Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
Così fan tutte (Highlights)

In 1781 Mozart won independence from the ties that had bound him to his native Salzburg. After a childhood during which he had astonished Europe by his feats of musicianship, there had been a less satisfactory period of adolescence in which his gifts were the greater but his chances to display them the less. An attempt to seek an honourable position in Mannheim or in Paris in 1777 and 1778 led to nothing, but the successful reception of his opera Idomeneo in Munich in January 1781 encouraged him in his quarrel with his patron, the Archbishop of Salzburg, during the course of a visit to Vienna immediately afterwards.

For the last ten years of his life Mozart lacked the security of patronage and was without the careful advice of his father, Leopold Mozart, who remained as Vice-Kapellmeister in Salzburg, unable any longer to guide and plan his son's career. An imprudent marriage did nothing