Download Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Fact Sheet

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Fact Sheet
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Downloading music illegally from the internet is considered a fairly
modern crime. Yet, in Rome in 1770, a 14 year old Austrian boy committed the
18th century equivalent of illegal downloading. He sat in the Sistine Chapel in Rome,
listening to a piece of music that was considered to be so special that it was illegal to
write it down or even sing it outside the Chapel. The boy, however, heard it once, went
home and wrote out the five-part work, almost perfectly from memory. This young boy,
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, went on to become one of the greatest and best known
composers in the history of music.
Mozart’s musical genius became apparent at a very young age. He started learning the ____________
at the age of 3, had written his first composition by the time he was five, and completed his first
____________ at the age of nine. He had also taught himself to play the violin by simply watching his
father play. When his father, Leopold recognized his talent, he took Wolfgang and his older sister,
nicknamed Nannerl, on an extended tour of Europe to show them off. By the end of his touring
years, Mozart was very famous.
Mozart was an extremely hard worker and produced over six hundred works of every traditional
form popular during the time, including
____________, ____________, ____________ ____________, dance music,
and ___________. Other composers were amazed at his ability to write beautiful music with seemingly
little effort, often while doing something else such as playing billiards. Mozart also had a rather
eccentric sense of humor and was fond of telling jokes and inventing silly poems.
Mozart held various positions as a court composer during his life, but with his eccentric
personality, found it difficult to keep them for long. Due to his expensive tastes and the fact that
he was not very good at managing money, Mozart was often heavily in debt. In fact, at the time of
his death from an unknown illness at the young age of 35, he was completely penniless. According
to Austrian custom, he was buried in an unmarked, communal pauper’s grave. Much of his music
may have been lost had it not been for the efforts of his industrious wife Constanze, who worked
tirelessly to publish and preserve Mozart’s music.
Fast Facts
Name: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Dates: 1756-1791
Country of birth: Austria
Historical Era: Classical
Contemporary Composers: Haydn,
Beethoven
Contemporary Artists: Jean Honore
Fragonard, Gainsborough
Other People/Events:
Printable Music Lesson Plans - Great Composers - Fact Sheet 5
Fun Fact
One evening, Mozart was attending a party where
famous composer, Josef Haydn was present. Mozart
bet a case of champagne that Haydn could not play
at sight, a piece Mozart had just written. Haydn
accepted, sat down at the harpsichord and began to
play. He had only played a few bars when he had to
stop, as the music required him to play two notes
at either end of the keyboard and one right in the
middle. He declared that it was impossible to play
with only two hands! Mozart then took his place at
the keyboard and when he got to the “impossible”
section, he bent down and played the middle note
with his nose! Haydn had to reluctantly concede!
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