Mozart and the Enlightenment: Truth, Virtue and Beauty in Mozart's Operas [Hardcover]

Nicholas Till (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 9, 1992

Divine idiot or journeyman tunesmith? In this book on the life and work of Mozart, the author shows that Mozart was neither of these popular fictions, but an artist of his era whose work was clearly informed by the ideas and discoveries of the Enlightenment. This book examines the traumatic emergence of a modern society in 18th century Austria, drawing on writers and thinkers such as Richardson, Voltaire, Rousseau, Kant, Goethe, Schiller and Blake to offer a radical reappraisal of the history and meaning of the Enlightenment, and of Mozart's role within it. The Vienna of the 1780s, under the revolutionary Emperor Joseph II, where Mozart lived for ten years until his death in 1791, is evoked, a world in which coffee houses, literary salons and Masonic lodges created a forum for intense intellectual argument, political debate and religious enquiry.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Till, who has directed operas at the Glyndebourne Festival, approaches the interpretive difficulties involved in staging Mozart's operas by analyzing the works in relation to the social, political, moral, philosophical and religious climate of the late 18th century. In the early opera, La Finta Giardiniera , Till finds an expression of the moral sentiments of the bourgeois Enlightenment and the influence of Rousseau; Le Nozze di Figaro illustrates the importance of contractual relationships in bourgeois society; the character of Don Giovanni represents a destructive force threatening the codes of conduct that separated the Enlightenment from the supposed age of chaos that preceded it. Till draws on the authority of an impressive array of writers and thinkers to develop his ideas, but his excessive erudition and convoluted writing style obfuscates rather than resolves the problems he addresses. He also ignores the music, the component of opera that is fundamental to discussion of the drama. Illustrated.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

One might have hoped there would be a moratorium on books about Mozart after the excesses of his recent bicentennial, but this reviewer would gladly make an exception for this one. This critical study grew from practical necessity: the author, who has directed operas at the Glyndebourne Festival, encountered seeming contradictions in staging Mozart and felt that their resolution lay in learning more about the age that gave rise to them. The result of his investigations brims with fascinating and original insights into aspects of Mozart's life as well as his operas. A few examples: Till sheds new and favorable light on two of Mozart's adversaries, his father and the despised Archbishop Colloredo. He links Mozart's Catholicism and his involvement with the Freemasons. He reassesses Mozart's own marriage in light of the world view implicit in Le Nozze di Figaro. He juxtaposes Cosi fan tutte with Die Zauberflote. Highly recommended for large music collections.
- E. Gaub, Villa Maria Coll., Buffalo, N.Y.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Faber and Faber (March 9, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0571161693
• ISBN-13: 978-0571161690
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,683,139 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brings it all together, August 12, 2000

By 

Lawrence D. Wade "Conceptor" (Baton Rouge, LA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Mozart And The Enlightenment (Paperback)

The Enlightenment, Freemasonry, Josephinian reforms, and Mozart converged upon Vienna in the 1780s to produce perhaps the most intensely creative epoch in the history of the human race. Till takes you there and serves it all up as has no other author I have read. The wealth of information here is too great to be absorbed in one reading, but just as one continues to enjoy Mozart's music with successive exposures, so may one expect re-reading of Till to be informative and pleasurable.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Thought provoking, September 21, 2005

By 

David Vergauwen (Brugge, Belgium) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Mozart And The Enlightenment (Paperback)

This study by Till really makes a Mozart lover re-think some of the ideas or preconceptions he had about the opera's.

The author doesn't approach the opera's as a musicologist might do (no musical analysis or musical examples) , but analyses the literary and philosophical contents of each work very carefully. It offers a lot of background and really tries to capture the essence of each piece separately.

Really strong is the part about Don Giovanni, where Till argues that the introduction of the divine is not simply a remnant of the old Molière-play, but is in fact one of the central elements of Enlightened thought. It shows convincingly that Mozart nor his audiences had any sympathy for Don Giovanni (unlike most people today) and that he is not at all a free-thinking liberal who willingly says no to God. This goes to the heart of the opera and reveals to us that even today, this opera is poorly interpreted by directors and scholars alike.

The most disappointing part of the book is perhaps the chapter on Die Zauberflöte. This is the only opera which Till has trouble explaining some of the oddities involving Enlightened thinking in connection with this opera. He doesn't develop the Masonic context as well as one should expect and that's a pity, since Mozart's central message of universal respect regarding other peoples religion, thoughts and lifestyle is so tremendously important, especially today!

However, Till does a good job putting Mozart's work in there proper philosophical and cultural context and really makes his reader consider aspects that never before occurred to him.

The book is really well written, has excellent structure and is thought provoking. For this price, you cannot miss!

5.0 out of 5 stars From review by Kirkus Review, September 8, 2011

By 

technophobe - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mozart And The Enlightenment (Paperback)

'An erudite mix of music, history, philosophy, biography, sociology, and even depth psychology adding up to a triumphant study of Mozart's supreme masterworks...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 precis: A feast for the intellectually adventurous.' Kirkus Review