Mozart: A Life

This is a short, brief, to-the-point book about Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, which, for all its brevity, is probably the only book a general reader would want to consult to be fully informed of his life and work.In addition, if you are like me, your only source of information about the life of Mozart is the great movie and stage play, "Amadeus." If that is the case, as the Firesign Theater says, "Everything you know is wrong."Johnson's book does much to dispel just about every factual assertion indicated in that movie. For example,* There was no murderous rivalry between Mozart and Salieri. Johnson calls this slander. Leopold, Mozart's father, probably distrusted Salieri more than Mozart himself, who was on good terms with Salieri.* Further, the "Mysterious Stranger" who commissioned Mozart to write the Requiem was not Salieri. History has definitively identified another person.* Salieri did NOT assist the dying Mozart in completing the Requiem.* Constanze, Mozart's wife, was not some fluzzy, but an accomplished, respected soprano singer herself. While she was not, as indicated in the film, his de-facto manager in his life, she was an able administrator of his estate on death.* Mozart was not a flake constantly in debt. While he did ask for money many, many times, in his life, Johnson attributes this to the primitive condition of the public banking system, where public cash was in short supply. The equivalent to modern loans was friends lending other friends money. Loans which were made in his life were paid on a timely basis, and on his death Constanze paid his outstanding loans quickly from his estate.* The movie implied that Mozart's burial in a common grave was the equivalent to that of a pauper. Instead, Johnson indicates that this was a common practice.There are some things the movie got right:* By all indications the film accurately reflects Mozart's father and his conflict with Constanze.* Mozart's conflict with Bishop Colloredo appears to be accurate.* Mozart apparently enjoyed billiards very much in his life.* He was, as is implied in the movie, a music writing machine. The extent to which Johnson lists his many compositions in his short life is staggering. The point is made in the movie where Salieri bemoans that the manuscripts to his compositions appear to be written in dictation. Johnson does not directly dispel this observation. For the decade before his death, Mozart and Hayden, who worked together, wrote a masterpiece every two-weeks, Mozart producing twice as much as Hayden.For its purposes this is a one-stop book about Mozart. It is as much a discussion of Mozart's work as well as an exposition of his life. Anyone wanting a detailed discussion may read Solomon's extensive, excellent biography on Mozart. For the general reader, Johnson's book is all you will need to know.

Johnson has a clear writing style and I learned a lot about Mozart through this book. There are numerous insights based on research including the many letters written by the composer. I enjoyed the story about Mozart treating himself to ice cream after his success with his work as a young composer in Paris. I hope the author followed through on his idea to treat himself to an ice dessert at the famous restaurant now at the ice cream parlor location upon successful completion of the book! The author's respect and love for Mozart's artistry comes through loud and clear.

Johnson has written many concise biographies of famous people (Socrates, Churchill, Eisenhower) and this accounting of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is one of his best. Of course, he has an extremely interesting character to write about. Mozart was a prodigy at an early age; his musician father carted him throughout Europe showing off his works. He had performed before kings and queens throughout the Continent before he was ten years old. A native of Salzburg, he learned to speak Latin and English and picked up mathematics easily. By his teens, he was considered the equal of any composer alive (or dead).I am not a big fan of classical music and I do not know much about the great composers, but this compact book proved to be a fascinating account of a great genius. Some of Johnson's more esoteric observations flew over my head but for the most part I could follow his reasoning. Mozart died at the age of 35 of liver disease. I intended to list all of the musical compositions that Mozart produced, but the list on page 4 of the book is literally too lengthy to reproduce here. Mozart was a prolific genius who mastered every instrument except the harp and produced operas, masses, songs, ballet music, arias, symphonies, concertos, dances, and many other works. "He played and composed as he breathed," writes Johnson, with fluidity, speed, and accuracy. Mozart was also a joker, incorporating many musical jokes into his works, some that probably still remain hidden even to this day. Mozart loved to dance and he wrote a lot of dance music. His one great passion, other than music, was billiards. He would compose while waiting his turn to play, fidgeting with billiard balls in hand. "Mozart had a fetish about smooth, rolling objects." He liked to handle billiard balls while thinking and creating.Mozart could be touchy and edgy, but people enjoyed him for his love of life. "Gay himself by nature," Johnson writes, "he saw no reason why people should not enjoy a little innocent pleasure, or not-so-innocent pleasure, for that matter."I was caught by one catch-phrase buried inside a chapter--"Mozart's beauty prevents one from appreciating his power." One could be excused for believing that W.A. Mozart was a gift to mankind from God.