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5 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! © 2009 Fun Music Company