Introduction by Lady Wallace: Mozart: Letters

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Mozart’s remarkable life was well and richly documented in letters: his own and those concerning him written by others. This volume brings together a fascinating selection, giving us a detailed portrait of the composer’s life and times. Here are letters to and from Mozart’s domineering father, Leopold, the earliest of which, addressed to a friend, describes the six-year-old Mozart’s accomplishments. There is also a letter sent to the Royal Society in London from one of its members describing an astonishing encounter with the eight-year-old prodigy. Here are letters from the adolescent Mozart to his mother and sister; adoring, protective missives to his wife; and, from his later years, letter after letter to friends, family, former patrons, and fellow musicians begging for financial help.Mozart’s correspondence is full of details that illuminate the quotidien aspects of his days, reveal the great joys and burdens of his musical genius, and provide us with a lively account of the musical politics in the courts and opera houses of eighteenth-century Europe. Finally, in a letter written by Mozart’s sister-in-law, this splendid epistolary portrait of the great composer is completed with a deeply moving account of his last hours.

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