Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (born 27 January 1756 in Salzburg; died 5 December 1791 in Vienna) was an Austrian composer, widely recognized as one of the greatest in the history of Western music. His father Leopold, a violinist and deputy Kapellmeister, taught him as a small child: Mozart composed his first piece in 1761, at five, and by six had performed before two imperial courts. From mid-1763 the family toured western Europe for three years; in London, under the influence of Johann Christian Bach, Mozart wrote his first symphonies (K 16, K 19, K 19a). In 1769 he was appointed honorary Konzertmeister at the Salzburg court and set out for Italy, where he heard and transcribed from memory Allegri's Miserere, was made a knight of the Golden Spur, and saw his opera Mitridate premiered in Milan on 26 December 1770. After breaking with Archbishop Colloredo in 1781 he settled in Vienna, where Figaro (1786), Don Giovanni (1787), Così fan tutte (1790) and The Magic Flute (1791) were staged and where he was appointed court Kammermusicus in 1787. He wrote more than 600 works, numbered since 1862 in Ludwig von Köchel's chronological catalogue; Mozart himself kept a thematic catalogue of his own works from February 1784, now held by the British Library. He died in December 1791 while the Requiem, K 626, was still unfinished; it was completed by his pupil Süssmayr. The Vienna register certified 'severe miliary fever'; Britannica states plainly that there is no evidence he was poisoned by Salieri or anyone else, and the film Amadeus is described by Britannica itself as largely fictionalized.