Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 1756 – 5 December 1791) was a Classical composer and musician. During his short life, he created over 800 works, including many important examples of musical styles from his time, such as symphonies, concertos, chamber music, opera, and choral music.
Mozart was born in Salzburg and became a child prodigy under the guidance of his father, Leopold, who was a talented teacher. At age five, he could already play the keyboard and violin, had started composing music, and had performed for European royalty. His father took him on a long journey across Europe and three trips to Italy. At 17, he worked as a musician in the Salzburg court but later left to find better opportunities. A difficult search for work from 1777 to 1779 took him to Paris, Mannheim, Munich, and back to Salzburg. During this time, he wrote five violin concertos, the Sinfonia Concertante, several masses, and the opera Idomeneo.
In 1781, while visiting Vienna, Mozart had disagreements with his Salzburg employers and was fired. He decided to stay in Vienna for the rest of his life, where he gained fame and some financial success, though he never had long-term stability. In his early years in Vienna, he created important works, such as the opera Die Entführung aus dem Serail, the Great Mass in C minor, the "Haydn" Quartets, and many symphonies. During his time in Vienna, Mozart composed more than a dozen piano concertos, many of which are considered among his greatest achievements.
In his final years, Mozart created many of his most famous works, including his last three symphonies, the Jupiter Symphony, the serenade Eine kleine Nachtmusik, his Clarinet Concerto, the operas Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni, Così fan tutte, and Die Zauberflöte, the Piano Concerto No. 27, and his Requiem. The Requiem was not completed when he died at age 35.
Life and career
Modern scholars use many different sources to write about Mozart's life. These include about 1,500 pages of family letters, which are often colorful and interesting. Many of these letters were written when Mozart was away from his family during travels. Early biographies of Mozart were also written with help from his sister Nannerl, his wife Constanze, and others who knew him well. Old documents, such as newspaper articles and government records, have been found in libraries and archives. These documents have been studied, explained, and published. Additionally, Mozart's surviving manuscripts help historians understand the history and dates of his music. These include sketches, drafts, and signed copies of completed works, as well as a list of his own compositions that he kept.
Biographers of Mozart all use these same sources, but they often disagree about important details. These disagreements happen partly because some sources may not be completely truthful. For example, Friedrich Rochlitz, a publisher who wrote about Mozart after his death, is now considered unreliable. He made up stories to sell more of Mozart's music. Over time, biographers have become less likely to believe stories like Rochlitz's. They also focus more on facts about Mozart's life and the society he lived in, as noted by Stafford in 2003.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born on January 27, 1756, to Leopold Mozart and Anna Maria Pertl in Salzburg, Austria. Salzburg was the capital of the Archbishopric of Salzburg, a type of government ruled by a religious leader in the Holy Roman Empire. He was the youngest of seven children, and five of them died before reaching adulthood. His older sister was Maria Anna Mozart, known as "Nannerl." Mozart was baptized the day after his birth at St. Rupert's Cathedral in Salzburg. His name in the baptismal record was written in Latin as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart. As an adult, he usually called himself "Wolfgang Amadè Mozart," but his name had many different forms.
Leopold Mozart, who was born in Augsburg, was a minor composer and a skilled teacher. In 1743, he became a violinist in the music group of Count Leopold Anton von Firmian, the Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg. In 1747, he married Anna Maria in Salzburg. By 1763, Leopold became the deputy Kapellmeister, or assistant music director, of the orchestra. In the year Mozart was born, Leopold published a successful book about violin playing called Versuch einer gründlichen Violinschule.
When Nannerl was seven years old, she began taking piano lessons from her father, while her younger brother watched. Later, after Nannerl's brother died, she remembered that their father was their only teacher. Leopold taught his children music, languages, and other subjects. While Leopold was a devoted teacher, Mozart showed a strong desire to learn more than what was taught. His first written music and his early violin playing were his own ideas, which surprised Leopold. Leopold eventually stopped composing when he saw how talented his son was. He called Wolfgang "the miracle God allowed to be born in Salzburg."
When Mozart was young, his family traveled across Europe to perform as child prodigies. Their first performances were in 1762 at the court of Prince-Elector Maximilian III of Bavaria in Munich and at the courts in Vienna and Prague. A long concert tour followed, lasting three and a half years. The family visited many cities, including Munich, Mannheim, Paris, London, The Hague, Amsterdam, Utrecht, and returned to Paris. They then went home through Zürich, Donaueschingen, and Munich. During this trip, Mozart met many musicians and studied the works of other composers. One important influence was Johann Christian Bach, whom Mozart visited in London in 1764 and 1765. At age eight, Mozart wrote his first symphony, which was likely written down by his father.
Traveling was difficult, and conditions were rough. The family had to wait for invitations and money from nobles, and they faced serious illnesses far from home. Leopold became very sick in London during the summer of 1764, and both children fell ill in The Hague during the autumn of 1765. The family returned to Vienna in late 1767 and stayed there until December 1768.
After one year in Salzburg, Leopold and Wolfgang traveled to Italy, leaving Anna Maria and Nannerl at home. This trip lasted from December 1769 to March 1771. Leopold wanted to show his son's musical abilities to others. In Bologna, Mozart met Josef Mysliveček and Giovanni Battista Martini and was accepted into the famous Accademia Filarmonica. Leopold wrote a letter home from Rome saying that Mozart heard Gregorio Allegri's Miserere performed twice in the Sistine Chapel. He then wrote it down from memory, creating the "first unauthorized copy" of this piece. However, the details of this story are debated.
In Milan, Mozart wrote the opera Mitridate, re di Ponto (1770), which was performed successfully. This led to more opera commissions. He returned to Milan with his father twice for the composition and premieres of Ascanio in Alba (1771) and Lucio Silla (1772). Leopold hoped these visits would lead to a professional job for his son. Archduke Ferdinand, a ruler, considered hiring Mozart, but Empress Maria Theresa, his mother, refused to employ someone she called "useless." Leopold's hopes were never realized.
Most of the music Mozart wrote during this time is not well known today, except for one piece: the solo motet Exsultate, jubilate, K. 165, written for the castrato Venanzio Rauzzini. This work is still performed by sopranos today.
After returning from Italy on March 13, 1773, Mozart was hired as a court musician by Prince-Archbishop Hieronymus Colloredo of Salzburg. He had many friends and opportunities to compose in different styles, including symphonies, concertos, sonatas, string quartets, masses, serenades, and a few operas.
A major part of Mozart's work during this time was violin concertos. He wrote one in 1773 and four more in 1775. These are the only violin concertos he ever composed, and they show increasing musical complexity. The last three—K. 216, K. 218, and K. 219—are still performed today.
In 1776, Mozart focused on piano concertos, with the E♭ concerto, K. 271, written in early 1777, considered a major breakthrough.
Despite his artistic achievements, Mozart became unhappy in Salzburg. His salary was low, and he wanted to write operas, but Salzburg rarely offered opportunities for this. The situation worsened in 1775 when the court theatre closed, and the other theatre was used mainly for
Appearance and character
Mozart’s appearance was described by tenor Michael Kelly in his book Reminiscences: “a very small man, very thin and pale, with a lot of fine, light-colored hair, which he was somewhat proud of.” His early biographer, Niemetschek, noted, “There was nothing special about his body. He was small, and his face, except for his large, intense eyes, did not show signs of his talent.” His skin had pits, a result of a childhood illness called smallpox. His wife later wrote that his voice was a tenor, soft when speaking and gentle when singing. However, when excited or needed to be strong, his voice became powerful and energetic.
Mozart liked to wear elegant clothes. Kelly recalled seeing him at a rehearsal wearing a bright red coat and a hat with gold trim, helping the orchestra keep time with the music. Portraits from his time suggest he often wore a powdered wig tied in a long braid for formal events, following 18th-century fashion.
Mozart worked long hours and completed compositions quickly as deadlines approached. He created many sketches, from short notes to full drafts, for his music. Although his wife destroyed many of these, about 320 sketches and drafts remain, representing about 10% of his total work.
Mozart lived in the center of Vienna’s musical community and knew many people, including musicians, actors, aristocrats, and Emperor Joseph II. His closest friends were Gottfried von Jacquin, Count August Hatzfeld, and Sigmund Barisani. Others included Joseph Haydn, singers Franz Xaver Gerl and Benedikt Schack, and horn player Joseph Leutgeb. Leutgeb and Mozart often played jokes on each other, with Leutgeb usually being the target.
Mozart enjoyed playing billiards, dancing, and had pets, including a canary, a starling, a dog, and a horse for riding. He had a strong interest in humor about bodily functions, which appears in his letters, especially those to his cousin Maria Anna Thekla Mozart around 1777–1778, and in letters to his sister and parents. He also wrote humorous musical pieces called canons that he performed with friends. He was fluent in Latin, Italian, and French, as well as his native Salzburg dialect of German. He may have also known some English, as he once jokingly wrote to his student Thomas Attwood, “You are an ass,” after Attwood made a mistake in his work.
Mozart was raised as a Catholic and remained a practicing Catholic his entire life. He joined Freemasonry in 1784 and stayed a member until his death.
Works, musical style, and innovations
Mozart's music, along with Haydn's, is a classic example of the Classical style. When Mozart began composing, European music was dominated by the style galant, which was a reaction against the complex Baroque style. The new Classical style changed how music was written, mostly replacing multiple independent melodies with a single melody and accompaniment. It took time for this style to gain the same level of importance as the Baroque style. After the deaths of Bach and Handel, few compositions from that time are still widely performed today. Mozart, although very talented, was influenced by the musical trends of his time. Most of his early works were shaped by the styles of his era and are not often performed today. An exception is his Piano Concerto No. 9, K. 271, written in 1777, which some describe as a major breakthrough. Charles Rosen called it "perhaps the first clear masterpiece in the Classical style." As Mozart grew, his music became more complex, especially in the use of chromatic harmony and the return of counterpoint, partly inspired by his work with Gottfried van Swieten.
Mozart was a versatile composer who wrote in many major musical forms, including symphonies, operas, solo concertos, chamber music such as string quartets and quintets, and piano sonatas. These forms were not new, but Mozart improved their technical skill and emotional depth. He composed many vocal works, such as concert arias, songs, and canons, from his earliest years until his death. He played a major role in developing and popularizing the Classical piano concerto. He also wrote a lot of religious music, including large-scale masses, as well as dances, divertimenti, serenades, and other types of light entertainment.
The main features of the Classical style are clearly found in Mozart's music. Clarity, balance, and transparency are key aspects of his work. However, his most powerful compositions, such as the Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor, K. 491; the Symphony No. 40 in G minor, K. 550; and the opera Don Giovanni, show great depth and complexity. Charles Rosen noted that during his final years, Mozart often used chromatic harmony. A clear example is his String Quartet in C major, K. 465 (1785), which has many chromatic suspensions. This led to its nickname, the "Dissonance" quartet.
Mozart had the ability to take useful elements from other composers' music and adapt them. His travels helped him create a unique style. In London as a child, he met Johann Christian Bach and heard his music. In Paris, Mannheim, and Vienna, he encountered other influences and the advanced techniques of the Mannheim orchestra. In Italy, he was inspired by the Italian overture and opera buffa, which greatly influenced his development. In London and Italy, the galant style was popular: simple, light music with a strong focus on cadences, the tonic, dominant, and subdominant keys, symmetrical phrases, and clearly defined sections in musical movements. Some of Mozart's early symphonies are Italian overtures, with three movements that flow into each other. Many are homotonal, meaning all three movements share the same key signature, with the middle movement in the relative minor. Others resemble the works of J. C. Bach, while others show the simple rounded binary forms used by Viennese composers.
As Mozart matured, he gradually included more elements from the Baroque style, especially the works of George Friedrich Handel and Johann Sebastian Bach. For example, the Symphony No. 29 in A major, K. 201, has a contrapuntal main theme in its first movement and uses irregular phrase lengths. Some of his quartets from 1773 have fugues in their final movements, likely influenced by Haydn, who had included three such finales in his recently published Opus 20 set. The influence of the Sturm und Drang period, which briefly introduced Romantic-era ideas, is visible in the works of both composers. Mozart's Symphony No. 25 in G minor, K. 183, is a strong example. Harold C. Schonberg wrote that "Mozart's use of counterpoint is not like Bach's, but Mozart was inspired by Bach to use various contrapuntal techniques with confidence. The peak of this is the final movement of the Jupiter Symphony, where contrasting themes are arranged, controlled, and performed in one of the most powerful and moving passages in music."
Mozart often shifted his focus between operas and instrumental music. He composed operas in all the major styles of his time, including opera buffa, such as Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni, and Così fan tutte; opera seria, such as Idomeneo; and Singspiel, with Die Zauberflöte being the most famous example.
Mozart used small changes in instrumentation, orchestral texture, and tone color to create emotional depth and highlight dramatic changes. Alex Ross wrote: "The balance between light and dark is clear in the Andante of the Sinfonia Concertante for Violin and Viola, from 1779-80. A charming four-bar melody appears twice: first in E-flat major and later in C minor. The first time, the major key briefly hints at the relative minor. The second time, the minor key is touched by major, creating the image of a light in the night. These two passages are nearly the same, but the space between them feels like the space of a novel." In this way, his progress in opera and instrumental music influenced each other: his use of the orchestra in symphonies and concertos shaped his operatic orchestration, and his growing skill in using the orchestra to express emotions in his operas was later reflected in his non-operatic
Editions, catalogues, and recordings
After Mozart died in 1791, publishers wanted to create a complete printed collection of all his music. Both Breitkopf & Härtel and Johann Anton André talked with Mozart's wife, Constanze, about this. They both published many of his works, but they did not complete all of them. Publishing Mozart's music helped Constanze and her two children avoid poverty and live comfortably.
During the first decades of the 19th century, people realized the need for a truly complete edition of Mozart's music. Scholars, including Johannes Brahms, worked on this effort, leading to the creation of the Alte Mozart-Ausgabe (Old Mozart Edition), published from 1877 to 1883. Over time, problems with this edition became clear. Between 1956 and 2007, a new group of scholars created the Neue Mozart-Ausgabe (New Mozart Edition), which is now the standard. With help from grants, the Neue Mozart-Ausgabe is available online today.
Along with complete editions, scholars have worked to create musical catalogs. These catalogs describe each work, include the beginning part of the music (called an incipit), and estimate when the work was completed. They also identify pieces that are not actually by Mozart, such as his supposed 37th Symphony. Mozart himself made the earliest catalog of his works, covering the years 1784 to 1791. After his death, scholars like Johann Anton André tried to complete a catalog, but this was only finished in 1862 by Ludwig Ritter von Köchel. His system of numbering Mozart's works with "K" or "KV" is now standard. Since then, the catalog has been updated several times. In 2024, the ninth edition, edited by Neal Zaslaw, was completed. This edition changed the dates of many works based on advances in handwriting analysis (especially by Wolfgang Plath) and the study of watermarks (as described by Tyson in 1987). These methods provided clear evidence for dating works that earlier scholars could only guess about.
Recording companies also aim to create complete collections of Mozart's music. Many have released large sets of recordings (170–250 compact disks) to include all of his works.
Instruments
The child Mozart was taught to play the harpsichord (he also learned to play the violin, sing, and dance), and his earliest musical compositions were written for this instrument. An important change in European music, which happened around the same time as Mozart's life, was the switch from the harpsichord to the piano. This was not the modern grand piano we know today, but a lighter version called the fortepiano.
Mozart's keyboard music up to a certain point (the exact time is not clear) was written with the harpsichord in mind. One of the first times Mozart may have seen pianos was during his trip to Munich between 1774 and 1775, where he may have encountered pianos made by Franz Jakob Späth, a builder from Regensburg. In 1777, while visiting Augsburg on a long journey to find work, Mozart was very impressed by the pianos made by Johann Andreas Stein. He wrote a detailed letter to his father about his admiration for these instruments. Later, Mozart's mother wrote that in Augsburg, pianos were everywhere, and that her son's piano playing had changed from how he played in Salzburg. She also noted that Mozart's piano playing became famous in Augsburg, and he, along with others like Clementi, was becoming part of the first group of well-known piano players.
In 1783, while living in Vienna, Mozart bought a fortepiano made by Anton Walter, a respected builder. He often played this piano in concerts across the city. After Mozart's death, this important instrument was saved and can now be seen at the Tanzmeisterhaus (the former home of the Mozart family, now a museum) in Salzburg. Starting around 1967, modern craftsmen began making fortepianos based on old designs, and these instruments are now commonly used to perform Mozart's piano music.
Legacy
Mozart's most famous student was Johann Nepomuk Hummel, a musician who helped bridge the Classical and Romantic music styles. As a child, Hummel lived with the Mozarts in Vienna for two years. However, Mozart's greater impact was on later composers. After his death, his reputation grew, and studying his musical works became essential for classical musicians. Beethoven, who was fifteen years younger than Mozart, was strongly influenced by his music. Many composers, such as Chopin (with his "Variations on 'Là ci darem la mano'") and Tchaikovsky (with his "Mozartiana"), honored Mozart's work.
Harold C. Schonberg wrote, "Mozart was the first modern psychologist of opera… The Marriage of Figaro opened the door to a new kind of opera. It is an exciting work with real people, and the music shows their true nature—lovable, vain, capricious, selfish, ambitious, forgiving, and unfaithful. Human beings are brought to life through the creativity and understanding of Mozart's musical mind." Schonberg also noted that many people consider Don Giovanni to be the greatest opera.
Ross wrote, "The slow part of the Piano Concerto No. 23 makes us feel wistful and dreamy; the ending of the Jupiter Symphony lifts us into a special kind of happy feeling that is uniquely Mozart's; and the powerful climax of Don Giovanni makes us feel a deep fear of being judged. The loss of innocence was also part of Mozart's life. Like others, he lived outside the perfect world he created through music."
Mozart's influence is still seen today in concerts, radio, recordings, and popular culture. The city of Salzburg, which Mozart left in frustration in 1781, is now a place where fans visit. Both of Mozart's homes are now museums, and Salzburg hosts a famous music festival (Salzburg Festival). The city also has the International Mozarteum Foundation, a leading institute for studying Mozart's life and works.