Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Herbert F. Peyser's biography traces the making of Mozart through the intimate lens of family. We see Wolfgang as his father saw him: a miracle to be cultivated, an investment to be harvested. Leopold emerges as neither villain nor saint but something more complex, a man who recognized his son's genius before anyone else and bent every resource of his household toward its expression, even as his rigidity and ambition left scars that would never quite heal. The book excels in depicting the early years in Salzburg, the exhausting grand tours across Europe's courts, and the sister Nannerl, whose own considerable talent was quietly erased from history as Wolfgang absorbed every ounce of familial attention. This is biography as psychological portrait: not just what Mozart composed, but who made him, and what price that making demanded.