double chin. Wolfgang, too, looks far older than his 7 years, and controls the action from his place at its center. The Child Prodigy Indeed, Mozart marks the beginning of the Western fascination with the child prodigy. Dressed in the festive outfit
             given Wolfgang in 1762 by the Empress Maria Theresa, this boy of not quite seven years old looks, for all the world, like a miniature adult who has simply skipped childhood. "Mozart was keenly aware of his exceptional ability, which had been fostered and rutted in him by his father from a very early age"(Levey 35). Other nineteenth-century artists represented Wolfgang-variously said to be anywhere from 11 to 14 as a curly-locked angel. For them, how else could the divine music that poured out of a child-size body be explained? The idealization of Mozart's genius was complete by the end of the nineteenth century. Mozart composes with his violin in one hand and music has appeared miraculously on his stand in the other. The message is unmistakable: "Mortals use quills,
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