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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart[ a ][ b ] (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 resulted in more than 800 works representing virtually every Western classical genre of his time.
- Overview
- Early life and works
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–91) was an Austrian composer. Mozart composed music in several genres, including opera and symphony. His most famous compositions included the motet Exsultate, Jubilate, K 165 (1773), the operas The Marriage of Figaro (1786) and Don Giovanni (1787), and the Jupiter Symphony (1788). In all, Mozart composed more than 600 pieces of music. Today he is widely considered one of the greatest composers in the history of Western music.
opera: From the “reform” to grand opera
Learn about the “reform” of opera in Mozart’s time.
symphony: The mature Classical period
Read about Mozart’s contributions to the genre of the symphony.
How old was Mozart when he began playing music?
Mozart most commonly called himself Wolfgang Amadé or Wolfgang Gottlieb. His father, Leopold, came from a family of good standing (from which he was estranged), which included architects and bookbinders. Leopold was the author of a famous violin-playing manual, which was published in the very year of Mozart’s birth. His mother, Anna Maria Pertl, was born of a middle-class family active in local administration. Mozart and his sister Maria Anna (“Nannerl”) were the only two of their seven children to survive.
The boy’s early talent for music was remarkable. At three he was picking out chords on the harpsichord, at four playing short pieces, at five composing. There are anecdotes about his precise memory of pitch, about his scribbling a concerto at the age of five, and about his gentleness and sensitivity (he was afraid of the trumpet). Just before he was six, his father took him and Nannerl, also highly talented, to Munich to play at the Bavarian court, and a few months later they went to Vienna and were heard at the imperial court and in noble houses.
“The miracle which God let be born in Salzburg” was Leopold’s description of his son, and he was keenly conscious of his duty to God, as he saw it, to draw the miracle to the notice of the world (and incidentally to profit from doing so). In mid-1763 he obtained a leave of absence from his position as deputy Kapellmeister at the prince-archbishop’s court at Salzburg, and the family set out on a prolonged tour. They went to what were all the main musical centres of western Europe—Munich, Augsburg, Stuttgart, Mannheim, Mainz, Frankfurt, Brussels, and Paris (where they remained for the winter), then London (where they spent 15 months), returning through The Hague, Amsterdam, Paris, Lyon, and Switzerland, and arriving back in Salzburg in November 1766. In most of these cities Mozart, and often his sister, played and improvised, sometimes at court, sometimes in public or in a church. Leopold’s surviving letters to friends in Salzburg tell of the universal admiration that his son’s achievements aroused. In Paris they met several German composers, and Mozart’s first music was published (sonatas for keyboard and violin, dedicated to a royal princess); in London they met, among others, Johann Christian Bach, Johann Sebastian Bach’s youngest son and a leading figure in the city’s musical life, and under his influence Mozart composed his first symphonies—three survive (K 16, K 19, and K 19a—K signifying the work’s place in the catalog of Ludwig von Köchel). Two more followed during a stay in The Hague on the return journey (K 22 and K 45a).
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After little more than nine months in Salzburg the Mozarts set out for Vienna in September 1767, where (apart from a 10-week break during a smallpox epidemic) they spent 15 months. Mozart wrote a one-act German singspiel, Bastien und Bastienne, which was given privately. Greater hopes were attached to his prospect of having an Italian opera buffa, La finta semplice (“The Feigned Simpleton”), done at the court theatre—hopes that were, however, frustrated, much to Leopold’s indignation. But a substantial, festal mass setting (probably K 139/47a) was successfully given before the court at the dedication of the Orphanage Church. La finta semplice was given the following year, 1769, in the archbishop’s palace in Salzburg. In October Mozart was appointed an honorary Konzertmeister at the Salzburg court.
Apr 3, 2014 · Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was a musician capable of playing multiple instruments who started playing in public at the age of 6.
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Jun 1, 2023 · Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is known for being an Austrian composer of all types of music, including piano concertos, operas, symphonies, and chamber music. He was a child prodigy who developed into one of the greatest ever natural musicians.
- Mark Cartwright
Learn about the life and works of the Austrian composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who was a child prodigy and a master of many genres. Find out about his tours, operas, symphonies, and death at age 35.
Learn about the life and achievements of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, one of the greatest composers of all time. Explore his early years, his travels, his works, and his death in this comprehensive biography.
