Wolfgang    Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)

                                                                                 by  Theodora Hionaki,Grade  A-Advanced

Wolfgang  Amadeus 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 5 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 omposing abundantly.He chose to stay in the capital,Vienna, where he achieved fame but little financial security.

During his final years in Vienna,he composed many of his best known symphonies ,concertos ,operas and portions of the ‘Requiem’ ,which was largely unfinished by the time of his death.The circumstances of his  early death have been much  mythologised.He was survived by his wife,Constanze and two sons.

He  composed over 600 works.Mozart is among the most enduringly popular of Classical composers and his influence on subsequent  Western  Art Music  is  profound.Beethoven composed his early works in the shadow of Mozart  and Joseph  Haydn wrote that ‘posterity will not see such a talent again in 100 years’!