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Considering the amount of interest in Mozart these days, and the number of scholars devoting their professional lives to the study of his music and life, it's truly a wonder that no one has thought of this before. Give credit to Peter Dimond for taking the time and effort to execute the obvious: a detailed chronology of Mozart's life.

There is no new information in this slim, 225-page volume. Dimond instead has assiduously collected material from existing sources, such as Otto Erich Deutsch's Mozart: A Documentary Biography and Emily Anderson's The Letters of Mozart and His Family, and then carefully arranged it in chronological order. The titles of all of Mozart's compositions are interwoven (those not yet assigned specific dates of composition are inserted at approximate dates and so noted). And all of the family letters are concisely summarized.

The result is an excellent research tool, useful especially for checking the itineraries of Mozart's travels and the dates of specific letters. Not surprisingly, it's fun to simply browse, too.