It seems Mr. Mozart may not have been as poor as we once thought:The new documents, on display at Vienna's Musikverein, reveal that he earned about 10,000 florins a year — at least $42,000, in today's terms.
That would have placed him in the top 5 percent of wage-earners in late 18th-century Vienna, say experts, who were unable to prove lingering suspicions that gambling debts took a big bite out of Mozart's earnings.
"Mozart made a lot of money," said Otto Biba, director of Vienna's vast musical archives.
To put his earnings in perspective: 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.
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