Mozart spent a third of his life travelling: 3720 days, according to a clever calculation. The six-year-old child prodigy celebrated Christmas 1763 at the invitation of the French King Louis XVI. in the Palace of Versailles. Twenty years later, the genius, who had meanwhile settled in Vienna, struggled restlessly from one concert to the next, composing day and night. The Piano Concerto in B flat major KV 450, which Mozart himself premiered, also falls during this period.
The English composer Gerald Finzi set texts by the 17th-century poet Thomas Traherne to music in his Christmas cantata Dies Natalis . They reflect the joy of the Christ child in a subtle way.
During the Christmas season of 1845, Robert Schumann's 2nd symphony was written. Clara Schumann wrote to Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy: «My husband made me very happy at Christmas and surprised me with the sketches for a new symphony; he's all music now, so there's really nothing to do with him."
