W. A. Mozart

1756-1791

"It is a mistake to think that the practice of my art has come easy to me--no one has given so much care to the study of composition as I have. There is scarcely a famous master in music whose works I have not frequently and diligently studied."

Mozart is recognized as great, but it is not always clear to most people just what it is that makes him so. Mozart is in the league of Josquin, Bach, Handel, and Beethoven, in that he was supreme at summing up all that had come before. He knew he had to look beyond his immediate times and build on what the great masters before him had begun. This is what makes him great and what distinguishes him from most of his contemporaries.

Then Mozart added the element that was so much a part of his nature: JOY. And this is what inevitably makes him eternal.

(The music you hear is a piano reduction of the first mvt. of Mozart's 17th Piano Concerto.)