Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Mozart was employed by Prince-Archbishop Hieronymus Colloredo, the ruler of Salzburg, as a court musician where he had the opportunity to work in many genres, including symphonies, sonatas, piano concertos, string quartets, masses, serenades, and a few minor operas. Overtime, he became discontent about the work that he decided to go back on tours, going to Mannheim, Paris and Munich along with his mother until her death in 1778. He went back to Vienna and had established himself as the finest keyboard player there. He completed the opera Die Entführung aus dem Serail (“The Abduction from the Seraglio”) and performed throughout German-speaking Europe, and thoroughly established Mozart’s reputation as a composer.

In 1785, he began his famous operatic collaboration with the librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte. Together they wrote The Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni. These are among Mozart’s most famous works, and they’re still mainstays of the operatic repertoire today, though it caused difficulty both for listeners and for performers when it was premiered due to its complexity. 

He composed more than 600 works until his death in 1791, many of which are acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, operatic, and choral music. He is considered among the greatest classical composers of all time which influenced some of the greats like Ludwig van Beethoven and Joseph Haydn.