Film Analysis: The Genius Of Mozart

The Genius of Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is considered to be one of the greatest composers of all time. In the documentary, “The Genius of Mozart”, the narrator (Charles Hazlewood) tells of Mozart’s life; both personal and professional. Mozart’s father, Johann Georg Leopold Mozart, plays a large role in the documentary. There is no doubt that Leopold played a substantial part in influencing Mozart’s work, both negative and positive. However, Hazlewood tends to focus more on the benefits he brought to Mozart’s career and not how it affected him negatively. Leopold noticed Mozart’s talent at a very young age, he made it his life’s work to ensure his son’s music brought joy to the world. He even requested a leave of absence to travel with

The pressure that must have put on a child of such a young age must have been overwhelming. The conditions of being on the road for years were harsh as well, the family had to travel through the cold and wet winter, Mozart became malnourished and had fevers that made him sick for months. The damage to his health was traumatic to his body and would eventually play a part in his death. Traveling, however, gave Mozart exposure to the great musical minds of his day. Even though his father did everything for his son Mozart never really got to be a child. He did not learn to express his emotions properly, which benefited his music, but hurt his personal relationships. He was praised throughout Europe for his talents, which caused him to later become very arrogant and extremely prideful. That arrogance would cost him many job opportunities and because his father always handled everything for Mozart, he never learned how to properly manage his money. No matter how well he seemed to be doing in his career, his finances never seemed to profit from it. Each time he found himself in a financial bind, he would go back on the road. Those ventures cost him time away from his family, and they did not always bring

Due to never learning how to correctly communicate his emotions, he had to put it on paper, it was the only way he could let out the pain. When he was a child, he was happy, and he was considered a prodigy. Who’s to say that with a normal upbringing, that his work couldn’t have been less painful. It could possibly still be praised today, and perhaps even profitable while he was alive? Even though his pain brought great change, there was still heartbreak behind it. His work was so remarkable but a great deal of it revolved around some type of trauma.

When his father urged him to leave his first love it put Mozart into a dark place that changed the nature of his music, and after the death of his mother, his father place a lot of blame on him. Mozart then composed, “A-Minor Sonata”, and his suffering showed. There was an intense “C” change in his compositional style, and the choice of the A-minor key itself, brought a dark quality to the piece. During the middle of the movement the simplicity shows the separation from his