Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

A Biography

Piero Melograni

Read an excerpt.

Piero Melograni

Translated by Lydia G. Cochrane

Cloth $30.00 ISBN: 9780226519562 Published November 2006

Paper $22.50 ISBN: 9780226519616 Published May 2008

This year marks the 250th anniversary of the birth of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, one of the most enduringly popular and celebrated composers to have ever lived. His substantial oeuvre contains works that are considered to be among the most exquisite pieces of symphonic, chamber, and choral music ever written. His operas too cast a long shadow over those staged in their wake. And since his untimely death in 1791, he remains an enigmatic figure—the subject of fascination for aficionados and novices alike.

Piero Melograni here offers a wholly readable account of Mozart’s remarkable life and times. This masterful biography proceeds from the young Mozart’s earliest years as a Wunderkind—the child prodigy who traveled with his family to perform concerts throughout Europe—to his formative years in Vienna, where he fully absorbed the artistic and intellectual spirit of the Enlightenment, to his deathbed, his unfinished Requiem, and the mystery that still surrounds his burial. Melograni’s deft use of Mozart’s letters throughout confers authority and vitality to his recounting, and his expertise brings Mozart’s eighteenth-century milieu evocatively to life. Written with a gifted historian’s flair for narrative and unencumbered by specialized analyses of Mozart’s music, Melograni’s is the most vivid and enjoyable biography available.

At a time when music lovers around the world are paying honor to Mozart and his legacy, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart will be welcomed by his enthusiasts—or anyone wishing to peer into the mind of one of the greatest composers ever known.

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"Melograni's book is notable for its intense and fascinating presentation, which allows the reader no respite, pushing one to read through it in a single breath from beginning to end. . . . The author wants to bring us close to Mozart the human being by recounting a rich store of complex events with the liveliness of a newspaper reporter—giving the narration a tone of immediate topicality. . . .With the vigor and impetuosity of a river overflowing its banks, Melograni puts the reader face to face with a life so fascinating and complex as to be nearly incredible-the life of a human being who, despite being a great genius capable of giving humanity wonderful messages of beauty and faith in mankind, was forced to distinguish himself through his inexhaustible will to resist a continual series of difficulties and obstacles, solely through the inexorable power of his work and the fascination of his artistic personality, without ever descending to facile compromises with his own conscience."—Claudio Scimone, Liberal (Italy)

"Melograni . . . has made a valuable contribution to the crowded field of Mozart studies published this year, the 250th anniversary of Mozart's birth. The author draws extensively from the letters and notes of the Mozart family, and thus his conversational, chronological account of the composer's life is unusually rich in detail. Readers will encounter frequent interjections from Melogrania on the meaning of events or assumptions by other writers."—Library Journal

"This is one of the most engaging, vivid and well-written biographies of Mozart around. As befits the work of an admired historian, the sense of time and place is wonderfully alive and the elusive personality of his subject is captured with sympathy and genuine insight. He has an engrossing story to tell, he knows it, and he tells it better than most. As a portrait, the book is a triumphant success and deserves a wide readership."—Piano

“Italian historian Piero Melograni delivers a charming biography. Expertly grounded by the massive correspondence between Mozart and his highly complex family, Melograni’s study benefits from its author’s keen understanding of the changing social environments of the late eighteenth century.”—Todd B. Sollis, Opera News

"The free-market and modernization play a major role in Mr. Melograni's Mozart biography, which reinterprets Mozart's life with the trajectory of a Berlusconian hero, based on the composer's letters and some secondary sources. . . . Instead of music, Mr. Melograni focuses attention on characterizing Mozart as a 'moderate in politics,' flying in the face of generations of music historians who point to the social revolutionary themes in the operas 'Marriage of Figaro' and 'Don Giovanni.'"--Bejamin Ivry, New York Sun

"The idea that Mozart's achivements had nothing to do with self-discipline, hard work, knowledge or intellect is deeply embedded in the popular image of his genius, but Melograni . . . will have none of it, pointing out how hard Mozart worked on his music, even as a child, and suggesting that the 'eternal child' view was put about by . . . family members to emphasize Wolfgang's need for and dependence on them."--Sheila Fitzpatrick, London Review of Books

“[The book] is absorbing as a filial psychodrama, depicting Mozart’s slow emergence from the suffocating embrace of his father, Leopold, the quintessential stage parent.”—New York Times Book Review

"The book brings something new to the table and in fact suceeds brilliantly. . . . [Melograni] examines Mozart's movement through various social and political strata of the late 18th century; his relationships with family memebrs, employers, and other musicians; and his efforts to forge a new kind of career. . . . The book can be read profitably by musicians and nonmusicians. Essential."

Contents

Preface

Prologue - June 1765: In a London Tavern
1. 1756–1767: The Rise and Decline of the Child Prodigy
2. 1767–1777: Searching for a Post with His Father
3. 1777–1778: In Search of a Permanent Post with His Mother
4. 1778–1780: A Difficult Homecoming
5. 1780–1782: Winning Freedom
6. 1782–1786: Vienna: Difficulties and Successes
7. 1786–1790: The Great Italian Operas
8. 1791: Mozart’s Last Year

Epilogue - Mozart Lives On
Cited Works of Mozart, by Köchel Number
Note on the English
Translation Notes
Bibliographical Notes
Index

For more information, or to order this book, please visit http://www.press.uchicago.edu

Biography and Letters

History: European History

Music: General Music

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