Vivaldi and Mozart at the Musikverein

Antonio Lucio Vivaldi was born in Venice on 4 March 1678 and is regarded as one of the most influential composers of the Baroque era. He received violin lessons from his father at an early age and was ordained as a priest in 1703. That same year, he began working as a violin teacher at the Ospedale della Pietà in Venice and soon made a name for himself as a virtuoso violinist and composer. His works became known far beyond Italy. In 1740, Vivaldi left Venice for Vienna, where he died in modest circumstances on 28 July 1741.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in Salzburg on 27 January 1756 and is regarded as one of the greatest composers of all time. His extraordinary talent became apparent at an early age: by the age of four he was playing the piano and violin, and at five he wrote his first compositions. Celebrated as a child prodigy, he travelled to the courts of Europe; in London in 1764 he met Johann Christian Bach, who became his first major artistic mentor. After years as court concertmaster in Salzburg, he settled in Vienna and worked as a freelance musician – an almost unprecedented step at the time.

Joseph Haydn was born in Rohrau, Lower Austria, on 31 March 1732 and is one of the central figures of Viennese Classicism. As Kapellmeister (‘music director’) to the Hungarian noble family Esterházy, he spent almost three decades in relative isolation – a situation that, as he himself said, forced him to “become original”. During this period, he developed the symphony and the string quartet into the genres that continue to define the Classical repertoire today.

Ludwig van Beethoven was baptised in Bonn on 17 December 1770 and is one of the most important composers in the history of music. In 1792 he came to Vienna to study with Joseph Haydn – and remained devoted to the city for the rest of his life. In Vienna he created an oeuvre that pushed the boundaries of Viennese Classicism while simultaneously opening the way to Romanticism.