Papa Joe and Pal Wolfie: The Unlikely Friendship of Two Musical Geniuses
Proof that opposites do attract
The boy genius and the old master. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was 25 years old when he first met the 49-year-old Joseph Haydn, sometime in December of 1781. But the disparity of age was the least of their differences. Mozart was a natural party animal, an extravagant dresser, and a big spender; a man virtually free of self-doubt who, nevertheless, had terrific emotional demons to battle. He was also, at the time he met Haydn, crazy with energy and enthusiasm because, having settled permanently in Vienna earlier that year, he was free. Free of his father; free of his provincial hometown of Salzburg; free of Archbishop von Colloredo (whose service Mozart officially left on June 8, 1781, with, as Mozart claimed, “a kick on my arse”); free to do and go as he pleased with his seemingly unlimited talent as his vehicle; free to build a career as a freelance artist in the wealthiest city in the German-speaking world—Vienna.
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