Mozart: A Cultural Biography
- Book Review,
by Robert W. Gutman
Amazon.com
Readers who think of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) as the shrieking vulgarian depicted in Peter Shaffer's hit play (and movie) Amadeus will be astonished by the man they meet in this biography by music historian Robert Gutman: "affectionate and generous ... an austere moralist of vital force, incisiveness, and strength of purpose." Without scanting Mozart's often maladroit handling of his patrons or his earthy way with words ("Let the whole company of patricians lick my ass," he declared in a 1777 letter), Gutman portrays a musical genius who slowly and painfully achieved personal maturity as he emerged from the shadow of his domineering father. The rich cultural life of 18th-century Europe forms a vivid background for Mozart's professional and artistic evolution. And Gutman's descriptions of Mozart's work are models of music writing for the lay reader: they capture the brilliance and beauty of the great composer's art in easily accessible language, as in the analysis of The Marriage of Figaro's place in "a new aesthetic of surging movement ... the vocal and orchestral lines twine, separate, and reunite in confrontation, opposition, and accommodation, an ever-changing, effortless interlacing." The prose delineating Mozart's complex personality is just as full-bodied and perceptive. --Wendy Smith
From Publishers Weekly
Gutman's (Richard Wagner) ambitious biography traces Mozart's (1756-1791) career against the background of the courts in which he workedAthe circle of Archbishop Colloredo in provincial Salzburg, the aristocratic households of Europe and England and the salons of Joseph II's culturally diverse Vienna. Gutman shows how Mozart grew from a pampered child prodigy, nearly helpless in practical matters, to a mature, self-sufficient man. Interspersed are discussions of the political and cultural trends of Mozart's day, including the complex dynastic alignments at the end of the Seven Years War, the Enlightenment, the Sturm und Drang movement and the prevailing musical styles. Through these discourses, Gutman shows how aspects of intellectual trends appeared in Mozart's music: for example, the Age of Reason in The Magic Flute, Sturm und Drang in some of his symphonies. However, these sections don't always meld smoothly with the biographical narrative. Gutman's analysis of Mozart's personality and his relationship with his father, Leopold, while not groundbreaking, is more successful. Gutman describes Leopold as an "intellectual, ambitious, suave, and frequently cunning" man determined to dominate his son, and depicts how the young Mozart finally freed himself from his controlling parent and embarked on a promising career in Vienna. Gutman counters persistent legends portraying the end of Mozart's short life as a time of poverty and despair and demonstrates that he was then, as always, an exuberant, optimistic man. Illustrations not seen by PW. (Nov.) Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
With this sprawling, meticulously researched work, Gutman (Richard Wagner) enters the already crowded field of Mozart studies. He succeeds admirably in interweaving the chronology of Mozart's life and musical compositions with essays on the social, political, and religious fabrics of the 18th century, offering extended discourses on the Enlightenment, Sturm und Drang, Freemasonry, and other movements that influenced the composer both personally and in his works. Special attention is paid to the tours that Mozart family members undertook to various European locales, the contacts they made there, and the reception of their talents and personalities. Gutman contextualizes rather than analyzes the music; one feels that he has a great deal of respect for the composer's abilities but is not unwilling to be critical. Covering similar territory as Ruth Halliwell's recent The Mozart Family (Oxford Univ., 1998) but with more extensive descriptions of the music, this work is directed at an audience of sophisticated lay readers. Highly recommended for all music collections of significant size, this should set a standard for future Mozart scholars to emulate.ABarry Zaslow, Miami Univ. Libs., Oxford, OH Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Besides the sales of his treatise on violin playing, Leopold Mozart's living consisted of the earnings of his children, Nannerl and Wolfgang, on grueling performance tours of the courts of Europe. Wolfgang soon rebelled and, believing in some principles of the Enlightenment, sought his fortune as a performer-composer for the bourgeoisie. His operas often mock the pretentions of aristocrats while extolling their roguish but wise subjects. Still, to provide for his own family, Wolfgang wrote music to satisfy aristocratic sponsors, and he drew a stipend from Vienna that helped him live somewhat luxuriously. Gutman opens his cultural biography with an overview of the eighteenth-century political and cultural environment and the influence of literature and art on music. Italy provided German courts with many artists, but their influence declined as German writers developed a Germanic identity. Gutman analyzes Mozart's music to show how it evolved in this milieu, and he places Mozart's life in the context of the Austrian Empire. Mozart--complex, inscrutable, possessed of sublime genius--lived and worked, Gutman demonstrates, in an age of conflict and disintegration. Alan Hirsch
Book Description
This major work places Mozart's life and music in the context of the intellectual, political, and artistic currents of eighteenth-century Europe. Even as he delves into philosophic and aesthetic questions, Robert Gutman keeps in sight, clearly and firmly, the composer and his works. He discusses the major genres in which Mozart worked-chamber music; liturgical, theater, and keyboard compositions; concerto; symphony; opera; and oratorio. All of these riches unfold within the framework of the composer's brief but remarkable life. With Gutman's informed and sensitive handling, Mozart emerges in a light more luminous than in previous renderings. The composer was an affectionate and generous man to family and friends, self-deprecating, witty, winsome, but also an austere moralist, incisive and purposeful. Mozart is both an extraordinary portrait of a man in his time and a brilliant distillation of musical thought.
About the Author
Robert W. Gutman is the author of the critically acclaimed biography Richard Wagner. Gutman was one of the founders and directors of the Master Classes at Bayreuth Festival, where he lectured on Wagner. He was a member of the faculty of the State University of New York, and has taught at The City College of New York, The New School for Social Research, Bard College, and Duchesne College.
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