A dazzling celebration and recalibration of Mozart's genius,written with an energy to match its subject'Ian BostridgeMozart is one of the most familiar and beloved icons of our culture,but how much do we really understand of his music,and what can it reveal to us of the great composer In exhilarating,transformative prose,Patrick Mackie mixes biographical storytelling with deep dives into the experience of listening to Mozart''s music to reveal a musician in dialogue with culture at its most sweepingly progressive,when Europe was caught between two historical worlds. We follow Mozart from his adolescence in Salzburg to his early death; from his close and rivalrous relationship with his father to his romantic attachments; from his hugely successful operas to intimate compositions on the keyboard. Mackie leads the reader through the major and lesser-known moments of the composer''s life and brings alive the teeming,swivelling,modernity of eighteenth-century Europe. In this era of rococo painting,surrealist aesthetics and political turbulence,Mozart reckoned with a searing talent which threatened to overwhelm him,all the while pushing him to extraordinary feats of musicianship. Returned to the volatility of the eighteenth century,we hear Mozart''s music in all its audacious vividness,gaining fresh perspectives on why his works still move us so intensely today,as we continue to search for a modernity he imagined into being.
MEDIA REVIEWS
Publisher: Granta BooksISBN: 9781783786008Number of pages: 384Weight: 258 gDimensions: 198 x 129 x 22 mm
MEDIA REVIEWS
An exhilarating and stimulating new survey of one of our civilization's greatest creative figures. Mackie sheds new light on both Mozart's music and his motivation,with an often piercingly original sideways glance - typically,Mackie ends his molto allegro romp through the works not with Mozart's famous unfinished Requiem but with a tiny keyboard Gigue that sums up his geniusThis book is like a set of virtuoso cadenzas on themes from Mozart's life and works: improvisatory,thought-provoking,quirky and constantly inventiveA dazzling celebration and recalibration of Mozart's genius,written with an energy to match its subjectWritten with the kind of energy and inventiveness of its subject,Mozart in Motion brings Mozart and his milieu into focus in a startling and original way. At once vividly evocative and dazzlingly informative and informed,this book changes the way we think about how art works,and how writing about art should workAs "kaleidoscopic" as the composer's own genius... an immersive and thought-provoking experience that will send you back to Mozart's oeuvre with a renewed appetiteSome sections flare into flame... he brings into vivid life the decadence of 18th-century Paris as it slides towards the Revolution... this book is as much about literary virtuosity as anything elseA brilliant whirlwind of a book that makes us listen to Mozart's music in new ways and brings new ideas about the enlightenment,modernity,the rococo,Goethe,Kant,PrincePatrick Mackie's book places us firmly in (a) new world,and that's the best part of it - a feeling of looking over Mozart's shoulder(Mackie's) sentences sizzle and explode from the page like an elaborate firework display... LuminousErudite,ambitious and elegantly written...Mackie's assertions about the ways Mozart's identification with his era come through in the music are intriguing and insightful...His writing is fresh and imaginative,showing feeling for the musical character and dramatic narrative of a pieceAn exemplary intervention in this kind of cultural critique...Mackie is a sensitive and highly intelligent appraiser of musical form,with a gift for analyzing Mozart's music as the dynamic enactment-rather than the simple expression-of larger cultural and biographical energies(A) stimulating,often profound exploration... Mr. Mackie gives us fresh,revealing and poetic perceptions... He demonstrates persuasively-and passionately-how the nuances of a Mozart score don't merely reflect but embody the central concerns of biography and history... Such resonant understanding of the deep implications of Mozart's music is the main reason to read yet another book on Mozart,though I don't want to minimize Mr. Mackie's excellence as a traditional biographerMackie's extraordinary knowledge,thoughtful insights,and exemplary prose make the book insightful,thought provoking,and enjoyable. Reading the essays is like attending a concert with a friend who is exceptionally well-read and articulate. Rare is the reader who will digest these essays without immediately wanting to listen to whatever piece of music has just been examinedWriting a biography of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart nowadays is no easy task...But Patrick Mackie exploits his background in both poetry and academia in an effort to bring Mozart to life in new ways...The result is still a familiar portrait of Mozart,but one that is painted in new colorsA book that will unquestionably stand among the more poignant investigations of Mozart and his genius,Mozart in Motion...is a serious study of the composer's character and music as it first within the context of European manners and mores in the second half of the eighteenth centuryDelightfully instructive... Mackie achieves for Mozart what Mozart himself did for music,time and time again: to make the old new,and intelligible as suchAmbitious and brilliant: a book that rethinks Mozart's place in history and one that should win him new fans along the way... A unique,wide-ranging study of the canonical composerIn an intriguing blend of biography and deft musical analysis,poet Mackie creates a gallery of the composer's masterpieces expertly framed in the cultural setting of eighteenth-century Europe... Clear and insightful... After perusing the pages of this thoughtful and beautifully written book,readers will want to discover,or rediscover,the timeless music of this beloved composerPatrick Mackie's vibrant biography has something of the 18th-century dash and panache that he evokes in Mozart...Mr. Mackie is a soloist who writes on a world stage with a sententiousness that made 18th-century biography seem not merely the story of another's life,but a story that could only emanate from a singular voice that had something unique to tell usMackie's prose gathers momentum by tackling the music's rich contradictions...If Mackie's voice flirts with pretense,a close reading reveals keen ears and a lively imagination,especially for opera fans...Mackie challenges received ideas and offers descriptions that may yet prove worthy of his subject
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