Biography on Mozart - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Mozart was born January 27, 1756. He was born in Salzburg, Austria. He was born of a middle-class woman named Anna Maria Pertl. She had 7 kids and only 2 survived Mozart and his sister Anna Maria, whose nickname is Nanner. Early on in life he had a natural talent for music, at three he began picking out cords on the harpsichord. At four his father (who is a wealthy man) took him and Nanner, who is also talented. He started playing short songs when he was four, and his dad took him to play at the Bavarian court. A few months later Mozart was taken to Vienna to play for the imperial court and noble houses. His father saw him as a gift of God with his amazing talent for music. His father felt that his talent was a miracle and that God wanted him to share his talented son to the world. He had precise memory of pitches, and gentleness and sensitivity for music. In mid 1763 Mozart's father took a leave of absence to set out on a prolonged tour. They went to all the most popular music centers in Western Europe. They went to Munich, Augsburg, Stuttgart, Mannheim, Mainz, Frankfurt, Brussels, Paris, and London, returning through The Hague, Amsterdam, Paris, Lyon, and Switzerland, and arriving back in Salzburg in November 1766. While they were in Paris they met several German composers and Mozart published his first music. In London they met Johann Christian Bach and Johann Sebastian Bach's youngest son and under his influence Mozart composed his first symphonies. While he was in The Hague he published two more symphonies. After spending nine months in Salzburg, Mozart leaves for Vienna in 1767. They spent fifteen months there, and in that time Mozart wrote a one-act German singspiel Bastien und Bastienne. Mozart was appointed an honorary Konzertmeister at the Salzburg court. Still only 13, Mozart had by now gained considerable fluency in the musical language of his time, and he was especially skilled at imitating the musical equivalent of local dialects. The first tour to Italy, begun on Dec. 13, 1769, and lasting 15 months, it took them to all the main musical centers, but as usual they paused at any town where a concert could be given or a nobleman might want to hear Mozart play. While Mozart was on an Italian tour he was told to write his first opera for the carnival season. They went to Rome for the holy week to hear a famous choir; then they spent six weeks in Naples. Then he went back through Rome and was made a knight of the order of the Golden Spur. In mid October he reached Milan and started working on his opera. After the performance of the opera; and the short visit in Venice they returned home to Salzburg. Although, they were already planning on returning to Milan for a royal wedding. Mozart was under the control of an archbishop, even though he was allowed to write music he wasn't allowed to lavish music; there was a time limit. At the end of 1774, he was told to