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Mozart

Despite the tumult of Mozart books published over the past ten years, one in particular has been missed: a brief yet authoritative account of the composer’s life. Happily (and just in time for the end of the decade), Peter Gay’s new Penguin Lives biography fills the gap perfectly. At 177 pages, this slender volume can be absorbed in an afternoon. But superficial it is not.

As a biographer, Gay seemingly comes well-equipped. His other areas of expertise -- the Enlightenment and Sigmund Freud -- are good touchstones for his work here. His willingness to avoid any sort of musical analysis whatsoever (I have no idea whether Gay has any musical background) is a good thing, too. It lets him concentrate on the interesting stuff: Mozart’s precocious childhood, his sometimes difficult life as an adult in Vienna, his relationship with Constanze and, above all, his relationship with his father.

Gay’s take on Leopold is more sympathetic than most, at least in the early going when he writes: "Psychoanalysts have paid close attention to a son’s conflicting emotions about his father, but a father’s conflicting emotions about his son, less well studied, at times loom just as large." Later on his portrait of the father becomes more conventional, with Leopold assuming the by now familiar brooding presence.

The point is, there really is nothing new here. But that diminishes Gay’s achievement not a whit. What is here is carefully distilled and clearly presented. For those reasons alone, this book is the perfect way to introduce yourself (or a friend) to Mozart. An appropriately brief but well-annotated bibliography will point those who want to learn more in the right direction.