Mozart by the Numbers: 626 Works, 35 Years

Reduce Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to arithmetic and the result still looks like a misprint: 626 catalogued works in a life of thirty-five years and ten months — meaning that from the age of five, he averaged a completed composition roughly every two and a half weeks, for thirty years, while touring, teaching, performing and dying young.

The numbers

• 5 — his age when his first minuets were written down (his father Leopold noting them in Nannerl's music book).
• 6 — his age when the family began the grand tour of Europe's courts, performing for empresses and kings.
• 14 — his age when, according to the famous and well-documented story, he heard Allegri's Miserere — a piece the Vatican reserved for the Sistine Chapel — and wrote it out from memory afterwards. Rather than punishing him, the Pope reportedly knighted him.
• 41 — numbered symphonies, the last three written in about six weeks in the summer of 1788.
• 22 — completed operas, from Apollo et Hyacinthus (age 11) to The Magic Flute (the year of his death).
• 27 — piano concertos, essentially inventing the modern form.
• 626 — works in the Köchel catalogue, the listing Ludwig von Köchel spent decades assembling in the 1860s. Revisions continue to this day.
• 35 — his age at death, in December 1791, leaving the Requiem unfinished on his desk.

The speed

The legends of Mozart composing entire works in his head are legion; what is documented is startling enough. The overture to Don Giovanni was written in a single night before the premiere, the ink barely dry for the orchestra. The "Linz" Symphony was composed in about four days, because — as he cheerfully wrote to his father — he had arrived in Linz without a symphony and the concert was Tuesday. That letter survives; the story joins our collection of masterpieces written at lightning speed.

"The music is not in the notes, but in the silence between."

— Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

The corrections

Honesty requires retiring two myths. Mozart was not poor — his later years brought serious income, though he spent it faster; and he was not poisoned by Antonio Salieri, who in reality attended The Magic Flute with enthusiasm and later taught Beethoven, Schubert and Liszt. The film Amadeus is glorious drama and unreliable biography.

What needs no embellishment is the verdict of his peers. Joseph Haydn, then Europe's most famous composer, told Mozart's father: "Before God and as an honest man, your son is the greatest composer known to me either in person or by name."

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Watch: The Genius of Mozart

The verdict of posterity

Two centuries of statistics confirm what Haydn heard: Mozart remains among the most performed composers in the world's opera houses and concert halls every single season, and recordings of his 626 works number in the tens of thousands. No composer's catalogue is more completely in active repertoire — every symphony, every concerto, every opera still played, still earning.

The counterfactual

Had Mozart lived as long as Haydn (77), he would have composed into the 1830s — hearing Beethoven's Ninth, perhaps answering it. The 626 works we have are the output of a young composer still accelerating: the last year alone produced The Magic Flute, the Clarinet Concerto and the Requiem. Among child prodigies who became legendary adults, he is the case where the childhood miracle was somehow the lesser half of the story.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many works did Mozart compose?

626 works are listed in the Köchel catalogue, composed across roughly thirty years before his death at 35.

Did Mozart really transcribe the Vatican's Miserere from memory?

Yes — the well-documented story records the fourteen-year-old writing out Allegri's closely guarded piece after hearing it in the Sistine Chapel in 1770.

Was Mozart poisoned by Salieri?

No. The rivalry was dramatised in fiction; the historical Salieri admired Mozart's work and later taught Beethoven, Schubert and Liszt.