Nailing It

How 25 of History's Remarkable Twenty-Somethings Made Their Way to Success

Robert L. Dilenschneider

• Publisher: Citadel Press
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9780806541761
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Personal Success

1

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (Austria)

UNEMPLOYED! YOU WERE OFF TO A GOOD START in your career, even enjoying some early recognition. And then you were fired and had to start over. Sound familiar?

That’s what happened to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who was 25 when he lost his job. He picked himself up and started over successfully, only to taste failure and success again and again. It was a relentless cycle. Then he died. He was 35.

Lest this is all too demoralizing, consider that the man I just described is known and admired today, some 250 years after his time, as possibly the greatest composer who ever lived. If anything earthly can be considered eternal, it is Mozart’s music.

Despite the many setbacks, as the great twentieth-century composer Aaron Copland wrote: “What we expect to find in Mozart is perfection in whatever medium he chose to work.”

* * *

What a fascinating person Mozart was!

• A product of his times—he was born and died in the waning years of the Holy Roman Empire, which controlled and directed every aspect of Western European life for a millennium.

• A child prodigy, mastering many instruments (except the trumpet, whose sound frightened him), composing music and performing in public—to acclaim—starting at age 6.

• A son both dutiful and rebellious to a father who “home-schooled” him and supported his career, and who later opposed his marriage.

• A prolific adult, composing with speed and excellence in every musical genre: concertos, operas, symphonies, choral and chamber music, sonatas.

• A popular concertizer and conductor.

• A denizen of royal and religious settings who knew how to align with powerful patrons.

• An ambitious and energetic man subject to depression, perhaps bipolar.

• A rebel, a spendthrift, a figure of tragedy who endured the deaths of many family members.

And with all this, what a relatable person he was! Let’s consider his life, his work, and his gifts to the world.

* * *

Mozart was born in Salzburg, Austria, on January 27, 1756. He was the youngest child of seven, five of whom had died in infancy. His mother Anna Maria’s labor was difficult. Her baby was delicate and not expected to live. As an adult, he was robust neither in health nor appearance; various sicknesses plagued him, and he had an almost child-like stature.

His surviving sister Maria Anna (familiarly called Nannerl) was his elder by five years. They grew up in a happy home, as far as is known, and both excelled musically at a young age. In particular, little Wolfgang’s precocity as a performer and a composer was soon apparent. This raises interesting nature-versus-nurture questions. Their father Leopold was himself a talented and well-connected professional musician. He tutored the children in music (and all academic studies as well; there was no formal education) and traveled with both of them to music venues throughout Europe.

Mozart suffered from eighteen serious illnesses during his life, according to Dr. Peter Davies, an Australian gastroenterologist with numerous books to his credit about the health of both Mozart and Beethoven. Smallpox, typhoid fever, quinsy, rheumatic fever, tonsillitis, and jaundice plagued Mozart, as did repeated respiratory infections. In a 1983 article in the journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, Dr. Davies pointed out that the frequent long trips during which young Wolfgang and Nannerl were “paraded and exhibited” around Europe led them to be “exposed to the many endemic and epidemic diseases of those times. The journeys were usually undertaken in uncomfortable carriages, amidst all extremes of weather and often in unsatisfactory accommodation.” Mozart’s trips as an adult were undoubtedly also in such “uncomfortable” and “unsatisfactory” conditions. It’s amazing he lived to age 35.

Leopold was employed as a concertmaster within the Salzburg royal court, which, in the political power structure of the Holy Roman Empire (800–1806), was also a center of Christianity and artistic endeavor. Prince-archbishops were Leopold’s patrons and one of them, Hieronymus von Colloredo, became his son’s benefactor as well.

In 1773, when Wolfgang was 17, he and his father had just concluded a four-year series of appearances throughout Italy, designed to showcase the younger man’s abilities as performer and composer. Nannerl, alas, stayed home in Salzburg with her mother; according to the conventions of the time, it was no longer appropriate for the maturing young woman to perform in public.

Archbishop von Colloredo took notice and hired Wolfgang as an assistant concertmaster. With free rein to exercise his musicality, Mozart was in a position that would have been enviable at any age—but at age 17, truly remarkable. Four remarkable and productive years followed.

Yet, as often happens, professional and physical restlessness set in, no doubt enhanced by a certain amount of immaturity. In 1777, Mozart decided to leave Salzburg. While continuing to be employed by the archbishop, he set out to “explore other options” in Germany and France. Traveling about with his mother Anna Maria, he did not find what he thought he was looking for and began running short of money. When, tragically, his mother died while they were still traveling, his quest was over. He returned to Salzburg in 1779 at age 23 in what must have been a chastened state.

Thanks to his father’s efforts, Wolfgang gained a position as a court organist, while still composing and working for von Colloredo. In fact, he wrote music ceaselessly throughout his life, with over six hundred works bearing his name. He seldom revised his work; it sprang in almost finished form directly from his imagination.

In 1781, he was summoned to accompany the archbishop to Vienna, for ceremonies marking the ascension of Joseph II to the Austrian throne as emperor. A possibly career-ending falling-out took place between employer and employee—does this sound familiar?—and Mozart embarked on the uncertain life of a freelancer. He was now 25.

An academic analysis of Mozart’s career assigns it three stages: early (1761-72, age 5-16), middle (1772-81 , age 16-25), and late (1781-91, age 25 to death at 35). His best-known work was produced in the late stage, but there was never a hiatus in his output. Ultimately, Mozart was responsible for 21 stage and opera works, 15 Masses, over 50 symphonies, 25 piano concertos, 12 violin concertos, 27 concert arias, 17 piano sonatas, 26 compositions for string quartets—and his oeuvre includes over 400 other pieces.

* * *

Let’s pause here and think about why Mozart’s music is so captivating and enduring. I’m no musicologist, but I know beauty when I hear it. Mozart’s music is beauty. For you, as for me, that may be enough. Musicologists and musical greats, though, can help us understand the underpinning of that beauty.

“Pure thinking in sound” is the judgment of Paul Grabbe, author of a tiny little volume—just the right size to slip into a pocket and take to the concert hall—that I have long possessed called The Story of One Hundred Symphonic Favorites. (Unfortunately, I have lost the companion volume on opera.) Grabbe, who wrote in 1940, went on to praise Mozart’s oeuvre for its distinctive style, brightness, and grace, and he absolutely rejected the popular concept of Mozart as a composer of “enchanted trivialities.”

Leonard Bernstein, of course, transcended musicology and inhabited his own realm of musical genius as conductor, composer, and New York Philharmonic icon. One of his many endeavors was, in 1959, a series of television productions aimed at “bridging the gulf between composer and concert-going public.” The scripts are included in his book The Infinite Variety of Music, first published in 1966. In “The Ageless Mozart” script, he too scoffed at the notion that his eighteenth-century predecessor represented only “aristocratic delicacy and nothing more.” Mozart’s genius “was a universal one,” Bernstein wrote. “He captured not only the feel and smell and spirit of his age but also the spirit of . . . all epochs.”

Bernstein was equally firm in dismissing the cavil that Mozart was a mere recycler of musical themes. He agrees that Mozart’s musical vocabulary was limited by the conventions of his time—a fact that is, of course, true of all composers—but insists that invention “was his middle name.” “The wonder is not that he used conventional formulas, but that, using them, he was able to create such amazing variety.”

* * *

After finally parting company with Archbishop von Colloredo, Mozart stayed in Vienna, moving into a household whose daughter Constanze he promptly fell in love with. Despite Leopold’s initial opposition, thought to be rooted in his fear that domesticity would sap his son’s creativity and derail his career, Wolfgang and Constanze married in 1782. He was 26 and she was 18. In the early years of the marriage, Mozart’s freelance career took off. His father’s fears seemed unfounded. Performing concerts and publishing his music became financially rewarding. His popularity soared.

For a time, personal happiness accompanied professional success. But, as we know and as Mozart experienced, all wheels go ’round and ’round.

In a terrible echo of Wolfgang’s parents’ experience, Constanze bore six children, though she suffered terribly through her pregnancies and only two babies survived infancy. Constanze’s continuing ill health—coupled with her husband’s bouts of illness—necessitated many unavoidable expenses. Avoidable expenses were also incurred. A middle-class man, Mozart tried to emulate the aristocrats who were his audiences. The young couple began to live beyond their means.

By the mid-1780s, Mozart was again seeking “steady” employment through a court appointment. A vigorous rivalry sprung up between him and Antonio Salieri, a Venetian composer prominent in Vienna. (Remember that name.) At this time of anxiety and insecurity, though, artistic creativity continued unabated, with Mozart collaborating with the Venetian composer and poet Lorenzo Da Ponte on the stunning operas Le Nozze di Figaro (“The Marriage of Figaro”) and Don Giovanni.

Providentially, Emperor Joseph II, whose 1781 coronation had been the occasion of Mozart’s falling-out with his first patron, in 1787 named Mozart “chamber composer.” It was a royal honor, though it was better for his reputation than for his finances. It provided ample time for Mozart to continue his freelance career, which produced a third opera with Da Ponte, Così Fan Tutte (“Thus Are They [Women] All”).

By the end of the decade, Mozart, whose work never flagged in output or quality, was in dire financial straits. And then the wheel turned yet again and Phoenix-like, he seemed to be on the rise. In May 1789 came the first performance of Symphony no. 41 in C major, the one that has earned the nickname “Jupiter” for its magisterial magnificence.

Once again, though only briefly, Mozart was in high demand for public appearances, and was earning financial support from new patrons. And his compositional productivity never ceased. In mid-1791 came Die Zauberflöte (“The Magic Flute”), one of the best known of his twenty-plus operas.

And somehow, it all became too much, as can happen with any of us. Affected by rapid cycles of creation and reinvention, his physical, mental, and emotional health failed drastically. Leaving one of his greatest works, the Requiem, unfinished, Mozart died in Vienna on December 5, 1791, at age 35. Young Constanze (she was 27 when she was widowed) carried on. She resolved the family’s debts by writing two biographies of her husband; she eventually married a Danish diplomat.

Remember Antonio Salieri? It was rumored that he fatally poisoned Mozart, their rivalry was so bitter. This rumor was fruitful for at least four other artists. It became the basis for story lines in an 1832 play by Alexander Pushkin and an 1897 one-act opera by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (both works entitled Mozart and Salieri). And of course, there was Amadeus the 1979 play by Peter Shaffer that he adapted into the 1984 film directed by Milos Forman. But in truth, it was not obvious what killed Mozart, and the question remains fascinating for fans of Mozart. As many as one hundred possible causes have been put forward, including complications from what we now call “pre-existing conditions,” the after-effects of illnesses that he had suffered throughout his brief life.

Earlier, I said that Mozart was both fascinating and relatable. A genius, indeed, but so human. Each time he was lost, it’s likely that he wondered, as we all do, if he would ever find his way again, or be found.

Because of his profound influence and enduring contributions to the canon of Western classical music, Mozart lays claim to the title of one of the greatest composers of all time. But with six hundred plus works to his credit, how can anyone begin to appreciate his breadth and depth? Where to start listening?

I sought input from the website of my go-to classical music station, New York City’s WQXR, which points out that there are an estimated ten thousand of his recordings in print. This makes building a Mozart library a daunting task. But an annotated list of “The 20 Essential Mozart Recordings” can be found on www.wqxr.org—along with the actual recordings themselves accessible via Spotify. That’s a good place to start listening.

2

MARY SHELLEY (United Kingdom)

MARY SHELLEY HAS NEVER LEFT US, because her work keeps her alive for us. Almost two centuries after she lived and wrote, Mary Shelley retains a firm grip on the world’s imagination.

This is largely because of her masterpiece, Frankenstein, with its nightmarish vision of humanity gone awry. She wrote the book in her late teens, amidst tremendous turmoil in her life. The recent two hundredth anniversary of its publication, along with the re-discovery of her plague-centered novel The Last Man because of the worldwide coronavirus pandemic, has brought renewed popular, biographical, and scholarly attention. Mary Shelley’s visibility and reputation are sky-high.

Much of that attention has come from women, I have noticed. I think that is because her story resounds with women in a way that men don’t quite get. I’ll do my best to honor her story.

It should be evident by now that I enjoy history and biography. The reason is simple. It is not voyeurism. It has to do with helping me understand other people and what they do. Understanding others is vital for every relationship in life—spouses, friends, family members, voters, customers, colleagues—be they casual, sustained, positive, or negative. I want to understand people I meet in life, as well as historical figures who have shaped our country and the world. Mary Shelley is a very compelling person.

* * *

By the age of 24, almost 25, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Shelley had not only written a book of great renown, but she had also suffered mightily, more than most young women. Lest you think I am being melodramatic, consider this bare-bones catalog of tragedy, scandal, loss, separation, and difficulty. I would wish none of these events on anyone:

Born in 1797, Mary was 10 days old when her mother died; a toddler when her father remarried, to “a woman I shudder to think of,” as Mary later said; 15 when she was sent away by her father and her stepmother to live with another family; 16 when she was forced to return; 17 years old when she ran away with a married-with-kids man, by whom she became pregnant; 18 when the prematurely born baby died; 19 when her lover’s pregnant wife committed suicide, and she and her lover married; 24 when her husband was killed. By then, she had given birth to three more children, only one of whom survived into adulthood, and had lost another to miscarriage. She had spent seven years at the unstable center of a louche and ever-shifting cast of people who toyed with fame, financial insecurity, and personal entanglements of all kinds.

By the age of 25, though, it was also evident that Mary Shelley was leading a life that offered more than pathos. Capable of enduring feats of literary creativity, she was one of the earliest writers of both science fiction and gothic horror, with themes that remain astonishingly fresh. She was also muse and talented editor for the work of her lover/husband, the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley.

* * *

Throughout her entire and relatively short life—which ended in 1851 at age 54—Mary Shelley wrote and published prolifically. Her output included 24 short stories, 21 articles and reviews, 18 poems, 7 novels, 5 biographies, 3 children’s books (including one co-authored with Percy), 2 travel narratives, and dozens of journals, letters, fragments, and...

Table of contents

• Praise
• Also by
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• FOREWORD by U.S. Ambassador Donald Blinken
• INTRODUCTION
• 1 - WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (Austria)
• 2 - MARY SHELLEY (United Kingdom)
• 3 - HONORÉ DAUMIER (France)
• 4 - ULYSSES S . GRANT (United States)
• 5 - ALBERT EINSTEIN (Germany, United States)
• 6 - OTHMAR AMMANN (Switzerland, United States)
• 7 - HELEN KELLER (United States)
• 8 - ELIZABETH KENNY (Australia)
• 9 - BRANCH RICKEY AND JACKIE ROBINSON (United States)
• 10 - COCO CHANEL (France)
• 11 - GOLDA MEIR (Israel)
• 12 - ROBERTO MARINHO (Brazil)
• 13 - RITA LEVI-MONTALCINI (Italy)
• 14 - EDITH PIAF (France)
• 15 - I . M . P E I (China, United States)
• 16 - AKIO MORITA (Japan, United States)
• 17 - MARIA TALLCHIEF (United States)
• 18 - MAYA ANGELOU (United States)
• 19 - AUDREY HEPBURN (United Kingdom, United States)
• 20 - RUDOLF NUREYEV (Russia)
• 21 - SALLY RIDE AND CHRISTA MCAULIFFE (United States)
• 22 - STEVE JOBS (United States)
• 23 - JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT (United States)
• EPILOGUE
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• ABOUT THE AUTHOR