Customer Reviews

Mozart with CD (His Life and Music)

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I so enjoyed this biography of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart that I could hardly put it down. Siepmann does a good job of putting Mozart's life into a clear context, both in terms of the events surrounding him as well as the wider historical and musical world. Also, there is a good balance here between biographical and musical discussions. Interestingly, Siepmann chose to discuss most of Mozart's music in separate chapters that he calls "interludes," so while this is somewhat disjointed from a biographical standpoint, it makes the book more useful as a musical reference after you've read it. The book is concise, though, at just 170 pages of main text, so there's not a great deal of detail for those who already know the main outline of Mozart's life and work. I like the fact that Siepmann chose to include extensive quotations from Mozart and others to give a better sense of their thinking. And the 2 included CDs are fun to listen to along with reading the bio, or on their own, especially as the selections are complete movements. The associated web site on Naxos gives most of the works in full that are represented by single movements on the book's CDs, and has more music and information as well. All in all, a very enjoyable and useful book.