Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in Salzburg in 1756, the youngest surviving child of Leopold Mozart, a composer and violinist in the service of the archbishop, and Anna Maria Pertl. His elder sister Maria Anna, known as Nannerl, was also musically gifted. Leopold gave both children intensive musical instruction and arranged concert tours from their childhood. Their education took place in a family where music was a craft, court service and a means of social mobility.

Mozart grew up in the prince-archbishopric of Salzburg, where his father held a court position. As a child he performed for European courts and encountered varied musical styles and patrons. The tours brought recognition but were physically demanding and made him dependent on his family and patronage. In 1781 he left the archbishop's service and settled in Vienna as an independent musician, earning a living through commissions, concerts and teaching.

Mozart composed in a range of genres, including opera, symphony, concerto, chamber music, sacred works and songs. He worked with established forms and developed them through melodic clarity, counterpoint and dramatic coherence. His compositions were often commissioned or intended for particular performances. He did not compose solely through inspiration: letters, scores and musicological research show how he planned, revised and collaborated with librettists and musicians.

In Vienna Mozart wrote operas in which music and theatrical psychology are closely connected, including Le nozze di Figaro and Don Giovanni, in collaboration with librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte. These works used comic and serious elements and explored social status, desire and authority. He also composed piano concertos that established his reputation as a performer and composer among urban audiences. His success varied with taste, competition, finances and access to patrons.

In 1791 Mozart composed, among other works, Die Zauberflöte and worked on a Requiem completed after his death by Franz Xaver Süssmayr. The precise commission and circumstances surrounding the Requiem were later embellished with stories. Mozart balanced work for courts, theatres, concert halls and private pupils. His output shows how an eighteenth-century professional composer both created art and had to organise income, performers and institutional support.

Mozart lived in late eighteenth-century Europe, where courts, churches and growing urban audiences funded music. The Enlightenment encouraged discussion of reason, education and social order, while court culture and status distinctions persisted. Salzburg and Vienna offered different musical labour markets: the former was organised around church and court, while the latter also had public concerts, theatres and publishers. Composers had to adapt to patronage and changing audience preferences.

The Classical style developed from earlier Baroque traditions and was associated with clear forms, thematic coherence and balance, though these were not rigid rules. Opera was an important commercial and social genre, with Italian and German-language traditions side by side. Music printing made scores more marketable, but performances still depended on musicians and venues. Mozart worked within these European networks and incorporated influences from several countries and genres into his compositions.

Mozart's operas and concertos received varied responses in his own time and influenced the repertory of theatres and musicians. After his death, publishers, performers and biographers circulated his work further. The compositions required skilled musicians and institutional resources, so their impact cannot be separated from orchestras, singers and audiences. His music became part of a changing concert culture in which works were increasingly performed as enduring repertoire.

Mozart's music has strongly influenced later composers, music theory and performance practice. The formation of the canon often emphasises his exceptional productivity, but can obscure the everyday conditions of commissioned work and financial uncertainty. His operas are also interpreted in relation to class, gender and power. His influence is not only musical: biographies, performances and popular stories have helped shape public ideas about composers and the classical repertoire.

Mozart died in Vienna on 5 December 1791, aged 35. He was buried in a communal grave at St Marx cemetery, according to burial practices of the time; the exact location can no longer be identified. His health deteriorated during his final weeks, but the medical evidence is insufficient for a certain modern diagnosis. The Requiem remained unfinished and was completed by Süssmayr after his death.

The exact cause of Mozart's death remains uncertain; proposed diagnoses differ, and historians cannot establish a definitive explanation. The story that Antonio Salieri poisoned him is unsupported by evidence and was spread chiefly through later fiction. Mozart is regarded as a central composer of the Classical period, but his reputation was also shaped by nineteenth-century biographies and modern media. Research continues to examine his working practices, patrons and the contexts of his compositions.