Synopsis
First published in hardback, in 1989, Mozart's Symphonies is the first serious attempt in any language to survey the entire panorama of Mozart's symphonic works. Accounting for every symphony associated with Mozart involved the identification and evaluation of nearly a hundred symphonies. Professor Zaslaw placed each symphony in its musical and cultural context, and addressed such questions as how and why the symphonies were written, how they were disseminated, who paid for them, who played them, who listened to them, and what those involved thought of them. The role of the symphony in Mozart's creative life and his contribution to the genre was also examined.
The result is a classic of Mozart scholarship, which offers an outstanding contribution to Mozart literature in this generation. This paperback edition makes that contribution more widely known in this year, the bicentenary of Mozart's death.
Review
one must acknowledge its essential contribution to Mozart scholarship and its mass of information brought under control and made available to those whose only access is to English-language publications (Music and Letters)
[Zaslaw's] command of the material and its context, in the broadest sense, historical and theoretical, is so grandly magisterial that his views could not but have been enlightening ... there is much to be grateful for in a book that is bound to be a cornerstone of Mozart scholarship for many decades and a starting-point for any future work. (Early Music)
magnificent and massive volume ... a profound, elegant, beautifully produced study of an age, its sociology, aesthetics, musical theory and practice. One does not know whether to admire more the judicious and perceptive analysis of the music or the thoroughness, originality and clarity of the presentation of the context in which the works came into being and were first performed.
A challenging, stylish and uncommonly useful book ... a valuable and attractively presented study of The Mozart-Da Ponte Operas. This is a fine book. (Peter Branscombe, Austrian Studies, II)
this may be the most important single volume may be the most important single volume on the composer to appear since the latest revision of the Köchel catalogue in 1964 ... Zaslaw demonstrates a masterful command of the primary and secondary literature, musical and iconographic sources. (Notes, September 1992)
These sometimes monumental works are destined to give us a knowledge of Mozart which far exceeds that of any other composer in terms of precise detail. It is in that spirit that Professor Zaslaw's impressive study of Mozart's symphonic oeuvre must be seen...Professor Zaslaw has done an admirable and exhaustive job on a subjest that will serve scholars for years to come. Here, for the first time, all of Mozart's syphonic works are analysed and put into perspective. While not everyone will agree with the conclusions or the approach, it is clear that the work will provide the solid foundation for future research into Mozart's sysmphonies for the foreseeable future. Professor Zaslaw should commended for undertaking such a daunting task, and his work is to be highly recommended. (Bertil Van Boer, Journal of Musicological Research, Vol 12, 1992)
One welcomes with open arms such a study as Neal Zaslaw's "Mozart's Symphonies", not only for its substance but also for the clarity and wit of its presentation...all of what Zaslaw has to say, has obviously been thought through with logic, analysed, pondered, and organized in such a manner that his delivery of the vast material remains unencumbered and clear...It is well enough researched, written and edited not only to become a standard in every performing musician's and musicologist's library but also to serve as model for genre studies that have yet to be written. (Faye Ferguson, Mozart-Jahrbuch, August 1993)
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