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MOZART AND THE ENLIGHTENMENT

Name: MOZART AND THE ENLIGHTENMENT
Author: Nicholas Till
ISBN: 0-393-03495-X

TRUTH, VIRTUE, AND BEAUTY IN MOZART'S OPERAS

by Nicholas Till ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 26, 1993

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An erudite mix of music, history, philosophy, biography, sociology, and even depth psychology—adding up to a triumphant study of Mozart's supreme masterworks. Writers faced with Don Giovanni or The Magic Flute have generally retreated into plot summary or musical analysis. Not so here. Stage-director Till, needing to find practical theatrical solutions to the paradoxes of Mozart's operas—why are those peasants loose in Count Almaviva's palace?—turns for help to Mozart's own intellectual milieu, the ``German enlightenment.'' He weaves the chronology of Mozart's professional progress into a tapestry of 18th-century ideas: the social contract; the ``enlightened despot''; the pursuit of happiness; the moral worth of sentiment; the status of the individual. In a text dense with apt quotation from Diderot, Rousseau, Voltaire, Montesquieu, Goethe, and others, Mozart's personal and artistic ambitions are seen playing themselves out against the larger tension of a society striving to reconcile the freedom necessary for bourgeois prosperity with the authority thought necessary to hold that society together. In his early travels, Mozart fed on Enlightenment ideals (e.g., the artist as honored public figure rather than private lackey). He went to Vienna upon the accession of Germany's most enlightened prince, Joseph II, and in the next five ``years of optimism'' produced a host of mature masterpieces. Each opera from La finta giardiniera onward receives full discussion of its connection to contemporaneous social thought, and there is a particularly compelling treatment of the final operas within the context of the ``collapse'' of Joseph's reform program. Mozart's Masonic associations also receive an illuminating presentation. Not all of Till's propositions can be accepted without question, and his occasional forays into psychobiography prove the weakest link, but no matter: Few books provide such a satisfying exploration of the thoughts and feelings from which great art is born. The subtlety and richness of Till's argument cannot be conveyed by prÇcis: A feast for the intellectually adventurous. (Photographs—not seen)

Pub Date: April 26, 1993

ISBN: 0-393-03495-X

Page Count: 384

Publisher: Norton

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1993

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

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NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

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This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)

Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996

ISBN: 0-15-100227-4

Page Count: 136

Publisher: Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER
by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

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An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.