The New Grove Mozart (Grove Music Composer Biography Series) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0195169050 ISBN 13: 9780195169058

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2003

Synopsis

A child prodigy who performed throughout Europe in his early years, Mozart excelled in every medium of his time, including chamber music for strings, the piano and concerto and opera. Along with his contemporaries Haydn and Beethoven, he is one of the composers who brought the Viennese Classical style to its height. His mature music, distinguished by its melodic beauty, formal perfection and richness of harmony is rooted in both Austrian and German traditions. He is widely regarded as the most universal composer in the history of Western music.
This biography of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is one in a new series of composer biographies, derived and adapted from the second edition of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. These newly written biographies bring the best of the book-length pieces in The New Grove to a wider audience.
Each title provides fresh new insights into the life and works of a major composer, derived from the most recent scholarship. In addition to a detailed and informative view of the subject's life and works, written by an expert in the field, each book includes comprehensive, tabular work-lists and a fully revised and updated bibliography.

About this title

Review:

When the publishers of Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians set out to revise their monumental reference work in the 1970s, they commissioned new biographies of many composers. They then extracted some of those biographies from the finished product, added some details to make them a more interesting sit-down read, and issued them as separate volumes. Unlike the complete Grove, this biography of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is both portable and affordable. Nearly one third of its length is devoted to a listing of his works, arranged by type (opera, sacred) and date. There are many biographies of Mozart on the market; this one makes a good starting place and handy reference.

About the Author:

Cliff Eisen is reader in historical musicology at King's College, London. His research has focused on the Classical period, particularly on Mozart, performing practice and 18th and 19th century chamber music. He is currently working on the Mozart String Quintets and is associate editor of the forthcoming revision of the Kochel Catalogue. Stanley Sadie has been editor of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians since 1970. He was editor of The Musical Times (1967-87) and a music critic for The Times (1964-81). He was President of the International Musicological Society 1992-7 and is author of several studies of Mozart.

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0195169050
• ISBN 13: 9780195169058
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 176
• Editor: Sadie Stanley, Tyrrell John