# Was Mozart a Self-taught Master of Instrumentation?



## ProudSquire (Nov 30, 2011)

Just a curious post!

While reading an article about Herr Wolfgang Adam Mozart, something arrested my attention, and it was in a quote, which suggested the above OP, that Mozart was a self-taught master of instrumentation. Link to the actual article can be found here

So if you have any answer(s), or theory(ies) that you'd like to advance, please do so.


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## Ramako (Apr 28, 2012)

I would strongly suspect he was. There was no formal training in orchestration until much later. Two things to bear in mind though...

1) He probably got guidance (if not formal training), from his father among other people while he was young.

2) He would have gained most of his knowledge from experience - writing pieces and hearing them performed and seeing how it works - which even today is the best method of learning it.


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## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)

Ramako said:


> I would strongly suspect he was. There was no formal training in orchestration until much later. Two things to bear in mind though...
> 
> 1) He probably got guidance (if not formal training), from his father among other people while he was young.
> 
> 2) He would have gained most of his knowledge from experience - writing pieces and hearing them performed and seeing how it works - which even today is the best method of learning it.


I very much agree with no. 2 here.


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## Kieran (Aug 24, 2010)

The quote in question says:



> The degree of refinement in Mozart's orchestral writings from the mid-1780s on is well above everything else in both theory and practice of instrumentation. We have no choice but to regard Mozart as basically a self-taught master of instrumentation. This is by no means a revolutionary notion, since there are so many elements and aspects of Mozart's style that are without any precedents.


I think he's saying that Mozart had no formal training - but no-one before him had ever done so much with the instruments in question. In this regard, Mozart was a great innovator and as such, had gone somewhere new, that couldn't or hadn't been taught to him. His lessons with his father, for instance, couldn't have guaranteed such ingenious creativity.

I'm listening just now to his flute andante k315, and this will be followed by the concerto for flute and harp, and I think that because he wrote so many concertos and specialist pieces for wind, it had to have affected his writing for orchestra. He composed these concertos as a matter of expediency as much as anything, so maybe necessity is the mother of invention, after all! :tiphat:


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

TheProudSquire said:


> While reading an article about Herr Wolfgang Adam Mozart...


Just in passing, Mozart generally called himself Wolfgang Amadè Mozart, the middle name evidently meaning "beloved of God" and not related to "Adam." The name "Amadeus" seems to have come into use somewhat later, and was only used by Mozart himself in a joking letter that he signed, "Wolfgangus Amadeus Mozartus."

BTW I think the posts on orchestration are correct. The same is true of his compositions in general. However, sometime around 1880 he was introduced to Fux's _Gradus ad Parnassum_, which really launched him into counterpoint, and the rest is...history! He is said to have carried around his annotated copy of the book for the rest of his life.


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## Ramako (Apr 28, 2012)

KenOC said:


> BTW I think the posts on orchestration are correct. The same is true of his compositions in general. However, sometime around 1880 he was introduced to Fux's _Gradus ad Parnassum_, which really launched him into counterpoint, and the rest is...history! He is said to have carried around his annotated copy of the book for the rest of his life.


Haydn gave him his copy of the said textbook - which made Mozart look twice at it. Many of his annotations are thought to have derived from the older man. Also, Bach strongly swayed Mozart towards counterpoint.

I would say, of the Classical masters, that Mozart's orchestration looks forwards to the 19th century, Beethoven's is (as was so often the case with him) basically just him, while Haydn's looks forward to the 20th century.


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