Mozart: A Life

On the occasion of Mozart's two hundred and fiftieth birthday, read Maynard Solomon's Mozart: A Life, universally hailed as the Mozart biography of our time.

Child prodigy, creative genius, tortured soul—Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was all of these, and considered by many to be the greatest composer of all time. This biography seeks to learn what made him tick.

Solomon brings new psychological insight to the life and music of Mozart, from his birth in 1756, to his premature death in 1791. At a tender age, because of his very talents, Mozart became his family's provider. Beset with what the author calls "the myth of the eternal child," he was continually torn between his family and his own quest for freedom. This book explores issues crucial to understanding the man and his music, while it follows his extraordinary, prolific life: his flight from Salzburg to the capitals of Europe where he was honored by royal families and adoring fans, his emergence as a young composer and Salzburg's "favorite son," his conquest of Vienna, his marriage, his deepening melancholia, and his final triumphs. B&W illus. 640pp.

New York Times Book Review

Brilliant.

Maynard Solomon's books on Beethoven and his renowned writings on Mozart, Schubert, and Ives led a contributor to Music & Letters to name him "the leading musicologist-biographer of our time." His classic biography, Beethoven, has been translated into seven languages and his Beethoven Essays received the Kinkeldey Award of the American Musicological Society for best book of the year in 1989. Mr. Solomon, who lives in New York, has taught at Columbia, Harvard, and Yale Universities.