Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

**Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart** (27 January 1756 – 5 December 1791), baptised as **Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart**, (simply known as **Mozart**) was a prolific and influential composer of the classical era.

Born in Salzburg, Mozart showed prodigious ability from his earliest childhood. Already competent on keyboard and violin, he composed from the age of five and performed before European royalty. At 17, Mozart was engaged as a musician at the Salzburg court but grew restless and traveled in search of a better position. While visiting Vienna in 1781, he was dismissed from his Salzburg position. He chose to stay in the capital, where he achieved fame but little financial security. During his final years in Vienna, he composed many of his best-known symphonies, concertos, and operas, and portions of the Requiem, which was largely unfinished at the time of his early death at the age of 35. The circumstances of his death have been much mythologized

Mozart is Consider One of the greatest musical geniuses in history, and widely recognized as one of the greatest composers in the history of Western music. raised a devout Catholic until his death, the Catholic Church played an important role in his life and career, with Mass have been a
regular part of his life.

Mozart also composed more than 60 pieces of sacred music.
including several masses and separate mass movements (such as Kyrie). The majority were written between 1773 and 1781, when he was employed as court musician to the Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg.

## Life and career

### Family and childhood

*Main article: Mozart's name*

Born on January 27, 1756, he was baptized the next day as Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, at St. Rupert’s Cathedral in Salzburg. He would later drop the Johannes Chrysostomus (added by custom because he was born on the feast of St. John Chrysostom), and change the Greek Theophilus to the Latin equivalent Amadeus (one who loves God, or one who is loved by God).

Wolfgang and his sister were raised in a devout and strictly observant Catholic household. Their parents, Leopold and Anna Maria, encouraged family devotions and prayer, fasting, regular attendance at Mass, frequent confession, the veneration of saints, frequent confession. and other typically Catholic devotions.

Wolfgang at the age of three was wont to spend whole hours at the piano, discovering, to his great joy, consonant intervals, and was not yet four when he began to receive from his father systematic training in piano-playing and in the theory of music, improvising even before he could write notes. Violin-playing came to him practically by intuition, a fact which he demonstrated to the astonishment of his father and a company of artists, by performing at first sight the second violin part in a trio for stringed instruments. He was not yet five when his father wrote for him a theme for the piano with variations, which he had himself composed. So correct was the child's ear that he would remember the tone pitch of a violin which he had heard even weeks before. His sensitiveness was such that harsh sounds were distressing to him, a blast of a trumpet almost causing him to faint away.

In his early years, Wolfgang's father was his only teacher. Along with music, he taught his children languages and academic subjects. Solomon notes that, while Leopold was a devoted teacher to his children, there is evidence that Mozart was keen to progress beyond what he was taught. His first ink-spattered composition and his precocious efforts with the violin were of his own initiative, and came as a surprise to Leopold, who eventually gave up composing when his son's musical talents became evident.

Wolfgang was not yet eight years old when his father undertook a concert tour with his two children, visiting Munich, Vienna, and Presburg. Everywhere their performances, especially the boy's, created great astonishment. In 1763 Leopold Mozart visited Paris with his prodigies, and the following April London, where they remained until July, 1764. Received and fêted by royalty and people of high station, the Mozart children, but particularly Wolfgang, were considered musical wonders of the world. On their way back to Salzburg they visited The Hague and the principal cities of France and Switzerland.

## Notes

1. ↑ Sources vary in how Mozart's name should be pronounced in English. Fradkin (1996), a guide for radio announcers, strongly recommends ts for letter *z* , but otherwise considers English-like pronunciation fully acceptable.
2. ↑ Mozart's exact name involved many complications; for details, see Mozart's name.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Encyclopedia Britannica)
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Johann Chrysostomus Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Catholic Encyclopedia)
3. ↑ Mozart, Catholic Faith, and Freemasonry (Forrest Guittar)
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Catholic Composers: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (www.catholicworldreport.com)
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Eisen and Keefe (2006, 324)
6. ↑ Cliff Eisen, Simon P. Keefe (eds.) *The Cambridge Mozart Encyclopedia*. Cambridge University Press, 2005. ISBN 978-0-511-13767-9. ISBN 0-511-13767-2. ISBN 978-0-521-85659-1. ISBN 0-521-85659-0. pp. 271–280
7. ↑ Allen, John (1 September 2006). "Mozart: Catholic, Master Mason, favorite of the pope". *National Catholic Reporter*. Archived from the original on 4 December 2007. https://web.archive.org/web/20071204040828/http://ncronline.org/NCR\_Online/archives2/2006c/090106/090106i.php. Retrieved 10 November 2007.
8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 Solomon, Maynard (1995). *Mozart: A Life* (1st ed.). New York City: HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-06-019046-0. OCLC 31435799.
9. ↑ Deutsch, Otto Erich (1965). *Mozart: A Documentary Biography.* Peter Branscombe, Eric Blom, Jeremy Noble (trans.). Stanford: Stanford University Press. ISBN 978-0-8047-0233-1. OCLC 8991008.