How to say the name:
‘Mozart’ is said like Moat-zart. ‘Wolfgang’ is said like ‘Volf-gang’, and ‘Amadeus’ is said like ‘A-ma-day-oos’.
Born:
27th January 1756 in Salzburg, Austria.
Died:
5th December 1791 in Vienna, Austria.
Buried:
Unknown pauper’s (poor person’s) grave in the St Marx cemetery, Vienna.
Type of Music:
Classical music from the classical period.
Some famous pieces:
- Eine kleine Nachtmusic (A Little Night Music). (See The Classical Period page for a video.)
- Rondo alla Turka. (See the Making Music is Tricky! news page for a video.)
- Plus many more!!
Some (very!) great pieces:
- Many symphonies, especially Nos. 40 and 41. (See below and the Classical Music page for videos.)
- The operas Don Giovanni, Le nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro), Così fan tutte (Women are Like That) and Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute). (See below for a video from Die Zauberflöte.)
- Requiem and the ‘Great’ Mass in C minor. (See the The Great Composers page for a video of the C minor Mass.)
- Many piano concertos, such as Nos. 23 and 27.
- Plus many, many, more great pieces!!
Some interesting facts:
- He was one of the greatest composers of classical music ever!
- He wrote over 600 pieces of music!
- He was composing music when he was only 5 years old!
- He was playing music for kings, queens, princes, and other royalty, all over Europe from the age of 6!
- He could listen to music just once and then go away and write it down without any mistakes!
- Although he wrote great music, he did not make much money from it. He died very poor.
- He did not finish his Requiem before he died. Many people have written their own finished version of this piece. However, most people only know the first one—the one by Franz Xaver Süssmayr.
Here is a video of the beginning of Mozart’s Symphony No. 40.
First movement of Mozart’s Symphony No. 40
And here is a video of the funny Papageno and Papagena duet from Mozart’s opera Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute).
‘Papageno and Papagena’ from Mozart’s opera ‘The Magic Flute’
There are other videos of music by Mozart on the following pages:
as well as the following news pages:
There is also a picture of music written by Mozart in his own hand-writing on the following page:
Picture credits:
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. This is posthumous painting by Barbara Kraft from 1819. The image is in the public domain. Click here for the source of this image, along with the relevant copyright information.
Video credits:
- Mozart – Sinfonía 40 – Molto Allegro(1/4) – Karl Böhm – Filarmónica de Viena. Sinfonía nº 40 de Mozart Molto Allegro Orquesta Filarmónica de Viena dirigida por Karl Böhm Symphony nº 40 in G minor Vienna Philharmonic Wiener Philharmoniker conducted by Karl Böhm.
- Papageno and Papagena duet. The person who posted this on YouTube writes: And again, by request, another bit of this wonderful Die Zauberflöte production. I believe this is from Covent Garden in 2003 with Simon Keenlyside as Papageno, Ailish Tynan as Papagena and Sir Colin Davis conducting. The whole opera is available on DVD from Opus Arte.