you're stuck.
19:48How do you cope with that? I think that's hard
19:51His sense of loss, the loss of that reflected gaze,
19:54must have been painful and confusing for him.
20:00Now for our saga with Salzburg.
20:03You know how odious Salzburg is in my eyes.
20:06I have more hope of being able to live
20:09in happiness and contentment anywhere else.
20:12Let it suffice to you that Salzburg
20:15is no place for my talent.
20:18Mozart believes he has a special gift
20:21that transcends the normal rules and hierarchy.
20:25A gift that's wasted on his boss.
20:29As far as the archbishop was concerned,
20:32Mozart is in his employ, and that meant
20:35he was just as much a servant as his cooks and his valet.
20:41Mozart cannot accept his lot.
20:48So he approaches Archbishop Colorado
20:51seeking permission to leave.
20:54Hieronymus von Colorado has no patience for Mozart.
21:00Colorado says, no, you're an employee.
21:03I'm paying you money. You're under contract.
21:06What, do you think you're going to go gallivanting around Europe again?
21:10Well, young Mozart hates the archbishop
21:13because the archbishop treats him like the servant that he is.
21:18Colorado does eventually change his mind,
21:21but on one condition.
21:24The Mozarts must take unpaid leave.
21:29For Leopold, losing his income is too much
21:32and he decides to stay behind.
21:38So Mozart hits the road again,
21:41this time with just his mother as chaperone.
21:48He's travelled so often,
21:51but he's never been in that carriage
21:54without his father by his side.
22:00He's been tethered to his childhood for so long,
22:03but this time it's him.
22:06It's his rules.
22:09He gets to do it his way.
22:12There's an awful lot at stake in him leaving Salzburg.
22:16And if he's going to leave, then there's only one place to go,
22:20and that is the greatest musical court in Europe, Mannheim.
22:30Mannheim is one of the most important musical courts in Europe.
22:34It's one of the most important musical courts in Europe.
22:37It's one of the most important musical courts in Europe.
22:40Mannheim's orchestra is the best,
22:43most rigorously trained there is.
22:49This was a band that could play ferociously together,
22:52and if you had any orchestra at all you could write for,
22:55it's these guys.
23:03Mozart couldn't believe what he was witnessing.
23:06The Mannheim Court Orchestra has clarinets.
23:09Which is a brand-new instrument that Mozart
23:12has hardly ever heard before.
23:15He writes back to his father, they have clarinets.
23:18I wish we had clarinets in Salzburg.
23:21The only people who get to command this orchestra
23:24are the Kapellmeisters.
23:29He wants to be one of the Kapellmeisters,
23:32one of the musical leaders in Mannheim.
23:35He feels that the family's financial future
23:38rests on his shoulders.
23:41But he's got all the confidence of a guy in his early 20s.
23:45And he's convinced it's basically a done deal.
23:59The person who chooses the Kapellmeisters
24:02is the aristocratic ruler of Mannheim, the elector.
24:08And Mozart sees he's in the house tonight.
24:14It's the end of a concert.
24:17Mozart tries to get the elector's attention,
24:20but it's so noisy that Mozart's not sure
24:23whether the elector has actually heard anything he's said.
24:26He's just desperate to get his teeth into something really big,
24:29a new musical adventure.
24:33I am a composer
24:36and was born to be a Kapellmeister.
24:40I neither can nor ought to bury the talent for composition,
24:44which God, in His goodness, has so richly endowed me.
24:48I may say so, without conceit,
24:51for I feel it now more than ever.
24:57But the elector decides there's no place for Mozart.
25:03Not in his orchestra.
25:08It's his first big failure, and he can't quite see why.
25:18He's heartbroken. Heartbroken.
25:21Why doesn't he get the job?
25:24He's 21 years old.
25:27He's never conducted an orchestra.
25:30He's never led an opera house.
25:32There's no reason to expect Mozart to get the job.
25:35Mozart wasn't Mozart yet.
25:39Mozart takes his rejection hard.
25:42But with nowhere else to go,
25:45he decides to stay in Mannheim and prove his doubters wrong.
25:50Some who knew me by repute were very polite and fearfully respectful.
25:54Others, however, who had never heard of me,
25:57stared at me wide-eyed,
26:00in a rather sneering manner.
26:02They probably think that because I am little and young,
26:05nothing great or mature can come out of me.
26:08But they will soon see.
26:13Mozart believes that that weight of his talent
26:16will always come down on his side.
26:19These idiots, don't they know how wonderful I am?
26:24He has these feelings boiling up inside him.
26:27And how can you persuade anybody
26:30that you are more important than they are,
26:33and that they should listen to you?
26:37As his debts mount up,
26:40Mozart must seek a new position to make ends meet.
26:47Wolfgang knew that he had to make money.
26:50And then, in Mannheim, a job opens up.
26:53He will give lessons, but on the keyboard.
26:57It's terribly limiting for some of Mozart's talents.
27:04One of Wolfgang's new pupils is Aloysia Weber...
27:10..the daughter of a court musician.
27:18The family have four daughters,
27:21and they're all wonderful musicians.
27:34And he falls totally head over heels for Aloysia.
27:42And he decides that he's going to dedicate his life
27:46to making Aloysia the star she should be.
27:51Suddenly, Mozart finds a new passion for teaching.
27:57He composes a solo especially for Aloysia to perform.
28:02He's never been inspired in this way before.
28:07Before now, he's been writing to earn money for the family.
28:11But now, it's purely coming from his heart,
28:14coming from his feelings.
28:16It must have felt unbelievable.
28:20Unbelievable.
28:29ORCHESTRA PLAYS
28:32ORCHESTRA CONTINUES
28:47SINGS IN ITALIAN
29:02SINGS IN ITALIAN
29:09I think Aloysia feels overwhelmed when she opens this piece
29:13and sees just what Mozart has written for her.
29:18SINGS IN ITALIAN
29:28It's him saying, this is how I feel about you.
29:32SINGS IN ITALIAN
29:44Such a gracious melody.
29:46You can really hear him writing for a voice that he loves.
29:50You know, he's trying to show this off.
29:53Show her off.
29:55SINGS IN ITALIAN
30:01He's inviting us into this sexual world,
30:04this world of pleasure.
30:06It's very seductive.
30:10SINGS IN ITALIAN
30:25SINGS IN ITALIAN
30:32It sounds sexy.
30:34Uh, uh, uh, and it's a sense of throbbing,
30:37whether that's a heart pulsating or whether it's something else, throbbing.
30:49I mean, if she wasn't in love with him already,
30:51she absolutely would be now.
30:55SINGS IN ITALIAN
31:08So come the spring of 1778, Mozart is in love.
31:13He writes his dad.
31:15He says, guess what, Dad?
31:17I got a girlfriend, she's a wonderful singer,
31:20and for her part, Aloysia is starstruck by Mozart.
31:26And they make all sorts of plans together
31:29of how they're going to tour Italy,
31:31maybe tour the Netherlands and Belgium.
31:35What we're starting to see is Mozart asserting his adulthood
31:40in a manner unthinkable even months before.
31:45Well, this is Leopold's worst nightmare come true.
31:50My dear son, I have read through your letter with amazement and horror.
31:58The aim of your journey consisted of two objectives.
32:02Either to seek a permanent good position of service, or failing that,
32:07to move on to an important place where there are good earnings.
32:12But above all, to make a name and honour for yourself in the world.
32:20Now it depends on entirely you alone,
32:23whether you will be penned by some woman
32:26in a room full of destitute children on a sack of straw,
32:30or, after leading a Christian life of contentment,
32:34honour and lasting fame, die respected by everyone.
32:40Leopold can't accept that his son is growing up.
32:45And therefore, Leopold writes,
32:47I will tell you who you can marry,
32:49who you can fall in love with and where you're going to perform.
32:53And says, off with you to Paris.
32:56And that, soon.
33:00What a fuck.
33:03Fuck!
33:07Leopold may be hundreds of miles away, but he's still in charge.
33:12So Mozart now has to leave the woman he loves
33:15and set off again, across Europe, to make money for his family.
33:22Mozart's resentful.
33:25He doesn't really want to go to Paris.
33:27But he is his father's son,
33:30and he's going to do what his father tells him to do
33:33for a little while longer.
33:36Wolfgang asks for his father's permission to go to France alone.
33:42But he's put in his place.
33:46Wolfgang says, Mum should be allowed to come home.
33:49I can handle this myself.
33:51Leopold says, no, you're just a child.
33:53You can't do this yourself.
33:55Off with you.
33:58Wolfgang says, no, you're just a child.
34:01You can't do this yourself.
34:03Off with you.
34:05It's a nine-day journey to Paris.
34:15They take simple lodgings in a run-down neighbourhood,
34:18just above the Marais district.
34:22It's as close as they can afford
34:24to the centre of the music scene at the Tuileries Palace.
34:28But things do not start well.
34:32Mozart's appalled by Paris.
34:34He can't bear it. He can't understand it.
34:37It's this filthy city at this time.
34:39It's incredibly expensive.
34:41And he thinks, what is this place?
34:45Mozart's mother, Maria Anna, struggles to settle in Paris.
34:51She has a family of her own.
34:53Mozart's mother, Maria Anna, struggles to settle in.
35:00She doesn't speak the language.
35:03She finds the city hostile.
35:06And they're broke.
35:09But Mozart's on a mission.
35:15Wolfgang's out all day trying to find himself a job.
35:20Trying to ingratiate himself with the right people.
35:23And meanwhile, poor Maria Anna is left all alone.
35:29He's not around, Mozart, and she's lonely.
35:34It's dingy and cold and she can't get out.
35:43As for my own life, it is not at all a pleasant one.
35:48I sit alone in our room the whole day,
35:51as if I were in jail.
35:55I cannot see the sun all day long.
35:59With great difficulty, I manage to knit a little
36:02by the daylight that struggles in.
36:05That is so sad.
36:12It's hard to say whether Wolfgang does realise.
36:17And of course, Mum was the last person to complain.
36:21For Mozart, though, Paris is a city of opportunity.
36:27And he's arrived at a fortuitous time.
36:31He's enormously rude about the whole thing.
36:34And yet, this is the city in which he will discover
36:38that he can make music on his own terms.
36:40Paris is changing.
36:44The Concert Spirituel is a new and radical idea.
36:49For the first time, paying punters can hear music at public events.
36:56Mozart, for his part, is not the only one.
37:00He is the only musician in the world
37:03who can make music on his own terms.
37:07He can make music at public events.
37:11Mozart spots a chance to compose,
37:14not just to please an aristocratic patron.
37:17He can write for the people.
37:20The Concert Spirituel is dedicated to performing music
37:25for everybody, anyone who could afford a ticket.
37:29This was much more down Mozart's alley.
37:31The musical director is Joseph Legrand,
37:35a star of Parisian opera.
37:38For the first time, Mozart is speaking musician to musician.
37:45And, in fact, he finds a sympathetic listener at last.
37:49And he's commissioned to produce a symphony for them.
37:56I think Mozart must have felt the greatest joy
37:59I think Mozart must have felt the greatest relief.
38:02His career up to this point wasn't easy.
38:05And now you get the impression that, once again, he felt, I've made it.
38:12As a young man, Mozart has experienced
38:16his fair share of disappointment and heartbreak.
38:19But now, as he begins rehearsals in Paris,
38:23the stars are finally aligning.
38:25With the Paris Symphony, Mozart's been given an orchestra,
38:30the scale of which he hadn't worked with before
38:33and hadn't really been heard before.
38:3521 violins, 8 celli, 4 violas, 4 basses and a full wind section.
38:40So he's been given this tapestry to show off everything he can do.
38:48The Concert Spirituel will allow him to do
38:51essentially whatever he can imagine doing with an orchestra.
38:55There are no limits.
38:59He's actually quite canny about the piece of music that he writes.
39:04He's thinking about a paying public, the audience.
39:21It's such a grabby opening.
39:24There's no slow start into some lovely theme.
39:27It's bang, here we go.
39:28He's actually quite canny about the piece of music that he writes.
39:32It's such a grabby opening.
39:34There's no slow start into some lovely theme.
39:37It's bang, here we go.
39:58His Paris Symphony, it starts with these coups d'archers, these bow strokes.
40:13His Paris Symphony, it starts with these coups d'archers, these bow strokes.
40:28These big, emphatic chords to begin with.
40:32It's like it's fizzing.
40:47And the effect this has on the audience is enormous.
40:51Mozart turns round and he sees them giggling and applauding.
40:58Mozart turns round and he sees them giggling and applauding.
41:14It feels like he's showing off.
41:17And you can hear in the music the sheer joy of what he could achieve with this scale of orchestra.
41:23He'd gone from a small family car to a real F1 engine in front of him
41:27and he was going to enjoy every second of it.
41:42But within days of the premiere, Mozart's mother falls dangerously ill.
41:49When Wolfgang does realise that his mother is really sick,
41:56he drops everything to be with her.
42:00But it's too late.
42:05Mozart's mother got sicker and sicker.
42:10She went into a coma.
42:12Mozart is by her bedside.
42:15Mozart is by her bedside.
42:19He watches her take her last breaths.
42:25He adores his mother.
42:28And he doesn't know what to do.
42:34And now he's suddenly alone.
42:37Genuinely alone.
42:38And so he writes this horribly moving letter to a friend in Salzburg
42:45to break the news.
42:48Mourn with me, my friend.
42:52This was the saddest day of my life.
42:57I must tell you that my mother, my dear mother, is no more.
43:02She went out like a light.
43:04She went out like a light.
43:07I wished at that moment to depart with her.
43:17Oh, dear.
43:19I don't think he can quite believe it, can he, in that letter?
43:25Mozart doesn't know how to tell his father the news.
43:28It takes him five days to find the words.
43:39Well, it is all over.
43:41God willed it.
43:43She was fated to sacrifice herself for her son.
43:47If your mother had returned home from Mannheim, she would not have died.
43:53And his father blames him.
43:55His father blames him for the mother's death.
43:59This is what cruel people do, this emotional blackmail.
44:04Leopold implies that Wolfgang has not looked after his mother properly.
44:10And he's failed in some way.
44:12And this seed, I regret to say, will grow over the next few years.
44:17He can always come back to that, that you let your mother die in Paris.
44:25He's 22.
44:27And for the first time in his life, Mozart is alone.
44:31Without a parent to guide him.
44:34He turns, for solace, to the keyboard.
44:37The instrument his mother first heard him play.
44:41The sound, for him, of innocence and childhood.
44:46I see a person who's in a lot of pain.
44:49And now he's leaving me.
44:52I see a person who's in a lot of pain.
44:55And now he's looking to hold on to anything that's going to make him feel grounded.
45:01When he puts his fingers at the piano forte, the harmony will come.
45:07That is something he can hold on to.
45:09That is something real.
45:11That is something tangible.
45:13When everything else feels like it's falling apart.
45:22Music
45:48I have a feeling that he's remembering,
45:51practicing as a little boy in front of his mother.
45:58It's such a clear vision to me of that woman.
46:03I can see her sitting, loving this kid
46:07and doing her best for him.
46:12And he wanted to cherish that.
46:22You feel the sadness and the regret
46:24that he probably didn't treat her as well as he should have done.
46:45It's a wonderful mixture of happy memories
46:51and the fact that they're over.
46:53That's what I hear.
47:05And then things get worse for Mozart.
47:10His dad writes, claiming his son owes him money
47:14and that he must return to Salzburg to repay the debt.
47:21I hope, after your mother had to die so inappropriately in Paris,
47:25that you will not also have the furtherance
47:27of your father's death on your conscience.
47:30You alone can save me from death, if it is God's will.
47:34I want to live a few years longer, pay my debts,
47:37and then, if you care to do so, you can run your head against a wall.
47:51It is like Groundhog Day for Mozart.
47:54He just can't get away from this place.
48:00Mozart is depressed and grieving.
48:04He is beside himself.
48:07Once again, he is back to his father
48:10and he's back to the archbishop.
48:13Mozart will spend the next two years stuck in Salzburg.
48:19Desperate to get away from his boss,
48:23Archbishop Coloredo.
48:29Mozart seemed disobedient and that was unacceptable.
48:35And so Coloredo is always getting out his ruler
48:40and slapping Mozart on the hand, as it were, like a naughty schoolboy.
48:45And Mozart is...
48:47..and furious.
48:51He's been in Salzburg, mouldering away,
48:54and then, sort of out of nowhere,
48:57the elector of Mannheim asks him to write an opera.
49:01And it's exactly what he wants to be doing.
49:04Opera requires everything.
49:06It's not just music. It's also not just theatre.
49:09It's the combination of the two.
49:11It requires everything you've got as a composer.
49:14It's the most complex type of music out there.
49:17To be able to write a big, serious opera
49:21is the peak of a composer's ambition at this point.
49:25What happens is that he writes what people now think of
49:29as being the first mature operatic work of his career,
49:32which is a domineo.
49:45Mozart has been separated from his first love,
49:49bullied by his father,
49:52and has lost his mother.
49:57Now, on the grand stage of opera,
50:00he can pour out all that human drama.
50:10Mozart's all over the domineo.
50:13He's revising the script, he's revising the music.
50:19He's helping to design the sets.
50:23So this is a complete creative experience in which he's in charge.
50:29A domineo will premiere in Munich,
50:32just days after Mozart's 25th birthday.
50:36And as opening night approaches, he's bursting with confidence.
50:41My very dear father, the rehearsal went extraordinarily well.
50:45I cannot tell you how full of joy and astonishment everyone was,
50:49but I did not expect anything else.
50:55By this time, Mozart had no self-doubt whatsoever.
51:00He knew his talent.
51:02He knew his worth.
51:04He just didn't fear anyone.
51:12Everything that he's doing at that moment
51:16is really in response to his understanding of how the world works.
51:22He's learnt you're either controlled,
51:25or you are controlling.
51:28There is no in-between.
51:42APPLAUSE
52:01Finally, he can be his own master.
52:12OPERATIC SINGING
52:30A domineo is an epic family saga of a king and his son.
52:42OPERATIC SINGING
52:45The young prince is being sent into exile
52:48for reasons he cannot understand.
52:58It's a story of a family, of course,
53:00and you feel these echoes of him and his father together so strongly in it.
53:06It also contains perhaps the most extraordinary piece of music
53:10that Mozart ever wrote, in my opinion, the Quartet.
53:13OPERATIC SINGING
53:41The Quartet has the four central characters thinking about their loss,
53:47their son, who they're never going to see again.
53:50OPERATIC SINGING
53:58And it's all bound together in music of the most extraordinary pathos.
54:03OPERATIC SINGING
54:11OPERATIC SINGING
54:24And they're all coming from different perspectives.
54:27And he manages to weave it all together into this fabric
54:31where it makes perfect musical sense.
54:34So he's using the voices almost like four instruments.
54:37OPERATIC SINGING
54:54It's one of the greatest quartets that anyone has ever written in any opera
54:59in terms of getting that drama to its boiling point.
55:03OPERATIC SINGING
55:07And what we end up with is a quartet of such pain, heartache and bewthy.
55:14OPERATIC SINGING
55:23I don't know... I don't know how he did it.
55:26OPERATIC SINGING
55:30The opera ends with a glorious coronation.
55:34OPERATIC SINGING
55:37The gods allow the young prince to return home
55:40on condition the old king, his father, gives up his crown.
55:45OPERATIC SINGING
55:48OPERATIC SINGING
56:04Mozart's own father is in the audience on the opening night.
56:09It's extraordinary to think how Leopold Mozart would have felt
56:13an opera about a father relinquishing the crown
56:16and giving it to the son.
56:18Because in that moment, Wolfgang is crowned.
56:21He's crowned the great composer that we know him to be today.
56:32The domino is instantly acknowledged as being something exceptional.
56:38It's a game-changer for Wolfgang.
56:42Somewhere inside him is that ability to say,
56:45no, damn it, I am going to put one finger up to you,
56:49I'm going to be Mozart whether you want me to or not.
57:01I think for a father to recognise that your son is so famous
57:05and so celebrated is a sort of double whammy
57:10of great pride on the one hand
57:12and a feeling of your own failure on the other,
57:17that you will never achieve what your son has.
57:21But, you know, paternal pride and jealousy at the same time.
57:27Lethal.
57:31The child prodigy has grown up.
57:35It gives him the confidence to do what he does next,
57:40which is to go freelance, break away from Dad,
57:42break away from Archbishop Colorado, break away from Salzburg,
57:45break away from everything, find himself.
57:56Next time...
57:59There he is, on his own, in Vienna.
58:05When you are a fated wunderkind,
58:07this is not a good way to emerge into adulthood
58:10with a psychology that's intact.
58:12Mozart has a sweeping arrogance.
58:15The rebel who wanted to make his own rules
58:17and live outside these courts,
58:20but also the person who deeply craves their acceptance.
58:26If Mozart's brilliance has inspired you
58:29to appreciate classical music more,
58:32or the fascinating world of classical concertos
58:35and why Mozart excelled in composing them,
58:38visit bbc.co.uk forward slash mozartgenius
58:43and follow the links to The Open University
58:45to watch the animation.
59:02© BF-WATCH TV 2021