Happy Birthday

From The Writer's Almanac for January 27, 2007:

It's the birthday of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, born in Salzburg, Austria (1756). His whole life was devoted to music. He was a child prodigy: by the time he was five he could perform difficult pieces on both piano and violin. He made a name for himself as a composer when he was in his teens, and went on to write some of the most popular operas of all time, including The Marriage of Figaro (1786), Don Giovanni (1787), and The Magic Flute (1791).

Mozart spent most of his adult life in Vienna, and made a living by teaching, publishing music, giving concerts, and composing. He was always pretty well-off for a musician — he had a carriage and servants, and lived in a nice apartment — but he spent money faster than he made it, and he often had to borrow from friends and relatives. He stayed close to his father throughout his life, and when his father died, Mozart fell into a deep depression. He stopped performing in public and relied on teaching to make ends meet.

He died four years later, at the age of 35, while he was in the middle of composing his last piece, Requiem in D, which he wrote as his own funeral march.

He didn't actually write anything for the pipes on purpose. But if you've ever heard the lovely slow aire "Gilnockie" you may have noticed the similarity to the piano sonata #11. Not a co-incidence. Some of the melodies to his four horn concerti fit rather well on the pipes, too.