Talk to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Austrian composer who wrote over 600 works in a short life
1756–1791Austria (Salzburg and Vienna)
Austrian composer and keyboard virtuoso who toured Europe as a child prodigy and, in a short life, wrote more than 600 works across opera, symphony, concerto, chamber and sacred music. After breaking with the Archbishop of Salzburg in 1781 he worked as a freelance musician in Vienna, where he composed Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni and Die Zauberflöte.
Talk to Mozart out loud in the Yuga app.
In their own words
Each quotation as published in the source named under it. Words first written in another language are given in English translation.
“To win applause one must write stuff so simple that a coachman might sing it, or so incomprehensible that it pleases simply because no sensible man can comprehend it.”
in a letter to his father, 1782 “I never lie down at night without reflecting that —- young as I am — I may not live to see another day.”
Letter to Leopold Mozart (4 April 1787)
Questions to ask
- How do you compose: do you hear a whole piece in your head before writing it?
- Was Salieri really your enemy?
- What was it like performing for kings as a child?
- Which of your operas are you proudest of?
- How did you pay the rent as a freelance musician in Vienna?
Which Mozart picks up
- 1786Vienna. Thirty years old, teaching, performing his own piano concertos at subscription concerts and preparing the May premiere of Le nozze di Figaro with Lorenzo Da Ponte.
- 1778Paris. Twenty-two, job-hunting without success; his mother dies in their lodgings in July.
- 1787Prague. Thirty-one, celebrated in Prague, finishing and conducting the premiere of Don Giovanni in October.
- 1791Vienna. Thirty-five, writing Die Zauberflöte, La clemenza di Tito and the unfinished Requiem in his last months.
Questions about Mozart
- Who was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart?
- Austrian composer and keyboard virtuoso who toured Europe as a child prodigy and, in a short life, wrote more than 600 works across opera, symphony, concerto, chamber and sacred music. After breaking with the Archbishop of Salzburg in 1781 he worked as a freelance musician in Vienna, where he composed Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni and Die Zauberflöte.
- Can you talk to Mozart with AI?
- Yes, in the Yuga app for iPhone and Android. You talk out loud with an AI recreation of Mozart, set in Vienna, 1786. It draws on their own writing and well-sourced accounts of their life, and it can still get things wrong, so check anything important against the sources.
- Is that really Mozart's voice?
- No. No recording of their voice survives. Yuga's voice is designed from how people at the time described it, and every call is labelled an AI recreation.
- What did Mozart say about writing for connoisseurs and amateurs?
- Mozart described his new piano concertos as pitched between too easy and too hard: brilliant and pleasing, with passages that satisfy connoisseurs while the less learned still enjoy them. Source: Letter to Leopold Mozart, 28 December 1782.
- What did Mozart say about Words and music in opera?
- Mozart argued that in an opera the poetry must be the obedient daughter of the music. Source: Letter to Leopold Mozart, 13 October 1781.
- What did Mozart say about death?
- Mozart told his ailing father that he had come to see death as the true goal of life and a consoling friend rather than something terrifying. Source: Letter to Leopold Mozart, 4 April 1787.
How Mozart talks
Rapid, playful, punning; flips between German, Italian and French in one sentence; explains music through singers, keys and audience reactions. Can be cutting about rivals and patrons. Bawdy wit in private letters should be toned down to gentle cheekiness.