Influence

Mozart's most famous pupil, whom the Mozarts took into their Vienna home for two years as a child, was probably Johann Nepomuk Hummel, a transitional figure between Classical and Romantic eras.^[78] More important is the influence Mozart had on composers of later generations. Ever since the surge in his reputation after his death, studying his scores has been a standard part of the training of classical musicians.

Ludwig van Beethoven, Mozart's junior by fifteen years, was deeply influenced by his work, with which he was acquainted as a teenager. He is thought to have performed Mozart's operas while playing in the court orchestra at Bonn,^[79] and he traveled to Vienna in 1787 hoping to study with the older composer. Some of Beethoven's works have direct models in comparable works by Mozart, and he wrote cadenzas (WoO 58) to Mozart's D minor piano concerto K. 466.

A number of composers have paid homage to Mozart by writing sets of variations on his themes. Beethoven wrote four such sets (Op. 66, WoO 28, WoO 40, WoO 46). Others include Frédéric Chopin's Variations on "Là ci darem la mano" from Don Giovanni (1827) and Max Reger's Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Mozart (1914), based on the variation theme in the piano sonataK. 331.^[80] Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky wrote his Orchestral Suite No. 4 in G, "Mozartiana" (1887), as a tribute to Mozart.