Juan Crisóstomo Arriaga was born in Bilbao, Biscay, on what would have been Mozart's fiftieth birthday. His father (Juan Simón de Arriaga) and the boy's older brother first taught him music. Juan Simón had some musical talent and at age seventeen Juan Crisóstomo was an organist at a church in Berriatúa. Juan Simón worked in Guernica and in 1804 moved to Bilbao and became a merchant in wool, rice, wax, coffee and other commodities. The income generated in this way allowed Juan Simón to think about providing his son, who had shown prodigious musical talent, a way of developing those gifts.