If music history textbooks in college had read like this, I would have paid better attention.

This book does an excellent job combining history and music theory into a story that reads like fiction. It provides vibrant context for what was happening in the culture, in the musical realm and in Mozart's life.

While the author bills his work as something a layman would understand, "Mozart" contains a lot of very descriptive music terminology. Yes, some of this can be explained adequately to an unstudied mind with good appendix notes. But I think you really do need a fairly functional understanding of music in order to comprehend (and enjoy) this book.

Most people picking up this book are probably either familiar with Mozart or familiar with the classical period in general and have studied it.

I learned so very much about this man his life and his music that you normally wouldn't know of being interested in, if you don't read this book! As you continue to read you are brought into the family as he grew, his relationships and you find things you really didn't think you wouldn't be interested in but you are! Think you have to like Mozart's music or not but even not you will find this man's life unusual as he faced changes and challenges as what and who this man was behind the music! Much thought and research went into the writing of this book and I felt afterwards I wanted to have known this man and felt I knew him so much better than the reading of this fantastic book!! Received from Net Gallery!

Excellent overview of Mozart's life.
The world of Mozart scholarship is a fairly crowded one, but this eminently readable biography goes beyond the usual dates/facts/chronology for a deeper look. The experiences of the young Mozart on tour with his father and sister, and the music and musicians he encountered, are not only described in detail, but also analyzed for their relationship on the music Mozart was composing at the time. Excerpts from letters and contemporary accounts add to the narrative, and Swafford's writing style cannily mixes the scholarly and the colloquial -- this isn't yet another scholarly biography, but a most readable one.

This is an exhaustive biography of Mozart (832 pages) that covers his life in intricate detail and examines the brilliance of his music as well as the complexities of his character and family life. The book also dispels the many historical inaccuracies and myths that been ingrained into the public consciousness over the years through liberties taken in film and theatrical depictions as well as gossip. Fortunately for biographers, Mozart's life was well-documented through letters. Indeed, his father, realizing his son's talents and the importance of his legacy, made a concerted effort to record the minute details of their travels, performances and the public's reaction to them. The author does a remarkable job at describing life during this time. The first half of the book, which details the many “concert tours” that Mozart and his sister Nannerl made beginning when Mozart was only five years old, is particularly vivid. The book is as much a biography of Mozart's father (Leopold) as it is him, detailing his drives and desires to immortalize his son. Mozart's relationships with his sister, mother and wife are also closely examined. The descriptions of life during the time is also quite fascinating. The only part of the book I didn't enjoy were the lengthy and technical descriptions of Mozart's work. Readers who have a knowledge of music will no doubt find these analyses worthwhile (the author is a musician himself) but non-musicians like myself, will probably begin skimming. An appendix of musical forms in Mozart's time, bibliography, works cited and an index of musical compositions is included.