The book Mozart: A Cultural Biography, written by Robert W Gutman, is a well-researched and carefully studied, fascinating portrait of the musical genius that is Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, arguably the greatest composer of all-time who lived during the Enlightenment Era of 18th-century Europe.Mozart is an extraordinary portrait of a man and his times, a brilliant distillation of musical thought. Gutman takes us to the lives of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and his devoted father Leopold taking us to the cultural, social, political and religious life of Europe with brilliant philosophers and literary minds such as Voltaire, Goethe, Rousseau, among many others.
His father, Leopold Mozart, a composer himself and an expert violinist who worked in Salzburg's Orchestra Court, is famous for his treatise on violin technique. Leopold focused his dedication and attention in teaching his children practically neglecting his own career. The family went on Grand Tours to expose especially young Mozart all over Europe. Along with this, Leopold tried hard to find suitable lucrative venues for the children to perform at. In all this, especially the young Mozart, was under pressure to perform most especially resident musicians wherever they traveled.
Within the music circle, the young Mozart became a friend of Hayden, and was contemporary from other musical talents including C.W. Gluck, C.P.E. Bach, J.C. Bach, Antonio Salieri, among others.
In Mozart: a Cultural Biography, Mozart emerges as an affectionate and generous man with family and friends, winsome but also an austere moralist. The major genres in which he worked-chamber music, liturgical, theatre and keyboard compositions, concerti, operas, symphonies, and oratorios-are unfolded to reveal a man of luminous intellect. Gutman managed well to mold Mozart, developing him to an affectionate and witty young man, who in his genius and musical talents achieved immensely in so little time, a brief life of 35.
Related Review:
Mozart: A Cultural Biography (review) by Mario Raymond Mercado. Project Muse. Accessed February 12, 2013.
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