Mozart

We dish out the label "musical genius" all too casually, but if anyone sets the standard to which all virtuosos must aspire, it's Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Seriously. The man had learned the fundamentals of composition by the age of five, and by the end of his life there was no style or form he hadn't mastered and perfected. Ease into our selection from his incredible body of work with pieces you'll know well, even if you can't put a name to them . . . like the gorgeously delicate second movement from Piano Concerto No. 21, or the opening of his most famous piano sonata, No. 16.

Mozart wrote only one clarinet quintet, and it's fabulous, as you'll hear in Next Steps.

In addition to writing great operas and symphonies, Mozart excelled at composing pieces for solo instruments: with the Clarinet Quintet in A Major, here performed by the late, great Dame Thea King and the Gabrieli String Quartet, he weaves the clear melodies of the woodwind instrument within and above a brilliantly structured backing of strings. Musicologist Alfred Einstein called it "chamber-music work of the finest kind" and although the second movement ("Larghetto") is perhaps the most recognisable, it still deserves to be heard in its entirety.

Some of the world's greatest pianists offer timeless interpretations of Mozart, in Deep Cuts.

It takes a bold and passionate approach to familiar pieces to keep Mozart's great work fresh as the first time it filled the late 18th century air — and that's exactly what Emmanuel Krivine, here conducting Poland's outstanding Sinfonia Varsovia, brings to the Adagio & Fugue in C Minor. Legendary pianist Alfred Brendel glides through the third movement of Piano Sonata No. 13, making the supremely difficult arpeggios sound easy, and Derek Han handles the vigorous third movement from Piano Concerto No. 14 with elegance and precision.

During a legendary trip to Italy as a teenager, Mozart heard a performance of Gregorio Allegri's "Miserere" in the Sistine Chapel, memorized it, and committed it to paper, thus producing the first-ever bootleg version of a work closely guarded by the Vatican. It is also believed that he could write a piece of music on paper while simultaneously composing another in his head. Such was the genius of the man whose own compositions continue to thrill the world. Here we offer you a comprehensive introduction to his work, drawn from his Classical era masterpieces, from symphony to chamber piece, from concerto to opera, from Eine Kleine Nachtmusik to The Marriage of Figaro.