Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Eine Kleine Nachtmusik

Image von der Wik

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart needs no introduction, being one of the two most famous classical composers of all time (the other, of course, being Beethoven).  Like Beethoven, his life is filled with drama (and melodrama).  He was a child prodigy taught by a strict father.  He developed a reputation very young, writing his first compositions by the time he was five years old.  He composed for the Austrian Emperor.

But his personal life was often unhappy - for example, only one of his six children outlived him.  Money was very tight in his last few years as the wars that Austria was caught up in squeezed the nobles who were his patrons.  One of the surprises about his life is that this unhappiness did not really spill over into his musical compositions.

He was buried in a common grave, although that seems to mean an individual grave for commoners (as opposed to nobility), so the legend that he was buried in a mass grave seems to be false.

Today's composition is often translated as "a little night music" but is more properly "a little serenade".  Mozart wrote it in 1787, at the height of his compositional powers.  Strangely for a work as popular as this it wasn't published until 1827, almost 30 years after his death.

Mozart was born this day in 1756.