Author Description

Although there are many account of Mozart's life, and countless descriptions and analyses of his music, this is the first attempt to portray Mozart's creative life as a composer. Konrad Kuster selects forty works or groups of working covering virtually every important stage of Mozart's career, from the first keyboard works of the young Wunderkind to Mozart's final days and the composition of the Requiem. Each chapter deals with the developments and events in the lives of the Mozarts as associated with or highlighted by a particular work or constellation of works. The bulk of the book - the last 25 out of 40 chapters - is concerned with Mozart's life and compositions from his arrival in Vienna in 1781 to his death there some ten years later.