For whom, in general, did Mozart usually write his works?
In Mozart’s day, it was fashionable for a nobleman to be seen as a patron of the arts by keeping a court composer to write music for him. The court composer was numbered among the servants, though he was a servant of fairly substantial rank. So, being a composer was (as it had been since the late middle ages) a middle-class occupation, much like being a plumber, a carpenter or a mason. Mozart first followed in the footsteps of his father, composer Leopold Mozart, by becoming first violinist in the orchestra of his father’s patron, the Prince Archbishop of Salzburg. He later became court concertmaster of the court orchestra, and later still, court organist. In this capacity, Mozart wrote several great works of sacred music, including his “Coronation Mass.” Mozart, being very confident of his abilities, wanted to travel to Vienna and join the court of Emperor Franz Josef II Habsburg. To quit the court of a nobleman, though, would have bene tantamount to treason, so Mozart’s only way out
