born the same year as Wolfgang, and the organist prodigy Joseph Siegmund Bachmann. Mozart eventually became recognised among prodigies as the future standard for early success and promise. Of seven children born to Leopold and Anna Maria Mozart, only the fourth, Maria Anna (Nannerl), born 31 July 1751, and the youngest, Wolfgang, born 27 January 1756, survived infancy. The children were educated at home, under Leopold's guidance, learning basic skills in reading, writing, drawing and arithmetic, together with some history and geography. Their musical education was aided by exposure to the constant rehearsing and playing of Leopold and his fellow musicians. When Nannerl was seven her father began to teach her to play the harpsichord, with Wolfgang looking on; according to Nannerl's own account "the boy immediately showed his extraordinary, God-given talent. He often spent long periods at the clavier, picking out thirds, and his pleasure showed that they sounded good to him... When he was five years old he was composing little pieces which he would play to his father who would write them down". A family friend, the poet Johann Andreas Schachtner, recounted that at the age of four Wolfgang began to compose a recognisable piano concerto, and was able to demonstrate a phenomenal sense of pitch. Nannerl herself was an apt pupil, no less quick to learn than her brother, and was playing the keyboard with striking virtuosity by the time she was eleven. In that year, 1762, Leopold brought the children to Munich to play before Maximilian III Joseph, Elector of Bavaria. Leopold then took the entire family to Vienna, on a trip that lasted for three months. He had secured invitations from several noble patrons, and within three days of arriving the children were playing at the palace of Count Collalto. Among those present was the Viennese Treasury councillor and future prime minister Karl von Zinzendorf, who noted in his diary that "a little boy, said to be only five-and-a-half years old [Wolfgang was actually nearly seven], played the harpsichord". After an appearance before the Imperial Vice-Chancellor, the Mozarts were invited to the royal court, where the Empress Maria Theresa tested Wolfgang's abilities by requiring him to play with the keyboard covered. During this court visit Wolfgang met the Archduchess Maria Antonia, the future Queen Marie Antoinette of France, who was two months his senior. Mozart's biographer Eric Blom recounts an anecdote of how the