Status
Available
Call number
DDC/MDS
| 780.92 M877e |
Publication
New York, London [etc.] Oxford university press, 1945.
Description
Written by one of the world's outstanding music historians and critics, the late Alfred Einstein, this classic study of Mozart's character and works brings to light many new facts about his relationship with his family, his susceptibility to ambitious women, and his associations with musicalcontemporaries, as well as offering a penetrating analysis of his operas, piano music, chamber music, and symphonies.
User reviews
LibraryThing member LisaMaria_C
This is more than a biography, rather this book by an acclaimed musicologist who helped revise the catalogue of Mozart's works is a guide to the meaning and background of Mozart's music. In the preface, Einstein says that the "present volume is not an introduction to Mozart's life and music. It
The book isn't structured by chronological order, but by theme. The first section of about a hundred pages is dedicated to "The Man" (and even that part is organized thematically), the second, shorter section to "The Musician" (universality, contemporaries, process of creation, counterpoint, choice of keys), and the rest, about two-thirds are devoted to a gloss on his works: the instrumental works, the vocal works, opera.
This was published in 1944, and I'm sure scholarship has moved on since, but I still found this work more than worthy of reading and I'm sure I'll consult this work again and again when I feel like listening to a Mozart work with a better educated ear. I'm not musically sophisticated in the slightest. I can't read music or play a musical instrument, and I have never mastered the ability to say, hear the difference between the major and minor key. I'm sure someone with more musicality could get much more from this book--but even I found much here to enjoy and educate me.
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addresses itself to readers who already know and love at least some of his works."The book isn't structured by chronological order, but by theme. The first section of about a hundred pages is dedicated to "The Man" (and even that part is organized thematically), the second, shorter section to "The Musician" (universality, contemporaries, process of creation, counterpoint, choice of keys), and the rest, about two-thirds are devoted to a gloss on his works: the instrumental works, the vocal works, opera.
This was published in 1944, and I'm sure scholarship has moved on since, but I still found this work more than worthy of reading and I'm sure I'll consult this work again and again when I feel like listening to a Mozart work with a better educated ear. I'm not musically sophisticated in the slightest. I can't read music or play a musical instrument, and I have never mastered the ability to say, hear the difference between the major and minor key. I'm sure someone with more musicality could get much more from this book--but even I found much here to enjoy and educate me.
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LibraryThing member BrendanCarroll
Very informative biography. Very well written.
Physical description
492 p.; 24 cm