Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart (26 July 1791 – 29 July 1844), also known as F. X. Mozart, W. A. Mozart Son, or Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Jr., was the youngest child of six born to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...

 and his wife Constanze

Constanze Mozart

Constanze Mozart was the wife of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.-Early years:Constanze Weber was born in Zell im Wiesental. Her mother was Cäcilia Weber, née Stamm. Her father Fridolin Weber worked as a "double bass player, prompter and music copyist." Fridolin's half-brother was the father of composer...

. He was the younger of his parents' two surviving children. He was a composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.

Biography

Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart was born in Vienna, five months before his father's death.

He received excellent musical instruction from Antonio Salieri

Antonio Salieri

Antonio Salieri was a Venetian classical composer, conductor and teacher born in Legnago, south of Verona, in the Republic of Venice, but who spent his adult life and career as a faithful subject of the Habsburg monarchy....

 and Johann Nepomuk Hummel

Johann Nepomuk Hummel

Johann Nepomuk Hummel or Jan Nepomuk Hummel was an Austrian composer and virtuoso pianist. His music reflects the transition from the Classical to the Romantic musical era.- Life :...

, and studied composition with Johann Georg Albrechtsberger

Johann Georg Albrechtsberger

Johann Georg Albrechtsberger was an Austrian musician who was born at Klosterneuburg, near Vienna.He originally studied music at Melk Abbey and philosophy at a Benedictine seminary in Vienna and became one of the most learned and skillful contrapuntists of his age...

 and Sigismund von Neukomm

Sigismund von Neukomm

Sigismond Neukomm or Sigismund Ritter von Neukomm [after ennoblement as a knight] was an Austrian composer and pianist....

. He learned to play both the piano and violin. Like his father, he started to compose at an early age. "In April 1805, the thirteen-year-old Franz Xaver Mozart made his debut in Vienna in a concert in the Theater an der Wien

Theater an der Wien

The Theater an der Wien is a historic theatre on the Left Wienzeile in the Mariahilf district of Vienna. Completed in 1801, it has seen the premieres of many celebrated works of theatre, opera, and symphonic music...

."

Franz Xaver became a professional musician and enjoyed moderate success both as a teacher and a performer. Unlike his father, he was introverted and given to self-deprecation. He constantly underrated his talent and feared that whatever he produced would be compared with what his father had done.

Needing money, in 1808, he travelled to Lemberg

Lviv

Lviv is a city in western Ukraine. The city is regarded as one of the main cultural centres of today's Ukraine and historically has also been a major Polish and Jewish cultural center, as Poles and Jews were the two main ethnicities of the city until the outbreak of World War II and the following...

, where he gave music lessons to the daughters of the Polish count Wiktor Baworowski. Although the pay was good, Franz felt lonely in the town of Pidkamin

Pidkamin

Pidkamin is a town in the Brody district, Lviv oblast in Ukraine. It has a population of about 2,500 and is located around SE of Brody, SW of Kremenets and NE of Zolochiv....

, near Rohatyn

Rohatyn

Rohatyn is a city located on the Hnyla Lypa River in the Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast, in western Ukraine. It is the administrative center of the Rohatyn Raion .The current estimated population is around 8,800 .-History:...

, so in 1809, he accepted an offer from the imperial

Austrian Empire

The Austrian Empire was a modern era successor empire, which was centered on what is today's Austria and which officially lasted from 1804 to 1867. It was followed by the Empire of Austria-Hungary, whose proclamation was a diplomatic move that elevated Hungary's status within the Austrian Empire...

 chamberlain

Chamberlain (office)

A chamberlain is an officer in charge of managing a household. In many countries there are ceremonial posts associated with the household of the sovereign....

, Count von Janiszewski, to teach his daughters music in the town of Burshtyn

Burshtyn

Burshtyn is a city located in the Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast, in western Ukraine, to the north of Halych. It lies in the Halych Raion and is accessible by rail....

. Besides teaching, he gave local concerts, playing his own and his father's pieces. These concerts introduced him to the important people in Galicia.

After two years in Burshtyn, he moved to Lemberg where he spent more than 20 years teaching (with students including Julie von Webenau

Julie von Webenau

Julie von Webenau née Baroni-Cavalcabò, , was a German-Austrian composer. She was a student of Mozart's son Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart. In 1839 Robert Schumann dedicated his piece Humoreske Op. 20 to her...

, née Baroni-Cavalcabò) and giving concerts. Between 1826 and 1829, he conducted the choir of Saint Cecilia, which consisted of 400 amateur singers. In 1826, he conducted his father's Requiem

Requiem (Mozart)

The Requiem Mass in D minor by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was composed in Vienna in 1791 and left unfinished at the composer's death. A completion by Franz Xaver Süssmayr was delivered to Count Franz von Walsegg, who had anonymously commissioned the piece for a requiem Mass to commemorate the...

 during a concert at the Greek Catholic cathedral of St. George

St. George's Cathedral, Lviv

St. George's Cathedral is a baroque-rococo cathedral located in the city of Lviv, the historic capital of western Ukraine. It was constructed between 1744-1760 on a hill overlooking the city. This is the third manifestation of a church to inhabit the site since the 13th century, and its prominence...

. From this choir, he created the musical brotherhood of Saint Cecilia, and thus the first school of music in Lemberg. He did not give up performing and in the years 1819 to 1821 traveled throughout Europe. In 1819 he gave concerts in Warsaw

Warsaw

Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...

, Elbing

Elblag

Elbląg is a city in northern Poland with 127,892 inhabitants . It is the capital of Elbląg County and has been assigned to the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship since 1999. Before then it was the capital of Elbląg Voivodeship and a county seat in Gdańsk Voivodeship...

 and Danzig

Gdansk

Gdańsk is a Polish city on the Baltic coast, at the centre of the country's fourth-largest metropolitan area.The city lies on the southern edge of Gdańsk Bay , in a conurbation with the city of Gdynia, spa town of Sopot, and suburban communities, which together form a metropolitan area called the...

 (Gdańsk).

In the 1820s, Franz Xaver Mozart was one of 50 composers to write a Variation

Variation (music)

In music, variation is a formal technique where material is repeated in an altered form. The changes may involve harmony, melody, counterpoint, rhythm, timbre, orchestration or any combination of these.-Variation form:...

 on a theme of Anton Diabelli

Anton Diabelli

Anton Diabelli was an Austrian music publisher, editor and composer of Italian descent. Best known in his time as a publisher, he is most familiar today as the composer of the waltz on which Ludwig van Beethoven wrote his set of thirty-three Diabelli Variations.-Early life:Diabelli was born in...

for part II of the Vaterländischer Künstlerverein

Vaterländischer Künstlerverein

Vaterländischer Künstlerverein was a collaborative musical publication or anthology, incorporating 83 variations for piano on a theme by Anton Diabelli, written by 51 composers living in or associated with Austria. It was published in two parts in 1823 and 1824, by firms headed by Diabelli. It...

. Part I was devoted to the 33 variations supplied by Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...

, which have gained an independent identity as his Diabelli Variations

Diabelli Variations

The 33 Variations on a waltz by Anton Diabelli, Op. 120, commonly known as the Diabelli Variations, is a set of variations for the piano written between 1819 and 1823 by Ludwig van Beethoven on a waltz composed by Anton Diabelli...

, Op. 120.

In 1838, he left for Vienna, and then for Salzburg, where he was appointed as the Kapellmeister

Kapellmeister

Kapellmeister is a German word designating a person in charge of music-making. The word is a compound, consisting of the roots Kapelle and Meister . The words Kapelle and Meister derive from the Latin: capella and magister...

 of the Mozarteum. From 1841, he taught the pianist Ernst Pauer

Ernst Pauer

Ernst Pauer was an Austrian pianist, composer and educator.Pauer formed a direct link with great Viennese traditions: he was born in Vienna, his mother was a member of the famous Streicher family of piano makers, and for a time he was a piano pupil of Mozart's son, F. X. W. Mozart and a...

. He died from stomach cancer on 29 July 1844 in the town of Karlsbad

Karlovy Vary

Karlovy Vary is a spa city situated in western Bohemia, Czech Republic, on the confluence of the rivers Ohře and Teplá, approximately west of Prague . It is named after King of Bohemia and Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV, who founded the city in 1370...

, where he was buried.

He never married, nor did he have any children. His will was executed by Josephine de Baroni-Cavalcabò, the dedicatee of his cello sonata and a longtime patroness.

His musical style was an early Romanticism

Romanticism

Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...

.

The shadow of his father loomed large over him even in death. The following epitaph

Epitaph

An epitaph is a short text honoring a deceased person, strictly speaking that is inscribed on their tombstone or plaque, but also used figuratively. Some are specified by the dead person beforehand, others chosen by those responsible for the burial...

 was etched on his tombstone:

"May the name of his father be his epitaph, as his veneration for him was the essence of his life."

Works (selected)

• Piano Quartet in G Minor, Op. 1 (published 1802)
• Cantata for the Birthday of Joseph Haydn, lost (1805)
• Sonata for Violin and Piano in B major, Op. 7
• Piano Sonata in G major, Op. 10
• 6 pieces for Flute and 2 Horns, Op. 11
• Piano Concerto No. 1 in C major, Op. 14 (published in 1811)
• Sonata for Violin and Piano in F major, Op. 15
• Six Polonaises mélancoliques for piano, Op. 17
• Sonata for violoncello or violin and piano in E major, Op. 19 (published in 1820)
• Quatre Polonaises mélancoliques for piano, Op. 22
• Variations on a romance of Méhul
  Étienne Méhul
  Etienne Nicolas Méhul was a French composer, "the most important opera composer in France during the Revolution." He was also the first composer to be called a "Romantic".-Life:...
  
  , Op. 23
• Two Polonaises for piano, Op. 24
• Piano Concerto No. 2 in E-flat major, Op. 25 (1818)
• "Der erste Frühlingstag" ("The First Spring Day"), Cantata for Solo, Choir and Orchestra, Op. 28
• "Festchor" for the unveiling of the Mozart monument in Salzburg, Op. 30
• Sinfonia
• Rondo in E Minor for flute and piano
• Songs with piano accompaniment

External links

• "W. A. Mozart Sohn", Detailed information on the life and works of Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart
• Любов Кияновська: Франц Ксавер Вольфганг Моцарт і Львів. "Ї". № 29, 2003