8. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Long before Mozart gained fame as a composer he achieved celebrity as a performer. He learned to play on the clavier beginning at the age of three. By the time he was six, he performed in the great houses of Europe and Britain, playing before the nobility and their courts and entourages. His fame spread quickly through Europe as a child prodigy, and the tour which began in 1762 continued off and on for eleven years. He began composing during his tours, and he became less of a child prodigy and more of a serious composer. During the period of his travels, he performed before the Emperor of Austria, the King of France, and in the presence of Johannes Sebastian Bach in London.
Mozart was an early celebrity, though he was a celebrity among the rich and well-connected, rather than among the common people. Not until late in his short life was his music readily available to the people; opera and symphony performances were too expensive for those of the lower classes. Still, from a very young age, he was talked about among the nobility of Europe. His fame naturally drew the enmity of some he offended, including rival musicians and the husbands of women he was alleged to have seduced. He was buried in a common grave, meaning he was buried in the grave of a commoner rather than one containing many corpses. As was the custom of the time, the graves of commoners were reopened after a period of ten years, an indignity not imposed on the graves of the nobility.