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August 16 & 17
PROGRAM NOTES

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

The Magic Flute, K. 620

AT A GLANCE

Born: 1756
Died: 1791
Date of Composition: 1791
Instrumentation: The Magic Flute
is scored for 2 flutes (1 doubling
piccolo), 2 oboes, 2 clarinets
(both doubling basset horns),
2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets,
3 trombones, glockenspiel,
timpani and strings.

It just might be the most pernicious
myth in all music history. The
general outline goes like this:
after a decade on his own in
Vienna, Wolfgang Mozart can’t
get work, descends into dire
poverty and is ravaged by the
illness that will eventually kill
him. Somehow he manages to
squeeze out part of a mysteriously-
commissioned Requiem Mass
that he is convinced is killing him.
He dies mid-phrase during the
composition of the Lacrimosa and
there’s not even enough money
left to pay for a decent funeral. It Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
doesn’t help any that a certain
absolutely terrific movie imagined a
death scene of almost unbearable piling up left and right and one of had a gambling addiction, right
poignancy, as archrival Antonio the biggest theatrical successes of along with much of the Viennese
Salieri strives to extract just a little his career in the fall. To be sure, aristocracy with whom he liked to
more precious music out of the he was always broke. But that hobnob. His clothes had to be at
dying young man’s mind. was just the way he was. Mozart the height of fashion; his children
But it isn’t true. Let’s consider the was a dreadful steward of his own had to go to an expensive school;
bona fide history, at least insofar finances, and not even his wife his wife had to go to the finest
as we know it. As it turns out, Constanze’s superior skills along spas and health centers. He made
1791 was a bumper-crop year for those lines could offset his talent a lot of money, but not that much
Mozart. He made more money for letting money slip through his money. Financial doofus he may
that year than any other time in fingers. He was a soft touch and have been, but impoverished?
his entire life, with commissions a compulsive check-grabber. He Nowhere near. If he were alive

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