Austrian composer of the Classical era who toured Europe as a child prodigy and wrote over 600 works, among them the operas The Marriage of Figaro and The Magic Flute and the serenade Eine kleine Nachtmusik.
The 'Mozart effect', 莫扎特效应, the idea that his music makes listeners cleverer, made his sonatas a staple of 胎教 'prenatal education' in China, music played to unborn babies. The 1993 study behind it found only a brief rise in students' spatial reasoning.