Page 1 of 20: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: A Life in Sound. Original illustrated portrait poster of Mozart with theatre and fortepiano. Page 2 of 20: A musical household. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in Salzburg on January 27, 1756. His father, Leopold, was a court musician and teacher. His mother, Anna Maria, helped sustain a busy family life. Music surrounded Wolfgang, but he was not the only talented child in the room. His older sister was learning too. Page 3 of 20: Two young musicians. Maria Anna Mozart, known as Nannerl, was five years older than Wolfgang. She became an accomplished keyboard player, praised by audiences on the family’s travels. Leopold taught both children. Wolfgang began composing while still very young. Their story began with lessons, practice and a household working together, not with talent appearing from nowhere. Page 4 of 20: A childhood on the road. In 1763, the Mozart family began a long European journey. Paris, London and other cities brought new listeners and new kinds of music. Wolfgang and Nannerl performed for audiences far from Salzburg. Travel also meant jolting carriages, unfamiliar rooms and illness. The applause was real, but touring was demanding work for children. Page 5 of 20: Listening in London. In London in 1764, eight-year-old Wolfgang wrote his first symphony. A symphony gives an orchestra a musical story to tell together. He was learning from the music and musicians around him while trying ideas of his own. A young performer was becoming a composer, discovering how separate instruments could share one unfolding piece. Page 6 of 20: Learning the stage. As a teenager, Mozart travelled to Italy with his father. Italian opera offered new lessons in voices, drama and collaboration. His opera Mitridate, re di Ponto opened in Milan on December 26, 1770, when he was fourteen. Writing for the theatre meant shaping music for singers who had their own strengths and expectations. Page 7 of 20: Work in Salzburg. Back in Salzburg, Mozart worked for the prince-archbishop’s court. He composed music for worship, entertainment and public occasions. A salaried position offered security, but it also brought duties and limits. As he grew older, Mozart wanted more opportunities, especially in opera. Finding a place for his ambitions would take years of searching. Page 8 of 20: A difficult journey. In 1777, Mozart left Salzburg to look for work, travelling with his mother. The search took them through Mannheim and on to Paris. Musical contacts did not guarantee a secure position. In Paris, Anna Maria became ill and died in July 1778. Mozart returned to Salzburg carrying both professional disappointment and a profound personal loss. Page 9 of 20: Choosing Vienna. In 1781, Mozart broke with his Salzburg employer and settled in Vienna. At twenty-five, he sought a more independent musical life. The city offered pupils, concerts, publishers and theatres. It also demanded constant effort. Freedom did not mean an easy living: he had to persuade people to hear, perform and pay for his music. Page 10 of 20: A life with Constanze. Mozart married Constanze Weber in Vienna on August 4, 1782. Their letters reveal affection as well as the pressures of travel, money and work. Constanze was musical herself and became an important guardian of his legacy. Their family experienced joy and devastating loss; only two of their children survived to adulthood. Page 11 of 20: The working musician. Mozart’s Viennese days were full. He taught, practised, composed and arranged performances. Copyists prepared musicians’ parts, sometimes close to a concert deadline. His surviving work catalogue records a remarkable flow of new pieces. Behind the graceful sound were paper, ink, rehearsals and many people doing their jobs. Creativity also meant practical, persistent labour. Page 12 of 20: A conversation in sound. Mozart often performed as the soloist in his piano concertos. In these works, keyboard and orchestra can answer, interrupt and surprise one another. His piano was smaller and lighter than a modern concert grand. Listen for a melody passed between players: the drama can unfold without a single character speaking on a stage. Page 13 of 20: Learning from another master. Joseph Haydn was an older composer whom Mozart admired. Mozart dedicated six string quartets to him. A quartet brings together two violins, a viola and a cello, with no orchestra to hide behind. Each player matters. Even after years of achievement, Mozart continued learning from other musicians and testing what his own music could become. Page 14 of 20: People behind the music. The Marriage of Figaro opened in Vienna on May 1, 1786. Mozart wrote the music; Lorenzo Da Ponte shaped the words for the stage. Servants and aristocrats become tangled in secrets, jealousy and forgiveness. When several characters sing together, the music lets us hear different feelings at once. Opera is an art of collaboration. Page 15 of 20: A darker stage. Prague welcomed Mozart’s music, and Don Giovanni premiered there on October 29, 1787. Again, Da Ponte supplied the libretto. Comedy and danger share the stage as a powerful man refuses responsibility for his actions. The opera’s unsettling ending belongs to its fictional story. Mozart’s achievement was to make contrasting characters and emotions live through sound. Page 16 of 20: Three orchestral worlds. During the summer of 1788, Mozart completed the symphonies now numbered 39, 40 and 41. They move through different musical worlds, from restless urgency to intricate combinations of themes. We do not know every detail of their first performances. The surviving scores show a composer still exploring how much an orchestra could express. Page 17 of 20: A theatre of wonders. The Magic Flute opened in Vienna on September 30, 1791. Emanuel Schikaneder wrote the words and worked with Mozart on a piece combining spoken dialogue with music. Its fairy-tale stage offered laughter, danger and demanding songs. The wonders belonged to the theatre, brought to life by singers, players, stage workers and shared imagination. Page 18 of 20: An unfinished score. That same year, Mozart received a commission for a Requiem, a Mass for the dead. He worked on it but did not finish. After his death, Constanze arranged for others to complete the score. Franz Xaver Süssmayr supplied the familiar completion. The music we hear carries Mozart’s writing and the work of hands that followed his. Page 19 of 20: A life ends, music remains. Mozart died in Vienna on December 5, 1791, aged thirty-five. The precise medical cause remains uncertain. Stories later made his death into a mystery, but they should not replace evidence. Constanze, Nannerl, musicians and publishers helped preserve and circulate his work. His life ended young; the work of remembering him had only begun. Page 20 of 20: Listen again. Today, Mozart’s music travels farther than any carriage could have carried him. Children learn his pieces; orchestras and opera companies keep finding new ways to perform them. His story holds extraordinary ability, hard work, family and collaboration. Listen closely to one musical conversation. Which instrument speaks first? What changes when another voice replies?

Behind the music

Reading time: about 8–10 minutes, including the illustrations.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) grew from a touring child musician into a composer, performer and teacher in Vienna. This 20-page illustrated biography follows the people and practical work behind his symphonies, concertos and operas, including his sister Nannerl, his family and his theatrical collaborators.

Notes and sources

The scenes are original historical reconstructions. Poses, interiors, rehearsals and theatre designs are interpretive, not documentary records of particular performances. Manuscript marks are illustrative rather than reproductions of authentic scores. The cover combines a portrait and musical settings in a conceptual composition. Opera scenes show fictional stage performances, not supernatural events in Mozart’s life.

Salzburg was a separate prince-archbishopric during Mozart’s childhood. Details of the first performances of his final symphonies remain uncertain, as does the precise medical cause of his death. The Requiem was unfinished when he died; several hands contributed to its completion, with Franz Xaver Süssmayr responsible for the familiar performing version.

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