Marianne Mozart's Music Talent

The Mozart family had many generations of gifted people, and besides the star kid Wolfgang it could also boast of other music talents.

Mozart family portrait

Maria Anna Mozart (also known as Marianne) was the older sister of the famous composer. Looks like the music talent was somewhere deep in the genes of the family, so Marianne showed evident signs of music talent just like her younger brother – she played harpsichord really well and was a gifted fortepianist too.

But why don’t we play some masterpiece sonatas or concertos by Marianne Mozart’ worldwide today? Or do we? The thing is that back at the time it was not considered ‘appropriate’ for the women to take up activities like that seriously. Yes, as a kid she was welcome to play music instruments and Leopold the father even took her to tours together with brother, but at that period it was for fun mostly. As soon as Maria Anna grew up to 18 years old, her music career was fully over. The society rules and expectations demanded the girl should get married and take up the role of her own family fireplace care-taker. Hardly could Marianne swim against the stream of prevalent standards.

According to some theories, Marianne did compose quite a few works, and what’s she could stand behind some of her brother’s masterpieces. Which ones? We’ll probably never know for sure. What we do know is that Marianne and Wolfgang had really warmth relations, and the latter dedicated the Prelude and Fugue in C Major to his beloved older sister.

Beethoven’s 5 on Three Harmonicas

The almighty four opening notes of this music work are not likely to be mistaken for anything else. The grand, the powerful, the triumphal Beethoven’s Fifth is the iconic classical symphony of all time.

Taking into account the scrupulous and experimental nature of the composer, it took him 4 (!) years to polish and refine the piece to perfection (1804-1808). And the result was absolutely worth all the sweat and efforts – today this symphony is a magic walkway into the world of classical music even to those who have never been the fans of classics as such.

We know that the Vienna premier of the symphony was far from confident success; rather, by the time the public heard the piece (at the very end of the concert), it did not seem quite interesting to them. Thanks to E. T. A. Hoffman’s rave review of the music work which came up later, the audience eventually paid the due attention to it.

Soon the beauty of the harmonies, the carefully interconnected music elements and the gorgeous rhythm were recognized as composer’s masterwork. From the dramatic first movement, on to the lyrical andante, further to the dark scherzo and finally in the grand finale – throughout the entire piece the listener’s attention is fully captured by Beethoven’s music genius. According to one of the versions, Beethoven himself compared the beginning of the Fifth to the “Fate knocking on your door”. We don’t know whether it’s true or not, but this phrase still makes a perfect description of the famous opening. Ta-da-da-daa.. and you got shivers all over!

The symphony had its fair leap forward right to the legacy of classical music. And it’s no wonder that there have been hundreds of recordings of the piece and that numerous artists around the world wished to try their hand in this outstanding music masterpiece, playing the Fifth on all possible music instruments. Here’s another lovely version of the composition played on three harmonicas: