Mozart's 250th birthday celebrated

SALZBURG, Austria (AP) -- It's a birthday bash being heard around the world.
The cobblestoned and turreted city of Mozart's birth was the focal point for Friday's 250th anniversary celebrations -- but the sound of the master's music was being heard around the globe.
Orchestras halls and opera houses worldwide planned performances of his works. Piano students scheduled Mozart marathons and puppeteers were planning jubilee performances as hundreds of cities across five continents toasted the musical genius.
Mozart wrote his first symphonies before turning 10 and his first significant opera at 12. He was instrumental in changing opera into the form we enjoy today.
He was prolific like few others, creating at least 626 musical works despite living to only age 35.
Some history books depict his tenure in Salzburg ending ingloriously in 1781 with a kick in the bottom from a servant of a patron, the city's imperious archbishop, after Mozart refused to follow orders on how to compose.
Still, the town where he was born on Jan. 27, 1756, was Mozart Central on Friday.
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