In 1787 Mozart wrote a little poem for his dead starling, containing the following lines:
He was still in his prime
When he ran out of time
The most precocious composer in musical history, Mozart died at the tragically young age of 35. He literally died composing, trying to direct how his Requiem should be completed.
Although one of his greatest works, one would want to be in a sombre mood to listen to it.
The Coronation Mass of 1782 belongs to a repertoire by the main Viennese composers from Mozart to Schubert regularly performed in the city's churches and increasingly in large churches and cathedrals abroad, whether Catholic or Anglican. An enduring memory is of our standing in the Augustinerkirche listening to that beautiful Mozart Mass on the first Sunday in 2002, with an inspiring sermon to match.
All over the world, Ireland included, the 250th anniversary of Mozart's birth in Salzburg on January 27th, 1756, will be celebrated throughout the year in concert programmes. His astonishing talent, including the first attempts at composition, had manifested itself by the age of five. He toured the courts of Europe as a child prodigy with his older sister, Nannerl.
Today, star performers are constantly on the move between cities. It was highly unusual in an age, when coach travel was slow and difficult, and sea journeys long, uncomfortable and hazardous.
Was Mozart the greatest of all composers? Fifty years ago his music and his memory paled beside Beethoven. In recent years Mozart has come more to the fore, but no composer quite fills the uncontested position occupied by Shakespeare in literature.
With the exception of choral music like oratorios, the modern symphony orchestra is more geared to large-scale compositions of the 19th and 20th centuries. This year will be an exception, but symphonies of Mozart and Haydn are rarely performed in concert halls.
On the other hand, baroque and classical music are part of the staple diet of radio stations like Lyric FM that provide a more intimate listening atmosphere.
The late 18th century was when enlightenment and sensibility were combined.
A genre in which Mozart particularly excelled was chamber music, serenades, divertimentos, including his beautiful violin concertos. The horn concertos are particularly popular. His last quintets are among his more profound works. The later piano concertos, the clarinet concerto, and the Sinfonia Concertante K. 364 are great music.
Beethoven performed Mozart's D minor piano concerto No 20 in 1795 in the presence of his widow. Mozart would have been the main model for Beethoven's own five piano concertos, two of which, Nos 3 and 5, belong to the peak of the genre. Few great composers were as close friends and sincere mutual admirers as Mozart and Haydn.
Haydn was a generation older, yet had a much longer career. Mozart dedicated six quartets to Haydn, who declared to his father, Leopold, that Mozart was the greatest composer known to him. Haydn had a more difficult relationship with Beethoven, who was to supersede him.
Mozart's genius does not seem to have affected the older composer's self-confidence, except in the field of opera, where Mozart was out on his own.
The Marriage of Figaro, which combined the genius of Beaumarchais with that of Mozart, is superb in every respect. I saw it more than once performed in 1965-66 in the Redoutensaal of the Hofburg, which was later gutted by fire.
The most subversive lines, which earned Beaumarchais some days in the Bastille through the stupidity of Louis XVI, were left out of the opera, which still ended in the humiliation of an immoral, autocratic nobleman.
Every part in a Mozart opera was tailored to the capabilities of his performers, who included several of the Weber sisters from Mannheim, one of whom, Constanze, became his wife.
Don Giovanni was partly modelled by the librettist Lorenzo da Ponte on Casanova, whom he had known in Venice. Casanova was in the audience for the Prague premiere in 1787. Was he shaken by Don Giovanni being dragged by the avenging spirit of the Commendatore? It is extremely doubtful!
Mozart was fond of and well received in Prague. The Mozart villa there is one of the happiest locations associated with him. His life was cut short before his unique brilliance was fully appreciated.
The Habsburgs were not enlightened despots in the sphere of music. Once the novelty of the child prodigy had passed, the Empress Maria-Theresia privately dismissed musicians in general and the Mozarts in particular as "useless people".
Joseph II, who did provide patronage, actually did criticise Die Entführung aus dem Serail as containing "too many notes".
Colloredo, prince archbishop of Salzburg, who treated Mozart as an underling and who represented the ancien régime at its more obnoxious, had to flee Salzburg in 1800 from Napoleon's troops. Shortly afterwards, the principality was dissolved. Fittingly, he is only remembered today as the villain in Mozart's life.
As so often happens, Mozart's women, as recounted in a wonderful book of that title by the conductor Jane Glover, did much to preserve his memory, by giving their recollections, diaries and letters to biographers in the decades after his death.
Constanze sold his manuscript music, sometimes cut up to make more money. When Mozart's statue was unveiled in Salzburg in 1841, an elderly lady came forward to say she had been the first Pamina in The Magic Flute 50 years before.
The melody of the imperial Austrian anthem composed by Haydn is now the German national anthem. The anthem of the Republic of Austria is based on a melody by Mozart, who is thereby recognised as the national composer.
People have favourite composers, but for music of sublime beauty Mozart is unsurpassed.