Mozart in Vienna
The Final Decade

Comprehensive and engaging exploration of Mozart's greatest works, focussing on his dual roles as performer and composer in Vienna.

Simon P. Keefe (Author)

9781107116719, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 21 September 2017

714 pages, 255 music examples
25.3 x 18 x 3.7 cm, 1.57 kg

'Mozart in Vienna will take you intimately close to the internal workings of Mozart's creative genius.' Larry Wolff, The New York Review of Books

Mozart's greatest works were written in Vienna in the decade before his death (1781–1791). This biography focuses on Mozart's dual roles as a performer and composer and reveals how his compositional processes are affected by performance-related concerns. It traces consistencies and changes in Mozart's professional persona and his modus operandi and sheds light on other prominent musicians, audience expectations, publishing, and concert and dramatic practices and traditions. Giving particular prominence to primary sources, Simon P. Keefe offers new biographical and critical perspectives on the man and his music, highlighting his extraordinary ability to engage with the competing demands of singers and instrumentalists, publishing and public performance, and concerts and dramatic productions in the course of a hectic, diverse and financially uncertain freelance career. This comprehensive and accessible volume is essential for Mozart lovers and scholars alike, exploring his Viennese masterpieces and the people and environments that shaped them.

Part I. Beginnings, 1781–1782: 1. Settling in Vienna: exploiting opportunities for instrumental performance and composition
2. Singers and effects: seeking operatic success in Die Entführung aus dem Serail
Part II. Instrumental and Vocal Music, 1782–1786: 3. Consolidating experiences and expanding horizons: the instrumental music, 1782–83
4. 'You can easily imagine that I must inevitably play some new things': Mozart's piano concertos and other instrumental works for concerts, 1784–1786
5. Composing, performing and publishing: the 'Haydn' string quartets and other chamber music for publication, 1784–86
6. Operas, arias, ensembles, songs and a mass: vocal and dramatic music, 1782–86
Part III. The Da Ponte Operas, 1786–1790: 7. Le nozze di Figaro
8. In Prague and Vienna: Don Giovanni, 1787–88
9. The Figaro revival and Così fan tutte
Part IV. Instrumental Music, 1786–90: 10. For publication and performance: solo and chamber music
11. Orchestral music and concert activities
Part V. Mozart in 1791: 12. New beginnings, continuations and endings: Mozart's last year.

Subject Areas: Individual composers & musicians, specific bands & groups [AVH], Opera [AVGC9], Classical music [c 1750 to c 1830 AVGC4], Music [AV]