Mozart in Vienna, 1781-1791

by Volkmar Braunbehrens

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060974052
• ISBN13: 9780060974053
• Release Date: January 1991
• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Length: 481 Pages
• Weight: 1.06 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 5.3" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Mozart - Superstar & Super book!

I love this book about Mozart's last ten years! The extensive research and details about Mozart's life are a testimony to how much the author desires to have the REAL facts about Mozart revealed. I have read Maynard Solomon's book on Mozart too, and with V. B.'s outstanding source, Mozart lovers will find out everything you want to know about the incredible and tragic life of the superstar from Salzburg.

Demythologizing Mozart

Most composers are victims of myth-makers. The myths surrounding Mozart--his debts, his unsympathetic wife, and the grinding poverty that led to a pauper's grave--have pretty well been enshrined. Even such a musical savant as Karl Gerienger (or perhaps his equally knowledgeable wife) give credence to some of these myths in their work on Haydn. Mayard Solomon, who focuses on the psychological aspects of Mozart's problems, recognizes that Braunbehrens specializes in areas that other biographers have overlooked--finances, patronage, and friendships during the last ten years of Mozart's short life. So we can expect a far less sentimentalized account than the one engendered by the romantics. And our expectations are not in vain. Compared to his depiction by some romantics, Mozart appears as almost a philistine. A true son of the 18th century, he was primarily interested in making money. His dispute with the Archbishop of Salzburg was not about the freedom of the artist, but about the miserable salary and lack of opportunity to make extra cash that the court of Salzburg represented. It's true that while in Vienna, Mozart was often broke, but his problem was a matter of cash flow. The author provides credible evidence that Mozart earned a very good living, spent a lot, but in the main was not even close to abject poverty. The image of a pauper's grave--burnished anew by the movie Amadeus--is erased by the author's explanation of Joseph II's regulations about burials in Vienna. Even though the regulations were rescinded before Joseph's death those, like Mozart, who were "Josephines" complied with the extremely rational approach that Joseph took towards Viennese funeral rites. So far as his wife being another Mrs. Haydn, Braunbehrens provides ample evidence that Constanze was not only a dutiful, but a loving wife. And Mozart was more uxorious than philandering. So, the book destroys a number of old myths. This book is not for someone who wants a blow-by-blow description of how Mozart's works came into existence, nor an even cursory musicological approach. Rather the author focus on the man--really an enlightened bourgeois of his times. The problem of why the romantic myth took such hold is pretty well answered by the author, who has done a very close analysis of the source material. Simply, it is that when Mozart moved to Vienna, the rich correspondence between Mozart family members began to dry up. And after Leopold's death, it ended completely. As most of his friends and acquaintances were in Vienna, there was no need for an extensive correspondence. Further, any records dealing with Mozart's association with the Free Masons were evidently destroyed, as the lodges attempted to escape secret police scrutiny after the death of the liberal Joseph. However, the author has extracted the most from the surviving sources to dispute the romantic legend. A most useful book that should be used in conjunction with Solomon's biography.

Braunbehrens' Mozart etc.

Braunbehrens' book is a well written account of Mozart and the intellectual, political, economic and cultural milieu that existed during the ascendant part of his creativity. Braunbehrens' is not the first Mozart biography I have read that explores these aspects of Mozart, nor is this book as lavishly illustrated as others. However, for my amatuer self, it the best written and most accessible; scholarly, but not academically dry or pedantic. Braunbehrens dispelled for me the myth which has come down to amateurs since his death that Mozart was an unrelentingly tragic, Romantic and impoverished figure. Certainly that myth is not descernible in his music. Braunbehrens erudite insights have enhanced my listening experience, and have given me greater appreciation of this man of the Enlightenment.