Mozart: The Man and the Artist as Revealed in His Own Words

What did Mozart actually sound like when he wasn't composing? This collection of his private letters strips away two centuries of mythology and lets the composer speak for himself in his own urgent, irreverent, often hilarious voice. Here is Mozart the man: joking with his sister, begging his father for money, obsessing over his operas, boasting about his genius, and writing some of the most beautiful music the world has ever known. Kerst has assembled the most revealing passages from hundreds of letters, organizing them to chart Mozart's life from child prodigy to master composer. The result is an intimate portrait that no biography could capture: spontaneous, unguarded, startlingly modern. For anyone who has ever wondered what it felt like to be Mozart, these pages offer an answer straight from the source.