Mozart's Letters, Mozart's Life: Selected Letters [Hardcover]

Robert Spaethling (Editor, Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 2000

Letters by Mozart in sparkling new translations that capture the flavor of the writing, transmit every nuance, and render every thought faithfully and accurately.

What was Mozart really like—wild? sublime? responsible? fun-loving? bright? foul-mouthed? Reading these letters, we learn in his own words that he was all of these and much more. Here is the composer at his most intimate and unguarded, expressing his feelings about life, love, music, and the world around him. For this collection, Robert Spaethling has carefully chosen letters written by Mozart over a span of almost twenty-two years—from his first journey to Italy as a shy teenager to the final months of his life in Vienna. The letters, together with the accompanying introductions, chronicle the composer's life, personal development, and artistic growth. These new translations into English, the first in more than sixty years, are faithful to the original German even to the point of misspellings, which abound in the early correspondence. No effort has been spared to find language as closely equivalent to Mozart's as any translation can be and to clear up references in the letters to people, places, and events. Mozart's Letters, Mozart's Life makes wonderful reading for anyone who has ever loved a work by the composer, from the deceptively simple Eine kleine Nachtmusik to the towering, magnificent Requiem.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Spaethling writes in the introduction that his goal was to "provide a complete portrait and continuous account of Mozart the musician, Mozart the individual and Mozart the writer," and he has succeeded most admirably. -- The New York Times Book Review, Peggy Constantine

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: German

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 416 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; 1st edition (August 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393047199
• ISBN-13: 978-0393047196
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.6 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #890,313 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #45 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > People, A-Z > ( M ) > Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating!, July 18, 2001

By 

A Reviewer - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mozart's Letters, Mozart's Life: Selected Letters (Hardcover)

Anyone who has ever heard any of Mozart's work knows that he is a fantastic composer - arguably the best ever. But every recording of every one of Mozart's pieces could not begin to provide the glimpse into Mozart's life that this book does. Contained herein are hundreds of Mozart's letters to those close to him, starting from when he was a boy traveling around Europe to a mere three months before his death in 1791. And whilst the fact that all of these letters are translations does make for some awkward reading at times, it also adds to the authenticity and thusly makes it all the more interesting.

I cannot recommend Mozart's Letters, Mozart's Life highly enough to anyone interested in Wolfgang Mozart. It is an unparalleled first-hand account of Mozart's life by the man himself, and is a must have for any classical music enthusiast's collection.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars This lively book will deepen your appreciation of Mozart, March 18, 2004

By 

Craig Matteson (Saline, MI) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Mozart's Letters, Mozart's Life: Selected Letters (Hardcover)

What a fine accomplishment! According to the introduction, this book contains about 2/3 of Mozart's surviving correspondence. It has letters from and to Mozart and the translations are very lively and bring the personality of the composer to life. In older translations it seems that care was taken to make him sound like the monumental cultural force that he has become. But in this book, Mozart is a boy, a young man, a young husband, a fiery genius, and at times lost, grieving, and even confused.

The book is organized chronologically and provides biographical information that gives each letter some context. There are many useful footnotes as well as a couple of maps and list of Mozart's travels. The author has even included some notes about the various currencies in order to help the reader understand the discussions of money in the letters.

I can't emphasize enough what a lively read this book is. I found that I simply didn't get bogged down and enjoyed reading it. Yes, there are some portions of some letters I skipped, but that is one of the beauties of the book. You don't get lost simply because you skipped some mundane portions of one letter or another.

Mr. Spaethling is to be congratulated on this fine achievement. If you are interested in Mozart in any way, this book will deepen your appreciation of the living breathing person who wrote all that music. It didn't come from some alien dimension. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, this wonderful and complex human being did it all and we are much richer for it.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I love it........., April 17, 2007

By 

Mr Bassil A MARDELLI "Antoun" (Riad El-SOLH , Beirut Lebanon) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mozart's Letters, Mozart's Life: Selected Letters (Hardcover)

Mozart's full and final dedication to his work was exemplary; no doubt, his music spoke for the conscience of the world and his audience felt an almost religious faith in it. But the young man had frivolous and fun-loving personality, and his closeness to infantile notions was apparent with friends, relatives and pupils.
Mozart was possessor of the least inhibited tongue even in his contacts with serious foundations like Archbishopric or Freemasonry that mismatched the depth of notes he wrote.
This composer genius was filled with spontaneous strong-willed passion for music if weak-witted for romance and throughout the wide spectrum of his works involving every conceivable style of symphonies, operas, and orchestral pieces - some of the finest ever written - Mozart produced something truer than love.