MOZART

The prodigious career of a musical icon.

Composer and biographer Swafford brings expertise and insight to bear on a comprehensive, animated life of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791). Debunking a romanticized image of Mozart as a tormented artist, the author portrays a “jolly and informal” man with a “boundless appetite for pleasure.” Drawing on many previous biographies, along with Mozart’s published letters, Swafford offers a thorough analysis of Mozart’s overwhelming oeuvre—symphonies, masses, sacred music, chamber music, concertos, and operas that include The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, and The Magic Flute. Readers already familiar with Mozart’s music and musical terms will be rewarded by Swafford’s sprightly analyses; others may feel at sea, even with the help of an appendix explaining musical forms in Mozart’s time. As many readers know, Mozart was a prodigy, playing the clavier and composing when he was 5 and giving concerts at 6. By the time he was 11, Mozart was famous throughout Europe. His manipulative, domineering father hoped that the boy’s genius would be the family’s enduring meal ticket. Although Swafford supports his contention that Mozart was a happy man and a devoted, loving husband, he concedes, too, that the composer could assume “a posture of superiority” and sometimes became overcome with “exaggerated paranoia.” Despite being prolific (Mozart wrote once to his sister “that he composed as easily as a sow piddles”), his efforts were not always acclaimed: “He is a great master, ran the usual critical line, but he cannot restrain his overweening imagination, his chilly intellectualism, his too many notes.” Often short of money to fulfill his desires “to live in a fine apartment and to buy the best piano and best billiard table, and the grandest clothes,” he worked tirelessly, managing hectic demands with “a surfeit of brilliance, fearlessness, and energy.” Swafford deftly captures that brilliance in a challenging narrative that is sure to thrill classical music fans but will leave many general readers in the dark.

An admiring, authoritative biography.