It is just as good a rule now as it was when he was alive. It is time now that we learned the birthday of Mozart. If we think of it every year on the 27th of January, it will be easy to remember it. In what year was he born? Here is another picture of Mozart in 1766. How old was he then? (Beethoven was born four years afterward.) [Illustration: MOZART IN 1766.] When anyone is always busy at one thing he soon gets a lot done. As Wolferl grew and kept on writing music all the time he made a great many pieces. Some were short like a song, others were long like an opera. He wrote for the piano, the violin and the voice. And he composed operas, symphonies and ever so many other kinds of music. Mozart liked to be alone when he was working upon his compositions. He used to go to a little house on the edge of Vienna and lock himself in. The people of the city of Salzburg, in Austria, took this house long after Mozart's death and moved it to a park where all may go to see it, just as we in America go to see the houses of William Penn, Lincoln and Washington. [Illustration: WHERE MOZART COMPOSED.] Can you remember, without turning back, the year in which Mozart was born? Some other great musicians were alive at that time. And during his lifetime some were born who became great men. In the year when Mozart was born both Handel and Haydn were living. And Haydn lived eighteen years after Mozart's death. You can remember it by these lines: |1732 The years of Haydn's life 1809| ------------------------------------------------------ |1756 The years of Mozart's life 1791| -------------------------------------- When Mozart was fourteen years old Beethoven was born. Mozart knew him and he knew Papa Haydn also, and they were very good friends. In our own country there lived in Mozart's lifetime Benjamin Franklin and three Presidents of the United States--George Washington, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. I wonder if Washington ever heard of Mozart? Perhaps we can best keep all these names together by looking at this page now and again. 1706 Benjamin Franklin was born. 1732 Washington and Haydn were born. 1736 Patrick Henry was born. 1743 Thomas Jefferson was born. 1750 Bach died. 1756 WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART was born. 1759 Handel died 1770 Beethoven was born. 1771 Walter Scott was born. 1790 Franklin died. 1791 Mozart died. 1809 Joseph Haydn died. Isn't it fine to think of Mozart writing so much music, so many operas, symphonies and sonatas; traveling so much, meeting so many people and never being spoiled by it all. While he wrote many very great pieces of music, here is something he composed when he was five years old. He made up the pieces at the piano and his father wrote them down note for note in a little copy book. [Illustration]