Welcome to History's Not Boring by Kidopoly.com. I'm Mira! And I'm Finn. If you listen to our regular episode today, you know exactly what topic we're exploring. That's right!
SPEAKER_00Today is a very special bonus episode. We are stepping back in time to conduct a real interview with one of the most famous people in history.
SPEAKER_01We're travelling all the way to the year 1786. We are walking up the stairs to a very fancy, very expensive apartment right in the middle of Vienna, Austria.
SPEAKER_00I can hear music coming from under the door. And someone laughing really loudly.
SPEAKER_01Our guest today is a total musical genius. He can write whole symphonies in his head. But he also acts like a giant kid most of the time.
SPEAKER_00Let's knock! I can't wait to meet the man who changed music forever! Herr Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart! Thank you so much for letting us into your beautiful home.
SPEAKER_02Herr Mozart? Oh please, that sounds far too serious. Call me Wolfgang. Or Amadeus, or Trezom, which is Mozart backward. Welcome. Welcome to my humble apartment on the Domgasse.
SPEAKER_01Humble? Wolfgang, this place is huge. Look at those giant mirrors and the shiny wooden floors. And your coat is amazing. Is that real gold thread?
SPEAKER_02Of course it is. A successful musician must look the part. I just bought this handsome red coat with the gold buttons. My dear wife Constanza, I call her Stansi Manzi, says I spend too much money on clothes, but I am 30 years old, and I am the absolute talk of Vienna.
SPEAKER_00You definitely are. Could you tell our listeners a little bit about what your life is like right now in 1786?
SPEAKER_02Oh, it is wonderfully chaotic. I give piano lessons to the children of Dukes and Princes every single morning. In the afternoon, I write my music. And in the evening, I play concerts. Sometimes I play so hard my fingers ache. But the applause, oh, the applause is like a giant warm hug.
SPEAKER_01You've been playing music since you were a little kid, right? Was your whole family musical?
SPEAKER_02Oh, incredibly. My father, Leopold, is a brilliant violinist and teacher. He taught me everything I know. But you know who was truly amazing? My big sister, Nanel.
SPEAKER_00Really? Your sister was a prodigy too.
SPEAKER_02The absolute best. When she was playing the harpsichord, I was just a tiny boy, reaching up to touch the keys. By the time I was six, my father packed us into a horse-drawn carriage, and we toured all over Europe as a family.
SPEAKER_01Ew, touring in an 18th-century carriage. Wasn't it bumpy and freezing cold? And muddy.
SPEAKER_02Miserable. My teeth rattled in my head. We bounced over terrible dirt roads for months at a time. But it was a grand adventure. We played for kings, queens, and emperors.
SPEAKER_00I heard a story about you and the Empress of Austria when you were only six years old. Is it true?
SPEAKER_02Ah, the great Empress Maria Theresa. Yes, we were at her magnificent summer palace at Schoenbrunn. The floors were polished so perfectly that I slipped and fell flat on my nose.
SPEAKER_01Oh no! Were you okay?
SPEAKER_02I was fine. A beautiful young archduchess helped me up, and then I marched right up to the Empress herself, climbed onto her lap, threw my arms around her neck, and gave her a giant kiss.
SPEAKER_00You kissed the Empress! Wasn't everyone shocked?
SPEAKER_02The guards absolutely gasped, but she just laughed and hugged me back. I was very charming, you see.
SPEAKER_00You really are charming. And right now, you've just premiered your brand new opera, The Marriage of Figaro. Everyone in Vienna is talking about it.
SPEAKER_02Ah, Figaro! It is a masterpiece, if I do say so myself. The singers are brilliant. The orchestra is magnificent, and the story is so incredibly funny. It is about a clever servant who outsmarts his rich, bossy master.
SPEAKER_01How do you write so much music? Do you just sit at a desk for days and days, chewing on your quill?
unknownHa ha!
SPEAKER_02Sit at a desk? How terribly boring! No, no. I write the music in my head while I am doing other things. I play billiards, I go horseback riding, I eat dinner, and all the while the violins and the flutes are dancing wildly in my brain.
SPEAKER_00Wait! You hear the whole song in your head before you ever write a single note on paper.
SPEAKER_02Exactly. It is like looking at a beautiful painting. I see the whole picture at once. The loud parts, the soft parts, the fast parts. It is all there, perfectly finished.
SPEAKER_01But then you have to write it all down. Isn't that really hard?
SPEAKER_02Oh, writing it down is just copying. My hand gets tired, certainly, but the real work is already done. In fact, sometimes I write a completely different piece of music on paper while I am composing a new one in my head.
SPEAKER_01Okay, I have to ask some weird questions now. Was there anything you were scared of when you were a kid? Because you seem totally fearless.
SPEAKER_00Trumpets! Trumpets? But you write music for trumpets all the time!
SPEAKER_02I do now. But when I was a tiny boy, a friend of my father's had a trumpet and he blew it right near my face. It was so loud and harsh it felt like a cannon going off in my ears. I actually fainted. I only like them now when they are played beautifully.
SPEAKER_01That's wild. What about food? What's the best thing to eat in Vienna?
SPEAKER_02Liver dumplings. Oh, they are spectacular. And pork chops, and anything sweet: marzipan, candied fruit, warm punch. I have a terrible sweet tooth.
SPEAKER_00I keep hearing some squawking in the background. Do you have a pet?
SPEAKER_02Ah, that is my pet starling. I bought him at a shop because he was whistling the exact melody of a piano concerto I had just written. He is a very clever bird.
SPEAKER_01I read somewhere that when you get bored during orchestra rehearsals, you pretend to be a cat. Is that real?
SPEAKER_02Meow? Yes! If the singers are taking too long to learn their parts, I get extremely restless. I jump over the tables and meow. You have to have fun, Finn. Life is too short to be serious all the time.
SPEAKER_00You know, Wolfgang. You are the most famous musician in the world right now. You've worked so hard since you were three years old. Is it worth it?
SPEAKER_02Worth it? Oh, Mira. I don't know how to be anything else. Music is like breathing to me. If I stopped making music, I think I would simply disappear.
SPEAKER_01It just seems like so much pressure. Everyone always expects you to be totally perfect.
SPEAKER_02There is pressure, yes. Sometimes I worry about money, and sometimes the wealthy nobles can be very annoying. They think because they have crowns they know everything. But when I sit at the keyboard and my hands touch the keys.
SPEAKER_00What does it feel like?
SPEAKER_02It feels like absolute freedom, like I have wings. There are no rules in my imagination, only beauty.
SPEAKER_01If you could give advice to kids listening right now, what would you tell them?
SPEAKER_02I would tell them to play. In music, we call it playing an instrument, not working an instrument. Make noise, make up silly songs with backward words. Do not let the adults make you boring.
SPEAKER_00That is wonderful advice! Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, thank you so much for talking to us today.
SPEAKER_02The pleasure was all mine, and now I must go. Stancy Mancy has a fresh plate of liver dumplings waiting for me, and I have a symphony to write. Farewell, my young friends. Trazon says, goodbye!
SPEAKER_01Bye, Wolfgang! Wow. He really just bounced right out the door, didn't he?
SPEAKER_00He has so much energy! It's incredible to think that the same guy, jumping over tables, meowing like a cat, wrote the most beautiful music in history.
SPEAKER_01Hey, if you listeners loved meeting Amadeus, please leave us a five-star review. It helps other kids find the show.
SPEAKER_00And don't forget to check out our site, kidopoly.com. You can explore so many more fun history adventures there.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and if you want a shout-out on a future episode, or have an idea of who we should interview next, ask a grown-up to email us at hello at kidopoly.com.
SPEAKER_00Thanks for joining us in 1786. See you next time on History is not boring. Bye.