It would be two years before Mozart realized his dream, but during those years he showed Vienna what he could do as a pianist-composer. Between 1784 and 1786 he produced a dozen piano concertos that are among the glories of Western art. Written mostly for the Lenten season, when by decree the theaters were closed, these works contain music of a marvelously the atrical cast. Indeed, each of them is virtually an opera manque, with witty, conversational exchanges between the piano and orchestra, beautiful slow movements patterned after arias of love, and—except in the minor- key works—bubbling opera buffa finales. By the time Mozart approached da Ponte with the idea of collaborating on an operatic setting of Beaumarchais’s Le mariage de Figaro, most likely in the summer of 1785, he had taken the art of emotional characterization to new heights in his concertos. He was ready to write great operas. Da Ponte, keenly aware of his ability, agreed at once.

Commissioned by Emperor Joseph II, Le nozze di Figaro ( The Marriage of Figaro) opened May 1, 1786, at the Burgtheater in Vienna and enjoyed substantial if not uproarious success. But it was a huge hit when it premiered later that year in Prague. On a visit to the Bohemian capital in January of 1787, Mozart was able to attend one performance of Figaro and conduct another, and to lead the premiere of his newly composed Symphony No. 38 in D, K. 504 (henceforth called the Prague), a work of high spirits and exquisite crafts manship. By the time he left for Vienna, he had in his pocket the commission for his next opera, Don Giovanni. Its premiere in Prague, on October 29,1787, would be the high-water mark of his career.
 

It is a myth that in his final years Mozart sank into poverty and died penniless and in despair. While it is true that he was never good at managing his finances and often lived beyond his means, the well- documented financial problems he faced during the years 1788-90 were mainly the result of hard times brought on by war between Austria and Turkey. As his earnings declined he gave top priority to creating works that he could sell on subscription or perform at concerts for his own benefit. The symphonies in E-flat, K. 543, G minor, K. 550, and , 551, completed in six weeks in the summer of 1788, were probably composed for a benefit concert Mozart intended to give that fall. Finding it easier to borrow than tighten his belt, he directed a stream of letters to his Masonic lodge brother Michael Puchberg, asking for loans. Some relief came in December 1788, following the death of Christoph Willibald Gluck, when Mozart was appointed to the post of Imperial and Royal Chamber Composer. The 800 gulden he drew (to create dance music for the fancy court balls given during Carnival) was, he lamented, “too much for the services I give, and too little for what I am capable of.”
 

Just what he was capable of Mozart showed in works like the Clarinet Quintet, K. 581 (1789), written for Anton Stadler, and the opera Cosi fan Tutte (All Women Are Like That), a score utterly perfect in formal terms, rich, nuanced, and emotionally probing. The death of Joseph II in February of 1790 brought a halt to per formances of Cosi  just weeks after its premiere (they were resumed in the spring), but left Mozart with fresh hopes of achieving preferment at court after the accession of the new emperor, Leopold II. Soon enough these hopes were dashed, and the begging letters continued to go out to Puchberg. Mozart’s fortunes improved dramatically in the spring and summer of 1791 with the arrival of commissions for Die Zauberflote (The Magic Flute) and La clemenza di Tito. The latter, intended for festivities marking the coronation of Leopold II as King of Bohemia, required a rush job and another journey to Prague for its premiere on September 6. Mozart then had to hurry back to Vienna to put the finishing touches on Die Zauberflote and ready it for its premiere on September 30. Once that was out of the way he took up the Clarinet Concerto, K. 622, for Stadler. Meanwhile, another commission, for a Requiem, had also arrived in the summer of 1791 from Count Franz Walsegg-Stuppach, a recently widowed, music-loving nobleman who wanted a suitable memorial for his wife. Mozart tried to shoehorn bits of the Requiem into his work on other pieces, but was unable to complete the task before becoming gravely ill around November 20, most likely with a recurrence of rheumatic fever, which he had first contracted as a child. He succumbed early in the morning of December 5 after having gathered friends at his bedside to sing through the unfinished Requiem.
 

No composer in history has achieved the absolute preeminence in the realms of the atrical and symphonic composition that Mozart did (the closest second is Richard Strauss), or contributed a comparable number of masterpieces to those two repertoires. Of the 19 stage works he completed, six are constantly performed today, and several others occasionally; of the nearly 50 symphonies, a dozen; and of the three dozen concertos, two dozen. For Mozart, opera was the most important and, to judge from his own words, most fulfilling of creative endeavors. He was a skilled dramatic composer before he encountered Lorenzo da Ponte, but da Ponte’s plots, elegant verses, imagination, and professionalism clearly inspired Mozart to surpass himself and the rest of the world. The three comic masterpieces he composed in collaboration with da Ponte—Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni, and Cosi fan tutte—are arguably his supreme musical achievements, remarkable in the richness and acuity of their characterization, the sophistication of their orchestration and musical imagery, and the elegance of their formal plans.
 

Mozart’s brilliance is revealed most directly in the high profile he gives to individual characters and situations through constant and astonishingly clever allusion to the styles and topics of 18th-century music, and in his ability to comment on the action through the orchestra—as in the opening number of Don Giovanni, when the servant Leporello dreams of being a cavalier and the orchestra transforms his music from a foot march into a mounted gallop. Less obvious but no less telling is the way Mozart brings the long-range harmonic action of symphonic music to bear on individual numbers and entire scenes, thereby opening up and complicat ing the simple closed forms of Italian opera buffa and energizing the drama. One of the reasons the beginning of Don Giovanni (from the overture through Donna Anna’s “Fuggi, crudele”) has such power is that the entire span is constructed along the lines of a 20-minute symphony in D minor. In similar fashion, the finales of these works (e.g., the Act IV finale to Le nozze di Figaro) are built to unprecedented lengths, prolonging the suspense and excitement.
 

The concertos and symphonies are on the same exalted plane. In his piano concertos Mozart was less interested in display than in achieving integrity and formal perfection; one of the distinctive features of these works is the way the writing for the solo instrument remains substantive even in the most virtuosic passages. As with the operas, the concertos’ scoring is exceptionally refined, the emotional range extraordinary, the play of topics and ideas inspired. The works run a remarkable gamut of expression: some are predominantly festive in tone (the concertos in C, K. 467 and 503, and in E-flat, K. 482), others playful and amorous, or gently poignant (the concertos in A, K. 488, and -flat, K. 595), while the minor-key works convey much darker moods: seething, turbulent, and dramatic in one case (the concerto in D minor, K. 466), funereal and hauntingly desolate in the other (the concerto in C minor, K. 491). The concertos for horn and clarinet are the finest in the literature; the latter, a particularly wonderful late work, inhabits an expressive realm in which fantasy and gentle pathos prevail, and exhibits a unique richness and ambivalence of feeling. As a symphonist Mozart balanced bravura and serious argument with masterly ease. His youthful works are eclectic in the best sense, remarkable for the way they bring together elements of the Italian and German styles, incorporate tricks from Mannheim, and wear the latest fashions from Paris. When he was able to write for a large orchestra, as he was in Paris in 1778, and later in Vienna, he reveled in the sonority and power at his disposal and made especially color ful use of the winds. His final contributions to the genre— the Prague Symphony of 1786 and the three of 1788—are probing and quite personal in their expression.

Each has its own sound—the clarinets dominate in Symphony No. 39 in imparting a luminous quality to the whole, while the absence of trumpets and drums in Symphony No. 40 in G minor, K. 550, shifts the mood from drama toward one of agitation and despair. Among orchestral works of the 18th century only Haydn’s London symphonies merit comparison, though nothing Haydn or anyone since has written quite matches the intense emotional expression and contrapuntal brilliance Mozart achieved in these scores.
 

Mozart’s chamber works—which include a number of outstanding string quartets and quintets, the best pieces written in the 18th century for wind ensemble, assorted divertimentos, cassations, and serenades, and many fine sonatas for one or more instruments—constitute an important tributary to the almost miraculous stream of his production. The six string quartets dedicated to Haydn (composed 1782-85) owe much to Haydn’s example in their scintillat ing play of topic, and may do the master one better in the fluency of their part-writing. But it was in his quintets for two violins, two violas, and cello, particularly the two written during the spring of 1787—in , K. 515, and G minor, K. 516—and the quintet for clarinet and strings written two years later that Mozart reached the pinnacle of his achievement as a chamber composer. One of the most remarkable features of the latter work is the utter transparency of its texture, which allows the clarinet to be absorbed in the harmony at certain points while subtly coloring the sound of the string ensemble.