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Fast-forwarding to the present day, composer Andrew Lloyd Webber has amassed a personal fortune of over £350 million from his work. One would casually presume that Mozart, with his genius and penchant for hard work, would have also amassed a huge wealth. The opposite is true. The reason for this is simply a reason of time. Mozart had the misfortune of being alive at the end of the 18th century. It was a time when there was no recording industry. It was a time when laws of copyright did not exist. There was no way for Mozart to protect his work or to make residual income from it. Repeats of his symphonies and sales of his sheet music did not make a penny for Mozart throughout his life. In modern times, Webber earns money every single time his music is performed. Times have certainly changed.

Some people claim that Mozart lived in poverty throughout his life but that is not the case. During his years in Vienna he often worked as a freelance musician. The money coming in was relatively good. It was enough so that he and his wife could afford to live in a smart high-rent apartment. They could even afford to always have at least one servant. There was one problem though; freelance anything is not steady work, it is an irregular income. There were times when things were too tight to mention. Mozart did try to alleviate such hard times by turning his hand to teaching.

Another problem was that Mozart had little time for authority, there was a growing resentment to it, he refused to ’suck up’ to the aristocrats. In doing so, of course, Mozart may have lost out on commissions or court positions that may have been offered to him had he ‘played the game’ even a little bit. To those that did offer Mozart work, his bad behaviour, off-handedness, and silly antics annoyed them. Mozart once told his father:

“Our riches, being in our brains, die with us – and these no man can take from us unless he chops off our heads.”

Mozart always believed that his sheer talent would see him through anything; perhaps it was an overly arrogant attitude. He was correct though about his riches being in his brains, it was just a shame that he lived in a time when the riches weren’t in his pockets also. By the time of his death, money was so sparse that he had taken to asking friends for loans just to survive.

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Mozart died at the age of 35, on 5th December, 1791. The official cause of death was ’severe miliary fever’ but some people have subsequently questioned this and even come up with varying ideas to what the real cause was. He was buried in a common grave in a cemetery at St Marx. It was claimed that, and in-line with then Viennial burial customs, no mourners attended his burial although further reports claim that three friends and two other musicians were in attendance.

Whatever the truth one thing is unquestionable; Mozart was an extremely talented and prolific composer. His work lives on long after his death and remains popular and often played. Had Mozart been around in modern times he would have been very very rich. As was, he lived in a time where there was less protection of rights for musicians; he suffered because of it.

Said to be the journey of a man’s soul expressed in G minor – a complete psychological experience, full of exciting highs and anguished lows that trip of the piano’s keys.  Close your eyes and watch the scenes of a life narrated – share its accomplishments, tragedies and moments of turmoil and confusion, sleep and relaxation in rural beauty spots and high-Gothic townscapes, in crowds, with company and alone.  It’s well worth a listen and might serve as an incredible introduction to classical musical in general or the works of Chopin specifically. 

At times a happy-sad melody trickles along like a glistening stream – its water running at different speeds along river banks.  At others it encounters rocks, some smooth but others rocky and hard and you tumble over with it over falls and into delightful pools. 

Almost ten minutes in full this piece was written to entertain everyone but the hoi polloi in 1836 – it wasn’t meant for the likes of you and me.  Music was a formal affair – presented to people who sat quietly in their best and most uncomfortable clothes.  This still prevails in concert halls – where it is frowned upon to applaud between pieces – very unlike the gigs and concerts that we commoners are used to.

Listen to this piece on your MP3 player as you laze in the sun one day, on an afternoon balcony overlooking a city such as Prague, Brussels or Barcelona, or looking at the stars one night. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to be, but it is, so enjoy it.

18th Century

Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)

Joseph Haydn is often mentioned to have written 104 symphonies (the last being called as the ‘London Symphony’). However, Anthony van Hoboken’s list of Haydn symphonies is listing 108 – some of them fragmentary or more or less in a concerto form.

Haydn is considered as the father of this form. It explains why in music literature Haydn has a nickname ‘Papa Haydn’. Also Joseph’s brother Michael was a composer (now slightly forgotten) with a respectful amount of over 40 known symphonies.

Haydn’s number has been generally considered as a ‘record’, but perhaps surprisingly Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf (1739-1799) apparently wrote more symphonies than Haydn (around 120 symphonies) but is much more lesser known as a composer than Haydn.

Even more unknown aspect is that Czech composer Frantisek Xaver Pokorný (1729-1794) wrote at least 145 symphonies – most of which after his death were attributed to other known composers(!). This amount surpasses greatly the number of Haydn’s symphonies.

Karl von Ordoñez (1734-1786)

Karl von Ordonez was an Austrian composer; wrote at least 73 symphonies.Leopold Hofmann (1738-93) is known to have written nearly 70 symphonies.

Giovanni Battista Sammartini (1700/1701-1775)

Giovanni Battista Sammartini wrote amount of over 60 symphonies, stylistically not too far from Haydn. Sammartini was an important early pioneer of the symphony form.

Czech composer Johann Baptist Vanhal (1739-1813) was also an important figure, with over 70 symphonies attributed to him. Another Czech composer Johann Stamitz (1717-1757) was an important early contributor to the Symphony form, although he died at a relatively young age of 39. His works list has 58 symphonies. Johann’s son Carl wrote also more than 50 symphonies.

Iganz Holzbauer (1711-1783)

Iganz Holzbauer wrote 69 symphonies. Carl Joseph Toeschi (1731-1788) is not a well-known composer, but wrote at least 66 symphonies. Christian Cannabich (1731-1798) wrote over 60 symphonies – possibly even more.

Czech composer Pavel Vranicky (Paul Wranitzky; 1756-1808) has a list of 51 symphonies.

Francois-Joseph Gossec (1734-1829)

Gossec, who worked in France, wrote over 50 symphonies. Ignaz Pleyel (1757-1831), also very active in France, has a list of 41 known symphonies.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)

He needs no introduction. Usually Mozart is reported to have written a total of 41 symphonies. In actual fact, Mozart completed at least 68, sometimes later revising into some other form. Despite this fact 41 are still the ones ‘canonized’ into his works list.

Carl Friedrich Abel (1723-1787) and Anton Fils (1733-1760)

They wrote over 40 symphonies, little-known Czech composer Fantisek Xaver Dusek (1731-1799) 39 symphonies, and Franz Ignaz Beck (1734-1809) well over 30 symphonies.

Also Italian-Spanish Luigi Boccherini (1743-1805), famous for his Cello concertos, wrote a total of 29 symphonies into his works list.

Also, very notably, Johann Sebastian Bach’s sons wrote in total some hundred symphonies; almost 40 by Johann Christian Bach (1735-1782), nearly 30 by Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach (1732-1795) and over 20 by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714-1788).

19th century

By the 19th century symphonies gained more length and wider perspectives. Considering this, only few composers could surpass number 10. Anton Bruckner (1824-1896) was one of them (if his symphonies “No. 0″ and No. 00″ are counted alongside with his 9 numbered ones). Also Joachim Raff (1822-1882) wrote a total of 11 symphonies but has been somewhat lesser-known figure until late years.

20th and 21st century

More modern times have shown a wider diversity in regard of the symphony form. For some time symphony was considered as a “dead” form. However, in some respects it is still far from becoming extinct!

From better-known 20th century composers Darius Milhaud wrote 12 symphonies (plus few others without number) as well as Brazilian Heitor Villa-Lobos. Also, Dmitry Shostakovich is very well-known of his legendaric 15 symphonies.

From Danish composers Vagn Holmboe completed 13 symphonies, Rued Langgaard 15 symphonies. Another Scandinavian, Allan Pettersson, wrote 17 large scale symphonies.

American composers Roy Harris wrote 15 and Henry Cowell a total of 20 symphonies.

A little-known composer is Romanian philosopher and multi-talent Dimitrie Cuclin (1885-1978) who created own aesthetics for the symphony form. He wrote 20 symphonies, one of which has a duration of 6 hours.

Another Eastern European composer, Latvian Janis Ivanovs (1906-1983) has catalogue of 21 symphonies. Also Nikolai Myaskovsky (1881-1950) wrote more than 20 symphonies, a total number of 27.

British composer Havergal Brian (1876-1972) completed 32 symphonies during his long life.

One composer who has been largely forgotten and neglected also in his native country is Finnish composer Erik Fordell (1917-1981) who wrote massive amount of works – including 44 symphonies.

American-Armenian Alan Hovhaness (1911-2000) was an extremely profilic contemporary symphonist. His output contains 67 numbered symphonies, and he is often mentioned as the person who revived symphony back into the 21st century.

The composer with the highest number of symphonies (upto today) is not from the classic period but comes from the contemporary scene.  Well-known Finnish conductor Leif Segerstam was born in 1944. But he is also a lively composer. In September 2008 the amount of his completed symphonies has already surpassed number 210.