The boy who performed for kings wrote 800 works by thirty-five
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was composing minuets at five and performing for European royalty before most children learn to read. His father Leopold called him the miracle God allowed to be born in Salzburg. Yet the prodigy who dazzled courts spent his final Vienna years chasing operas and security he never fully found.
Born on 27 January 1756 at Getreidegasse 9 in Salzburg, Mozart was the seventh and final child in his family; only he and Nannerl survived infancy. His father Leopold, deputy Kapellmeister and author of a successful violin textbook, trained Wolfgang and sister Nannerl intensively. By five the boy composed pieces Leopold transcribed into the Nannerl Notenbuch. At eight he wrote his first symphony—largely orchestrated by Leopold—and during a three-and-a-half-year grand tour performed before courts from Munich to London, meeting Johann Christian Bach, a major influence.
Three Italian journeys followed, yielding operas Mitridate, Ascanio in Alba, and Lucio Silla and membership in Bologna's Accademia Filarmonica. In Rome he reportedly transcribed Allegri's closely guarded Miserere from memory after two Sistine Chapel hearings—though historians dispute details. Employed at the Salzburg court from 1773, he wrote violin concertos whose last three remain repertoire staples, and the 1777 E-flat piano concerto K. 271, a critical breakthrough. Restless over low salary—150 florins yearly—and scarce opera opportunities, he resigned in 1777 and traveled with his mother seeking better posts.
Dismissed from Salzburg service during a 1781 Vienna visit, Mozart remained in the imperial capital for life. Early Vienna masterpieces included the abduction opera, a monumental C-minor mass, and the string quartets dedicated to Haydn; he later composed more than a dozen piano concertos considered among his greatest achievements. Final years brought Figaro, Don Giovanni, Così fan tutte, The Magic Flute, the Jupiter Symphony, Eine kleine Nachtmusik, and an unfinished Requiem. He died on 5 December 1791 at thirty-five, having completed over 800 works across nearly every genre of his era—while biographers still argue how much to trust the vivid stories surrounding his life.
Source: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
