Mozart: A Cultural Biography - Hardcover

Gutman, Robert W.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 015100482X ISBN 13: 9780151004829

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1999

Synopsis

An exhaustively researched account of a great composer's life offers new perspectives and interpretations, placing him within the context of his times, discussing the musical genres he worked in, and giving a clear picture of the man behind the legends. 20,000 first printing.

About this title

Review:

Readers who think of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756--1791) as the shrieking vulgarian depicted in Peter Shaffer's hit play (and movie) Amadeus will be astonished by the man they meet in this biography by music historian Robert Gutman: "affectionate and generous...an austere moralist of vital force, incisiveness, and strength of purpose". Without scanting Mozart's often maladroit handling of his patrons or his earthy way with words ("Let the whole company of patricians lick my ass", he declared in a 1777 letter), Gutman portrays a musical genius who slowly and painfully achieved personal maturity as he emerged from the shadow of his domineering father. The rich cultural life of 18th-century Europe forms a vivid background for Mozart's professional and artistic evolution. And Gutman's descriptions of Mozart's work are models of music writing for the lay reader: they capture the brilliance and beauty of the great composer's art in easily accessible language, as in the analysis of the place of "The Marriage of Figaro" in "a new aesthetic of surging movement...the vocal and orchestral lines entwine, separate, and reunite in confrontation, opposition, and accommodation, an ever-changing, effortless interlacing". The prose delineating Mozart's complex personality is just as full-bodied and perceptive. --Wendy Smith

Review:

"Yoshimura's evocations of Japan's cities, jails, and workplaces are precise, and his spare, sensual prose has all of the intensity of poetry...a vivid psychological portrait.-Publishers Weekly (starred Review)
"Reminiscent of Zola and Balzac...A brilliant dramatization of the implacability of fate by an exceptionally good novelist."-Kirkus Reviews (starred)

About this edition

• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 015100482X
• ISBN 13: 9780151004829
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 839