Download WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART Born 1756, Austria Died 1791

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART
Born 1756, Austria
Died 1791, Austria
- Age 3 - he started playing the clavier (instrument like a piano)
- Age 4 - he wrote his first composition (song) and started to learn the violin.
- Age 5 – he would stay up late practicing by candlelight.
- Age 6 – he went on tour all over Europe, traveling by stagecoach. Learning to
speak 15 languages while on the road.
- Age 7 – proposed marriage to Marie Antoinette (the future queen of France).
- Age 8 – began composing symphonies.
- Age 11 – Composed his first opera (Mitridate performed in Milan when he was
only 14 years old.)
- He was a PRODIGY – a person with a great talent in a particular area.
- Due to a strange and exhausting childhood, he was often ill.
- Mozart was home-schooled by his father (Leopold) when they were traveling.
His favorite subject was MATH (important to Music) and he used to cover
tablecloths and wallpaper with rows of numbers.
- He loved animals and while traveling would write letters to his dog. Later in life
he traveled with 2 dogs, a pet grasshopper, and various birds.
- He fell in love with Alysia Weber. She rejected him, so he married her sister,
Constanze Weber who was also musically talented.
- They had 6 children, only 2 living to adulthood. (He once wrote a piece of
music while his wife was having one of the children!)
- Mozart wrote music eveywhere – at parties, meals, etc.
- While composing Mozart wore an apron due to his “normal” daily dress of
velvet coats with lace ruffles and gold embroidery, and a little gold sword at his
side.
- He was scared of ghosts and loud noises.
- He was very poor, as he was not a good money manager. He was often paid with
things, not cash, which he needed to live.
- Mozart died of malnutrition and kidney failure. He was very poor, dyeing with
only 6 coats, 3 silver spoons, and 346 books in his possession. He still owned his
walnut piano and pool table however.
- There are more recordings of Mozart’s music bough today then any other
composer.
- He wrote over 600 pieces of music (including 15 masses), and it would take
over 202 hours to play all of Mozart’s music.
Updated 8/22/11