Inspirational Quotes by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Austrian Composer)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–91,) fully Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was an Austrian composer who wrote in all the musical genera of his day and excelled in every one. His mastery of the whole range of contemporary instrumental and vocal forms—including the symphony, concerto, chamber music, and especially the opera—was unsurpassed in his own time and maybe in any other.

Born in Salzburg, Mozart was a child prodigy. He displayed early musical gifts, playing the keyboard confidently at the age of four, composing his first pieces for it at five, and soon mastering the violin. His father, the composer and conductor Leopold Mozart, undertook a series of tours of the European courts 1762–65 to showcase Wolfgang and his sister Maria Anna. Amadeus composed his first symphonies during the trip.

In the 1770s, Mozart worked at the Prince Archbishop’s court in Salzburg and wrote masses, symphonies, and his first major piano concerto. In the 1780s, he moved to Vienna and became court composer to the Austrian Emperor in 1787. In this decade, he composed and performed his greatest symphonies, piano concertos, and string quartets, as well as operas, including The Marriage of Figaro (1786,) Don Giovanni (1787,) Così fan tutte (1790,) and The Magic Flute (1791.) Altogether, he composed more than 600 works, sharpening the classical style and foreshadowing Romanticism.

Of the many general biographies, Mozart: His Character, His Work by Allred Einstein (English edition 1946) is still considered the best. Eduard Miirike’s novella Mozart auf seiner Reise nach Prag (1855, ‘Mozart’s Journey to Prague’) is a fictional romance based on Mozart’s visit to Prague for the first production there of Don Giovanni.

More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart