Reviews (1)

Engrossing!
Although "just" an introduction of people whom Mozart associated with during his short life, it is engrossing because it gives a small, but well-painted context in which to view Mozart's life. It demonstrates that colorful people have colorful friends, and enemies. ... Read more

Book Description

An account of the composer's day-to-day life as evidenced in various kinds of biographical sources, this work reveals the astonishing succession of meetings with the glitterati of Europe and the awe-inspiring effect Mozart had on other composers--and their envious responses. It also places him at home with his wife and family, battling against heart-rending financial failure while his operas were being performed across Europe. Musically, the work situates Mozart's compositions in their chronological context. This fascinating account will be of interest to scholars, students, and Mozart enthusiasts. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

re-publish a 'lost' inspiration
Apologies first! Although I have not yet read Dimond's latest work I really would like to express my appreciation for his "Music made simple", now regrettably out of print. This book was an absolute inspiration to me when I first read it a while back. In it Dimond's excitement, thorough knowledge and -dare I say it - 'passion' for the composers he discusses is all too obvious. The book was evidently a labour of love and was a joy to read. Read it and be glued, avidly, to each page. Additionally, it includes concisely explained passages on music theory. With this book in your hands you will sail through G.C.S.E music. But just read it as a beautifully written book primarily on the lives and music of the great composers from the past. I wish I had Dimond's email to thank him myself!

More errors than consistent data!
There are errors appearing in this book from page 23 on (Va del furor portata instead of Va dal furor portata). Index of persons is very weak and inaccurate. I really wonder who did the recensy of this book? (Shame...) ... Read more

Book Description

Opera's Second Death is a passionate exploration of opera - the genre, its masterpieces, and the nature of death. Using a dazzling array of tools, Slavoj Zizek and coauthor Mladen Dolar explore the strange compulsions that overpower characters in Mozart and Wagner, as well as our own desires to die and to go to the opera. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Opera on the Couch
To those who love opera and know nothing about psychoanalysis or philosophy this book will be challenging and probably incomprehensible. Still, if anyone can get an Opera Queen to think, it might be Slavoj Zizek and Mladen Dolar. Dolar's is a more conventional and comprehensive treatment of the history of opera as a history of ideas. It is excellent and one can almost read the copious notes as a separate and equally enjoyable experience. Zizek uses particular operas to explain profound and fascinating ideas about love and death, narcissism and self-destruction, through the ideas (among others) of Lacan and Hegel. Ever since Zizek's seminal books explaining the complexities of Lacan and Hegel through popular entertainment he has accrued fame in intellectual circles without ever becoming pompous or complacent. He makes for enjoyable and provocative reading and chances are, after you've read him, you'll be keeping an eye out for his next book. ... Read more

Book Description

A lavishly illustrated overview of Mozart¹s life and work. ... Read more

Book Description

Although there are many accounts of Mozart's life, and countless descriptions and analyses of his music, this is the first attempt to portray Mozart's creative life as a composer.Kuster selects forty works or groups of works covering virtually every important stage in Mozart's career, from the first keyboard works of the young Wunderkind to Mozart's final days and the composition of the Requiem.Each chapter deals with the developments and events in the lives of the Mozarts as associated with or highlighted by a particular work or constellation of works. The bulk of the book--the is concerned with Mozart's life and compositions from his arrival in Vienna in 1781 to his death there some ten years later.

Drawing on the tremendous advances in Mozart research over the last thirty years, and the publication of the New Mozart Edition, Kuster's book makes a major contribution to our understanding of the creative development of the composer who represents for most musicians and music lovers the highest pinnacle of musical achievement. ... Read more

Book Description

Mozart`s father, Leopold, bombarded his son with advice-filled letters in the German style of the times; Wolfgang first responded angrily, but then evaded and dissimulated in letters similar to those of the French philosophers. In this provocative new analysis of the Mozart father-son letters, David Schroeder contends that Mozart subverted his father`s ambition to publish the letters by turning the correspondence into an epistolary game and making his own letters unpublishable. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

One shouldn't make Mozart an academic nerd
This book consists largely of a single assumption, one that has an interesting premise. Did Mozart contort his correspondence out of frustration, or duplicity, or desperation, or was it ultimately a practical decision, given his father's moralizing? The problem with this assumption would be obvious to anyone but an academic scholar - that not everyone is obsessed with leaving 'correct' traces of their existence through little academic intrigues. Mozart certainly wouldn't have cared what a David P Schroeder thought of him, or of anything. That's where the premise falls flat - at the beginning. It's still entertaining to read Mozart's correspondence, because he could be very entertaining as well as silly.

How to love a parent and at the same time keep your sanity.
A refreshing examination of the interesting relationship between a father and son. This is a reinterpretation of Mozart's own words in light of the cultural "wit" of the time. ... Read more

Book Description

"The real key to this distinctive book lies in its subtitle. The book's core is an astonishingly detailed medical history of Mozart, spanning his entire life, compiled with great ingenuity and skill from varied and sometimes surprising sources. Davies, a British physician specializing in internal medicine, has already established his credentials with a series of substantial journal articles concerning Mozart's final illness and death. Here he expands and consolidates his research, offering a presumably definitive account of the intricate cluster of ailments and disabilities, some stretching back over many years, that eventually contributed to Mozart's early death. After reading Davies, one wonders not at Mozart's early end but, rather, how he survived for so long. . . . Davies advances unexpected medical causes for some Mozartean peculiarities of behavior, and surely these ideas will provoke much interest among Mozart scholars. For college or university libraries that already have the `basic' Mozart items, here is a unique and most rewarding addition." Choice ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Fascinating reading
It is always amazing how medical diagnosis' can be applied to historical figures. After reading this book, I have come to the conclusion that it is, indeed, a miracle that Mozart lived at all. He apparently suffered from several maladies that would put a normal human into his/her grave much sooner than Mozart, when he finally waivered. It also presents the question of just how did Mozart get out of bed everyday, or at least most days, and compose his huge portfolio, teach, give concerts, go dancing and partying, and just livee an active life, which I believe no one can dispute. After reading this book, I believe that Mozart must have pulled an Elvis, or better still, Elvis pulled a Mozart. If one knows nothing regarding the myths surrounding Mozart's death, this read will be a -lost-.If one is acquainted with the various versions, and knows some little something about medicine, this book is very amusing, entertaining and thought-provoking. Warning! After reading this book there is a possibility that you will believe that you suffer from one or more of the diseases presented, and so have something in common with Mozart. On the other hand, it does give an interesting peek into medicine of the time, and the real danger something as simple as a common cold, run rapant, can become without modern medical cures......... ... Read more

Amazon.com

Who was Mozart--the pure artist some have thought him, or the grotesque idiot savant, obsessed by the scatological but still capable of writing music as if channeling God? In this 1991 biography (newly translated into English by J. Bradford Robinson), author Georg Knepler demolishes both notions. In their place he presents a thinking man, a true son of the Enlightenment, a man unimpressed by inherited position--at home in all segments of society--and profoundly affected by events and ideas around him. Knepler traces Mozart's intellectual and musical development to make a compelling case for the composer as a complex and multifaceted individual. This is one of the best, most thoughtful biographies of Mozart to appear in recent years. ... Read more