Download Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
Mozart (27 January 1756 – 5 December 1791) was a prolific and influential composer of the
Classical era. His more than 600 compositions include works widely acknowledged as pinnacles of
symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music, and he is among the most
enduringly popular of classical composers.
Mozart was born in Salzbourg into a musical family and showed indications of prodigious abilities
at a very young age. When he was five years old, he could both read and write music and had
precocious skills as a keyboard and violin player. Much of his childhood and adolescence was
taken up with tours, which included performances before many of the royal courts of Europe. In
1773, aged 17, he accepted a post as a court musician in Salzburg, but was unhappy with his low
pay and limited opportunities. Over the next eight years, he frequently traveled in search of a better
position and composed abundantly. This situation continued until 1781, when during a visit to
Vienna he was dismissed from his court position and chose to stay.
He spent the rest of his busy life in Vienna, where he achieved relative fame. However, his finances
remained precarious, with periods of prosperity and of penury. In 1782, he married Constanze
Webern against the wishes of his family; six children were born, of whom two survived infancy.
Musically, this was a period of outstanding creativity which saw the production of many of his best
known symphonic, concertante and operatic works, and his final, incomplete Requiem. The
circumstances of his death, at the age of 35, have been much mythologized.
His influence on all subsequent classical music has been profound. Beethoven wrote much of his
early music in Mozart's shadow. His friend Joseph Haydn wrote, "Posterity will not see such a
talent again in 100 years". Others claim that, more than two centuries after his death, his talent
remains unsurpassed.
Bilingüal Proyect. Music Department. I.E.S. López-Neyra.