Mozart: The Genuis!

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was an outstanding composer born in Salzburg, Austria on January 27, 1756. His father Leopold Mozart was count composer at Salzburg, and from 1762 on was assistant Kappellmeister of the Archbishop of Salzburg. As a child prodigy, Mozart was perhaps unique in history displaying the most outstanding musical gift both as a composer and performer in his early childhood.

 In 1762, his father took the six year old, Wolfgang and his older sister, Maria Anna, also known as Nanneri, on highly successful concert tours throughout Europe. Mozart became concert master of the Archbishop of Salzburg’s orchestra in 1769, but interrupted his work for three trips to Italy, where his operas, Mitridate (1770) and Lucio Sila (1772), were performed. 

In spite of being refused a leave of absence by the Archbishop’s successor, the count of Colloredo, Mozart together with his mother, went to Munich and Mannheim where he unsuccessfully courted the singer Aloysia Weber. They then proceeded to Paris where his mother died in 1778. 

Reluctantly, he resumed his former position in Salzburg and in 1781, presented his first fully mature opera, Idomeneo, at the Munich Court Theatre. After a short while, Mozart broke with the Count and in 1781 settled in Vienna, Austria, where a year later he married Constanze Weber, the younger sister of his previous Mannheim love, Aloysia.

One of Mozart’s greatest successes was the performance (1782) of his Singspiel Die Entfunning aus dem Serail (The Abduction from the seragliio), composed  that same year.

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