What to Listen for in Mozart

by Robert Harris

Overview

From Simon & Schuster, What to Listen for in Mozart is Robert Harris' essential introduction to the world's most popular composer.

An introduction to the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart explores the essentials of his work, examining his place in the aristocratic society of the late eighteenth century, and discusses his life and death.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780743244046
Publisher:	Simon & Schuster
Publication date:	06/07/2002
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Robert Harris is the author of Pompeii, Enigma, and Fatherland. He has been a television correspondent with the BBC and a newspaper columnist for the London Sunday Times and The Daily Telegraph. His novels have sold more than ten million copies and been translated into thirty languages. He lives in Berkshire, England, with his wife and four children.

Editorial Reviews

Introducing a contemporary reader with only limited musical knowledge to an infinitely sophisticated composer is a daring venture; all the more gratifying, therefore, to report that Harris, a CBS-Radio executive, brings it off with considerable success. He writes warmly and colorfully about Mozart's too brief and largely unhappy life, disclosing nothing new to scholars but certainly creating a character likely to appeal to the reader's curiosity. The heart of the book, though, is a series of detailed studies of a handful of works-- Eine Kleine Nachtmusik , the Haffner serenade, the K.467 piano concerto, the Jupiter symphony and the operas Don Giovanni , The Marriage of Figaro and The Magic Flute . Harris shines as an educator on the level of Leonard Bernstein in The Joy of Music , one of the only bestsellers about musical classics. Harris's exposition is lucid, his explanation of structure highly perceptive and his use of musical examples couched at just the right level for the interested amateur. He hits the appropriate tone, neither talking down to readers nor overwhelming them with arcane jargon. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

As the title suggests, this is a guide to the music of Mozart for the uninitiated. Harris, who has created music appreciation programs for CBS radio, offers an easy-going and infectiously enthusiastic text. But there are two serious flaws: first, the book is replete with the worst sort of popularizing and mythicization (e.g., an interval of a major third expresses ``confidence and joy''; ``in the Romantic era meter was seen as a hindrance to . . . deep emotion''; ``for many composers after Mozart, form was not that important''). Second, even the most ardent novice might be discouraged by the formidable amount of space devoted to technical analysis. Harris deserves credit for trying to communicate his love for the subject and for introducing musical analysis at an introductory study, but the work's gross simplifications foster inaccurate and fanciful notions, and the target audience might be put off by the long stretches of often arguable analysis.-- Daniel Fermon, Museum of Modern Art Lib., New York

Library Journal

“Harris shines as an educator on the level of Leonard Bernstein.”
–Publisher's Weekly

From the Publisher