Mastery of the Italian Opera was a prerequisite for a successful international composing career, and the Austrian political dominion over northern Italy ensured that doors would be open there to Mozart.
Mozart’s mother and sister remained at home, and the family correspondence provides a full account of events.
The first tour, begun on December 13, 1769, and lasting 15 months, took them to all the main musical centres, but as usual they paused at any town where a concert could be given or a nobleman might want to hear Mozart play. In Verona Mozart was put through stringent tests at the Accademia Filarmonica, and in Milan, after tests of his capacities in dramatic music, he was commissioned to write the first opera for the carnival season. After a stop in Bologna, where they met the esteemed theorist Giovanni Battista Martini, they proceeded to Florence and on to Rome for Holy Week. There Mozart heard the Sistine Choir in the famous Miserere of Gregorio Allegri (1582–1652), which was considered the choir’s exclusive preserve but which Mozart copied out from memory. They spent six weeks in Naples; returning through Rome, Mozart had a papal audience and was made a knight of the order of the Golden Spur. The summer was passed near Bologna, where Mozart passed the tests for admission to the Accademia Filarmonica. In mid October he reached Milan and began work on the new opera, Mitridate, rè di Ponto . He had to rewrite several numbers to satisfy the singers, but, after a series of rehearsals (Leopold’s letters provide fascinating insights as to theatre procedures), the premiere at the Regio Ducal Teatro on December 26 was a notable success. Mozart, in the traditional way, directed the first three of the 22 performances. After a brief excursion to Venice he and his father returned to Salzburg. Plans had already been laid for further journeys to Italy: for a theatrical serenata commissioned for a royal wedding in Milan in October 1771 and for a further opera, again for Milan, at carnival time in 1772–73. Mozart was also commissioned to write an oratorio for Padua; he composed La Betulia liberata during 1771, but there is no record of a performance.
The second Italian visit, between August and December 1771, saw the premiere of his Ascanio in Alba, which, Leopold gleefully reported, “completely overshadowed” the other new work for the occasion, an opera (Ruggiero) by Johann Adolph Hasse, the most respected opera seria composer of the time. But hopes that Leopold had entertained of his son’s securing an appointment in Milan were disappointed. Back in Salzburg, Mozart had a prolific spell: he wrote eight symphonies, four divertimentos, several substantial sacred works, and an allegorical serenata, Il sogno di Scipione. Probably intended as a tribute to the Salzburg prince-archbishop, Count Schrattenbach, this work may not have been given until the spring of 1772, and then for his successor Hieronymus, Count Colloredo; Schrattenbach, a tolerant employer generous in allowing leave, died at the end of 1771.
The third and last Italian journey lasted from October 1772 until March 1773. Lucio Silla, the new opera, was given on December 26, 1772, and after a difficult premiere (it began three hours late and lasted six) it proved even more successful than Mitridate, with 26 performances. This is the earliest indication of the dramatic composer Mozart was to become. He followed Lucio Silla with a solo motet written for its leading singer, the castrato and composer Venanzio Rauzzini, Exsultate, jubilate (K 165), an appealing three-movement piece culminating in a brilliant “Alleluia.” The instrumental music of the period around the Italian journeys includes several symphonies; a few of them are done in a light, Italianate style (e.g., K 95 and K 97), but others, notably the seven from 1772, tread new ground in form, orchestration, and scale (such as K 130, K 132, and the chamber musical K 134). There are also six string quartets (K 155–160) and three divertimentos (K 136–138), in a lively, extroverted vein.
The map shows the main cities visited during the first trip to Italy, between December 1769 and March 1771. The black line shows the main external route from Salzburg to Naples. The green line marks the detours taken during the return journey.