1756–1791 · Classical
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) was an Austrian composer of the Classical period, the author of the operas The Marriage of Figaro and The Magic Flute, and of dozens of symphonies and keyboard works. As a child he already astonished Europe as a performing prodigy, and today his easier pieces, from a simple minuet to the famous 'Sonata facile', are among the first that beginner pianists learn worldwide.
Wolfgang was born on 27 January 1756 in Salzburg, to the court violinist Leopold Mozart and his wife Anna Maria. Of the couple's seven children only two survived — a daughter, Maria Anna, whom the family called Nannerl, and a son, Wolfgang. The day after he was born, the boy received baptism at Salzburg's cathedral of St. Rupert, where the church register set down his name in Latin; he himself later preferred simply to be called Wolfgang. His father served the Archbishop of Salzburg and, in the year of his son's birth, published a violin textbook that was later reprinted many times and translated into other languages.
Musical talent appeared very early. When seven-year-old Nannerl began keyboard lessons with their father, three-year-old Wolfgang would sit beside her and work out chords on his own. At four his father began teaching him minuets, and the boy picked them up almost instantly; by five he was composing small pieces of his own, which his father wrote down for him. Leopold kept music books for his children: Nannerl's has not survived complete, though it is the one that holds Wolfgang's earliest compositions; Wolfgang's own book, by contrast, has survived complete and contains pieces by Telemann, C. P. E. Bach, Kirchhoff and other composers. By the age of six the boy had also taught himself the violin, almost without instruction. Leopold remained the children's only teacher, giving them not just music but languages, arithmetic and history; they never attended school at all.
Wanting his son to be known first as a performer and then as a composer, Leopold began touring the courts of Europe with the children. In January 1762 came a trial trip to Munich, where Wolfgang and Nannerl played before the Elector of Bavaria. That autumn the family set off for Vienna: on the way, in Linz, noblemen who heard the children promised to tell the Viennese aristocracy about them, and at a monastery in Ibs, on the approach to Vienna, the boy tried playing the organ for the first time in his life. On 13 October 1762 the Mozarts were received at the summer residence of Schönbrunn — Wolfgang played for several hours before Empress Maria Theresa, handled performance tricks such as playing on a cloth-covered keyboard with ease, and was rewarded with a new suit of clothes.
In the summer of 1763 Leopold set off with the family on a far longer journey — it stretched over three years and took the Mozarts through German cities to Paris, London and The Hague. In Paris, seven-year-old Wolfgang published his first sonatas for harpsichord and violin and, together with his sister, performed before King Louis XV at Versailles. In London, where the family stayed for fifteen months, the boy grew close to Johann Christian Bach, the youngest son of Johann Sebastian Bach, and under his influence wrote his first symphony. The trip also brought severe hardship: in London his father fell seriously ill for a long stretch, and in The Hague both children nearly died of typhoid fever. The family returned home to Salzburg only at the end of 1766.
After returning from the long journey, ten-year-old Wolfgang was already regarded as an established composer. Between 1769 and 1773 his father took him to Italy several times: in Bologna he met the composer Giovanni Battista Martini and was admitted to the Bologna Philharmonic Academy, while in Rome, according to family tradition, he heard Gregorio Allegri's polyphonic Miserere performed twice in the Sistine Chapel and later wrote it down from memory. In Milan his opera Mitridate, re di Ponto (1770) was staged with success, followed by Lucio Silla (1772). Before he turned eighteen he had already written four operas, thirteen symphonies and twenty-four sonatas.
In 1773, on returning from Italy, Mozart entered the service of the Salzburg court under Archbishop Hieronymus Colloredo, and from 1779 also held the post of court organist there. The position let him write symphonies, concertos and masses, but the salary stayed modest, and the operas he most wanted to compose were rarely commissioned by the city. In January 1781 his opera Idomeneo premiered successfully in Munich, marking an important step in the development of his operatic writing — its choruses and orchestration in particular were praised.
Soon after the success of Idomeneo, Archbishop Colloredo summoned Mozart to Vienna, where his retinue had gathered for the celebrations of Emperor Joseph II's accession to the throne. There the composer was treated as a servant, ordered to dine with the archbishop's valets and cooks. After months of being honoured in Munich, such treatment deeply offended Mozart. In the spring of 1781 he submitted his resignation, but it was granted only in June, and in humiliating fashion — according to contemporaries, the archbishop's steward literally shoved him out the door. Mozart decided to stay in Vienna and try to live as an independent composer, against his father's wish that he return to Salzburg.
In Vienna Mozart moved into the home of the Weber family and became attached to the middle daughter, Constanze. In December 1781 he told his father of his intention to marry, and on 4 August 1782 the couple were wed at St. Stephen's Cathedral. Six children were born to the marriage, and only two of them lived past infancy: Karl Thomas and Franz Xaver Wolfgang.
Mozart's early years in Vienna brought him wide recognition as both pianist and composer: his Singspiel Die Entführung aus dem Serail premiered in Vienna on 16 July 1782 and was soon performed across German-speaking Europe. In 1786 the premiere of Le nozze di Figaro, to a libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte, was a success in Vienna, and a year later Don Giovanni, their second collaboration, premiered in Prague. Both operas were at first difficult for listeners and performers because of their musical complexity, but today rank among the most performed operas of all.
Around 1784 Mozart grew close to Haydn and dedicated to him six string quartets written between 1782 and 1785; after hearing some of them, Haydn told the composer's father that he considered his son the greatest master he knew by name and reputation. In these same years Mozart took an interest in the music of Bach and Handel from Baron van Swieten's collection, which noticeably influenced his own style, and in December 1784 he joined one of the Vienna Masonic lodges, after which he often composed music for Masonic gatherings.
At the end of 1787 Mozart finally obtained a steady court position: Emperor Joseph II appointed him 'chamber composer' with a salary of 800 florins a year, though he was required mainly to write dance music for the court balls. That same year his father Leopold died without ever learning of the appointment. Toward the end of the decade Mozart's fortunes worsened: the Austro-Turkish War hurt the income of the Viennese nobility, concerts and commissions grew scarcer, and the composer was forced to borrow money from friends, most often from Michael Puchberg.
Despite the hardship, it was then that his last three symphonies appeared — Nos. 39, 40 and 41, all written in the summer of 1788 — along with the Clarinet Quintet of 1789 and the opera Così fan tutte (1790). His final year, 1791, turned out to be surprisingly productive: Mozart completed the Clarinet Concerto, the motet Ave verum corpus, his final piano concerto, and the opera Die Zauberflöte, and began composing the Requiem. By that autumn his finances were also improving — patrons in Hungary and Amsterdam promised him a steady income.
On 20 November 1791 Mozart fell seriously ill — swelling, pain and vomiting set in; the exact cause of his illness is still unknown, and doctors of the time called it 'severe miliary fever'. He died at home on the night of 5 December, aged 35. He was buried on 7 December at Vienna's St. Marx Cemetery in an individual grave, the ordinary practice of the time for townspeople without noble rank — not a shared grave, and not a pauper's grave, as is sometimes thought; ten years later such graves were reopened, so Mozart's exact burial spot remained unknown. His unfinished Requiem was later completed by his student Franz Xaver Süssmayr.
Mozart worked in all the principal musical genres of his time: he wrote operas, symphonies, chamber and keyboard music, concertos for various instruments, and organ and vocal works — and, unlike many of his contemporaries, achieved results in each of these genres that are still considered models today. He himself played the harpsichord, piano, organ and violin with equal ease, so his keyboard pieces sound as natural and carefully judged as his orchestral scores: a clear melody set over a transparent texture that leaves no unevenness of playing to hide behind. That very transparency makes Mozart one of the most demanding composers for a pupil — a part can look simple on the page, yet any mistake in it is heard at once.
The site's catalogue mostly gathers Mozart's piano works from different years and levels. For an absolute beginning, the short Minuet KV 2, written in childhood, is a good fit; next come the study fugues KV 153 and KV 154, useful for getting used to polyphonic playing. Further along are works of medium and advanced level: all three movements of the famous 'Sonata facile' KV 545, worked through by almost every music-school pupil, the more extended Sonata KV 309, the Gigue KV 574, and the three movements of the C minor Sonata KV 457, one of Mozart's most dramatic keyboard works. There is also an unfinished C major sonata left with no catalogue number at all — a rare chance to see the composer's draft thinking.
Besides the solo keyboard pieces, the catalogue includes arrangements for voice and piano — an aria from The Magic Flute and the aria 'Notte e giorno' from Don Giovanni — plus the choral piece 'Abendruhe' and the playful orchestral piece 'Ein musikalischer Spass'. These editions suit players who already perform Mozart's keyboard works and want to hear the same musical language in his operas and ensembles. It makes sense to start with the shortest, clearest-textured pieces in the collection and only then move on to the sonatas — that way it is easier to see how Mozart builds a coherent, finished form out of simple material.