Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart[2] (27 January 1756 – 5 December 1791), is a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era.
He composes over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, operatic, and choral music.
He is among the most enduringly popular of classical composers.
Mozart shows prodigious ability from his earliest childhood in Salzburg.
Already competent on keyboard and violin, he composes from the age of five and performs before European royalty.
At 17, he is engaged as a court musician in Salzburg, but grows restless and travels in search of a better position, always composing abundantly.
While visiting Vienna in 1781, he is dismissed from his Salzburg position.
He chooses to stay in the capital, where he achieves fame but little financial security.
During his final years in Vienna, he composes many of his best-known symphonies, concertos, and operas, and portions of the Requiem, which is largely unfinished at the time of his death.
The circumstances of his early death have been much mythologized.
He is survived by his wife Constanze and two sons.
Mozart learned voraciously from others, and developed a brilliance and maturity of style that encompassed the light and graceful along with the dark and passionate.
His influence on subsequent Western art music is profound.
Beethoven wrote his own early compositions in the shadow of Mozart, and Joseph Haydn wrote that "posterity will not see such a talent again in 100 years."
