Composer Quickfact

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Portrait Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

  • Classic Era
  • Raised in Salzburg, Austria
  • Started performing at age 5
  • Started composing at the age of 5
  • Roman Catholic
  • Had six kids
  • Was a Freemason
  • Died at the age of 35
Ludwig van Beethoven

  • Composer during both the Classic and Romantic Era
  • Virtuoso Pianist
  • Studied music with Joseph Hayden
  • Struggled with hearing loss
  • His grandfather was a professional singer
  • Was seven when he first performed professionally
  • He wanted to study under Mozart
  • Fought for custody of his son
  • Died during a crack of thunder in a rain storm
Franz Peter Schubert

  • Wrote 9 Symphonies
  • Was born in Vienna
  • Studied both the piano, the violin and the viola
  • He taught at his father’s school
  • He died of typhoid fever the age of 31
  • He was buried next to Beethoven
  • He was particularly famous for his, “Unfinished Symphony”
Johannes Brahms

  • Brahms mother was 17 years older than his father
  • He studied the piano and the cello
  • Lived partly in Vienna
  • Famous for his, “A German Requiem”
  • Made the earliest LP recording
  • He died from cancer
  • He is buried in Vienna
Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy

  • Romantic Period
  • He studied the piano and the organ
  • He was a Lutheran Christian
  • Famous for the “Wedding March”
  • Made the earliest LP recording
  • He died from a series of strokes
  • He is buried in Berlin
Johann Sebastian Bach

  • He was German
  • The supreme composer of the Baroque period
  • He studied the violin, viola, organ and harpsichord
  • He defined the contrapuntal technique
  • Wrote many famous works including the, “Brandenburg Concerto’s”
Richard Strauss

  • He was German
  • The composer of the Romantic period
  • He went to Munich University to study Art History and and Philosophy
  • He lived through WWII
  • Strauss made many recordings
  • Strauss died at the age of 85,