Leopold Mozart

Johann Georg Leopold Mozart (November 14, 1719 – May 28, 1787) was a composer, music teacher and violinist. He was born in the city of Augsburg (today Germany), and was legally a citizen of the Diocese of Salzburg, but spent a lot of

Johann Georg Leopold Mozart (November 14, 1719 – May 28, 1787) was a composer, music teacher and violinist. He was born in the city of Augsburg (today Germany), and was legally a citizen of the Diocese of Salzburg, but spent a lot of time in Vienna, Austria, (all within the Holy Roman Empire of Germany). He is best known today for being the father and teacher of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, but was a well-known figure himself in his own time.

Leopold Mozart was the son of a bookbinder. He studied theology at Salzburg University, but was more interested in music, becoming a violinist and valet to one of the university's canons, Count Thurn und Taxis, in 1740. In 1747 he married Anna Maria Pertl, who bore him seven children, although only two of them survived: Maria Anna Wallburga Ignatia (called "Nannerl") and Wolfgang Amadeus. In 1756, the same year as Wolfgang Amadeus' birth, Leopold wrote his Versuch einer gründlichen Violinschule, a comprehensive treatise on violin playing. Today it is one of the main sources on performance practice in the 18th century, along with Johann Joachim Quantz's Versuch einer Anweisung die Flöte traversière zu spielen (on flute playing) and Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach's Versuch über die wahre Art das Clavier zu spielen (on keyboard playing). He devoted much of his later life to developing and supporting the talents of his two surviving children, at the expense of his own work.