Shawn Mack

Austrian composer Johann Chrysostom Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, recognized as one of the greatest composers of Western music, was born in Salzburg in 1756. His father, Leopold, was a Kapellmeister in Salzburg and had published a book of violin-playing instruction the year Mozart was born, and the boy’s musical education began at a very young age. He recognized chords at three, played short works on the harpsichord at four, and began composing at five. Also at five, he played his first concert in Munich, with his sister who was known as Nannerl.

In 1763, Leopold took the family on a concert tour of Western Europe that lasted until 1766. Mozart played and improvised, and sometimes Nannerl did as well. On the tour, the first works by Mozart were published in Paris, and the meeting with Johann Sebastien Bach’s youngest son, Johann Christian, led to Mozart composing the first of his symphonies. In the next few years, Mozart branched out to more musical genres, writing a singspiel, an opera buffa, and a mass. At age thirteen, he was appointed as an honorary Konzertmeister at the court in Salzburg.