Mozart: A Life

Narrative chapters alternate with rich and imaginative in-depth explorations of issues crucial to understanding Mozart - his antic disposition, his penchant for the bawdy, his enigmatic Zoroastran riddles, his perplexing adoption of the code name "Adam," his brilliance as an impresario, his tangled finances, his Masonic creed, and his rending contest with his father, which continued to shadow him even after Leopold Mozart's death in 1787. And in a series of highly original chapters, Solomon probes such musical topics as the finding of Mozart's personal voice in his early serenades; the innovative character of his slow movements; the blend of strangeness and ecstasy in some of his most beautiful instrumental works; and the disquieting effect of his later operas.