On Mozart [Hardcover]

A collection of essays which explore Mozart from various perspectives, suggesting the complexity of his character and his achievement.Portraying a more complex individual than the divinely inspired Mozart of myth--who took his notes directly from God--this study depicts him as a genius struggling to support his family by working at his craft within a society crowded with other working composers.Portraying a more complex individual than the divinely inspired Mozart of myth--who took his notes directly from God--this study depicts him as a genius struggling to support his family by working at his craft within a society crowded with other working composers.On Mozart is an attempt to suggest how much more complicated a figure Mozart was than popular legends and media portrayals would have us believe. He was certainly a genius--in that, the legends are correct, and the evidence abounds--but he was also a working composer in a society crowded with other working composers, and he had to make a living at his craft to maintain the style of living to which he and his family had become accustomed. By observing a realistic and human genius, the collection of essays portrays a more complex individual than the divinely inspired Mozart of myth, who took his notes directly from God.Introduction; 1. Approaching Mozart Denis Donoghe; 2. How extraordinary was Mozart? Howard Gardner; 3. Mozart and the transformational imperative David Henry Feldman; 4. On the economics of musical composition in Mozart's Vienna William J. Baumol and Hilda Baumol; 5. Mozart as a working stiff Neal Zaslow; 6. The challenge of blank paper: Mozart the composer Christoph Wolff; 7. Marianne Mozart Carissima Sorella Mia Maynard Solomon; 8. Mozart's concertos and their audience Joseph Kerman; 9. Mozart's tunes and the comedy of closure Wye J. Allanbrook; 10. Don Giovanni against the Baroque or the culture punished Michael P. Steinberg; 11. Nineteenth-century Mozart: the fin-de-siecle Mozart revival Leon Botsteil3*