Customer Reviews

Mozart's Symphonies: Context, Performance Practice, Reception (Clarendon Paperbacks)

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Neal Zaslaw is well known in the musicology field as a Mozart scholar who often concerns himself with wind instruments. Accordingly, this book is written with a certain level of musical knowledge required. If you are a casual music lover, this is perhaps not the best book for you.

The book looks at all known Mozart symphonies, including those which cannot be authenticated, in chronological order, discussing details of Mozart's life; the circumstances in which the symphony was written; the purpose the symphony was written; some musical choices to be made in performance; form and musical topic; and other items of interest.

The analysis is certainly enlightening and worthwhile, but hardly "exhaustive" as Christopher Wolff claims on the back cover. Perhaps his review tells more of the limits of Mr. Wolff's study of Mozart than it does of the book itself. Such a comment leads me to believe that Wolff has not painstakingly looked at the symphonies of Mozart in great detail. Although, if he is correct, perhaps all of us should just read this book and stop studying Mozart on our own?

Zaslaw frequently refers to the thoughts of other scholars such as de Saint-Foix and Einstein, and in doing so sometimes commits the same cardinal sin that de Saint Foix does - making an assertion with no supporting discussion nor clarity of definition. For example, on p. 237, Zaslaw wrote: "The Finale [of K132] is as French as Mozart's symphonic music ever becomes." Without knowledge of the French style, this is useless. With knowledge of the French style, it is up to the reader to go and convince her/himself what Zaslaw meant by this. Fortunately this type of unexplained assertion doesn't occur often, and there are fairly good discussions of Italian and Viennese styles in the book. Discussion of French national style is more dispersed throughout and less complete.

As in any scholarly book, there are the token archaic latin words and some others which require a dictionary handy, but overall, the vocabulary is not too heavy, and the book reads quickly. I was annoyed, however, when on p. 379 I was driven to my dictionaries to look up the word "punctilious," only to find that the word had been used incorrectly and it should have been "punctual." If you're going to force me to look words up, please use the words correctly! And where was the editor? Come on, I paid $65 for this! (I notice Amazon has raised the price to $95...hmmm...)

I am also sad that in Chapter 11, Zaslaw abandons the form and topical analysis he had done earlier. However, Chapter 13 is definitely a wonderful climax - a look at the meaning of the "Jupiter" symphony. Although everyone knows, and Zaslaw admits, we can never really know what a non-programmatic symphony means unless the composer tells us, this is certainly a fascinating look supported with facts.

All in all, a must have for those interested in Mozart or the Symphony genre in general. Much better than de Saint-Foix!

MOZART'S SYMPHONIES: CONTEXT, PERFORMANCE PRACTICE, RECEPTION
BY PROFESSOR NEAL ZASLAW

RATED 5-STARS HIGHEST RECOMMENDATION BY CLASSICAL MUSIC CRITICS AND MOZART AUDIOPHILES AS
THE #1 BOOK OF WOLFGANG MOZART'S SYMPHONIES!

CD REVIEWER NOTE TO AMAZON.COM READERS: I TYPE WITH LARGE CAP LETTERS TO READ WHAT I WRITE BECAUSE I AM A 100% DISABLED DECORATED VIETNAM VETERAN AND AM ALMOST BLIND WITH MACULAR DEGENERATION. I APOLOGIZE FOR ANY INCONVENIENCE CAPS MAY CAUSE YOU. ~PATRICK HILL, MOZART SCHOLAR & AUTHOR~

PUBLISHED IN 1991 TO COINCIDE WITH THE BICENTENNIAL OF WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART'S DEATH, THIS BOOK IDENTIFIES AND EVALUATES ALL 68 SYMPHONIES COMPOSED BY WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART. PROFESSOR NEAL ZASLAW, HERBERT GUSSMAN PROFESSOR OF MUSIC AT CORNELL UNIVERSITY, WHO SERVED AS THE MUSICOLOGICAL SUPERVISOR FOR THE COMPLETE RECORDINGS OF MOZART THE SYMPHONIES BY CHRISTOPHER HOGWOOD AND LONDON ENGLAND'S FAMED ACADEMY OF ANCEINT MUSIC (AAM), DRAWS ON EXHAUSTIVE RESEARCH IN PRESENTING THIS SUPERB COMPREHENSIVE BOOK. PROFESSOR ZASLAW PLACES EACH MOZART SYMPHONY IN ITS MUSICAL AND CULTURAL CONTEXT, EXPLORES THE ROLE EACH PLAYED IN MOZART'S CREATIVE LIFE, AND REVEALS WHAT IS KNOWN ABOUT HOW MOZART'S SYMPHONIES AND THOSE OF HIS CONTEMPORARIES JOSEPH HAYDN WERE PERFORMED. IN DOING SO, PROFESSOR ZASLAW HAS CREATED AN INVALUABLE CONTRIBUTION TO WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART SCHOLARSHIP THAT WILL LONG STAND AS THE DEFINITIVE TREATMENT OF ITS SUBJECT.

WOLFGANG MOZART'S MIDDLE NAME AMADEUS MEANS "BELOVED OF GOD" IN THE GERMAN LANGUAGE. IN 1785, FAMED COMPOSER FRANZ JOSEPH HAYDN TOLD WOLFGANG MOZART'S FATHER LEOPOLD ON HIS VISIT TO SALZBURG, AUSTRIA: "BEFORE GOD AND AS AN HONEST MAN I TELL YOU THAT YOUR SON (WOLFGANG MOZART) IS THE GREATEST COMPOSER KNOWN TO ME EITHER IN PERSON OR BY NAME."

AS MOZART'S STATED IN HIS OWN WORDS TO AUSTRIAN EMPEROR JOSEPH II IN 1787: "YOU WILL HEAR ONLY ALMIGHTY GOD'S BEAUTY IN MY MUSIC THAT I COMPOSE WITH THE ESSENTIAL QUALITIES OF CLARITY, LOGIC, AND BALANCE!"