Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
(Classic Era-Austria)

Born: January 27, 1756, Salzburg Austria
Died: December 5, 1791, Vienna, Austria

In his own words . . .

"People make a mistake who think that my art has come easily to me. Nobody has devoted so much time and thought to composition as I. There is not a famous master whose music I have not studied over and over."

Austrian composer. One of the leading composers of the Classic era and a master in all genres.

Our picture of Mozart depends upon where we focus. Was he a brilliant, successful composer or a child prodigy who never grew up? Was he a facile composer who created nothing original or a composer of great emotional depth? He was all of these things and more. Many of us are guided by our exposure to Mozart's personality in the film Amadeus. But does the movie paint an accurate picture of the composer?

Mozart's life remains a complicated puzzle. As a child, he seemed gifted beyond all measure, playing at age six before the empress and composing at an even earlier age. By twelve, he had written an opera, and his talents seemed to know no bounds. From this auspicious beginning, one would have predicted a future filled with prestigious royal appointments, as a brilliant composer and performer constantly sought out by emperors and kings. But Mozart's career, which ended tragically with his death at age thirty-five, was a constant disappointment. When once asked about the meager court appointment he held, Mozart replied: "I get paid far too much for what I do, and far too little for what I could do." His music did not always please those in power: "Too many notes," Emperor Joseph II was reported to have said. And Mozart himself, who always felt that his talents were never adequately recognized, was often difficult.

The difficulties of Mozart the man, however, are eclipsed by the enormous power of Mozart the musician. His music was often joyous and almost raucous, and yet he could also write melodies of simple and haunting beauty. Like Haydn and Beethoven, Mozart was just as comfortable writing simple, direct melodies as he was writing complicated contrapuntal works. There seems to have been no genre in which he was not comfortable, and we can rightly point to his best work in any genre as the epitome of that genre.

Works Summary

Orchestral music: 50 symphonies; 39 concertos (27 for piano and orch); serenades and other dance entertainment music

22 Operas

Keyboard music, including 17 piano sonatas and Fantasia in C minor

Chamber music, including 23 string quartets, string quintets, a clarinet quintet, an oboe quartet, a flute quartet, piano trios and quartets, sonatas for violin and piano, and divertimentos and serenades

Chamber music, choral music, and songs

Choral music, including 18 Masses; the Requiem, K. 626 (incomplete, 1791); and other liturgical music

A Note: Mozart composed more than 600 works during his short life. In concert programs and recordings, each work is identified by a number preceded by the letter "K." The "K" stands for Ludwig Kochel, who cataloged Mozart's works in chronological order (so that a low "K number" indicates an early work). View a complete listing of Kochel's catalog.