Southern Ocean
Ocean around Antarctica
The Southern Ocean, also known as the Antarctic Ocean, comprises the southernmost waters of the world ocean, generally taken to be south of 60° S latitude and encircling Antarctica. With a size of , it is the second-smallest of the five principal oceanic divisions, smaller than the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans, and larger than the Arctic Ocean.
The maximum depth of the Southern Ocean, using the definition that it lies south of 60th parallel, was surveyed by the Five Deeps Expedition in early February 2019. The expedition's multibeam sonar team identified the deepest point at 60° 28' 46"S, 025° 32' 32"W, with a depth of . The expedition leader and chief submersible pilot Victor Vescovo, has proposed naming this deepest point the "Factorian Deep", based on the name of the crewed submersible "DSV Limiting Factor", in which he successfully visited the bottom for the first time on February 3, 2019.
By way of his voyages in the 1770s, James Cook proved that waters encompassed the southern latitudes of the globe. Yet, geographers have often disagreed on whether the Southern Ocean should be defined as a body of water bound by the seasonally fluctuating Antarctic Convergence — an oceanic zone where cold, northward flowing waters from the Antarctic mix with warmer Subantarctic waters — or not defined at all, with its waters instead treated as the southern limits of the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian oceans. The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) finally settled the debate after the full importance of Southern Ocean overturning circulation had been ascertained, and the term "Southern Ocean" now defines the body of water which lies south of the northern limit of that circulation.
The Southern Ocean overturning circulation is important because it makes up the second half of the global thermohaline circulation, after the better known Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC). Much like AMOC, it has also been substantially affected by climate change, in ways that have increased ocean stratification, and which may also result in the circulation substantially slowing or even passing a tipping point and collapsing outright. The latter would have adverse impacts on global weather and the function of marine ecosystems here, unfolding over centuries. The ongoing warming is already changing marine ecosystems here.
Definition and term use.
Borders and names for oceans and seas were internationally agreed when the International Hydrographic Bureau, the precursor to the IHO, convened the First International Conference on 24 July 1919. The IHO then published these in its "Limits of Oceans and Seas", the first edition being 1928. Since the first edition, the limits of the Southern Ocean have moved progressively southward; since 1953, it has been omitted from the official publication and left to local hydrographic offices to determine their own limits.
The IHO included the ocean and its definition as the waters south of the 60th parallel south in its 2000 revisions, but this has not been formally adopted, due to continuing impasses about some of the content, such as the naming dispute over the Sea of Japan. The 2000 IHO definition was circulated as a draft edition in 2002, and is used by some within the IHO and other organizations, such as the "CIA World Factbook" and Merriam-Webster.
The Australian Government regards the Southern Ocean as lying immediately south of Australia (see <templatestyles src="Crossreference/styles.css" />).
The National Geographic Society recognized the ocean officially in June 2021. Prior to this, it depicted it in a typeface different from the other world oceans; instead, it showed the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans extending to Antarctica on both its print and online maps. Map publishers using the term Southern Ocean on their maps include Hema Maps and GeoNova.
Pre-20th century.
"Southern Ocean" is an obsolete name for the Pacific Ocean or South Pacific, coined by the Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa, the first European to discover the Pacific, who approached it from the north in Panama. The "South Seas" is a less archaic synonym. A 1745 British Act of Parliament established a prize for discovering a Northwest Passage to "the Western and Southern Ocean of "America"".
Authors using "Southern Ocean" to name the waters encircling the unknown southern polar regions used varying limits. James Cook's account of his second voyage implies New Caledonia borders it. Peacock's 1795 "Geographical Dictionary" said it lay "to the southward of America and Africa"; John Payne in 1796 used 40 degrees as the northern limit; the 1827 "Edinburgh Gazetteer" used 50 degrees. The "Family Magazine" in 1835 divided the "Great Southern Ocean" into the "Southern Ocean" and the "Antarctick ["sic"] Ocean" along the Antarctic Circle, with the northern limit of the Southern Ocean being lines joining Cape Horn, the Cape of Good Hope, Van Diemen's Land and the south of New Zealand.
The United Kingdom's "South Australia Act 1834" described the waters forming the southern limit of the new province of South Australia as "the Southern Ocean". The Colony of Victoria's "Legislative Council Act 1881" delimited part of the division of Bairnsdale as "along the New South Wales boundary to the Southern ocean".
1928 delineation.
In the 1928 first edition of "Limits of Oceans and Seas", the Southern Ocean was delineated by land-based limits: Antarctica to the south, and South America, Africa, Australia, and Broughton Island, New Zealand to the north.
The detailed land-limits used were from Cape Horn in Chile eastward to Cape Agulhas in Africa, then further eastward to the southern coast of mainland Australia to Cape Leeuwin, Western Australia. From Cape Leeuwin, the limit then followed eastward along the coast of mainland Australia to Cape Otway, Victoria, then southward across Bass Strait to Cape Wickham, King Island, along the west coast of King Island, then the remainder of the way south across Bass Strait to Cape Grim, Tasmania.
The limit then followed the west coast of Tasmania southward to the South East Cape and then went eastward to Broughton Island, New Zealand, before returning to Cape Horn.
1937 delineation.
The northern limits of the Southern Ocean were moved southward in the IHO's 1937 second edition of the "Limits of Oceans and Seas". From this edition, much of the ocean's northern limit ceased to abut land masses.
In the second edition, the Southern Ocean then extended from Antarctica northward to latitude 40°S between Cape Agulhas in Africa (long. 20°E) and Cape Leeuwin in Western Australia (long. 115°E), and extended to latitude 55°S between Auckland Island of New Zealand (165 or 166°E east) and Cape Horn in South America (67°W).
As is discussed in more detail below, prior to the 2002 edition the limits of oceans explicitly excluded the seas lying within each of them. The Great Australian Bight was unnamed in the 1928 edition, and delineated as shown in the figure above in the 1937 edition. It therefore encompassed former Southern Ocean waters—as designated in 1928—but was technically not inside any of the three adjacent oceans by 1937.
In the 2002 draft edition, the IHO have designated "seas" as subdivisions within "oceans", so the Bight would have still been within the Southern Ocean in 1937 if the 2002 convention were in place then. To perform direct comparisons of current and former limits of oceans it is necessary to consider, or at least be aware of, how the 2002 change in IHO terminology for "seas" can affect the comparison.
1953 delineation.
The Southern Ocean did not appear in the 1953 third edition of "Limits of Oceans and Seas", a note in the publication read:
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Instead, in the IHO 1953 publication, the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans were extended southward, the Indian and Pacific Oceans (which had not previously touched pre 1953, as per the first and second editions) now abutted at the meridian of South East Cape, and the southern limits of the Great Australian Bight and the Tasman Sea were moved northward.
2002 draft delineation.
The IHO readdressed the question of the Southern Ocean in a survey in 2000. Of its 68 member nations, 28 responded, and all responding members except Argentina agreed to redefine the ocean, reflecting the importance placed by oceanographers on ocean currents. The proposal for the name "Southern Ocean" won 18 votes, beating the alternative "Antarctic Ocean". Half of the votes supported a definition of the ocean's northern limit at the 60th parallel south—with no land interruptions at this latitude—with the other 14 votes cast for other definitions, mostly the 50th parallel south, but a few for as far north as the 35th parallel south. Notably, the Southern Ocean Observing System collates data from latitudes higher than 40 degrees south.
A draft fourth edition of "Limits of Oceans and Seas" was circulated to IHO member states in August 2002 (sometimes referred to as the "2000 edition" as it summarized the progress to 2000). It has yet to be published due to 'areas of concern' by several countries relating to various naming issues around the world – primarily the Sea of Japan naming dispute – and there have been various changes: 60 seas were given new names, and even the name of the publication was changed. A reservation had also been lodged by Australia regarding the Southern Ocean limits. Effectively, the third edition—which did not delineate the Southern Ocean leaving delineation to local hydrographic offices—has yet to be superseded.
Despite this, the fourth edition definition has partial "de facto" usage by many nations, scientists, and organisations such as the U.S. (the "CIA World Factbook" uses "Southern Ocean", but none of the other new sea names within the "Southern Ocean", such as the "Cosmonauts Sea") and Merriam-Webster, scientists and nations – and even by some within the IHO. Some nations' hydrographic offices have defined their own boundaries; the United Kingdom used the 55th parallel south for example. Other organisations favour more northerly limits for the Southern Ocean. For example, "Encyclopædia Britannica" describes the Southern Ocean as extending as far north as South America, and confers great significance on the Antarctic Convergence, yet its description of the Indian Ocean contradicts this, describing the Indian Ocean as extending south to Antarctica.
Other sources, such as the National Geographic Society, show the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans as extending to Antarctica on its maps, although articles on the National Geographic web site have begun to reference the Southern Ocean.
A radical shift from past IHO practices (1928–1953) was also seen in the 2002 draft edition when the IHO delineated "seas" as subdivisions within the boundaries of "oceans". While the IHO are often considered the authority for such conventions, the shift brought them into line with the practices of other publications (e.g. the CIA "World Fact Book") which already adopted the principle that seas are contained within oceans. This difference in practice is markedly seen for the Pacific Ocean in the adjacent figure. Thus, for example, previously the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand was not regarded by the IHO as part of the Pacific, but as of the 2002 draft edition it is.
The new delineation of seas as subdivisions of oceans has avoided the need to interrupt the northern boundary of the Southern Ocean where intersected by Drake Passage which includes all of the waters from South America to the Antarctic coast, nor interrupt it for the Scotia Sea, which also extends below the 60th parallel south. The new delineation of seas has also meant that the long-time named seas around Antarctica, excluded from the 1953 edition (the 1953 map did not even extend that far south), are automatically part of the Southern Ocean.
Australian standpoint.
In Australia, cartographical authorities define the Southern Ocean as including the entire body of water between Antarctica and the south coasts of Australia and New Zealand, and up to 60°S elsewhere. Coastal maps of Tasmania and South Australia label the sea areas as "Southern Ocean" and Cape Leeuwin in Western Australia is described as the point where the Indian and Southern Oceans meet.
History of exploration.
Unknown southern land.
Exploration of the Southern Ocean was inspired by a belief in the existence of a "Terra Australis" – a vast continent in the far south of the globe to "balance" the northern lands of Eurasia and North Africa – which had existed since the times of Ptolemy. The rounding of the Cape of Good Hope in 1487 by Bartolomeu Dias first brought explorers within touch of the Antarctic cold, and proved that there was an ocean separating Africa from any Antarctic land that might exist. Ferdinand Magellan, who passed through the Strait of Magellan in 1520, assumed that the islands of Tierra del Fuego to the south were an extension of this unknown southern land. In 1564, Abraham Ortelius published his first map, "Typus Orbis Terrarum", an eight-leaved wall map of the world, on which he identified the "Regio Patalis" with "Locach" as a northward extension of the "Terra Australis", reaching as far as New Guinea.
European geographers continued to connect the coast of Tierra del Fuego with the coast of New Guinea on their globes, and allowing their imaginations to run riot in the vast unknown spaces of the south Atlantic, south Indian and Pacific oceans they sketched the outlines of the "Terra Australis Incognita" ("Unknown Southern Land"), a vast continent stretching in parts into the tropics. The search for this great south land was a leading motive of explorers in the 16th and the early part of the 17th centuries.
The Spaniard Gabriel de Castilla, who claimed having sighted "snow-covered mountains" beyond the 64° S in 1603, is recognized as the first explorer that discovered the continent of Antarctica, although he was ignored in his time.
In 1606, Pedro Fernández de Quirós took possession for the king of Spain all of the lands he had discovered in Australia del Espiritu Santo (the New Hebrides) and those he would discover "even to the Pole".
Francis Drake, like Spanish explorers before him, had speculated that there might be an open channel south of Tierra del Fuego. When Willem Schouten and Jacob Le Maire discovered the southern extremity of Tierra del Fuego and named it Cape Horn in 1615, they proved that the Tierra del Fuego archipelago was of small extent and not connected to the southern land, as previously thought. Subsequently, in 1642, Abel Tasman showed that even New Holland (Australia) was separated by sea from any continuous southern continent.
South of the Antarctic Convergence.
The visit to South Georgia by Anthony de la Roché in 1675 was the first-ever discovery of land south of the Antarctic Convergence, i.e. in the Southern Ocean/Antarctic. Soon after the voyage cartographers started to depict "Roché Island", honouring the discoverer. James Cook was aware of la Roché's discovery when surveying and mapping the island in 1775.
Edmond Halley's voyage in for magnetic investigations in the South Atlantic met the pack ice in 52° S in January 1700, but that latitude (he reached off the north coast of South Georgia) was his farthest south. A determined effort on the part of the French naval officer Jean-Baptiste Charles Bouvet de Lozier to discover the "South Land" – described by a half legendary "sieur de Gonneyville" – resulted in the discovery of Bouvet Island in 54°10′ S, and in the navigation of 48° of longitude of ice-cumbered sea nearly in 55° S in 1730.
In 1771, Yves Joseph Kerguelen sailed from France with instructions to proceed south from Mauritius in search of "a very large continent". He lighted upon a land in 50° S which he called South France, and believed to be the central mass of the southern continent. He was sent out again to complete the exploration of the new land, and found it to be only an inhospitable island which he renamed the Isle of Desolation, but which was ultimately named after him.
South of the Antarctic Circle.
The obsession of the undiscovered continent culminated in the brain of Alexander Dalrymple, the brilliant and erratic hydrographer who was nominated by the Royal Society to command the Transit of Venus expedition to Tahiti in 1769. The command of the expedition was given by the admiralty to Captain James Cook. Sailing in 1772 with "Resolution", a vessel of 462 tons under his own command and "Adventure" of 336 tons under Captain Tobias Furneaux, Cook first searched in vain for Bouvet Island, then sailed for 20 degrees of longitude to the westward in latitude 58° S, and then 30° eastward for the most part south of 60° S, a lower southern latitude than had ever been voluntarily entered before by any vessel. On 17 January 1773 the Antarctic Circle was crossed for the first time in history and the two ships reached 67° 15' S by 39° 35' E, where their course was stopped by ice.
Cook then turned northward to look for French Southern and Antarctic Lands, of the discovery of which he had received news at Cape Town, but from the rough determination of his longitude by Kerguelen, Cook reached the assigned latitude 10° too far east and did not see it. He turned south again and was stopped by ice in 61° 52′ S by 95° E and continued eastward nearly on the parallel of 60° S to 147° E. On 16 March, the approaching winter drove him northward for rest to New Zealand and the tropical islands of the Pacific. In November 1773, Cook left New Zealand, having parted company with the "Adventure", and reached 60° S by 177° W, whence he sailed eastward keeping as far south as the floating ice allowed. The Antarctic Circle was crossed on 20 December and Cook remained south of it for three days, compelled after reaching 67° 31′ S to stand north again in 135° W.
A long detour to 47° 50′ S served to show that there was no land connection between New Zealand and Tierra del Fuego. Turning south again, Cook crossed the Antarctic Circle for the third time at 109° 30′ W before his progress was once again blocked by ice four days later at 71° 10′ S by 106° 54′ W. This point, reached on 30 January 1774, was the farthest south attained in the 18th century. With a great detour to the east, almost to the coast of South America, the expedition regained Tahiti for refreshment. In November 1774, Cook started from New Zealand and crossed the South Pacific without sighting land between 53° and 57° S to Tierra del Fuego; then, passing Cape Horn on 29 December, he rediscovered Roché Island renaming it Isle of Georgia, and discovered the South Sandwich Islands (named "Sandwich Land" by him), the only ice-clad land he had seen, before crossing the South Atlantic to the Cape of Good Hope between 55° and 60°. He thereby laid open the way for future Antarctic exploration by exploding the myth of a habitable southern continent. Cook's most southerly discovery of land lay on the temperate side of the 60th parallel, and he convinced himself that if land lay farther south it was practically inaccessible and without economic value.
Voyagers rounding Cape Horn frequently met with contrary winds and were driven southward into snowy skies and ice-encumbered seas; but so far as can be ascertained none of them before 1770 reached the Antarctic Circle, or knew it, if they did.
In a voyage from 1822 to 1824, James Weddell commanded the 160-ton brig "Jane", accompanied by his second ship "Beaufoy" captained by Matthew Brisbane. Together they sailed to the South Orkneys where sealing proved disappointing. They turned south in the hope of finding a better sealing ground. The season was unusually mild and tranquil, and on 20 February 1823 the two ships reached latitude 74°15' S and longitude 34°16'45″ W the southernmost position any ship had ever reached up to that time. A few icebergs were sighted but there was still no sight of land, leading Weddell to theorize that the sea continued as far as the South Pole. Another two days' sailing would have brought him to Coat's Land (to the east of the Weddell Sea) but Weddell decided to turn back.
First sighting of land.
The first land south of the parallel 60° south latitude was discovered by the Englishman William Smith, who sighted Livingston Island on 19 February 1819. A few months later Smith returned to explore the other islands of the South Shetlands archipelago, landed on King George Island, and claimed the new territories for Britain.
In the meantime, the Spanish Navy ship "San Telmo" sank in September 1819 when trying to cross Cape Horn. Parts of her wreckage were found months later by sealers on the north coast of Livingston Island (South Shetlands). It is unknown if some survivor managed to be the first to set foot on these Antarctic islands.
The first confirmed sighting of mainland Antarctica cannot be accurately attributed to one single person. It can be narrowed down to three individuals. According to various sources, three men all sighted the ice shelf or the continent within days or months of each other: Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen, a captain in the Russian Imperial Navy; Edward Bransfield, a captain in the Royal Navy; and Nathaniel Palmer, an American sailor out of Stonington, Connecticut. It is certain that the expedition, led by von Bellingshausen and Lazarev on the ships "Vostok" and "Mirny", reached a point within from Princess Martha Coast and recorded the sight of an ice shelf at that became known as the Fimbul Ice Shelf. On 30 January 1820, Bransfield sighted Trinity Peninsula, the northernmost point of the Antarctic mainland, while Palmer sighted the mainland in the area south of Trinity Peninsula in November 1820. Von Bellingshausen's expedition also discovered Peter I Island and Alexander I Island, the first islands to be discovered south of the circle.
Antarctic expeditions.
In December 1839, as part of the United States Exploring Expedition of 1838–42 conducted by the United States Navy (sometimes called "the Wilkes Expedition"), an expedition sailed from Sydney, Australia, on the sloops-of-war and , the brig , the full-rigged ship , and two schooners and . They sailed into the Antarctic Ocean, as it was then known, and reported the discovery "of an Antarctic continent west of the Balleny Islands" on 25 January 1840. That part of Antarctica was later named "Wilkes Land", a name it maintains to this day.
Explorer James Clark Ross passed through what is now known as the Ross Sea and discovered Ross Island (both of which were named for him) in 1841. He sailed along a huge wall of ice that was later named the Ross Ice Shelf. Mount Erebus and Mount Terror are named after two ships from his expedition: and .
The Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914, led by Ernest Shackleton, set out to cross the continent via the pole, but their ship, , was trapped and crushed by pack ice before they even landed. The expedition members survived after an epic journey on sledges over pack ice to Elephant Island. Then Shackleton and five others crossed the Southern Ocean, in an open boat called "James Caird", and then trekked over South Georgia to raise the alarm at the whaling station Grytviken.
In 1946, US Navy Rear Admiral Richard E. Byrd and more than 4,700 military personnel visited the Antarctic in an expedition called Operation Highjump. Reported to the public as a scientific mission, the details were kept secret and it may have actually been a training or testing mission for the military. The expedition was, in both military or scientific planning terms, put together very quickly. The group contained an unusually high amount of military equipment, including an aircraft carrier, submarines, military support ships, assault troops and military vehicles. The expedition was planned to last for eight months but was unexpectedly terminated after only two months. With the exception of some eccentric entries in Admiral Byrd's diaries, no real explanation for the early termination has ever been officially given.
Captain Finn Ronne, Byrd's executive officer, returned to Antarctica with his own expedition in 1947–1948, with Navy support, three planes, and dogs. He disproved the notion that the continent was divided in two and established that East and West Antarctica was one single continent, i.e. that the Weddell Sea and the Ross Sea are not connected. The expedition explored and mapped large parts of Palmer Land and the Weddell Sea coastline, and identified the Ronne Ice Shelf, named by him for his wife Jackie Ronne. He covered by ski and dog sled – more than any other explorer in history. The Ronne Antarctic Research Expedition discovered and mapped the last unknown coastline in the world and was the first Antarctic expedition to ever include women.
Post-Atlantic Treaty.
The Antarctic Treaty was signed on 1 December 1959 and came into force on 23 June 1961. Among other provisions, this treaty limits military activity in the Antarctic to the support of scientific research.
The first person to sail single-handed to Antarctica was the New Zealander David Henry Lewis, in 1972, in a steel sloop "Ice Bird".
A baby, named Emilio Marcos de Palma, was born near Hope Bay on 7 January 1978, becoming the first baby born on the continent. He also was born further south than anyone in history.
The was a cruise ship operated by the Swedish explorer Lars-Eric Lindblad. Observers point to "Explorer"'s 1969 expeditionary cruise to Antarctica as the frontrunner for today's sea-based tourism in that region. "Explorer" was the first cruise ship used specifically to sail the icy waters of the Antarctic Ocean and the first to sink there when she struck an unidentified submerged object on 23 November 2007, reported to be ice, which caused a gash in the hull. "Explorer" was abandoned in the early hours of 23 November 2007 after taking on water near the South Shetland Islands in the Southern Ocean, an area which is usually stormy but was calm at the time. "Explorer" was confirmed by the Chilean Navy to have sunk at approximately position: 62° 24′ South, 57° 16′ West, in roughly 600 m of water.
British engineer Richard Jenkins designed an unmanned saildrone that completed the first autonomous circumnavigation of the Southern Ocean on 3 August 2019 after 196 days at sea.
The first completely human-powered expedition on the Southern Ocean was accomplished on 25 December 2019 by a team of rowers comprising captain Fiann Paul (Iceland), first mate Colin O'Brady (US), Andrew Towne (US), Cameron Bellamy (South Africa), Jamie Douglas-Hamilton (UK) and John Petersen (US).
Geography.
The Southern Ocean, geologically the youngest of the oceans, was formed when Antarctica and South America moved apart, opening the Drake Passage, roughly 30 million years ago. The separation of the continents allowed the formation of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current.
With a northern limit at 60°S, the Southern Ocean differs from the other oceans in that its largest boundary, the northern boundary, does not abut a landmass (as it did with the first edition of "Limits of Oceans and Seas"). Instead, the northern limit is with the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans.
One reason for considering it as a separate ocean stems from the fact that much of the water of the Southern Ocean differs from the water in the other oceans. Water gets transported around the Southern Ocean fairly rapidly because of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current which circulates around Antarctica. Water in the Southern Ocean south of, for example, New Zealand, resembles the water in the Southern Ocean south of South America more closely than it resembles the water in the Pacific Ocean.
The Southern Ocean has typical depths of between over most of its extent with only limited areas of shallow water. The Southern Ocean's greatest depth of occurs at the southern end of the South Sandwich Trench, at 60°00'S, 024°W. The Antarctic continental shelf appears generally narrow and unusually deep, its edge lying at depths up to , compared to a global mean of .
Equinox to equinox in line with the sun's seasonal influence, the Antarctic ice pack fluctuates from an average minimum of in March to about in September, more than a sevenfold increase in area.
Subdivisions.
Subdivisions of oceans are geographical features such as "seas", "straits", "bays", "channels", and "gulfs". There are many sudivisions of the Southern Ocean defined in the never-approved 2002 draft fourth edition of the IHO publication "Limits of Oceans and Seas". In clockwise order these include (with sector):
A number of these such as the 2002 Russian-proposed "Cosmonauts Sea", "Cooperation Sea", and "Somov (mid-1950s Russian polar explorer) Sea" are not included in the 1953 IHO document which remains currently in force, because they received their names largely originated from 1962 onward. Leading geographic authorities and atlases do not use these latter three names, including the 2014 10th edition World Atlas from the United States' National Geographic Society and the 2014 12th edition of the British Times Atlas of the World, but Soviet and Russian-issued maps do.
Biggest seas.
Top large seas:
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Natural resources.
The Southern Ocean probably contains large, and possibly giant, oil and gas fields on the continental margin. Placer deposits, accumulation of valuable minerals such as gold, formed by gravity separation during sedimentary processes are also expected to exist in the Southern Ocean.
Manganese nodules are expected to exist in the Southern Ocean. Manganese nodules are rock concretions on the sea bottom formed of concentric layers of iron and manganese hydroxides around a core. The core may be microscopically small and is sometimes completely transformed into manganese minerals by crystallization. Interest in the potential exploitation of polymetallic nodules generated a great deal of activity among prospective mining consortia in the 1960s and 1970s.
The icebergs that form each year around in the Southern Ocean hold enough fresh water to meet the needs of every person on Earth for several months. For several decades there have been proposals, none yet to be feasible or successful, to tow Southern Ocean icebergs to more arid northern regions (such as Australia) where they can be harvested.
Natural hazards.
Icebergs can occur at any time of year throughout the ocean. Some may have drafts up to several hundred meters; smaller icebergs, iceberg fragments and sea-ice (generally 0.5 to 1 m thick) also pose problems for ships. The deep continental shelf has a floor of glacial deposits varying widely over short distances.
Sailors know latitudes from 40 to 70 degrees south as the "Roaring Forties", "Furious Fifties" and "Shrieking Sixties" due to high winds and large waves that form as winds blow around the entire globe unimpeded by any land-mass. Icebergs, especially in May to October, make the area even more dangerous. The remoteness of the region makes sources of search and rescue scarce.
Physical oceanography.
Antarctic Circumpolar Current and Antarctic Convergence.
While the Southern is the second smallest ocean it contains the unique and highly energetic Antarctic Circumpolar Current which moves perpetually eastward – chasing and joining itself, and at in length – it comprises the world's longest ocean current, transporting of water – 100 times the flow of all the world's rivers.
Several processes operate along the coast of Antarctica to produce, in the Southern Ocean, types of water masses not produced elsewhere in the oceans of the Southern Hemisphere. One of these is the Antarctic Bottom Water, a very cold, highly saline, dense water that forms under sea ice. Another is Circumpolar Deep Water, a mixture of Antarctic Bottom Water and North Atlantic Deep Water.
Associated with the Circumpolar Current is the Antarctic Convergence encircling Antarctica, where cold northward-flowing Antarctic waters meet the relatively warmer waters of the subantarctic, Antarctic waters predominantly sink beneath subantarctic waters, while associated zones of mixing and upwelling create a zone very high in nutrients. These nurture high levels of phytoplankton with associated copepods and Antarctic krill, and resultant foodchains supporting fish, whales, seals, penguins, albatrosses and a wealth of other species.
The Antarctic Convergence is considered to be the best natural definition of the northern extent of the Southern Ocean.
Upwelling.
Large-scale upwelling is found in the Southern Ocean. Strong westerly (eastward) winds blow around Antarctica, driving a significant flow of water northward. This is actually a type of coastal upwelling. Since there are no continents in a band of open latitudes between South America and the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, some of this water is drawn up from great depths. In many numerical models and observational syntheses, the Southern Ocean upwelling represents the primary means by which deep dense water is brought to the surface. Shallower, wind-driven upwelling is also found off the west coasts of North and South America, northwest and southwest Africa, and southwest and southeast Australia, all associated with oceanic subtropical high pressure circulations.
Ross and Weddell gyres.
The Ross Gyre and Weddell Gyre are two gyres that exist within the Southern Ocean. The gyres are located in the Ross Sea and Weddell Sea respectively, and both rotate clockwise. The gyres are formed by interactions between the Antarctic Circumpolar Current and the Antarctic Continental Shelf.
Sea ice has been noted to persist in the central area of the Ross Gyre. There is some evidence that global warming has resulted in some decrease of the salinity of the waters of the Ross Gyre since the 1950s.
Due to the Coriolis effect acting to the left in the Southern Hemisphere and the resulting Ekman transport away from the centres of the Weddell Gyre, these regions are very productive due to upwelling of cold, nutrient rich water.
Observation.
Observation of the Southern Ocean is coordinated through the Southern Ocean Observing System (SOOS). This provides access to meta data for a significant proportion of the data collected in the regions over the past decades including hydrographic measurements and ocean currents. The data provision is set up to emphasize records that are related to Essential Ocean Variables (EOVs) for the ocean region south of 40°S.
Climate.
Sea temperatures vary from about −2 to 10 °C (28 to 50 °F). Cyclonic storms travel eastward around the continent and frequently become intense because of the temperature contrast between ice and open ocean. The ocean from about latitude 40 south to the Antarctic Circle has the strongest average winds found anywhere on Earth. In winter the ocean freezes outward to 65 degrees south latitude in the Pacific sector and 55 degrees south latitude in the Atlantic sector, lowering surface temperatures well below 0 degrees Celsius. At some coastal points, persistent intense drainage winds from the interior keep the shoreline ice-free throughout the winter.
Biodiversity.
Animals.
A variety of marine animals exist and rely, directly or indirectly, on the phytoplankton in the Southern Ocean. Antarctic sea life includes penguins, blue whales, orcas, colossal squids and fur seals. The emperor penguin is the only penguin that breeds during the winter in Antarctica, while the Adélie penguin breeds farther south than any other penguin. The rockhopper penguin has distinctive feathers around the eyes, giving the appearance of elaborate eyelashes. King penguins, chinstrap penguins, and gentoo penguins also breed in the Antarctic.
The Antarctic fur seal was very heavily hunted in the 18th and 19th centuries for its pelt by sealers from the United States and the United Kingdom. The Weddell seal, a "true seal", is named after Sir James Weddell, commander of British sealing expeditions in the Weddell Sea. Antarctic krill, which congregates in large schools, is the keystone species of the ecosystem of the Southern Ocean, and is an important food organism for whales, seals, leopard seals, fur seals, squid, icefish, penguins, albatrosses and many other birds.
The benthic communities of the seafloor are diverse and dense, with up to 155,000 animals found in . As the seafloor environment is very similar all around the Antarctic, hundreds of species can be found all the way around the mainland, which is a uniquely wide distribution for such a large community. Deep-sea gigantism is common among these animals.
A census of sea life carried out during the International Polar Year and which involved some 500 researchers was released in 2010. The research is part of the global Census of Marine Life (CoML) and has disclosed some remarkable findings. More than 235 marine organisms live in both polar regions, having bridged the gap of . Large animals such as some cetaceans and birds make the round trip annually. More surprising are small forms of life such as mudworms, sea cucumbers and free-swimming snails found in both polar oceans. Various factors may aid in their distribution – fairly uniform temperatures of the deep ocean at the poles and the equator which differ by no more than , and the major current systems or marine conveyor belt which transport egg and larva stages. Among smaller marine animals generally assumed to be the same in the Antarctica and the Arctic, more detailed studies of each population have often—but not always—revealed differences, showing that they are closely related cryptic species rather than a single bipolar species.
Birds.
The rocky shores of mainland Antarctica and its offshore islands provide nesting space for over 100 million birds every spring. These nesters include species of albatrosses, petrels, skuas, gulls and terns. The insectivorous South Georgia pipit is endemic to South Georgia and some smaller surrounding islands. Freshwater ducks inhabit South Georgia and the Kerguelen Islands.
The flightless penguins are all located in the Southern Hemisphere, with the greatest concentration located on and around Antarctica. Four of the 18 penguin species live and breed on the mainland and its close offshore islands. Another four species live on the subantarctic islands. Emperor penguins have four overlapping layers of feathers, keeping them warm. They are the only Antarctic animal to breed during the winter.
Fish.
There are relatively few fish species in few families in the Southern Ocean. The most species-rich family are the snailfish (Liparidae), followed by the cod icefish (Nototheniidae) and eelpout (Zoarcidae). Together the snailfish, eelpouts and notothenioids (which includes cod icefish and several other families) account for almost <templatestyles src="Fraction/styles.css" />9⁄10 of the more than 320 described fish species of the Southern Ocean (tens of undescribed species also occur in the region, especially among the snailfish). Southern Ocean snailfish are generally found in deep waters, while the icefish also occur in shallower waters.
Icefish.
Cod icefish (Nototheniidae), as well as several other families, are part of the Notothenioidei suborder, collectively sometimes referred to as icefish. The suborder contains many species with antifreeze proteins in their blood and tissue, allowing them to live in water that is around or slightly below . Antifreeze proteins are also known from Southern Ocean snailfish.
The crocodile icefish (family Channichthyidae), also known as white-blooded fish, are only found in the Southern Ocean. They lack hemoglobin in their blood, resulting in their blood being colourless. One Channichthyidae species, the mackerel icefish ("Champsocephalus gunnari"), was once the most common fish in coastal waters less than deep, but was overfished in the 1970s and 1980s. Schools of icefish spend the day at the seafloor and the night higher in the water column eating plankton and smaller fish.
There are two species from the genus "Dissostichus", the Antarctic toothfish ("Dissostichus mawsoni") and the Patagonian toothfish ("Dissostichus eleginoides"). These two species live on the seafloor deep, and can grow to around long weighing up to , living up to 45 years. The Antarctic toothfish lives close to the Antarctic mainland, whereas the Patagonian toothfish lives in the relatively warmer subantarctic waters. Toothfish are commercially fished, and overfishing has reduced toothfish populations.
Another abundant fish group is the genus "Notothenia", which like the Antarctic toothfish have antifreeze in their bodies.
An unusual species of icefish is the Antarctic silverfish ("Pleuragramma antarcticum"), which is the only truly pelagic fish in the waters near Antarctica.
Mammals.
Seven pinniped species inhabit Antarctica. The largest, the elephant seal ("Mirounga leonina"), can reach up to , while females of the smallest, the Antarctic fur seal ("Arctophoca gazella"), reach only . These two species live north of the sea ice, and breed in harems on beaches. The other four species can live on the sea ice. Crabeater seals ("Lobodon carcinophagus") and Weddell seals ("Leptonychotes weddellii") form breeding colonies, whereas leopard seals ("Hydrurga leptonyx") and Ross seals ("Ommatophoca rossii") live solitary lives. Although these species hunt underwater, they breed on land or ice and spend a great deal of time there, as they have no terrestrial predators.
The four species that inhabit sea ice are thought to make up 50% of the total biomass of the world's seals. Crabeater seals have a population of around 15 million, making them one of the most numerous large animals on the planet. The New Zealand sea lion ("Phocarctos hookeri"), one of the rarest and most localised pinnipeds, breeds almost exclusively on the subantarctic Auckland Islands, although historically it had a wider range. Out of all permanent mammalian residents, the Weddell seals live the furthest south.
There are 10 cetacean species found in the Southern Ocean: six baleen whales, and four toothed whales. The largest of these, the blue whale ("Balaenoptera musculus"), grows to long weighing 84 tonnes. Many of these species are migratory, and travel to tropical waters during the Antarctic winter.
Invertebrates.
Arthropods.
Five species of krill, small free-swimming crustaceans, have been found in the Southern Ocean. The Antarctic krill ("Euphausia superba") is one of the most abundant animal species on earth, with a biomass of around 500 million tonnes. Each individual is long and weighs over . The swarms that form can stretch for kilometres, with up to 30,000 individuals per , turning the water red. Swarms usually remain in deep water during the day, ascending during the night to feed on plankton. Many larger animals depend on krill for their own survival. During the winter when food is scarce, adult Antarctic krill can revert to a smaller juvenile stage, using their own body as nutrition.
Many benthic crustaceans have a non-seasonal breeding cycle, and some raise their young in a brood pouch. "Glyptonotus antarcticus" is an unusually large benthic isopod, reaching in length weighing . Amphipods are abundant in soft sediments, eating a range of items, from algae to other animals. The amphipods are highly diverse with more than 600 recognized species found south of the Antarctic Convergence and there are indications that many undescribed species remain. Among these are several "giants", such as the iconic epimeriids that are up to long.
Slow moving sea spiders are common, sometimes growing as large as a human hand. They feed on the corals, sponges, and bryozoans that litter the seabed.
Molluscs, urchins, squid and sponges.
Many aquatic molluscs are present in Antarctica. Bivalves such as "Adamussium colbecki" move around on the seafloor, while others such as "Laternula elliptica" live in burrows filtering the water above.
There are around 70 cephalopod species in the Southern Ocean, the largest of which is the colossal squid ("Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni"), which at up to is among the largest invertebrate in the world. Squid makes up most of the diet of some animals, such as grey-headed albatrosses and sperm whales, and the warty squid ("Moroteuthis ingens") is one of the subantarctic's most preyed upon species by vertebrates.
The sea urchin genus "Abatus" burrow through the sediment eating the nutrients they find in it. Two species of salps are common in Antarctic waters: "Salpa thompsoni" and "Ihlea racovitzai". "Salpa thompsoni" is found in ice-free areas, whereas "Ihlea racovitzai" is found in the high-latitude areas near ice. Due to their low nutritional value, they are normally only eaten by fish, with larger animals such as birds and marine mammals only eating them when other food is scarce.
Antarctic sponges are long-lived and sensitive to environmental changes due to the specificity of the symbiotic microbial communities within them. As a result, they function as indicators of environmental health.
Environment.
Increased solar ultraviolet radiation resulting from the Antarctic ozone hole has reduced marine primary productivity (phytoplankton) by as much as 15% and has started damaging the DNA of some fish. Illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, especially the landing of an estimated five to six times more Patagonian toothfish than the regulated fishery, likely affects the sustainability of the stock. Long-line fishing for toothfish causes a high incidence of seabird mortality.
International agreements.
All international agreements regarding the world's oceans apply to the Southern Ocean. It is also subject to several regional agreements:
The Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) prohibits commercial whaling south of 40 degrees south (south of 60 degrees south between 50 degrees and 130 degrees west). Japan regularly does not recognize this provision, because the sanctuary violates IWC charter. Since the scope of the sanctuary is limited to commercial whaling, in regard to its whaling permit and whaling for scientific research, a Japanese fleet carried out an annual whale-hunt in the region. On 31 March 2014, the International Court of Justice ruled that Japan's whaling program, which Japan has long claimed is for scientific purposes, was a cloak for commercial whaling, and no further permits would be granted.
The "Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Seals" is part of the "Antarctic Treaty System". It was signed at the conclusion of a multilateral conference in London on 11 February 1972.
The "Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources" is part of the "Antarctic Treaty System". It entered into force on 7 April 1982 with a goal to preserve marine life and environmental integrity in and near Antarctica. It was established largely due to concerns that an increase in krill catches in the Southern Ocean could seriously impact populations of other marine life which are dependent upon krill for food.
Many nations prohibit the exploration for and the exploitation of mineral resources south of the fluctuating Antarctic Convergence, which lies in the middle of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current and serves as the dividing line between the very cold polar surface waters to the south and the warmer waters to the north. The Antarctic Treaty covers the portion of the globe south of 60 degrees south; it prohibits new claims to Antarctica.
The "Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources" applies to the area south of 60° South latitude as well as the areas further north up to the limit of the Antarctic Convergence.
Economy.
Between 1 July 1998 and 30 June 1999, fisheries landed , of which 85% consisted of krill and 14% of Patagonian toothfish. International agreements came into force in late 1999 to reduce illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing, which in the 1998–99 season landed five to six times more Patagonian toothfish than the regulated fishery.
Ports and harbors.
Major operational ports include: Rothera Station, Palmer Station, Villa Las Estrellas, Esperanza Base, Mawson Station, McMurdo Station, and offshore anchorages in Antarctica.
Few ports or harbors exist on the southern (Antarctic) coast of the Southern Ocean, since ice conditions limit use of most shores to short periods in midsummer; even then some require icebreaker escort for access. Most Antarctic ports are operated by government research stations and, except in an emergency, remain closed to commercial or private vessels; vessels in any port south of 60 degrees south are subject to inspection by Antarctic Treaty observers.
The Southern Ocean's southernmost port operates at McMurdo Station at . Winter Quarters Bay forms a small harbor, on the southern tip of Ross Island where a floating ice pier makes port operations possible in summer. Operation Deep Freeze personnel constructed the first ice pier at McMurdo in 1973.
Based on the original 1928 IHO delineation of the Southern Ocean (and the 1937 delineation if the Great Australian Bight is considered integral), Australian ports and harbors between Cape Leeuwin and Cape Otway on the Australian mainland and along the west coast of Tasmania would also be identified as ports and harbors existing in the Southern Ocean. These would include the larger ports and harbors of Albany, Thevenard, Port Lincoln, Whyalla, Port Augusta, Port Adelaide, Portland, Warrnambool, and Macquarie Harbour.
Even though organizers of several yacht races define their routes as involving the Southern Ocean, the actual routes don't enter the actual geographical boundaries of the Southern Ocean. The routes involve instead South Atlantic, South Pacific and Indian Ocean.
Notes.
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References.
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Murray Mouth
Murray Mouth is the point at which the River Murray meets the Southern Ocean. The Murray Mouth's location is changeable. Historical records show that the channel out to sea moves along the sand dunes over time. At times of greater river flow and rough seas, the two bodies of water would erode the sand dunes to create a new channel leaving the old one to silt and disappear.
Description.
The mouth of the Murray River is about south east of Goolwa and about south-south-east of the Adelaide city centre in the gazetted localities of Coorong and Goolwa South. The mouth is an opening in the coastal dune system which separates the river system from the ocean and which extends from near Goolwa in a south-easterly direction along the continental coastline for about . The mouth divides the dune system into two peninsulas. The peninsula on the west side is Sir Richard Peninsula which terminates at the mouth with a point named Pullen Spit. The peninsula on the east side is Younghusband Peninsula which terminates at the mouth with a point known in some sources as Sleepy Hollow.
Water flows throughout the mouth from two directions. Firstly, the flow from the west passes along a passage known as the Goolwa Channel which is bounded by Hindmarsh Island to its north side. Secondly, the flow from the east passes along a passage known as the Coorong Channel. The Coorong Channel itself is fed by the Mundoo Channel which passes between Hindmarsh Island and Mundoo Island to the north, and by the Tauwitchere Channel to the east.
Natural history.
From the Pleistocene about 2.5 million years ago, the Murray River terminated in a freshwater lake called Lake Bungunnia which included the area now occupied by the South Australia/New South Wales border. The lake drained less than a million years ago, creating the current course. It was suggested that the Murray may have taken a different course to the ocean, via Burra, South Australia and emptied into the Spencer Gulf, before being 'defeated' by the rise of the Mt Lofty Ranges. This has been studied by analysing the uplift date of the Mt Lofty Ranges and other geological data and found that this was not likely to be the case.
History.
European discovery and use.
During expeditions in 1829–30, Charles Sturt explored the Murray and its westward-flowing tributaries, finding that the mouth of the Murray was barely navigable to shipping. During the later 19th century with the discovery of gold, and the development of sheep and wheat farming along the Murray and its tributaries, the river became a major thoroughfare for the carriage of goods and produce. During the peak period of Murray River commerce (roughly 1855 to 1920) and before the development of rail and road transport, the Murray Mouth with its complex and unpredictable interaction between shallow, shifting and variable currents and the open sea, presented a major impediment to traffic between Adelaide and the Murray settlements, and many vessels foundered or were wrecked there.
Water flow.
River Murray water is used by farmers for irrigation in four of Australia's states, as well as supplying water to most towns along the river, and many further away through various pipelines. It has been widely accepted that too much water is being extracted; however business and political concerns make it difficult to remedy the problem. A visible symptom of the over-extraction of river water is the closing of the Murray Mouth.
From October 2002 until 2010 dredging machines operated at the Murray Mouth.
Between 2002 and 2006, two machines operated moving sand from the channel to maintain a minimal flow from the sea and into the Coorong's lagoon system. Without the 24-hour dredging, the mouth was at risk of becoming silted and closing, cutting the supply of fresh seawater into the Coorong, which would then warm up, stagnate and die.
In mid-2006 the dredging was scaled back as a result of the improved conditions at the mouth. Now only one dredging machine operates, and permission was granted to one commercial operator to navigate the channel between Goolwa and the Coorong, passing the mouth. This operation finished in 2010.
Dredging was scheduled to resume in January 2015.
Dredging continues at a cost between $3m to $6m annually.
Protected area status and other arrangements.
Australian government.
The Murray Mouth is immediately adjoined on its northern and eastern sides by the boundary of the Coorong and Lakes Alexandrina and Albert Wetland Ramsar site.
South Australian government.
The Murray Mouth is located within a special purpose area within the Encounter Marine Park and is immediately adjoined on its northern and eastern sides by the boundary of the Coorong National Park.
Non-statutory arrangements.
The Murray Mouth is adjoined on its northern and eastern sides by the boundary of the Coorong Important Bird Area which is an area considered by Birdlife International to be a place of ‘international significance for the conservation of birds and other biodiversity.’
Citations and references.
Notes.
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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Composer (1756–1791)
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 1756 – 5 December 1791) was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period. Despite his short life, his rapid pace of composition and proficiency from an early age resulted in more than 800 works representing virtually every Western classical genre of his time. Many of these compositions are acknowledged as pinnacles of the symphonic, concertante, chamber, operatic, and choral repertoires. Mozart is widely regarded as one of the greatest composers in the history of Western music, with his music admired for its "melodic beauty, its formal elegance and its richness of harmony and texture".
Born in Salzburg, Mozart showed prodigious ability from his earliest childhood. At age five, he was already competent on keyboard and violin, had begun to compose, and performed before European royalty. His father took him on a grand tour of Europe and then three trips to Italy. At 17, he was a musician at the Salzburg court but grew restless and travelled in search of a better position. Mozart's search for employment led to positions in Paris, Mannheim, Munich, and again in Salzburg, during which he wrote his five violin concertos, Sinfonia Concertante, and Concerto for Flute and Harp, as well as sacred pieces and masses, the motet "Exsultate Jubilate", and the opera "Idomeneo," among other works.
While visiting Vienna in 1781, Mozart was dismissed from his Salzburg position. He stayed in Vienna, where he achieved fame but little financial security. During Mozart's early years in Vienna, he produced several notable works, such as the opera "Die Entführung aus dem Serail", the "Great Mass in C minor", the "Haydn" Quartets and a number of symphonies. Throughout his Vienna years, Mozart composed over a dozen piano concertos, many considered some of his greatest achievements. In the final years of his life, Mozart wrote many of his best-known works, including his last three symphonies, culminating in the "Jupiter" Symphony, the serenade "Eine kleine Nachtmusik", his Clarinet Concerto, the operas "The Marriage of Figaro", "Don Giovanni", "Così fan tutte" and "The Magic Flute" and his Requiem. The Requiem was largely unfinished at the time of his death at age 35, the circumstances of which are uncertain and much mythologised.
Life and career.
Early life.
Family and childhood.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born on 27 January 1756 to Leopold Mozart and Anna Maria, née Pertl, at Getreidegasse 9 in Salzburg. Salzburg was the capital of the Archbishopric of Salzburg, an ecclesiastic principality in the Holy Roman Empire (today in Austria). He was the youngest of seven children, five of whom died in infancy. His elder sister was Maria Anna Mozart, nicknamed "Nannerl". Mozart was baptised the day after his birth, at St. Rupert's Cathedral in Salzburg. The baptismal record gives his name in Latinised form, as "Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart". He generally called himself "Wolfgang Amadè Mozart" as an adult, but his name had many variants.
Leopold Mozart, a native of Augsburg, then an Imperial Free City in the Holy Roman Empire, was a minor composer and an experienced teacher. In 1743, he was appointed as the fourth violinist in the musical establishment of Count Leopold Anton von Firmian, the ruling Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg. Four years later, he married Anna Maria in Salzburg. Leopold became the orchestra's deputy Kapellmeister in 1763. During the year of his son's birth, Leopold published a violin textbook, "Versuch einer gründlichen Violinschule", which achieved success.
When Nannerl was seven, she began keyboard lessons with her father, while her three-year-old brother looked on. Years later, after her brother's death, she reminisced:
He often spent much time at the clavier, picking out thirds, which he was ever striking, and his pleasure showed that it sounded good... In the fourth year of his age his father, for a game as it were, began to teach him a few minuets and pieces at the clavier... He could play it faultlessly and with the greatest delicacy, and keeping exactly in time... At the age of five, he was already composing little pieces, which he played to his father who wrote them down.
These early pieces, K. 1–5, were recorded in the "Nannerl Notenbuch". There is some scholarly debate about whether Mozart was four or five years old when he created his first musical compositions, though there is little doubt that Mozart composed his first three pieces of music within a few weeks of each other: K. 1a, 1b, and 1c.
In his early years, Wolfgang's father was his only teacher. Along with music, he taught his children languages and academic subjects. Biographer Solomon notes that, while Leopold was a devoted teacher to his children, there is evidence that Mozart was keen to progress beyond what he was taught. His first ink-spattered composition and his precocious efforts with the violin were of his initiative and came as a surprise to Leopold, who eventually gave up composing when his son's musical talents became evident.
1762–73: Travel.
While Wolfgang was young, his family made several European journeys in which he and Nannerl performed as child prodigies. These began with an exhibition in 1762 at the court of Prince-elector Maximilian III of Bavaria in Munich, and at the Imperial Courts in Vienna and Prague. A long concert tour followed, spanning three and a half years, taking the family to the courts of Munich, Mannheim, Paris, London, Dover, The Hague, Amsterdam, Utrecht, Mechelen and again to Paris, and back home via Zürich, Donaueschingen, and Munich. During this trip, Wolfgang met many musicians and acquainted himself with the works of other composers. A particularly significant influence was Johann Christian Bach, whom he visited in London in 1764 and 1765. When he was eight years old, Mozart wrote his first symphony, most of which was probably transcribed by his father.
The family trips were often challenging, and travel conditions were primitive. They had to wait for invitations and reimbursement from the nobility, and they endured long, near-fatal illnesses far from home: first Leopold (London, summer 1764), then both children (The Hague, autumn 1765). The family again went to Vienna in late 1767 and remained there until December 1768.
After one year in Salzburg, Leopold and Wolfgang set off for Italy, leaving Anna Maria and Nannerl at home. This tour lasted from December 1769 to March 1771. As with earlier journeys, Leopold wanted to display his son's abilities as a performer and a rapidly maturing composer. Wolfgang met Josef Mysliveček and Giovanni Battista Martini in Bologna and was accepted as a member of the famous Accademia Filarmonica. There exists a myth, according to which, while in Rome, he heard Gregorio Allegri's "Miserere" twice in performance in the Sistine Chapel. Allegedly, he subsequently wrote it out from memory, thus producing the "first unauthorised copy of this closely guarded property of the Vatican". However, both the origin and plausibility of this account are disputed.
In Milan, Mozart wrote the opera "Mitridate, re di Ponto" (1770), which was performed with success. This led to further opera commissions. He returned with his father twice to Milan (August–December 1771; October 1772 – March 1773) for the composition and premieres of "Ascanio in Alba" (1771) and "Lucio Silla" (1772). Leopold hoped these visits would result in a professional appointment for his son, and indeed ruling Archduke Ferdinand contemplated hiring Mozart, but owing to his mother Empress Maria Theresa's reluctance to employ "useless people", the matter was dropped and Leopold's hopes were never realised. Toward the end of the journey, Mozart wrote the solo motet "Exsultate, jubilate", K.165.
1773–77: Employment at the Salzburg court.
After finally returning with his father from Italy on 13 March 1773, Mozart was employed as a court musician by the ruler of Salzburg, Prince-Archbishop Hieronymus Colloredo. The composer had many friends and admirers in Salzburg and had the opportunity to work in many genres, including symphonies, sonatas, string quartets, masses, serenades, and a few minor operas. Between April and December 1775, Mozart developed an enthusiasm for violin concertos, producing a series of five (the only ones he ever wrote), which steadily increased in their musical sophistication. The last three—K. 216, K. 218, K. 219—are now staples of the repertoire. In 1776, he turned his efforts to piano concertos, culminating in the E♭ concerto K. 271 of early 1777, considered by critics to be a breakthrough work.
Despite these artistic successes, Mozart grew increasingly discontented with Salzburg and redoubled his efforts to find a position elsewhere. One reason was his low salary, 150 florins a year; Mozart longed to compose operas, and Salzburg provided only rare occasions for these. The situation worsened in 1775 when the court theatre was closed, especially since the other theatre in Salzburg was primarily reserved for visiting troupes.
Two long expeditions in search of work interrupted this long Salzburg stay. Mozart and his father visited Vienna from 14 July to 26 September 1773, and Munich from 6December 1774 to March 1775. Neither visit was successful, though the Munich journey resulted in a popular success with the premiere of Mozart's opera "La finta giardiniera".
1777–78: Journey to Paris.
In August 1777, Mozart resigned his position at Salzburg and on 23 September ventured out once more in search of employment, with visits to Augsburg, Mannheim, Paris, and Munich.
Mozart became acquainted with members of the famous orchestra in Mannheim, the best in Europe at the time. He also fell in love with Aloysia Weber, one of four daughters of a musical family. There were prospects of employment in Mannheim, but they came to nothing, and Mozart left for Paris on 14 March 1778 to continue his search. One of his letters from Paris hints at a possible post as an organist at Versailles, but Mozart was not interested in such an appointment. He fell into debt and took to pawning valuables. The nadir of the visit occurred when Mozart's mother was taken ill and died on 3July 1778. There had been delays in calling a doctor—probably, according to Halliwell, because of a lack of funds. Mozart stayed with Melchior Grimm at Marquise d'Épinay's residence, 5 rue de la Chaussée-d'Antin.
While Mozart was in Paris, his father was pursuing opportunities of employment for him in Salzburg. With the support of the local nobility, Mozart was offered a post as court organist and concertmaster. The annual salary was 450 florins, but he was reluctant to accept. By that time, relations between Grimm and Mozart had cooled, and Mozart moved out. After leaving Paris in September 1778 for Strasbourg, he lingered in Mannheim and Munich, still hoping to obtain an appointment outside Salzburg. In Munich, he again encountered Aloysia, now a very successful singer, but she was no longer interested in him. Mozart finally returned to Salzburg on 15 January 1779 and took up his new appointment, but his discontent with Salzburg remained undiminished.
Among the better-known works which Mozart wrote on the Paris journey are the A minor piano sonata, K. 310/300d, the "Paris" Symphony (No. 31), which were performed in Paris on 12 and 18 June 1778; and the Concerto for Flute and Harp in C major, K. 299/297c.
Vienna.
1781: Departure.
In January 1781, Mozart's opera "Idomeneo" premiered with "considerable success" in Munich. The following March, Mozart was summoned to Vienna, where his employer, Archbishop Colloredo, was attending the celebrations for the accession of Joseph II to the Austrian throne. For Colloredo, this was simply a matter of wanting his musical servant to be at hand (Mozart indeed was required to dine in Colloredo's establishment with the valets and cooks). He planned a bigger career as he continued in the archbishop's service; for example, he wrote to his father:
My main goal right now is to meet the emperor in some agreeable fashion, I am absolutely determined he should get to know me. I would be so happy if I could whip through my opera for him and then play a fugue or two, for that's what he likes.
Mozart did indeed soon meet the Emperor, who eventually was to support his career substantially with commissions and a part-time position.
In the same letter to his father just quoted, Mozart outlined his plans to participate as a soloist in the concerts of the "Tonkünstler-Societät", a prominent benefit concert series; this plan as well came to pass after the local nobility prevailed on Colloredo to drop his opposition.
Colloredo's wish to prevent Mozart from performing outside his establishment was in other cases carried through, raising the composer's anger; one example was a chance to perform before the Emperor at Countess Thun's for a fee equal to half of his yearly Salzburg salary.
The quarrel with the archbishop came to a head in May: Mozart attempted to resign and was refused. The following month, permission was granted, but in a grossly insulting way: the composer was dismissed literally "with a kick in the arse", administered by the archbishop's steward, Count Arco. Mozart decided to settle in Vienna as a freelance performer and composer.
The quarrel with Colloredo was more difficult for Mozart because his father sided against him. Hoping fervently that he would obediently follow Colloredo back to Salzburg, Mozart's father exchanged intense letters with his son, urging him to be reconciled with their employer. Mozart passionately defended his intention to pursue an independent career in Vienna. The debate ended when Mozart was dismissed by the archbishop, freeing himself both of his employer and of his father's demands to return. Solomon characterizes Mozart's resignation as a "revolutionary step" that significantly altered the course of his life.
Early years.
Mozart's new career in Vienna began well. He often performed as a pianist, notably in a competition before the Emperor with Muzio Clementi on 24 December 1781, and he soon "had established himself as the finest keyboard player in Vienna". He also prospered as a composer, and in 1782 completed the opera "Die Entführung aus dem Serail" ("The Abduction from the Seraglio"), which premiered on 16 July 1782 and achieved considerable success. The work was soon being performed "throughout German-speaking Europe", and thoroughly established Mozart's reputation as a composer.
Near the height of his quarrels with Colloredo, Mozart moved in with the Weber family, who had moved to Vienna from Mannheim. The family's father, Fridolin, had died, and the Webers were now taking in lodgers to make ends meet.
Marriage and children.
After failing to win the hand of Aloysia Weber, who was now married to the actor and artist Joseph Lange, Mozart's interest shifted to the third daughter of the family, Constanze.
The courtship did not go entirely smoothly; surviving correspondence indicates that Mozart and Constanze briefly broke up in April 1782, over an episode involving jealousy (Constanze had permitted another young man to measure her calves in a parlour game). Mozart also faced a very difficult task getting permission for the marriage from his father, Leopold.
The marriage took place in an atmosphere of crisis. Daniel Heartz suggests that eventually, Constanze moved in with Mozart, which would have placed her in disgrace by the mores of the time. Mozart wrote to Leopold on 31 July 1782, "All the good and well-intentioned advice you have sent fails to address the case of a man who has already gone so far with a maiden. Further postponement is out of the question." Heartz relates, "Constanze's sister Sophie had tearfully declared that her mother would send the police after Constanze if she did not return home [presumably from Mozart's apartment]." On 4 August, Mozart wrote to Baroness von Waldstätten, asking: "Can the police here enter anyone's house in this way? Perhaps it is only a ruse of Madame Weber to get her daughter back. If not, I know no better remedy than to marry Constanze tomorrow morning or if possible today."
The couple were finally married on 4August 1782 in St. Stephen's Cathedral, the day before his father's consenting letter arrived in the mail. In the marriage contract, Constanze "assigns to her bridegroom five hundred gulden which ... the latter has promised to augment with one thousand gulden", with the total "to pass to the survivor". Further, all joint acquisitions during the marriage were to remain the common property of both.
The couple had six children, of whom only two survived infancy:
1782–87.
In 1782 and 1783, Mozart became intimately acquainted with the work of Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel as a result of the influence of Gottfried van Swieten, who owned many manuscripts of the Baroque masters. Mozart's study of these scores inspired compositions in the Baroque style and later influenced his musical language, for example in fugal passages in "Die Zauberflöte" ("The Magic Flute") and the finale of Symphony No. 41.
In 1783, Mozart and his wife visited his family in Salzburg. His father and sister were cordially polite to Constanze, but the visit prompted the composition of one of Mozart's great liturgical pieces, the Mass in C minor. Though not completed, it was premiered in Salzburg, with Constanze singing a solo part.
Mozart met Joseph Haydn in Vienna around 1784, and the two composers became friends. When Haydn visited Vienna, they sometimes played together in an impromptu string quartet. Mozart's six quartets dedicated to Haydn (K. 387, K. 421, K. 428, K. 458, K. 464, and K. 465) date from the period 1782 to 1785, and are judged to be a response to Haydn's Opus 33 set from 1781. Haydn wrote, "posterity will not see such a talent again in 100 years" and in 1785 told Mozart's father: "I tell you before God, and as an honest man, your son is the greatest composer known to me by person and repute, he has taste and what is more the greatest skill in composition."
From 1782 to 1785 Mozart mounted concerts with himself as a soloist, presenting three or four new piano concertos in each season. Since space in the theatres was scarce, he booked unconventional venues: a large room in the Trattnerhof apartment building, and the ballroom of the Mehlgrube restaurant. The concerts were very popular, and his concertos premiered there are still firm fixtures in the repertoire. Solomon writes that during this period, Mozart created "a harmonious connection between an eager composer-performer and a delighted audience, which was given the opportunity of witnessing the transformation and perfection of a major musical genre".
With substantial returns from his concerts and elsewhere, Mozart and his wife adopted a more luxurious lifestyle. They moved to an expensive apartment, with a yearly rent of 460 florins. Mozart bought a fine fortepiano from Anton Walter for about 900 florins, and a billiard table for about 300. The Mozarts sent their son Karl Thomas to an expensive boarding school and kept servants. During this period Mozart saved little of his income.
On 14 December 1784, Mozart became a Freemason, admitted to the lodge Zur Wohltätigkeit ("Beneficence"). Freemasonry played an essential role in the remainder of Mozart's life: he attended meetings, a number of his friends were Masons, and on various occasions, he composed Masonic music, e.g. the Maurerische Trauermusik.
1786–87: Return to opera.
Despite the great success of "Die Entführung aus dem Serail", Mozart did little operatic writing for the next four years, producing only two unfinished works and the one-act "Der Schauspieldirektor". He focused instead on his career as a piano soloist and writer of concertos. Around the end of 1785, Mozart moved away from keyboard writing and began his famous operatic collaboration with the librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte. The year 1786 saw the successful premiere of "Le nozze di Figaro" in Vienna. Its reception in Prague later in the year was even warmer, and this led to a second collaboration with Da Ponte: the opera "Don Giovanni", which premiered in October 1787 to acclaim in Prague, but less success in Vienna during 1788. The two are among Mozart's most famous works and are mainstays of operatic repertoire today, though at their premieres their musical complexity caused difficulty both for listeners and for performers. These developments were not witnessed by Mozart's father, who had died on 28 May 1787.
In December 1787, Mozart finally obtained a steady post under aristocratic patronage. Emperor Joseph II appointed him as his "chamber composer", a post that had fallen vacant the previous month on the death of Gluck. It was a part-time appointment, paying just 800 florins per year, and required Mozart only to compose dances for the annual balls in the Redoutensaal (see "Mozart and dance"). This modest income became important to Mozart when hard times arrived. Court records show that Joseph aimed to keep the esteemed composer from leaving Vienna in pursuit of better prospects.
In 1787, the young Ludwig van Beethoven spent several weeks in Vienna, hoping to study with Mozart. No reliable records survive to indicate whether the two composers ever met.
Later years.
1788–90.
Toward the end of the decade, Mozart's circumstances worsened. Around 1786, he ceased to appear frequently in public concerts, and his income shrank. This was a difficult time for musicians in Vienna because of the Austro-Turkish War: both the general level of prosperity and the ability of the aristocracy to support music had declined. According to Solomon, in 1788, Mozart saw a 66% decline in his income compared to his best years in 1781.
By mid-1788, Mozart and his family had moved from central Vienna to the suburb of Alsergrund. Although it has been suggested that Mozart aimed to reduce his rental expenses by moving to a suburb, as he wrote in his letter to Michael von Puchberg, Mozart had not reduced his expenses but merely increased the housing space at his disposal. Mozart began to borrow money, most often from his friend and fellow mason Puchberg; "a pitiful sequence of letters pleading for loans" survives. Maynard Solomon and others have suggested that Mozart was suffering from depression, and it seems his musical output slowed. Major works of the period include the last three symphonies (Nos. 39, 40, and 41, all from 1788), and the last of the three Da Ponte operas, "Così fan tutte", premiered in 1790.
Around this time, Mozart made some long journeys hoping to improve his fortunes, visiting Leipzig, Dresden, and Berlin in the spring of 1789, and Frankfurt, Mannheim, and other German cities in 1790.
1791.
Mozart's last year was, until his final illness struck, a time of high productivity—and by some accounts, one of personal recovery. He composed a great deal, including some of his most admired works: the opera "The Magic Flute"; the final piano concerto (K. 595 in B♭); the Clarinet Concerto K. 622; the last in his series of string quintets (K. 614 in E♭); the motet Ave verum corpus K. 618; and the unfinished Requiem K. 626.
Mozart's financial situation, a source of anxiety in 1790, finally began to improve. Although the evidence is inconclusive, it appears that wealthy patrons in Hungary and Amsterdam pledged annuities to Mozart in return for the occasional composition. He is thought to have benefited from the sale of dance music written in his role as Imperial chamber composer. Mozart no longer borrowed large sums from Puchberg and began to pay off his debts.
He experienced great satisfaction in the public success of some of his works, notably "The Magic Flute" (which was performed several times in the short period between its premiere and Mozart's death) and the Little Masonic Cantata K. 623, premiered on 17 November 1791.
Final illness and death.
Mozart fell ill while in Prague for the premiere, on 6September 1791, of his opera "La clemenza di Tito", which was written in that same year on commission for Emperor Leopold II's coronation festivities. He continued his professional functions for some time and conducted the premiere of "The Magic Flute" on 30 September. His health deteriorated on 20 November, at which point he became bedridden, suffering from swelling, pain, and vomiting.
Mozart was nursed in his final days by his wife and her youngest sister and was attended by the family doctor, Thomas Franz Closset. He was mentally occupied with the task of finishing his Requiem, but the evidence that he dictated passages to his student Franz Xaver Süssmayr is minimal.
Mozart died in his home on at 12:55 am. The "New Grove" describes his funeral:
Mozart was interred in a common grave, in accordance with contemporary Viennese custom, at the St. Marx Cemetery outside the city on 7December. If, as later reports say, no mourners attended, that too is consistent with Viennese burial customs at the time; later Otto Jahn (1856) wrote that Salieri, Süssmayr, van Swieten and two other musicians were present. The tale of a storm and snow is false; the day was calm and mild.
The expression "common grave" refers to neither a communal grave nor a pauper's grave, but an individual grave for a member of the common people (i.e., not the aristocracy). Common graves were subject to excavation after ten years; the graves of aristocrats were not.
The cause of Mozart's death is not known with certainty. The official record of "hitziges Frieselfieber" ("severe miliary fever", referring to a rash that looks like millet seeds) is more a symptomatic description than a diagnosis. Researchers have suggested more than a hundred causes of death, including acute rheumatic fever, streptococcal infection, trichinosis, influenza, mercury poisoning, and a rare kidney ailment.
Mozart's modest funeral did not reflect his standing with the public as a composer; memorial services and concerts in Vienna and Prague were well attended. Indeed, in the period immediately after his death, his reputation rose substantially. Solomon describes an "unprecedented wave of enthusiasm" for his work; biographies were written first by Schlichtegroll, Niemetschek, and Nissen, and publishers vied to produce complete editions of his works.
Appearance and character.
Mozart's physical appearance was described by tenor Michael Kelly in his "Reminiscences": "a remarkably small man, very thin and pale, with a profusion of fine, fair hair of which he was rather vain". His early biographer Niemetschek wrote, "there was nothing special about [his] physique... He was small and his countenance, except for his large intense eyes, gave no signs of his genius." His facial complexion was pitted, a reminder of his childhood case of smallpox. Of his voice, his wife later wrote that it "was a tenor, rather soft in speaking and delicate in singing, but when anything excited him, or it became necessary to exert it, it was both powerful and energetic."
He loved elegant clothing. Kelly remembered him at a rehearsal: "[He] was on the stage with his crimson pelisse and gold-laced cocked hat, giving the time of the music to the orchestra." Based on paintings that researchers were able to find of Mozart, he seemed to wear a white wig for most of his formal occasions—researchers of the Salzburg Mozarteum declared that only one of his fourteen portraits they had found showed him without his wig.
Mozart usually worked long and hard, finishing compositions at a tremendous pace as deadlines approached. He often made sketches and drafts; unlike Beethoven's, these are mostly not preserved, as his wife sought to destroy them after his death.
Mozart lived at the centre of the Viennese musical world and knew a significant number and variety of people: fellow musicians, theatrical performers, fellow Salzburgers, and aristocrats, including some acquaintance with Emperor Joseph II. Solomon considers his three closest friends to have been Gottfried von Jacquin, Count August Hatzfeld, and Sigmund Barisani; others included his elder colleague Joseph Haydn, singers Franz Xaver Gerl and Benedikt Schack, and the horn player Joseph Leutgeb. Leutgeb and Mozart carried on a kind of friendly mockery, often with Leutgeb as the butt of Mozart's practical jokes.
He enjoyed billiards, dancing, and kept pets, including a canary, a starling, a dog, and a horse for recreational riding. He had a startling fondness for scatological humour, which is preserved in his surviving letters, notably those written to his cousin Maria Anna Thekla Mozart around 1777–1778, and in his correspondence with his sister and parents. Mozart also wrote scatological music, a series of canons that he sang with his friends. He had an ear for languages, and having travelled all over Europe as a boy, was fluent in Latin, Italian, and French in addition to his native Salzburg dialect of German. He possibly also understood and spoke some English, having jokingly written "You are an ass" after his 19-year-old student Thomas Attwood made a thoughtless mistake on his exercise papers.
Mozart was raised a Catholic and remained a devout member of the Church throughout his life. He embraced the teachings of Freemasonry in 1784.
Works, musical style, and innovations.
Style.
Mozart's music, like Haydn's, stands as an archetype of the Classical style. At the time he began composing, European music was dominated by the "style galant", a reaction against the highly evolved intricacy of the Baroque. Progressively, and in large part at the hands of Mozart himself, the contrapuntal complexities of the late Baroque emerged once more, moderated and disciplined by new forms, and adapted to a new aesthetic and social milieu. Mozart was a versatile composer, and wrote in every major genre, including symphony, opera, the solo concerto, chamber music including string quartet and string quintet, and the piano sonata. These forms were not new, but Mozart advanced their technical sophistication and emotional reach. He almost single-handedly developed and popularised the Classical piano concerto. He wrote a great deal of religious music, including large-scale masses, as well as dances, divertimenti, serenades, and other forms of light entertainment.
The central traits of the Classical style are all present in Mozart's music. Clarity, balance, and transparency are the hallmarks of his work, but simplistic notions of its delicacy mask the exceptional power of his finest masterpieces, such as the Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor, K. 491; the Symphony No. 40 in G minor, K. 550; and the opera "Don Giovanni". Charles Rosen makes the point forcefully:
It is only through recognising the violence and sensuality at the centre of Mozart's work that we can make a start towards a comprehension of his structures and an insight into his magnificence. In a paradoxical way, Schumann's superficial characterisation of the G minor Symphony can help us to see Mozart's daemon more steadily. In all of Mozart's supreme expressions of suffering and terror, there is something shockingly voluptuous.
During his last decade, Mozart frequently exploited chromatic harmony. A notable instance is his "String Quartet in C major", K. 465 (1785), whose introduction abounds in chromatic suspensions, giving rise to the work's nickname, the "Dissonance" quartet.
Mozart had a gift for absorbing and adapting the valuable features of others' music. His travels helped in the forging of a unique compositional language. In London as a child, he met J. C. Bach and heard his music. In Paris, Mannheim, and Vienna he met with other compositional influences, as well as the avant-garde capabilities of the Mannheim orchestra. In Italy, he encountered the Italian overture and opera buffa, both of which deeply affected the evolution of his practice. In London and Italy, the galant style was in the ascendent: simple, light music with a mania for cadencing; an emphasis on tonic, dominant, and subdominant to the exclusion of other harmonies; symmetrical phrases; and clearly articulated partitions in the overall form of movements. Some of Mozart's early symphonies are Italian overtures, with three movements running into each other; many are homotonal (all three movements having the same key signature, with the slow middle movement being in the relative minor). Others mimic the works of J. C. Bach, and others show the simple rounded binary forms turned out by Viennese composers.
As Mozart matured, he progressively incorporated more features adapted from the Baroque. For example, the Symphony No. 29 in A major K. 201 has a contrapuntal main theme in its first movement, and experimentation with irregular phrase lengths. Some of his quartets from 1773 have fugal finales, probably influenced by Haydn, who had included three such finales in his recently published Opus 20 set. The influence of the "Sturm und Drang" ("Storm and Stress") period in music, with its brief foreshadowing of the Romantic era, is evident in the music of both composers at that time. Mozart's Symphony No. 25 in G minor K. 183 is another excellent example.
Mozart would sometimes switch his focus between operas and instrumental music. He produced operas in each of the prevailing styles: opera buffa, such as "Le nozze di Figaro", "Don Giovanni", and "Così fan tutte"; opera seria, such as "Idomeneo"; and Singspiel, of which "Die Zauberflöte" is the most famous example by any composer. In his later operas, he employed subtle changes in instrumentation, orchestral texture, and tone colour, for emotional depth and to mark dramatic shifts. Here, his advances in opera and instrumental composing interacted: his increasingly sophisticated use of the orchestra in the symphonies and concertos influenced his operatic orchestration, and his developing subtlety in using the orchestra to psychological effect in his operas was in turn reflected in his later non-operatic compositions.
Köchel catalogue.
For unambiguous identification of works by Mozart, a "Köchel catalogue number" is used. This is a unique number assigned, in regular chronological order, to every one of his known works. A work is referenced by the abbreviation "K." or "KV" followed by this number. The first edition of the catalogue was completed in 1862 by Ludwig von Köchel. It has since been repeatedly updated, as scholarly research improves knowledge of the dates and authenticity of individual works.
Instruments.
Although some of Mozart's early pieces were written for harpsichord, he also became acquainted in his early years with fortepianos made by Regensburg builder Franz Jakob Späth. Later when Mozart was visiting Augsburg, he was impressed by Stein fortepianos and shared this in a letter to his father. On 22 October 1777, Mozart had premiered his triple-piano concerto, K. 242, on instruments provided by Stein. The Augsburg Cathedral organist Demmler was playing the first, Mozart the second and Stein the third part. In 1783, when living in Vienna he purchased an instrument by Walter. Leopold Mozart confirmed the attachment which Mozart had with his Walter fortepiano: "It is impossible to describe the hustle and bustle. Your brother's pianoforte has been moved at least twelve times from his house to the theatre or to someone else's house."
Influence.
His most famous pupil was Johann Nepomuk Hummel, a transitional figure between the Classical and Romantic eras whom the Mozarts took into their Vienna home for two years as a child. More important is the influence Mozart had on composers of later generations. Ever since the surge in his reputation after his death, studying his scores has been a standard part of a classical musician's training.
Ludwig van Beethoven, Mozart's junior by fifteen years, was deeply influenced by his work, with which he was acquainted as a teenager. He is thought to have performed Mozart's operas while playing in the court orchestra at Bonn and travelled to Vienna in 1787 hoping to study with the older composer. Some of have direct models in comparable works by Mozart, and he wrote cadenzas (WoO 58) to Mozart's D minor piano concerto K. 466.
Composers have paid homage to Mozart by writing sets of variations on his themes. Beethoven wrote four such sets (Op. 66, WoO 28, WoO 40, WoO 46). Others include Fernando Sor's Introduction and Variations on a Theme by Mozart (1821), Mikhail Glinka's Variations on a Theme from Mozart's Opera "The Magic Flute" (1822), Frédéric Chopin's Variations on "Là ci darem la mano" from "Don Giovanni" (1827), and Max Reger's Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Mozart (1914), based on the variation theme in the piano sonata K. 331. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, who revered Mozart, wrote his Orchestral Suite No. 4 in G, "Mozartiana" (1887), as a tribute to him.
References.
Citations.
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Sources.
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Further reading.
"See for an extensive bibliography"
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External links.
Digitized documents
Sheet music

Adélaïde Concerto
Violin concerto misattributed to W. A. Mozart
The Adélaïde Concerto is the nickname of a violin concerto in D major attributed to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and given the catalogue number K. Anh. 294a in the third edition of the standard Köchel catalogue of Mozart's works. Unknown until the 20th century, this concerto was later discovered to be a spurious work by Marius Casadesus. It was given a new number in the sixth edition of the Köchel catalogue, K. Anh.C 14.05, as part of the Anhang C designated for spurious or doubtful works which have been attributed to Mozart at some time.
Background.
First published in 1933 in a version for violin and piano, the concerto was said by Casadesus, the "editor", to have been arranged from a manuscript by the ten-year-old Mozart, with a title page containing a dedication to Madame Adélaïde, the fourth daughter of King Louis XV. Conveniently enough, this alleged manuscript was never accessible to later researchers such as Alfred Einstein and Friedrich Blume, but Casadesus described it, according to Blume, as "an autograph manuscript in two staves, of which the upper stave carries the solo part and the lower carries the bass." In what was surely a nose-tweak at those fooled by this imposture, Casadesus also reported that "The upper stave is notated in D, the lower in E". Since the violin is not a transposing instrument, there would have been no obvious technical reason for the upper staff to be written in a different key from the lower staff, especially for what sounds more like a short score than a completed score.
Despite the lack of provenance, Blume was thoroughly taken in by the concerto, although Einstein professed himself skeptical. The latter referred to it as "a piece of mystification "a la Kreisler"". (Fritz Kreisler, the famed violinist, had written several pieces in the styles of composers such as Gaetano Pugnani, Giuseppe Tartini, and Antonio Vivaldi which he had originally passed off as compositions by these older masters.)
Many others expressed similar doubts, but only in 1977 during a copyright dispute did Casadesus admit his authorship of this alleged "Mozart" work.
The "Adélaïde Concerto" is sometimes erroneously credited to Marius' brother Henri Casadesus, perhaps because of many other spurious musical pieces he and other members of the Casadesus family composed in the names of Johann Christian Bach, George Frideric Handel, and other composers.
<score sound=1>
Structure.
\relative c' {
 \key d \major
 \tempo "Allegro"
 d2.\f d16(e fis g) | a8.(fis16) a8.(fis16) d'4 r | b8.(ais16) b8.(cis16) d4. b8 | a8.(d16) a8.(d16) a4 r
</score>
The concerto has three movements:
References.
Notes
References
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Sources