Beethoven and Mozart: The Greatest Musicians of Their Time

Essay by homles9College, UndergraduateA-, October 2004

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Beethoven and Mozart are the two most important musicians of their time. Their pieces are everlasting and will live on forever. Their styles are so unique and uplifting that they could never be matched. These masterminds played in the same time period but their lives differed tremendously. There are some similarities and many differences between these two but one fact will remain: They are the central and most vital part of all music. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was one of the most prolific and important musical innovators we have ever seen. His style of music helped re-shape music and the Classical period. Mozart was born in Salzburg, Austria in 1756. Mozart was a child prodigy, claiming most success as a youth. At the age of six, Mozart could play the harpsichord and violin, improvise fugues, write minuets, and read music perfectly. At the age of eight, he wrote a symphony and at eleven, an oratorio.

Then amazingly, at the age of twelve he wrote an opera. Mozart's father was Leopold Mozart, a court musician.

Both Mozart and Beethoven had help from their fathers in different ways. Mozart's father helped him travel around as a young musician and with this he traveled many places and seen many well-known people and aristocrats. With Mozart's early successes came many challenges to his life. He had greater expectations from the community and from his father. Unlike, Beethoven, Mozart was a bit spoiled as a youth and because of this he would not tolerate to be treated as a servant. He completely relied on his father to help him and would not work with the archbishop. This would become a problem when Mozart did not develop enough initiative and could not make decisions on his own. Then, at age 25, Mozart broke free of Salzburg and...