Life of Mozart, Vol. 1 (of 3)

Otto Jahn's Life of Mozart fundamentally changed how we write about composers. Where earlier biographies recounted pleasant anecdotes and surface details, Jahn pioneered something radical: he examined how Mozart's music actually came into being, tracing the connections between the composer's circumstances, his influences, and his extraordinary output. This first volume immerses us in Mozart's origins: the modest Augsburg roots of the Mozart family and the towering, complex figure of Leopold, whose stern devotion and relentless ambition shaped his son's education and career. We witness the making of a prodigy, but Jahn gives us something rarer: a window into the forces that formed the man behind the genius. More than a century and a half later, this remains a landmark work of musical biography.