Mozart's lucrative job and extravagant lifestyle

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The new documents, on display at Vienna's Musikverein, reveal that Mozart earned about 10,000 florins a year. That would have placed him in the top 5 percent of wage-earners in late 18th-century Vienna. Successful professionals lived comfortably on 450 florins a year, according to Biba, who said Mozart's main occupation in Vienna was teaching piano to aristocrats -- a lucrative job that helped support his extravagant lifestyle.