An exhilarating life of Mozart
Jan Swafford peppers his biography of a genius with astute critical judgments
Mozart: The Reign of Love. By Jan Swafford.Harper; 832 pages; $45. Faber & Faber; £30.
THE MOMENT he saw an organ, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart knew what to do with it. Aged six, already a prodigy on the clavier, he encountered pedals and stops for the first time in an Austrian church. Within moments he was accompanying mass and improvising freely. In the following year, 1763, an official in Heidelberg was so astonished by his organ-playing that he had a plate engraved for his church to mark the boy’s visit. Mozart composed his first symphony at eight. His father wrote that “every day God performs fresh miracles through this child.”
This article appeared in the Culture section of the print edition under the headline “Too beautiful”
From the November 28th 2020 edition
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