Mozart was baptised as Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart.

His last Christian name, 'Theophilus' means 'Beloved of God', which is 'Amadeus' in Latin.

He wrote his first pieces for piano at the age of five and composed his first opera, which was in Latin, at the age of 11.

When touring as a child prodigy, Mozart often took second billing to his sister Maria Anna (known as 'Nannerl') but she was no longer allowed to perform in public on reaching marriageable age.

When Mozart performed in London aged nine, he was closely examined by some who claimed he must be a dwarf as a child could not be so good.

There is a rare deformity of the ear known as 'Mozart ear', though whether Mozart himself suffered from it has long been a matter of debate.

In all portraits of Mozart, his left ear is either covered by a wig or hidden from view.

Pope Clement XIV made the 14-year-old Mozart a Knight of the Order of the Golden Spur.

Mozart broke off his courtship of Constanze Weber for some time after she permitted her calves to be measured by a gentleman during a parlour game.

She went on to bear Mozart six children, of whom only two survived infancy.

Their fifth child, Anna Maria, was born and died on Christmas Day 1789. Neither of the Mozarts' surviving children married or had children.

Before Mozart married Constanze, he had proposed to her older sister Aloysia Weber.

Nobody knows if the skull at the Mozarteum in Salzburg is really Mozart's. DNA tests performed in 2006 were inconclusive.

Mozart was a very keen billiards player. When he died at the age of 35, a valuation of his estate included: "One green cloth billiard table with five balls, 12 cues, one lantern and four lights".

In his 30 years of composing, he wrote 202 hours of music, which works out at one minute and six seconds of music every day.

Mozart was born on 27 January 1756;

Lewis Carroll was born on 27 January 1832;

Verdi died on 27 January 1901;

Kaiser Wilhelm II was born on 27 January 1859;

Thomas Edison took out a patent for the electric lamp on 27 January 1879;

and John Logie Baird first demonstrated television on 27 January 1926.

One of the very few errors in Milos Forman's Oscar-winning film Amadeus on the life of Mozart was the inclusion of actresses wearing dresses that are clearly zipped up at the back.

The zip was not invented by Whitcomb L Judson until 1893, and the modern zip, such as could be used on dresses, did not appear until Gideon Sundback's patent for such a device in 1913.