Mozart: The Early Years 1756-1781 - Softcover

Review from previous edition Mozartians will respond to this book with the awe it rightfully deserves... the ideal response to this book would be to rush out and buy 50 CDs and to read and listen simultaneously. (Jane Stevenson, The Observer)

Stanley Sadie brings us closer to the composer's skin; Moazrt: The Early Years 1756-1781 is the most balanced guide to Maozart's youth ever published in English. (Andrew Clark, Financial Times)

A lasting monument to scholarship (Lucasta Miller, The Guardian)

A musicological landmark... Sadie has a real flair for elucidation, wears his massive learning lightly, and writes in a style that is unfailingly easy-going and personable. (The Scotsman)

magisterially detailed book... Sadie's vast book will be essential to serious Mozartians, especially his superb evaluation of the early works. (Richard Morrison, The Times)

This book is meticulous, solid and useful. (Rupert Christiansen, Sunday Telegraph)

A new narrative biography for our time. (Nicholas Kenyon, TLS)

Had he lived to complete it, Stanley Sadie's would probably have been the most exhaustive, and certainly the most level-headed, Mozart biography in English. (Misha Donat, BBC Music Magazine)

Few people these days would question Mozart's rating as the most popular of all classical composers. Yet there exists no substantial, up-to-date English-language study of the man and his works. In this study of Mozart's early years, Stanley Sadie aims to fill this gap in the form of a traditional biography on a straightforward chronological basis. The volume covers the period up to 1781, the year of Idomeneo and Mozart's settling in Vienna. Individual works are discussed in sequence and related to the events of his life. Stanley Sadie draws substantially on the family correspondence, quoting the letters and discussing what they tell us about Mozart and his world and his relationships with his family and his professional colleagues. Also included is a discussion of all aspects of Mozart's life and his music, relating them to the environment in which he worked, social, economic and cultural as well as musical.
Much new material connected with Mozart has come to light in recent years. There have been discoveries of musical sources and new ways of studying known ones. Such finds and methods have changed our view of the chronology of many works and they often have significant biographical ramifications. Understanding of the context for Mozart's music, and indeed his life, has broadened immensely. Stanley Sadie's biography digests and interprets this corpus of new information.