Mozart Speaks: Views on Music, Musicians, and the World: Drawn from the Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Oth

In time for the bicentennial of Mozart's death in 1791, Marshall ( The Music of Johann Sebastian Bach ) presents a selection of the composer's letters from the classic 1938 translation by Emily Anderson. Arranged according to theme, the letters reveal the writer's views on his personal life, his career, his philosophy, contemporaneous events, the music profession in the 18th century and the other arts. We learn his thoughts on performance, practice, opera, church music, instrumental music, methods of teaching composition, other composers and musicians. The letters in which he discusses his aesthetic principles provide, according to Marshall, clues to what Mozart would have said had he written a book on music. Marshall includes correspondence by the composer's family and friends, and adds explanatory comments that make the book accessible to the general reader. Illustrations not seen by PW. (Nov.)