successful in Prague, were partial failures in Vienna. From 1787 until the production of Cos fan tutte (All Women Do So, 1790, again with a libretto by Da Ponte), Mozart received no commissions for operas. For the coronation of Emperor Leopold II in 1791 he wrote the opera seria La clemenza di Tito (The Clemency of Titus; libretto by Metastasio). His three great symphonies of 1788—no. 39 in E-flat, no. 40 in G Minor, and no. 41 in C (the Jupiter)—were never performed under his direction. While Mozart was working on the singspiel The Magic Flute (1791), an emissary of a Count Walsegg mysteriously requested a requiem mass. This work, uncompleted at Mozart's death, proved to be his last musical effort. He died, presumably of typhoid fever, in Vienna on December 5, 1791; his burial was attended by few friends. The place of his grave is unmarked. The legend that the Italian composer Antonio Salieri murdered him is unsupported by reputable scholars.IV. EvaluationPrint sectionMozart had an unsuccessful career and died young, but he ranks as one of the great geniuses of Western civilization. His large output (more than 600 works) shows that even as a child he possessed a thorough command of the technical resources of musical composition as well as an original imagination. His instrumental works include symphonies, divertimentos, sonatas, chamber music for a number of instrumental combinations, and concertos; his vocal works consist mainly of church music and operas. Mozart's creative method was extraordinary, for his manuscripts show that, although he made an occasional preliminary sketch of a difficult passage, he almost invariably thought out a complete work before committing it to paper. His music combines an Italian taste for clear and graceful melody with a German taste for formal and contrapuntal ingenuity. Mozart thus epitomizes the classical style of the 18th century, the goal of which was to be succinct, clear, and well ba...
