Article
Review of: Mozart Handbuch
Notes
(2007)
Abstract
As 2006 approached, the prospect of another Mozart year following the exhaustive (and possibly exhausting) 1991 bicentennial of the composer's death may have appeared problematic, given that the NeueMozart Ausgabe is now for all intents and purposes complete, and that new documentation and studies have slowed to a relatively stable stream. But the 250th anniversary of his birth seems an appropriate time to renew interest with festivals and new recordings, as well as revisit the plethora of literature available on Mozart's life, work, and times. It is clear that this weighty tome with essays by ten musicologists is meant to fulfill what has long been missing in the German Mozart literature, a summary overview of the composer's music in brief, accessible (read: quotable) format along the lines of two previous such volumes written in English, H. C. Robbins Landon's The Mozart Compendium (New York: Schirmer Books, 1990) and Neal Zaslaw and William Cowdery's The Compleat Mozart (New York: W. W. Norton, 1990), both of which were published during or just prior to the last Mozart year. In the latter, all of the composer's works, real and questionable, were briefly discussed in succinct referential entries, and in the former, subtitled "A Guide to Mozart's Life and Music," the scope of the discussion was broadened to include essays on context, portraiture, documents, and dissemination and reception of his music. These were provided by a dozen or so of the leading Mozart specialists and include details of description as well as a brief summary of sources.
Keywords
- Mozart
Disciplines
Publication Date
March, 2007
DOI
10.1353/not.2007.0004
Citation Information
Bertil van Boer. "Review of: Mozart Handbuch" Notes (2007) p. 586 - 588 Available at: http://works.bepress.com/bertil_vanboer/10/