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This Mozart trivia quiz has 50 free questions with answers and covers the boy who composed at five and wrote a symphony at eight, the young man kicked out of the Salzburg archbishop's service, the Vienna freelancer who kept a starling and a billiard table, and the composer of Figaro, Don Giovanni, The Magic Flute and the Requiem he never finished. It also takes in the myths: the Miserere copied from memory, the Salieri poisoning rumour, the pauper's grave that was not one, and the "Mozart effect". It suits music students, concertgoers, pub quiz hosts and anyone who loved the film Amadeus and wants to know how much of it was true. Easy questions cover the famous names and tunes; the hard ones ask about librettists, catalogue numbers and the people around him. Every answer has been checked against encyclopaedic and scholarly sources, so you can hum along with confidence.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which city was Mozart born?
Salzburg
It was then the capital of an ecclesiastical principality within the Holy Roman Empire.
Q 02In what year was Mozart born?
1756
He was baptised the next day at St Rupert's Cathedral as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus.
Q 03How old was Mozart when he died in December 1791?
35
The Requiem was still largely unfinished on his desk.
Q 04Roughly how many works did Mozart complete in his short life?
More than 800
They span nearly every genre of the age: symphonies, concertos, operas, chamber and choral music.
Q 05The name Amadeus is the Latin form of the Greek baptismal name Theophilus, meaning what?
Loved by God
Mozart himself preferred to sign as "Wolfgang Amadè", as on his 1782 wedding contract.
Q 06At what age was Mozart already composing small pieces and performing before European royalty?
Five
His father Leopold wrote the little pieces down; they survive as K. 1 to 5.
Q 07What was the nickname of Mozart's elder sister Maria Anna, a child prodigy who toured with him?
Nannerl
She began harpsichord lessons at seven while her three-year-old brother looked on.
Q 08Leopold Mozart published a famous 1756 textbook on which instrument?
Violin
He was deputy Kapellmeister to the Salzburg archbishop and his children's only teacher.
Q 09How old was Mozart when he wrote his first symphony?
Eight
Most of it was probably written down by his father during the family's stay in London.
Q 10Which Sistine Chapel choral work is the teenage Mozart said to have transcribed from memory?
Allegri's Miserere
The story rests on a single letter from Leopold in 1770; the piece was already known in London.
Q 11Which prince-archbishop dismissed Mozart in 1781, reportedly with a kick from a steward's boot?
Colloredo
Mozart then settled in Vienna as a freelance musician for the rest of his life.
Q 12Whom did Mozart marry in Vienna on 4 August 1782?
Constanze Weber
He had first courted her elder sister Aloysia, who became a successful singer.
Q 13Mozart and Constanze had six children; how many survived infancy?
Two
Karl Thomas and Franz Xaver both lived into the 1840s and 1850s.
Q 14Mozart's youngest son, born four months before his father's death, was known by what name?
Q 21What is the full Italian title of Don Giovanni translated into English?
The Rake Punished
Mozart entered it into his catalogue simply as an opera buffa.
Q 22Who wrote the German libretto for The Magic Flute and staged it at his own Vienna theatre?
Emanuel Schikaneder
It premiered on 30 September 1791, just two months before Mozart died.
Q 23In The Magic Flute, whom does the Queen of the Night ask Prince Tamino to rescue?
Her daughter Pamina
Tamino ends up joining the high priest Sarastro's community instead.
Franz Xaver Wolfgang
Nicknamed Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Jr., he became a composer and pianist admired by Schubert and Schumann.
Q 15Mozart joined which organisation in December 1784, later writing music for its ceremonies?
The Freemasons
His lodge was called Zur Wohltätigkeit, or Beneficence.
Q 16Which pet did Mozart keep for three years and honour with a mock funeral procession when it died in 1787?
A starling
The bird could whistle a tune close to the finale of his Piano Concerto No. 17.
Q 17Which game did Mozart love enough to buy a table for around 300 florins?
Billiards
His fortepiano from Anton Walter cost about 900 florins.
Q 18Which librettist collaborated with Mozart on The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni and Così fan tutte?
Lorenzo Da Ponte
The partnership began around the end of 1785.
Q 19The Marriage of Figaro is based on a comedy by which French playwright, banned at first in Vienna?
Beaumarchais
Emperor Joseph II objected to its frank treatment of class conflict.
Q 20In which city did Don Giovanni premiere in October 1787?
Prague
The success of Figaro there had brought Mozart the commission from the local opera company.
Q 24What is the name of the bird-catcher who accompanies Tamino in The Magic Flute?
Papageno
He fails every trial but still wins his ideal companion, Papagena.
Q 25The Magic Flute belongs to what popular German genre mixing singing and spoken dialogue?
Singspiel
Its stage was the Freihaus-Theater auf der Wieden in the Vienna suburbs.
Q 26Who anonymously commissioned Mozart's Requiem, apparently intending to pass it off as his own?
Count Franz von Walsegg
He wanted it for the anniversary of his young wife's death on 14 February 1792.
Q 27Which of Mozart's pupils completed the Requiem after his death?
Franz Xaver Süssmayr
He even imitated Mozart's handwriting but clumsily dated the score 1792.
Q 28Mozart's manuscript of the Requiem breaks off after the first eight bars of which movement?
Lacrimosa
Everything from the Sanctus onward is absent from his own fragment.
Q 29What nickname is given to Mozart's last symphony, No. 41 in C major?
Jupiter
It was probably coined by the London impresario Johann Peter Salomon.
Q 30Mozart's last three symphonies, Nos. 39, 40 and 41, were all written in the summer of which year?
1788
Vienna's economy was slumping during the Austro-Turkish War and Mozart was borrowing money from friends.