Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart | 1756-1791

Mozart is one of the best-known composers ever! People have loved his music for hundreds of years, and still do.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 - 1791) was born and lived in Austria. He was born into a musical family, and from small child, he was immensely interested in music. Starting at the age of six (in 1763), Mozart and his older sister Maria Anna (Nannerl) started playing piano and violin in major cities and in courts to royal families. The family traveled a lot in many European cities. They were so good that the audiences just loved them!

Wolfgang also started composing music at age 5! He was very talented both as a composer and as a pianist. 

​As an adult, he earned his living as a composer and as a pianist, sometimes holding a job at some court or city, sometimes just earning money from performing and composing. He married Constance in 1782 at the age of 26. They had six children, but only two of them grew to be adults (the rest died as infants).

Mozart died very young, at the age of 35, when he fell seriously ill with something (we do not know for sure what illness it was). He also died very poor because he did not handle money very wisely, and he was not always earning lots of it.

The style of the music he wrote is called CLASSICAL. Classical music, as people commonly call it today, comprises different time periods: first the Baroque style music in the 1600s to about 1750, then the Classical style music in the late 1700s to early 1800s, and then the Romantic style music in the late 1800s. So, the type of music Mozart wrote is in the "classical" style.

Some of his most famous pieces of music are: "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik", "Requiem", and his operas "The Magic Flute", "Don Giovanni", "The Marriage of Figaro", and "Cosi Fan Tutte."