Simon Heffer
Off His Pedestal
Mozart's Letters, Mozart's Life
By Translated by Robert Spaethling (ed)
Faber & Faber 320pp £25
There are elements to the tragedy of Mozart’s life that touch us even if we are in that taxing minority who remain unmoved by his music. Here was a man of prodigious talent, dead at thirty-five, worn out by the effort of constantly performing -and constantly exercising his genius. He had the strain of supporting a family, including his parents, from childhood; of being morally blackmailed by a father who reminded him, whenever necessary, of the sacrifices that had been made for him. Mozart’s marriage was a happy one, but he was separated from his wife by the demands of work for much of their nine years together. All but two of their six children died in infancy. It might be the story of any aspiring mid-European of the late eighteenth century; except that in most other cases, the waste would not have mattered nearly so much.
As Robert Spaethling points out, when we encounter Mozart in epistolary mode we have him at his most private. Unlike so many of the artistic poseurs of our own times, Mozart wrote for the joy of it, or out of necessity, not with an eye to posterity. He travelled extensively
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
Don't ask about the dress code, don't talk about your spouse too much, flirt with everyone
Andrew Martin on the rules, pleasures and pitfalls of living in Paris
Andrew Martin - Bobos versus Beaufs
Andrew Martin: Bobos versus Beaufs - Impossible City: Paris in the Twenty-First Century by Simon Kuper
literaryreview.co.uk
for the latest edition of @Lit_Review I worked on some excellent pieces – @MortenHoiJensen on Kafka
@ellafox_m on @mimpathy (Honor Levy)
@profrhodrilewis on Shakespeare novels
@edcumming on Kaliane Bradley
@zoeguttenplan on @NationalTheatre's Dickens show
wrote about MY FIRST BOOK (@GrantaBooks) for @Lit_Review, a book that I think makes difficult things look very easy: