Mozart, who was born on January 27, 1756 in the Austrian city of Salzburg, was neither the first nor the last child prodigy, but he was certainly the greatest. He was born into a moderately prosperous family where his unmatched musical genius made itself known extremely early. Mozart began learning to play the harpsichord at three and his earliest known work was composed in 1761 when he was five, the age at which he also first appeared in p ublic. From the age of six, his father took him on the first foreign tour, Mozart toured the courts and musical centres of Austria, Germany, France, England, Holland, Switzerland and Italy. It has been calculated that Mozart spent almost a third of his short life ( he died at the age of 35) travelling. As Mozart matured, he continued to tour and give concerts. Mozart also wrote a lot of operas. His first opera, Mitridate, Re di Ponto, was performed in Milan when he was 14, and it was one of many successes in the life of the genius.
