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W.A.Mozart (1756—1791)

1. Baptized as Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, born on January 27, 1756 in Salzburg in what is now Austria. His parents had six children, but only he and his eldest sister, Maria Anna, nicknamed “Nannerl” survived infancy.

2. His father, Leopold Mozart, was a native of Germany and also composed music, but was primarily a musician for the Prince Archbishop of Salzburg and pedagogue. He wrote a violin textbook which was well received when published in the same year Mozart was born.

3. Mozart began his training at the age of five and could play the clavier faultlessly. He had already begun composing small snippets of music by that time. Wolfgang’s father was his teacher, instructing him in languages and other academic areas.

4. From the time he was seven in 1762, he began traveling with his family to perform in various locations around Europe. While traveling with his father to Rome, having heard Allegri’s Miserere in the Sistine Chapel, Mozart transcribed it by ear, creating an unauthorized copy of a work which was jealously guarded by the Vatican.

5. Constanze Weber was Mozart’s wife, and her father Fridolin’s half-brother was the father of composer Carl Maria von Weber. Constanze had three sisters, Josepha, Aloysia and Sophie, who were all were trained as singers and later performed in premieres of a number of Mozart’s works.

6. His first symphony was written when he was only eight years old. He composed over 600 works which are cataloged in the “Kochel” and numbered according to the order in which they were composed. Mozart’s Requiem Mass was composed in 1791 and was left unfinished at the time of his death. Mozart composed Requiem with the belief it was for himself. The work was commissioned by an anonymous nobleman, who had intended to pass off the work as his own. The catalog’s number for Requiem is K 626.

7. Mozart was awarded the Order of the Golden Spur, a prestigious papal order of knighthood bestowed upon individuals who have contributed to the fame of the Church, by Pope Clement XIV in 1770 for his many religious compositions.

8. The Magic Flute was the last opera Mozart composed and premiered on September 30, 1791, roughly three months before he died. Mozart himself conducted the orchestra, while the librettist, Emanuel Schikaneder, sang the role of Papageno.

9. Interestingly, his lifelong rival Antonio Salieri claimed he had poisoned Mozart, but this was never verified and regarded to have been false. No one is quite sure of the exact cause of his untimely death, although many people have speculated on the source.

10. Mozart died on November 20, 1791. Joseph Haydn once told Mozart’s father, “I tell you before God, and as an honest man, your son is the greatest composer known to me by person and repute, he has taste and what is more the greatest skill in composition.”