Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Opera, Composer

1756 – 1791

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Who was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart?

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, baptised as Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era.

Mozart showed prodigious ability from his earliest childhood. Already competent on keyboard and violin, he composed from the age of five and performed before European royalty. At 17, he was engaged as a court musician in Salzburg, but grew restless and travelled in search of a better position, always composing abundantly. While visiting Vienna in 1781, he was dismissed from his Salzburg position. He chose to stay in the capital, where he achieved fame but little financial security. During his final years in Vienna, he composed many of his best-known symphonies, concertos, and operas, and portions of the Requiem, which was largely unfinished at the time of his death. The circumstances of his early death have been much mythologized. He was survived by his wife Constanze and two sons.

Mozart learned voraciously from others, and developed a brilliance and maturity of style that encompassed the light and graceful along with the dark and passionate. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, operatic, and choral music. He is among the most enduringly popular of classical composers, and his influence on subsequent Western art music is profound; Beethoven composed his own early works in the shadow of Mozart, and Joseph Haydn wrote that "posterity will not see such a talent again in 100 years."

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Born
Jan 27, 1756
Altstadt Salzburg
Also known as
  • モーツァルト
  • W A Mozart
  • Wolfgang Amadeaus Mozart
  • Wolfgang Mozart
  • ヴォルフガンク・アマデウス・モーツァルト
  • Wolfgang Amedeus Mozart
  • Mozart
  • 모짜르트
  • W.A. Mozart
  • Вольфганг Амадей Моцарт
Parents
Siblings
Spouses
Children
Religion
  • Catholicism
Ethnicity
  • Austrians
Nationality
  • Holy Roman Empire
Profession
Lived in
  • Salzburg
    (1756 - 1781)
  • Vienna
    (1781 - )
Died
Dec 5, 1791
Vienna
Resting place
St. Marx Cemetery

Submitted
on July 23, 2013

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