Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
The Divine Prodigy
On 12 January 1782, a twenty-five-year-old composer sat in a cramped Vienna apartment, writing to his father in Salzburg. He had just quit the service of the Archbishop, been literally kicked out of his patron’s antechamber, and was attempting to survive as a freelance musician in the most competitive city in Europe. He had nine years to live. In those nine years, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart would compose The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, Così fan tutte, The Magic Flute, the last three symphonies, the Clarinet Concerto, and the Requiem — a body of work that would define Western music for centuries.
“I pay no attention whatever to anybody’s praise or blame. I simply follow my own feelings.”
1756–1791
Born Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart on 27 January 1756 in Salzburg. Died on 5 December 1791 in Vienna, aged thirty-five. His death remains one of the great mysteries of musical history.
600+
Mozart completed over 600 works catalogued by Köchel numbers, including 41 symphonies, 27 piano concertos, 23 string quartets, and over 20 operas — in just thirty years of composing.
Age 5
Mozart composed his first pieces at the age of five. By six he had performed before Empress Maria Theresa in Vienna and was touring the courts of Europe.
7
His seven mature operas — Idomeneo, The Abduction from the Seraglio, The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, Così fan tutte, La clemenza di Tito, and The Magic Flute — transformed the art form forever.
The greatest musical genius of the Western world, who composed over 600 works across every genre of his time and died at thirty-five, leaving behind the Requiem unfinished
Defining Events
The Child Who Conquered Europe
At the age of seven, Wolfgang and his sister Nannerl embarked on a three-and-a-half-year tour of Europe with their father Leopold. They performed before Louis XV at Versailles, George III in London, and dozens of courts and concert halls across the continent. In London, young Mozart met Johann Christian Bach, whose galant style would shape his own musical language.
The Marriage of Figaro
With librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte adapting Beaumarchais’s banned play, Mozart created an opera that was simultaneously a comedy of manners, a meditation on class, and a revolution in musical drama. The premiere at Vienna’s Burgtheater was a sensation — Emperor Joseph II reportedly had to ban encores to keep the performance under four hours. It remains the most performed opera in the world.
The Magic Flute and the Requiem
In the final year of his life, Mozart composed two works that stand among the greatest achievements in Western music. Die Zauberflöte premiered on 30 September 1791 to packed houses at the Theater auf der Wieden. Meanwhile, a mysterious commission for a Requiem Mass consumed his final weeks. He died on 5 December, leaving the Requiem unfinished. His student Franz Xaver Süßmayr completed it.
Timeline
Born in Salzburg
Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart is born on 27 January 1756 at Getreidegasse 9 in Salzburg, the seventh and last child of Leopold Mozart, a court musician and author of a celebrated violin method, and Anna Maria Pertl. Only Wolfgang and his older sister Maria Anna (‘Nannerl’) survive infancy.
First Performances Before Royalty
At the age of six, Wolfgang performs before Elector Maximilian III Joseph in Munich and then before Empress Maria Theresa and Emperor Francis I at Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna. Legend has it the child slipped on the polished floor and was helped up by the young Archduchess Marie Antoinette, to whom he proposed marriage on the spot.
The Grand Tour of Europe
Leopold takes Wolfgang and Nannerl on a tour of western Europe lasting three and a half years. They perform in Munich, Augsburg, Frankfurt, Brussels, Paris, London, and The Hague. In London, Wolfgang meets Johann Christian Bach and composes his first symphonies (K. 16 and K. 19). He is seven years old.
Three Italian Journeys
Leopold takes Wolfgang on three trips to Italy — the cradle of opera. In Rome, the fourteen-year-old writes out Allegri’s <em>Miserere</em> from memory at the Sistine Chapel. In Milan he premieres <em>Mitridate, re di Ponto</em> to over twenty consecutive performances. Pope Clement XIV awards him the Order of the Golden Spur.
Break with the Archbishop
After years of growing tension with his employer, Archbishop Hieronymus Colloredo of Salzburg, Mozart is literally kicked out of the Archbishop’s antechamber by Count Arco. He settles permanently in Vienna as one of the first major composers to attempt a freelance career, declaring to his father: ‘The heart ennobles the man.’
The Da Ponte Operas
In partnership with librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte, Mozart composes three operas that revolutionise the art form: <em>Le nozze di Figaro</em> (1786), <em>Don Giovanni</em> (1787), and <em>Così fan tutte</em> (1790). Joseph Haydn tells Leopold Mozart: ‘Before God and as an honest man, I tell you that your son is the greatest composer known to me either in person or by name.’
Appointed Imperial Chamber Composer
Following the death of Christoph Willibald Gluck, Emperor Joseph II appoints Mozart as Imperial and Royal Chamber Composer at a salary of 800 florins per year — less than half what Gluck had received. Mozart reportedly quips: ‘Too much for what I do, too little for what I could do.’ That same year, his father Leopold dies in Salzburg.
The Magic Flute, the Requiem, and Death
Mozart’s final year is a frenzy of composition: <em>La clemenza di Tito</em> for the coronation of Leopold II in Prague, <em>Die Zauberflöte</em> for Emanuel Schikaneder’s popular theatre in Vienna, the Clarinet Concerto (K. 622), and the unfinished Requiem. He dies on 5 December 1791 at 12:55 a.m., aged thirty-five. He is buried in a common grave at St. Marx Cemetery.
Key Figures
Joseph Haydn
The friendship between Haydn and Mozart is one of the most celebrated in the history of music. Twenty-four years Mozart’s senior, Haydn recognised the younger man’s genius immediately. After hearing Mozart’s string quartets dedicated to him, Haydn told Leopold Mozart: ‘Your son is the greatest composer known to me either in person or by name. He has taste and, what is more, the most profound knowledge of composition.’ Mozart, in turn, called Haydn his ‘dearest friend’ and wept when they parted for the last time.
Lorenzo Da Ponte
The Venetian adventurer, poet, and priest who provided Mozart with the words for his three greatest operas: <em>Le nozze di Figaro</em>, <em>Don Giovanni</em>, and <em>Così fan tutte</em>. Da Ponte’s brilliant libretti gave Mozart the dramatic material that drew out his deepest musical genius. After Mozart’s death, Da Ponte emigrated to America, where he became the first professor of Italian at Columbia University and introduced opera to New York City.
The Legacy of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Mozart did not live long enough to see the world understand what it had lost. He died at thirty-five in a rented apartment in Vienna, working on a Requiem he would never finish, and was buried in a common grave whose exact location has never been found. No monument marked the spot. No crowd attended.
Yet within a generation, the music he left behind had reshaped the entire landscape of Western art. His operas redefined what the human voice could express. His symphonies, concertos, and chamber works set standards that composers have measured themselves against ever since. Beethoven revered him. Tchaikovsky called him “the musical Christ.”
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