cover image Amadeus: A Mozart Mosaic

Amadeus: A Mozart Mosaic

Herbert Kupferberg. McGraw-Hill Companies, $14.95 (271pp) ISBN 978-0-07-035664-1

Author of the musical-trivia collection Basically Bach and former music critic for the Atlantic, Kupferberg has put together here 31 short chapters on Mozart's family, friends, associates, mourners and cataloguers. Nine rambling pages on ""How Mozart Composed'' take care of creative aspects. Otherwise, this assemblage principally consists of anecdotes on Mozart's health, marriage, dog, finances, religion, love of dirty language, associations with Jews and the Mostly Mozart Festival of New York. In ``Mozart at the Movies,'' Kupferberg enumerates falsifications, distortions and omissions in the film version of Amadeus that he says resulted from cinematic and dramatic necessity. His own kitschification of a genius is historically accurate but vapid and trivial. Chapter headings are decorated with silhouettes, a portrait form popular in Mozart's lifetime. 12,500 first printing. (June 23)