by Maurice Sassoon

Created on: September 09, 2008   Last Updated: January 25, 2012

Wolfang Amadeus Mozart was a great composer, or a writer of original music, who lived in Austria about two hundered years ago. He began his musical career by playing the harpsichord (an instrument somewhat like a piano) when he was only 3 years of age. At the age of 5 he began composing music. He was born in Salzburg, Austria in 1756. His father was a gifted musician, and his older sister had musical talent also. When she was 10 and young Mozart was 6, they gave concerts in Munich and Vienna.

Mozart's first published work (four sonatas for harpsichord and violin) were brought out when he was only eight years old. Three years later, the Holy Roman Emperor, Joseph II, hired him to compose a light opera, for which he was paid, and the Empress Maria Theresa hired him to compose a mass for her. He did so, and conducted it himself in her presence in Vienna, the following year. This paved the way for him to continue to express his talent. He was apppointed concert master of the cathedral at Salzburg, but he was not happy in this position. It was a time when a new archbishop was appointed; but according to the customs of the times, he was unable to get another job, if he vacated that position. He finally resigned his position, in 1777, at the age of 21. Around this time, he composed more than two hundred works that included grand operas, masses and symphonies.

Mozart was considered the most talented pianist in Europe, as well as an accomplished organist and violinist. In 1777, he went to Munich, then Mannheim, from where he proceeded to Paris. But he found it dificult to earn money. Musicians in that period were seldom paid enough to live on. He returned to Salzburg in 1779 where he obtained a new and better contract with the archbishop.

Between 1780 and 1791, the year of his death, Mozart composed six operas. His best known operas today are The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, and the Magic Flute. Within three months, in 1788, he wrote his three greatest symphonies, the thirty-ninth, fortieth and foty-first (called the Jupiter Symphony).

In 1782, Mozart married a young woman named Constanza Weber. They had several children, but only two of the children lived past infancy. When he died in 179l, after a long period of strenuous work and failing health, he was credited with more than eight hundred compositions for the piano, for orchestra, and for singers. Hed lived to be only 35.

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