Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

One of the most pop­u­lar clas­si­cal com­posers, Wolf­gang Amadeus Mozart was born in Salzburg on 27 Jan­u­ary 1756. From an early age, Mozart showed great inter­est and extra­or­di­nary tal­ent in music. Already at five, he started com­pos­ing his first pieces, and impressed Euro­pean roy­alty with his mas­ter­ful key­board play.

His father, Leopold, a musi­cian and a minor com­poser, played a cru­cial role in Mozart’s musi­cal devel­op­ment. He was the one who taught Mozart his first min­uets, wrote down Mozart’s first com­po­si­tions and gave up his career to ded­i­cate him­self fully to his son.

Leopold Mozart playing music with his children Painting of Leopold Mozart

In 1762, the six-year-old Mozart together with his sis­ter and his father started tour­ing across Europe. Munich, Vienna, Prague, Mannheim, Paris, Lon­don… Dur­ing these trav­els, Mozart met many musi­cians and com­posers, includ­ing Johann Sebas­t­ian Bach, and fur­ther mas­tered his skills.

After a short return to Salzburg, Mozart again trav­elled across Europe in search of bet­ter employ­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties. He finally set­tled in Vienna in 1781, where a year later he mar­ried Con­stanze Weber.

Painting of Constanze Weber

Musi­cally, Mozart’s life in Vienna was a period of out­stand­ing cre­ativ­ity which saw the pro­duc­tion of many of his best known sym­phonies, con­cer­tos and operas, and his final Requiem.  Among the hold­ings of the National Library of Aus­tria, you can find the orig­i­nal manus­p­cipt of this last great work, incom­plete at his death in 1791.

Mozart's Requiem KV 626

Dur­ing his brief, busy life, Mozart com­posed over 600 works that to this day cap­ti­vate us with their melodic beauty. Some the most renowned mas­ter­pieces include Le Nozze di Figaro (The Mar­riage of Figaro), Don Gio­vanni, Cosi fan tutte and Die Zauber­flöte (The Magic Flute).

 

Learn more about Mozart and lis­ten to his mag­nif­i­cent music with Europeana.