Biography of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. 943 words. His family, childhood, and works are mentioned in this relatively short bio.

Essay by terri1975smithUniversity, Bachelor'sA+, March 2003

download word file, 4 pages 5.0

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is acknowledged as the greatest natural genius of music. Robert Schumann wrote, "There are things in the world about which nothing can be said, as Mozart's C Major Symphony, much of Shakespeare and pages of Beethoven." (Goulding, 1992, p. 115) Tchaikovsky called Mozart "the music Christ." (Goulding, 1992, p. 116)

Mozart was born in Salzburg, Austria on January 27, 1756. His full christened name was Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart. He commonly called himself Wolfgang Amade or Wolfgang Gottliet. His father, Leopold, was a composer, author, and a great violinist in the Archbishop of the Holy Roman Empire's orchestra. He taught him to play the piano at the age of four. By the time Mozart was six, he was a skilled musician.

Mozart never had an ordinary childhood. He didn't attend school as most of us would today, but instead, his father taught them at home.

He is said to have been very good at mathematics and he could also speak seven different languages! He was lucky enough to visit Vienna in 1762, Paris in 1763, London in 1764, and Italy in 1769 at the age of thirteen. (TopBiography.com, 2001)

As a young child in Rome, he wrote out the entire score of a nine-voice religious work after hearing it only twice! He wrote his first symphony at the age of eight, his first oratorio at eleven, and his first opera at the age of twelve. When he was fourteen, he conducted twenty performances of that opera. He was a recognizable person. The Pope decorated him and Empress Maria Theresa took note of him. (TopBiography.com, 2001)

When he was fifteen, he entered the service of the Archbishop in Salzburg in a minor capacity and kept that job for about ten years only leaving...