All you'll ever need to know about Mozart. By Lincoln R. Fletcher.

Wolfgang A. Mozart was born in 1756 (almost 300 years ago). When he was 3, he asked his dad for "claiver" lessons ("ancestor of the piano" lessons). His father Leopold said no because he thought he was too little.

(Three-year-old Mozart throwing a temper tantrum.)

So when his sister Nannerei was done with her lesson, Mozart went up to the piano and started to play. These days, if a three-year-old went and played, it would sound horrible. But Mozart was special. It sounded great to his dad who finally started to give him lessons.

(Clap clap.)

Half a year later, Mr. Mozart thought his kids were good enough to play instruments in public, so they traveled everywhere, played for kinds, queens, and emperors, and sometimes in enormous buildings. Everybody loved the Mozart kids.

Sadly, nothing lasts forever. As Wolfgang and Nannerei got older, people were less amazed.

His dad kept encouraging him, but he only wanted to play for people who liked his music, not people who liked to see a cute little boy and girl who play music, but only think it is cute. But then the Archbishop Collerodo took over. Collerodo was terribly mean to Mozart, and didn't appreciate his music at all.

After only a few weeks, Mozart was fired. Then he went to Vienne, Italy.
In Vienne, he made lots of people happy, but he met someone who would put joy in his life.

Constanze Weber's sister wanted to marry Mozart, but he wanted to marry Constanze. So eventually, Mozart and Constanze married.

She encouraged him and helped him stay awake when he was writing music late into the night.

(Yawn.)

He and his father were in a fight. His dad was mad at him for not taking good enough care of his mother. In a trip to Paris, his dad didn't go to she had died. What really happened was that she had died of an illness that Mozart couldn't help because he was poor, so he couldn't hire a doctor. He couldn't buy medicine or even buy warm soup. The reason he couldn't was because he spent his money on parties and games. And Nannerei didn't exactly like Constanze. So Constanze was the only one to keep him happy.

He always used to write classical, but then he started to write opera. His operas were the most interesting of all. One has two people who sing a duet super fast.

Well, not lightspeed, but pretty fast. But while he wrote operas he was getting iller and iller by the day.

That was bad!!

Eventually he got very, very, very, very, very, very sick. Constanze tended to him well, but he still wrote music in bed, using precious energy.

Many musicians came to see him, but there was no hope. Mozart was dying. He died in his bed, writing hi slast piece, Requiem. He was only 36.