Mozart's Letters, Mozart's Life

by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Robert Spaethling (editor/translator)

"A wonderful collection that gives Mozart a voice as a son, husband, brother and friend." ― New York Times Book Review "Mozart's honesty, his awareness of his own genius and his contempt for authority all shine out from these letters."― Sunday Times  (London). " In Mozart's Letters, Mozart's Life , Robert Spaethling presents "Mozart in all the rawness of his driving energies" ( Spectator ), preserved in the "zany, often angry effervescence" of his writing ( Observer ). Where other translators have ignored Mozart's atrocious spelling and tempered his foul language, "Robert Spaethling's new translations are lively and racy, and do justice to Mozart's restlessly inventive mind" ( Daily Mail ). Carefully selected and meticulously annotated, this collection of letters "should be on the shelves of every music lover" ( BBC Music Magazine ). 16 pages of illustrations

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, Biography, History, Art, Classical Music, Memoir

494 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2000

About the author

Johann Georg Leopold Mozart, the Austrian composer, toured Europe with his son, child prodigy, noted Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who gracefully and imaginatively refined the classical style with symphonies, concertos, operas, Masses, sonatas, and chambers among his 626 numbered works.

The comic plays of French writer Pierre Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais inspired Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to operas.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart prolifically influenced the era. Many persons acknowledged this pinnacle of piano and choral music. His popularity most endures.

Mozart showed earliest ability. From the age of five years in 1761 already competently on keyboard and violin performed before royalty. At seventeen years in 1773, a court musician in Salzburg engaged him, who restlessly traveled always abundantly in search of a better position.

Mozard visited Vienna in 1781; Salzburg dismissed his position, and he chose to stay in the capital and achieved fame but little financial security over the rest of life. The final years in Vienna yielded his many best-known Requiem . People much mythologized the circumstances of his early death. Constanze Mozart, his wife, two sons survived him.

Mozart always learned voraciously and developed a brilliance and maturity that encompassed the light alongside the dark and passionate; a vision of humanity, "redeemed through art, forgiven, and reconciled with nature and the absolute," informed the whole. He profoundly influenced all subsequent western art music. Ludwig van Beethoven wrote on his own early in the shadow of Mozart, of whom Franz Joseph Haydn wrote that "posterity will not see such a talent again in 100 years."

Reviews

[Jonathan O'Neill · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 ⭐



Wolfgangerl, Woferl, Wolfi, Gnagflow Trazom… Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Amadeus Sigismundus Mozartus. The musical genius who, tragically, lived hardly long enough to pronounce his full name (only barely shorter than the mock latin one above). The benchmark; the exemplary child prodigy by which all future prodigies would be measured. How fortunate that he left us with so much personal correspondence, and how invasive yet simultaneously rewarding it feels to snoop over the maestro’s shoulder and get a sneaky peak at his most honest and private thoughts. So, what exactly does one so brilliant discuss with his most cherished family and friends?

Well, from his formative years until his early twenties, fart jokes mainly... Oh, and shit… shit and muck! You probably think I'm being flippant and fatuous so let’s hear a few pearlers from Mozart himself. I apologise in advance to those with their noses perpetually upturned:

”Pardon my poor handwriting, the pen is already old; now I have been shitting for nearly 22 years out of the same old hole and yet it’s not torn a whit! – although I used it often to shit – and then chewed of the muck bit by bit”

”Addio for now, I kiss my goode friends, and now I’ll go to the privy, and try to shit in a jiffy, and I remain the same old anus, Wolfgang et Amadeus Mozartianus augspurg…”

The coarsest of the correspondence is certainly what’s known as the Bäsle -Breife, a collection of 10 letters between Mozart and his Bäsle (“little cousin”), Maria Anna Thekla Mozart. These notorious letters led to the hypothesis that Mozart may have suffered from tourettes, as well as some uncertainty regarding the nature of the cousin’s relationship and whether it was entirely platonic. For the record, the tourette’s claim is absolutely bogus but the relationship was definitely questionable.


For those of a more button-down, austere leaning, fear not! For, no matter how big a fool Wolfi can appear at times he does grow out of the potty-mouthed stage and, when the topic turns to music, his voice undergoes its own transposition from jocular and jovial to jaw-droppingly brilliant, insightful and authoritative. There are some fantastic passages in which he critiques the work and/or instrumental capabilities of a number of his contemporaries and while he can occasionally be a little harsh in his judgements (like when he says of an 8-yr-old Nanette Stein, “Whoever can see and hear her play the piano without laughing must be like her father - made of Stone”), his critiques always offer something valuable and serve to illustrate his incredible wealth of musical knowledge, virtuosity and compositional talent, even at a very young age. He was special, even amongst the greats; they knew it, and he knew it:

"I say to you before God and as an honest man, [Mozart] is the Greatest Composer whom I know in person and by reputation: he has taste and, what is more, he has the most thorough knowledge of composition." - Joseph Haydn

”I asked [The Herr Dechant] to give me a theme, he didn’t want to, but one of the clergymen did. I took the theme for a walk, then in the middle of it – the fugue was in g minor – I changed it to major and came up with a very sprightly little tune, but in the same tempo, then I played the theme again, but this time assbackwards… The Herr Dechant was quite beside himself with joy. You have done it, that’s all I can say, I would not have believed what I just heard, what a man you are…”- Wolfgang Amadé

Along with his critiques are some excellent passages on Mozart’s ideal musical aesthetic including, amongst other things, his belief that "a composition should fit a singers voice like a well-tailored dress” (he composed Arias with specific singers in mind), or that "in an opera the Poesie must always be the obedient daughter of the Music” (a belief that often had him arguing with librettists). His extraordinary brilliance is displayed in a great number of anecdotes including his Father Leopold’s claim that, at 14 years old, Wolfgang wrote down, from memory, the score of Allegri’s Miserere (kept under lock and key by the Vatican) after hearing it just once in the chapel; or the fact that the much-revered Symphony no.35 (“Haffner”) was essentially a rush job completed begrudgingly and with a sigh at his Father’s request in amongst a host of other, dare I say more important, compositions he was trying to complete in Vienna. Prolific doesn’t even begin to do Mozart justice.


Mozart had an amazing ability to process painful events in a very logical manner and move on from them or even to “get the job done” amidst the pain and anguish. Whether he was just a very resilient individual or he was adept at hiding his pain beneath the face of a smiling, young larrikin is unclear. His life was full of adversity, pain and injustice. The unequivocal, and unrequited, love he had for Aloysia Weber dealt a blow that he brushed off particularly well, simply exclaiming, in typical Wolfgang style, "let the wench who doesn't want me kiss my ass!” and moving on to eventually marry her younger sister, Constanze Weber. They would have their own share of tragedy with only 2 of their 6 children surviving past infancy along with a peculiar illness that struck Constanze in Mozart’s final years; its treatment leading them into a state of financial ruin and perpetual debt.

The last 50 or so pages of the compilation contain letter after letter of a deflated Mozart begging his Freemason brother, Michael Puchberg, and others, for financial assistance. The Mozart’s financial hardship wasn’t made any easier by the scant nature of the Archbishops and Emperors of the time. Everyone seemed to have an unlimited supply of praise and well-wishes for the maestro but were seemingly never willing to back it up with monetary support or a permanent position.

While all of this was no doubt painful, the greatest source of Mozart’s anguish came from constantly striving for his father’s approval; an impossible task given that Leopold was an altogether unfulfilled man who placed all of the family’s financial burdens squarely on the shoulders of his young son. For much of his life, no one was closer to Wolfgang than Leopold Mozart who, apart from being his father, was also his Music Teacher and travel companion as they travelled much of Europe in Wolfi’s younger years, displaying his talent and building his renown as a young prodigy. At 22 Mozart travels with his mother to Paris while his sister, Nannerl, and Leopold stay in Salzburg. His mother dies of an undiagnosed illness and Mozart’s relationship with his father suffers. The letters between the two, which make up the bulk of the collection, never lack tension from the beginning though it seems that Leopold held Mozart accountable for his mother’s death and the already on-the-nose emotional manipulation is turned up a notch with Leopold exclaiming at one time "...Your whole intent is to ruin me so you can build your castle in the air... I hope that, after your mother had to die in Paris already, you will not also burden your conscience by expediting the death of your father." Incredibly harsh; I don’t recall a single time, throughout the entire pile of correspondence, where Wolfi had his Father’s support from the outset, he was always made to earn it.


It's interesting to note those who had the greatest influence on Mozart’s work. While he was highly original and more often than not broke from the standards of his time, there is a clear level of respect for and identification with the work of Joseph Haydn; Mozart was particularly influenced by his quartets. In his later years, Mozart also became interested in the fugal works of Johann Sebastian Bach and Georg Friederich Händel and began requesting his father send him contrapuntal compositions by Eberlin and Michael Haydn. I personally find the works of the final years of Mozart’s life to be, by far, his finest and can’t help but attribute it to his study of the work of these musical behemoths.

None of these were a particular surprise but Johann Christian Bach (the “English Bach”), son of JS Bach, was. JC Bach’s Italian Opera style was the number one greatest influence on Mozart’s compositional style! This is interesting as I believe I’ve also read of Beethoven praising the work of JC Bach as well. Perhaps an overlooked giant I need to look into further.


Robert Spaethling is the editor and translator of the edition I read and as far as I can tell, without being able to read German, Latin, Italian or French, he has done an outstanding job. I say this because the letters have such an authentic feel to them even translated into English. While Spaethling says that much of Mozart’s brilliant word play is lost in translation, I felt it was portrayed as well as is reasonable to expect. Spaethling resists the urge to beautify Mozart’s language which, particularly early on, was quite rough and with little concern for grammar or spelling. Where Mozart made errors, Spaethling stays true to them, making equivalent errors in English.

What really brings this collection together and elevates it to almost a more valuable level than an autobiography is the fact that Spaethling has organised the letters into a number of chronological blocks (eg.’First Italian Journey’ 1769-1771 or ‘Paris et Retour’ 1778-1779) and given us excellent little contextual introductions to these different eras as well as many of the individual letters, helping to give a more tangible idea of the life and times of Mozart as he wrote these letters. I think this is an absolute must-read for any Mozart fan.

Well, this has gone on long enough. Mozart remembers wisely when he says:
“My great-grandfather used to say to his wife, my great-grandmother, who in turn told her daughter, my grandmother, who repeated it to her daughter, my mother, who used to remind her daughter, my own sister, that to talk well and eloquently was a very great art, but that an equally great one was to know the right moment to stop.”

So I’ll leave it at that. Adieu. I kiss your hands a Thousand times, and embrace you with all my heart, and as long as I can draw breath I will remain your most obedient GR friend,
Jonathanus Amadeamundo Bendictus Pinachio O’Neill

[Colin Baldwin · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars.

I’m exhausted ‘for’ Mozart.

His genius cannot be denied, but oh boy, what a short life he had filled with so many struggles: years of touring as a ‘child prodigy’; trying to impress, appease and break from the authority of his father; striving for recognition from those reluctant to give him a steady job (position); having to continuously grovel for money; and navigating around his social status as a musician/composer.

From the editor and translator: “The archbishop regarded musicians, in the spirit of the time, as members of his household staff, obliged to serve at the whim of their master.” And, according to the order of rank at the servants table, “…musicians were of lower rank than valets.”

It amazes me that Mozart had such stamina for his craft under such hardships. Perhaps a true indication of his love of music despite all odds?

The arc of his letters revealed a cheeky (and often warped, smutty) toilet humour flavour which refined as he reached his twenties. However, a couple of personal messages to his wife, not long before his death, showed his bawdy side was still lurking…

There are so many letters, but I suppose that was the only means of communication back then. I shudder and grin to think what Mozart would have done if he had had access to social media platforms!

Salzburg prides itself with Mozart landmarks and festivals, therefore I was intrigued by Mozart's thoughts on his birthplace: “I swear on my honour that I can’t stand Salzburg and its inhabitants; I mean the native Salzburgians; I find their language – their manners quite insufferable…”

Given he rarely found recognition and happiness in other European cities and societies, maybe Mozart never got the opportunity to write about finding the grass was not always greener on the other side?

Despite the letters becoming repetitive at times (hence not quite a 5-star rating from me), the musical detail, and how Mozart experienced changes that we know today, were fascinating:

“If only we had clarinets in the orchestra! – You wouldn’t believe what marvellous effects flutes, oboes and clarinetti produce in a Sinfonie.” Of course, Mozart went on to compose one of our much-loved clarinet concertos.

My review does little justice to the copious letters presented in this book. I prefer to rely on the more informative, imaginative and brilliant reviews written by other Goodreaders. Most notably a recent one by J. O’Neill, a Mozart fan who captured the detail, essence, humour and heartache of Mozart’s letters extremely well. Look it up if you want more Mozart

[Caroline · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just loved it...you know Mozart much better after reading his letters. What a character! 😄🎵

[Will · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible look into the real, day-to-day life of the great composer. The translation is easy to read yet seems to preserve the original German as well as possible and includes annotations for German colloquialisms that don't quite translate or require further explanation. Chapters are organized in chronological order and periods of Mozart's life - where he was working/traveling/etc; The book also has a fantastic index where you can look for letters from specific years, places he lived, or works he was composing at any given time. This is an incredible way to get to know the man himself as he really was - an artist, a jokester, a man of the Enlightenment, brimming with joy and divine music. If you're a music history enthusiast at all you will find this to be a highly enjoyable read.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

When it comes to any book on Mozart I can be quite skeptical although I can't say that I'm an expert on ANYTHING. I am this way when it comes to finding the perfect opera recording as well.....and so on and so forth....But I can honestly say that i couldn't be happier with this translation. It almost reads like an autobiography. The annotations, commentaries and introductions are convienient as well.

An ABSOLUTE must read for Mozart fans!

[Lara Marshall · Rating 5 out of 5]

Invaluable read. Amazing. Beautiful and accurate word for word translations. Excellent notes. It feels almost wrong reading someone else's mail, but I feel like now I know Mozart as if I had known him in person.

[Jessica May · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a wonderful book giving an incredible insight into Mozart's life. He was witty, cheeky and his genius shows no end. Endlessly desperate to please his father, many of the letters show their conversation. I very very much enjoyed this.

[Eli Spearing · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was surprisingly fun to read. I didn’t expect to enjoy someone’s letters this much, but Mozart wrote a lot—and he wrote well. There’s a ton of personality in them. He switches between French and Latin and I guess German and keeps things interesting the whole way through. You can learn a lot about someone by how they write when no one’s watching, and in Mozart’s case, it’s a mix of wit, genius, and a bit of weirdness. Worth reading if you want a look at the real guy behind the music.

[Roberto · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the kind of book which has a subject that attracts me, but probably would never buy by myself. Luckily I received it as a gift, and what a wonderful read it was.

As an admirer of Mozart’s music and so far of being an expert on the matter, I read a couple of short biographies in the past. On the other side, I have never have experienced any long epistolary account. I always felt that letters did present a deviated version of the facts, almost with an advertising halo over themselves by definition. However, these letters were never intended to be published and this gives to the collection an inherent candidness. If there is some self promotion is aimed to his family or friends, specially his father.

It’s already legendary how foul mouthed was the musician. What is not so widely known is how creative was Mozart with words. These and a lot other personality tracks are patent in this letters. Sometimes naïve, sometimes harshly critical, never good with the finances, you name it, but one thing, not surprisingly he was always: An absolute professional with music. The way he expresses about his developing compositions is always transcendental. In these letters he rarely refers to music in purely technical terms. He is always taking about it as a living entity. ´In an opera the poesie must always be the obedient daughter of Music´ he tells his father. How interesting is to see how seriously he writes about music from the first letter at 14 years old to his last existing letter, months before he died, when he was 35, always in a serious way, apart from any other mood change or situation.

One thing that surprised me, is how he adapted his opera compositions, to specific singers and how he was engaged in the whole production process. Used as we are now, that the ‘classic’ music is an interpretation of a ‘timeless’ piece, made by someone who is not among us anymore, it is interesting to see the interaction of the artist with his work, for the first time.

Knowing Mozart’s music and his current universal fame it’s hard to think of him trying to get a decent job or even get fair payment for his compositions, but that was the reality of his entire life. Although he received the recognition for his greatest operas and as a consumed piano player in his day, he had to fight, till the day he died, to have a good stable income, something he never achieved. Can you imagine a court, having Mozart during weeks, desperate to have a post as Kappelmeister, just to deny the opportunity and then hire someone nobody remembers today? That happened a lot of times, and reading these letters a posteriori, you can feel the anguish of the situation, and well, think: Come on! This is Mozart, don’t you see! This struggle makes you get emotional when Mozart describes a success, as he expressed to his father when Die Entführung aus dem Serail opened: ...throughout the first act the people were hissing, but they couldn´t silence the loud shouts of Bravo during the arias...

To finish this review, just let me say. If you enjoy Mozart’s music already, buy this book. It will enrich your experience on his already wonderful compositions. It´s a magical window into another world. The very personal world of one of the greatest composers of western music.

[Joseph Adelizzi, Jr. · Rating 5 out of 5]

There may be a technical name for the genre of Robert Spaethling’s intriguing collection of Mozart’s letters, which he calls Mozart’s Letters, Mozart’s Life,but I don’t know what that classification would be. Maybe biography, but since the vast majority of the book is Mozart’s own words, maybe an autobiography. Or maybe I would label it a “testament of epistles.” Regardless, this work is fascinating as it fleshes out the portrait of this genius.

That being said, I am ambivalent about the value of fleshing out the portrait of this genius, any genius, really. Do we need to know of Mozart’s obsession with a bodily function, of his love/hate relationship with his father, of his paranoia, of his frenetic pace, of his rumored affair(s), of his privately shared tendernesses and innuendos with his wife, or of his life as a musical mendicant? That’s an issue I double-dribble every time I read the biography/autobiography/testament of epistles of any genius - that inner match waged in my head between the achiever and the achievement. As they say in the cliched world of sports broadcasting, it’s a seesaw battle, with the belief “Context amplifies achievements!” taking an early lead over “What a tool!” until a hint of puerility or greed or lust or insecurity or human frailty gets a big two out, chalk-puff-raising, bases loaded double down the right field line to creep ahead. The contest continues, and as happens in any nail-biter of a contest (another sports broadcasting cliche), the suspense and struggle keep me coming back despite the lack of a definitive answer to the conundrum.

Do I recommend you read Mozart’s Letters, Mozart’s Life? Let me just say, “Whooooa Nelly!!”

[Chris · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the man was simply a genius. I have been interested in his life ever since watching the wondeful film 'Amadeus'

I bought this book on the recommendation of my wife who said Mozart used to write some outrageous funny things in his letters and they were worth reading.

Admitedly some of Mozarts letters do contain some funny passages but by and large the letters are boring. They contain the sort of content anyone would write in a letter to ones family, what they've been doing, places they've seen, people they've met. Mozarts life was not what I would call 'exciting' hence his letters are not really that interesting. Mozart was an eccentric man meaning his letters were full of eccentric content often confusing and required some explanation. I found it too much of a chore to read the entire letter then read the text explaining what the letter said.

Of course this is only my opinion and i'm sure plenty of people would find them very interesting indeed just not me...

I also found the passages written in French or German an annoyance. Its an English printed book and I don't speak these languages so why include it in the book?

[Tom Bouwman · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The perfect way to get started". By reading Mozart's letters in chronological order the reader not only learns about the big and small events in Mozart's life, but also gets a unique insight into the composers personality. Verry informative and an aboslute trhill to read.

[Gille Liath · Rating 2 out of 5]

Obviously Mozart saved his greatness for his music

Some artists can only fully be appreciated by knowing about their lives and personality. Judging by these letters, Mozart is at the opposite end of the scale - his letters are more an obstacle to enjoyment of his music. I don't find his personality engaging or his thought interesting at all; not quite as bad as in the film Amadeus, but he comes across as vain, silly, superficial, place-seeking, childish - or, if you prefer, child-like. He rarely raises his thoughts from day-to-day matters. When he does, as in the 'Zoroastrian pamphlet', the result is merely cynical, commonplace wisecracking. I have to assume that when the editor, who seems unduly impressed by any hint of Mozart's esoteric interests, says of this pamphlet that 'Mozart has become a philosopher', he is indulging in a little German joke. Personally I don't believe that Mozart had any deep philosophical interest in Freemasonry, or anything else abstract. The reasons for his involvement were probably the same as Burns': to cock a snook at the class system and patrons; to hang out with like-minded cronies; and from a general vague sense of rebelliousness or (as Burns used to say) 'vive la bagatelle'.

There is certainly the occasional insight into his life, though you have to dredge through a lot of trivia to get it; very few into his work, which is discussed only in the most matter-of-fact terms. Clearly, he saved all the greatness of his soul for his music. Or maybe, if he had been a better writer - of broader interests, more verbal, more intellectual - he would have been a lesser composer.

One conclusion I definitely don't think we can draw, although he did die young, is that Mozart 'lived fast' - that he 'ran through life' more quickly than ordinary mortals, that the dissatisfaction he sometimes expresses towards the end was somehow final, and therefore his last works should be interpreted as expressing a tragic fatalism (or as being in any way a deliberate, definitive statement). Where only crumbs of Mozart's 'inner life' - supposing he had one - are available, any hint is seized on and exaggerated. One letter in particular, four years before his death, has been the basis of a view that he was in the process of finishing with life.

This is a misuse of hindsight. I don't read the letter in question as despairing or resigned, only sober and realistic; in fact since it was written to his father, who hadn't long to live, it may have been meant as consolatory. To recognise death as the 'goal' or destination of life is, on one level, stating the obvious; on another, it is wisdom; then again, it might simply mean a bout of low spirits. What it doesn't necessarily mean is giving up on life; surely all sensitive people feel at times that death would be a blessed release, but they keep living. If these letters show anything, it's that Mozart was not the type to be afflicted by existential angst; and I don't believe it was anything more than the start of a typical mid-life crisis. If he had lived longer he would no doubt have adjusted his perspective and learned to live differently, like the rest of us if we're wise (whether he would have continued to produce great music we can't know).

It is sad to see how he declined into poverty, jealousy, illness and death at such an early age, but it was all too possible in those days even for a genius. Unless you are amazed by the mere fact that Mozart was a human being who had to pay the rent - or not - like the rest of us, this is not worth bothering about. Any book about Mozart will cite the most important passages anyway. The production of the book is poor too, like bad photocopying.

[Roy Lotz · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best time of year for reading is, for me, the time between Christmas and New Year’s. The weather is cold, school is out, and I feel relaxed and fully able to focus. I find myself devouring books with great relish, and that is precisely the case with this wonderful collection of Mozart’s letters.

First, a note on the translation. Mozart’s writing is highly idiosyncratic—full of misspellings (at least when he was younger), multiple languages, puns and wordplay. Spaethling’s translation is thus a kind of virtuosic performance in itself, as he brings as much of this exuberance seamlessly into English. As an example, I will quote the first letter in this collection, written when Mozart was just thirteen:

My dearest mama,

My hear is filled with alott of joy because I feel so jolly on this trip, because it’s so cozy in our carriage, and because our coatchmann is such a fine fellow who drives as fast as he can when the road lets him.

Spaething’s careful rendering of Mozart’s peculiar style allows that composer to fully come to life in this book. The result is undoubtedly one of the most fascinating books in the history of music. Though the letters all have the feeling of being dashed off in a great hurry—much like some of his music—they brim with energy and intelligence, and create a remarkably revealing look at the composer. To get an idea for the Mozartian style, it is worth quoting one of his later letters. This one is to his father, merely describing a pleasant outing in a city park:

I just can’t make up my mind to go back to the city so early—the weather is just so beautiful—and it’s so pleasant to be in the Prater today.—We had a little something to eat in the park, and now we’ll stay until 8 or nine o’clock in the evening.—The only company I have is my pregnant little wife—and her only company—consists of her little husband, who isn’t pregnant but is fat and happy…

The man revealed by these letters is full of contradictions. On the one hand, Mozart is capable of being headstrong, defying his father and even the musical establishment, seeking out his own artistic path. And yet, he is also weak-willed—easily swayed by flattery, improvident with money, and short-sighted regarding his career. One gets the impression that his father had inadvertently been overprotective—shielding the child genius from practical concerns so that he could only focus on music—and when Wolfgang had to make his own way outside of the stern, practical, and worldly guidance of his father, he quickly sank into dysfunction.

This is illustrated most painfully in the last section of this volume, which is filled with repeated and increasingly desperate pleas to his friend for money. His letters to his father are also quite revealing of this dynamic, though perhaps inadvertently so. It is amazing to think that one of the greatest composers of history could have been, in many respects, a frustrating disappointment to his father, but this seems to have been the case. In his letters to his father, he seems always to be pleading for Leopold’s approval, even as the imprudent Wolfgang continually flouts his father’s advice.

And yet, revealing as they are, the best letters in this volume are not those to his father, but to his cousin “Bäsle” (Maria Anna). Mozart seems to have found a kind of ideal playmate for his brand of practical jokes and bathroom humor in his cousin, and his letters to her are full of the most extraordinary playfulness—not to mention, a kind of fixation on excrement which sometimes goes beyond the bounds of humor into obsession. Here is an excerpt of perhaps the best of these letters:

Dearest cozz buzz!

I have received your highly esteemed writing biting, and I have noted doted that my uncle garfuncle, my aunt slant, and you too, are all well mell. We, too, thank god, are in good fettle kettle. Today I got the letter setter from my Papa Haha safely into my paws claws. I hope you too have gotten rotten my note quote that I wrote you from Mannheim…

In these letters, perhaps most clearly, you can see the kind of childlike charm of Mozart. And this immaturity is arguably the source of both his particular genius and his constant financial troubles. Both Mozart’s letters and his music gleam with a wonderful sense of play—as if his mind were constantly prancing from one idea to another—picking up one form, giving it a twirl, and setting it down into a new pattern.

Yet it would be wrong to accuse Mozart of superficiality. For underneath this childlike playfulness is a deadly serious commitment to his art. This is readily apparent in this volume, as the constant references to music in these letters belie a kind of workaholic productivity as well as a dedication to reaching the highest possible standards at all times. He was anything but an unconscious composer, as he often shows a keen awareness of how his music should affect his listeners.

It is interesting, I think, to compare these letters with those of another master of the form, Vincent Van Gogh. At first glance, the two artists could not be any more dissimilar: Van Gogh started late and never achieved fame during his lifetime, whereas Mozart was famous since his childhood. The painter was the furthest thing from a technical master, whereas Mozart dominated both instrumental and compositional technique in multiple domains.

And yet, these two men—both of whom died much too young—share one dominating characteristic: an overwhelming, uncompromising commitment to their art. Arguably, this monomaniacal devotion led both of them astray, as they both died isolated and penniless. But who can honestly wish that either man had been even a whit more “practical.” Indeed, I think the world would be a better place if we had more people to dedicate themselves with reckless abandon to the creation of beauty. And such a man is ultimately what these letters reveal.

[Ann · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was slow going. but when I reached the end, I couldn't put it down. I went on t0 read the Epilogue, the Chronology in detail, skimmed the Bibliography, and even parts of the very detailed Index. Translator and editor Robert Spaethling deserves prominent credit for his notes, research, and insightful Epilogue, not to mention his brilliant translation of very challenging handwritten source documents. (Yes, I was able to compare some of his work against the facsimiles included in the photographic inserts.) I hardly have words for the child prodigy and very complex adult Mozart i have always admired but even more so now!

[Sarah Dunmire · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome book. Lots of annotations to clarify what or who Mozart is writing about and lots of explanations as to what’s going on in his life between letters. Extremely well researched. Some personal feelings/assumptions from the author at times, but not over the top or unwarranted. I know letters are not meant to be for the public, but they’re certainly a personal, real glimpse into who he was as a quirky, lively person and composer/musician. He was well praised and respected in his own time, but it was still difficult to make a living as a freelance composer, performer, and teacher.

[Mick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting to get a view of the mind behind the Wunderkind! The changing of languages in mid letter point to his unparalleled brilliance and the grammatical errors… Here is an individual who had so much to write and accomplish and yet it seems the ever present demon like frenzy portends a man who knew his time on earth would be brief. So much energy that overpowered the channels available in 18th century!! Mozart is my favorite composer and as Hayden observed he was “The miracle God let be born in Salzburg”.

[Edward · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mozart’s earliest surviving letter, a postscript to his mother written in 1769

Since my teenage years, Mozart has been one of my favourite composers and yet everything I knew about his life was from Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus. I felt the time had come to put this to rights.

Mozart’s Letters, Mozart’s Life is a fascinating collection of Mozart’s missives. The book contains letters by Mozart and, early on, his postscripts to his father’s epistles. It begins with his earliest surviving note, written to his mother when he was thirteen, and ends with his last known letter, written to his wife less than two months before his death. As the title suggests, though, this is more than just a collection of letters. Each letter is ordered chronologically and is introduced by a contextual note. The book is also divided into eleven biographical chapters, each with an introduction, which means the book can also be read as a biography, with the added benefit of incorporating Mozart’s own words.

The translator, Robert Spaethling, has attempted to retain the idiosyncrasies of Mozart’s writing. This means there are spelling mistakes, seemingly arbitrary capital letters and large sections of scatological humour, which allow us to see how Mozart’s writing develops and becomes less outrageous as he gets older. Helpfully, Spaethling also occasionally provides Mozart’s original German to illustrate a pun or rhyme.

The most interesting thing, though, is the insight into Mozart’s musical compositional process. In particular, the book contains several letters in which Mozart describes writing two of his operas Idomeneo and Die Entführung aus dem Serail. It is fascinating to discover that Mozart concerned himself with individual words of the libretti, as well as worrying about the staging of his operas.

Mozart’s Letters, Mozart’s Life is the perfect book for anyone who loves Mozart’s music and wants to find out more about him. It provides enough biographical information to make it as useful as any biography and allows the reader to feel they have got to know Mozart a little bit.

[Teresa Gardiner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Spaethling's translation of Mozart's letters is less complete than Emily Anderson's but is superior in every other way. Of course, a lot of research into Mozart has been done since Anderson's effort and this book certainly benefits from a better, more current understanding of him and his work. Spaethling is also much better at capturing Mozart's tone, and the freedom and devil-may-care attitude with which he wrote. This capturing of Mozart's spirit make the book indispensable for anyone who is a fan of the composer. While not all of his extant letters are included, there are a great many and they are entirely representative of his personality.
As for the contents, Mozart was a lively and imaginative writer. His thoughts on music are fascinating - even if only because they are his - and there are plenty of other things he talks about; don't be afraid of it being all music jargon. The family relations/drama is fascinating and all-too-familiar to anyone with a loving but strained family dynamic. And of course there is the outrageous bathroom humor, which Mozart included in his letters quite often.
I have always loved his music, and reading these letters has made me fall in love with the man behind it as well.

"There's a lot of farting during the night,
And the farts resound with thunderous might."

-- W.A. Mozart

[Kaesa · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were lots of interesting anecdotes and little bits of information about the historical era here, and I did not know before reading it that Mozart was fond of wordplay, but honestly, not a thrilling read. I'm not criticizing it for that; Mozart was known for his music, after all, not his writing, and nobody writes letters to their loved ones in the hopes that they'll be entertaining to some random person centuries in the future, but there is a lot of day-to-day minutia in here that can be really interesting if it's part of some kind of ongoing thing Mozart has written about in previous letters, but often you don't get that, presumably because it's from in-person conversations, or it's in response to someone else's letter, or the previous letter was lost in the mail. (In fairness, this also says some interesting things about sending mail in 18th century Europe.) I did enjoy getting an impression of Mozart as a person from these letters; he seems very earnest and enthusiastic, and not terribly shrewd. I also very much enjoyed the gossip and catty remarks about other musicians, even if I felt a bit bad for some of his students who just weren't very good at piano or composition or whatever other musical subjects he was meant to be teaching them.

[Pamela Okano · Rating 5 out of 5]

Who knew that Mozart left a treasure trove of letters? Robert Spaethling has translated most of them (the vast majority went to his father, with some to his wife, his sister, his cousin, and to friends) and included them, with their context and helpful biographical information in this fascinating book. If Mozart hadn't been a genius composer, he might have been a modern poet instead, as his love of words comes through these letters--he played with them, made jokes about them, and wrote crude poetry. Mozart was also intimately involved in the creation of opera, including its libretto, because he realized the necessity of coordinating the music with the lyrics. And Mozart worked very, very hard. He was turning out compositions at an amazing rate. In the last year of his altogether too short life, he turned out some of my favorite pieces: Ave Verum Corpus, the Clarinet Concerto, Magic Flute, and the unfinished Requiem. We are left to wonder what this amazing man would have done had he lived another 20 or 30 years.

[Leia Deva · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this!!! Wolfgang Mozart has such a uniquely playful voice and it’s such a treat to read his correspondences and find out more about him as a living breathing person with regular concerns (making money, pleasing dad), his music aesthetics, which he details in many letters to Leopold, and the precarious nature of freelancing in 18th century Europe… also loved the literary games in the letters!

[Mayuri]

...apparently he was quite funny!

[The Cute Little Brown-haired girl]

I'd like to know Mozart wrote besides music. I think we would have been fabulous friends had I been alive back then.

[Eleanor · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is so much fun ... Mozart's letters to his sister
are outrageous.

[Sofia Ahmad · Rating 5 out of 5]

A marvellous book

[Joy · Rating 4 out of 5]

When first starting out it was hard to put down but about half way through interest started to wane. It was quite enjoying to read the young Mozart with the whole world in front of him.