50 Fun Facts About Mozart

In which city was Mozart born?

It was then the capital of an ecclesiastical principality within the Holy Roman Empire.

In what year was Mozart born?

He was baptised the next day at St Rupert's Cathedral as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus.

How old was Mozart when he died in December 1791?

The Requiem was still largely unfinished on his desk.

Roughly how many works did Mozart complete in his short life?

They span nearly every genre of the age: symphonies, concertos, operas, chamber and choral music.

The name Amadeus is the Latin form of the Greek baptismal name Theophilus, meaning what?

Mozart himself preferred to sign as "Wolfgang Amadè", as on his 1782 wedding contract.

At what age was Mozart already composing small pieces and performing before European royalty?

His father Leopold wrote the little pieces down; they survive as K. 1 to 5.

What was the nickname of Mozart's elder sister Maria Anna, a child prodigy who toured with him?

She began harpsichord lessons at seven while her three-year-old brother looked on.

Leopold Mozart published a famous 1756 textbook on which instrument?

He was deputy Kapellmeister to the Salzburg archbishop and his children's only teacher.

How old was Mozart when he wrote his first symphony?

Most of it was probably written down by his father during the family's stay in London.

Which Sistine Chapel choral work is the teenage Mozart said to have transcribed from memory?

The story rests on a single letter from Leopold in 1770; the piece was already known in London.

Which prince-archbishop dismissed Mozart in 1781, reportedly with a kick from a steward's boot?

Mozart then settled in Vienna as a freelance musician for the rest of his life.

Whom did Mozart marry in Vienna on 4 August 1782?

He had first courted her elder sister Aloysia, who became a successful singer.

Mozart and Constanze had six children; how many survived infancy?

Karl Thomas and Franz Xaver both lived into the 1840s and 1850s.

Mozart's youngest son, born four months before his father's death, was known by what name?

Nicknamed Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Jr., he became a composer and pianist admired by Schubert and Schumann.

Mozart joined which organisation in December 1784, later writing music for its ceremonies?

His lodge was called Zur Wohltätigkeit, or Beneficence.

Which pet did Mozart keep for three years and honour with a mock funeral procession when it died in 1787?

The bird could whistle a tune close to the finale of his Piano Concerto No. 17.

Which game did Mozart love enough to buy a table for around 300 florins?

His fortepiano from Anton Walter cost about 900 florins.

Which librettist collaborated with Mozart on The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni and Così fan tutte?

The partnership began around the end of 1785.

The Marriage of Figaro is based on a comedy by which French playwright, banned at first in Vienna?

Emperor Joseph II objected to its frank treatment of class conflict.

In which city did Don Giovanni premiere in October 1787?

The success of Figaro there had brought Mozart the commission from the local opera company.

What is the full Italian title of Don Giovanni translated into English?

Mozart entered it into his catalogue simply as an opera buffa.

Who wrote the German libretto for The Magic Flute and staged it at his own Vienna theatre?

It premiered on 30 September 1791, just two months before Mozart died.

In The Magic Flute, whom does the Queen of the Night ask Prince Tamino to rescue?

Tamino ends up joining the high priest Sarastro's community instead.

What is the name of the bird-catcher who accompanies Tamino in The Magic Flute?

He fails every trial but still wins his ideal companion, Papagena.

The Magic Flute belongs to what popular German genre mixing singing and spoken dialogue?

Its stage was the Freihaus-Theater auf der Wieden in the Vienna suburbs.

Who anonymously commissioned Mozart's Requiem, apparently intending to pass it off as his own?

He wanted it for the anniversary of his young wife's death on 14 February 1792.

Which of Mozart's pupils completed the Requiem after his death?

He even imitated Mozart's handwriting but clumsily dated the score 1792.

Mozart's manuscript of the Requiem breaks off after the first eight bars of which movement?

Everything from the Sanctus onward is absent from his own fragment.

What nickname is given to Mozart's last symphony, No. 41 in C major?

It was probably coined by the London impresario Johann Peter Salomon.

Mozart's last three symphonies, Nos. 39, 40 and 41, were all written in the summer of which year?

Vienna's economy was slumping during the Austro-Turkish War and Mozart was borrowing money from friends.

What is the literal English meaning of Eine kleine Nachtmusik?

The 1787 serenade was completed while Mozart worked on the second act of Don Giovanni.

Mozart's famous Turkish March is the last movement of which work?

He titled the movement Alla turca himself.

Mozart wrote twelve piano variations on a French folk tune now sung as which children's song?

The tune first appeared in 1761 and also carries the Alphabet Song.

For which clarinettist did Mozart write his Clarinet Concerto in October 1791?

It was written for the basset clarinet, which reaches lower notes than the standard instrument.

Mozart's works are identified by K numbers from a catalogue completed in 1862 by whom?

The Requiem is K. 626; the catalogue reached its ninth edition in 2024.

Which older composer and friend received the dedication of six Mozart string quartets?

The two often played quartets together in Vienna.

Which court composer was long rumoured, without evidence, to have poisoned Mozart?

He actually taught Beethoven, Schubert, Liszt and Mozart's own son.

In keeping with Viennese custom, how was Mozart buried?

A common grave meant an individual plot for a non-aristocrat, liable to be dug up after ten years.

Who played Mozart in the 1984 film Amadeus?

He and his co-star were both nominated for Best Actor; the film won eight Oscars including Best Picture.

Peter Shaffer's play Amadeus was inspired by an 1830 play by which Russian writer?

Miloš Forman directed the film, which won 40 of the 53 awards it was nominated for.

The Mozartkugel was created in 1890 by a confectioner in which city?

Paul Fürst's descendants still make the handmade originals; he first called it the Mozart-Bonbon.

The 1993 study behind the so-called "Mozart effect" reported a short-term boost in what?

The improvement lasted about fifteen minutes, but a fad for Mozart CDs for babies followed anyway.

At which Salzburg address was Mozart born on 27 January 1756?

Salzburg was then the capital of an ecclesiastical principality within the Holy Roman Empire, in what is now Austria.

Which opera did the 14-year-old Mozart write for Milan in 1770, leading to further commissions?

He returned to Milan twice more with his father for Ascanio in Alba and Lucio Silla.

In which city did Mozart fall in love with Aloysia Weber, elder sister of his future wife, in 1777?

The city had the best orchestra in Europe at the time; Mozart later married her younger sister Constanze in Vienna.

Which opera premiered successfully in Munich in January 1781, just before Mozart's break with Salzburg?

Two months later Archbishop Colloredo summoned him to Vienna for Joseph II's accession celebrations, and Mozart never went back.

Whose death in November 1787 freed up the 'chamber composer' post that Joseph II gave Mozart?

The part-time job paid just 800 florins a year and only required dances for the annual balls in the Redoutensaal.

Which Baroque manuscript collector introduced Mozart to the music of Bach and Handel in 1782-83?

Studying those scores inspired Mozart to write in the Baroque style and shaped his later works.

Which future composer lived in the Mozarts' Vienna home for two years as a child pupil?

Beethoven visited Vienna in 1787 hoping to study with Mozart, but it is not certain the two ever met.

What did the official record give as Mozart's cause of death?

Researchers have since suggested more than a hundred possibilities, from rheumatic fever to trichinosis and mercury poisoning.