Mozart

From comic operas and dazzling concertos to a little light, night music and the solemnity of a requiem, Mozart’s prodigious legacy has given us some of the finest works in the classical repertoire. A child prodigy, who was playing and composing before most other children could write, Mozart produced an enormous output in his short life, and yet he died penniless.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in Salzburg, Austria, where his father, Leopold, was a court musician to the Archbishop-Prince of Salzburg. One of seven children, only Mozart and his sister, Maria Anna, four years his senior, survived infancy. Both of them showed early musical promise although Maria Anna was soon overtaken at the keyboard by her brother when he was only four years old.

His upbringing was unconventional. Taught by his father, Mozart was way ahead in his education compared to other boys his age. His enthusiasm for music was boundless – he could find his way round a harpsichord at three, played the violin at four and was composing his own pieces a year later. At the time he also impressed a musician friend of his father, Andreas Schachtner, by playing second violin to his first. Mozart, despite wrong fingering, so impressed Schachtner that he stopped playing to listen to the five-year-old. At the age of six, he went on his first tour with his family. To impress the audience, he and his sister would play duets, sometimes with a cloth covering their hands. By the time they reached Vienna, their reputation preceded them. The family lived like this for many years, touring and playing all over Europe.