Book Description
The operatic life of the librettist for Don Giovanni and The Marriage of Figaro.
In 1805, Lorenzo Da Ponte was the proprietor of a small grocery store in New York. But since his birth into an Italian Jewish family in 1749, he had already been a priest, a poet, the lover of many women, a scandalous Enlightenment thinker banned from teaching in Venice, the librettist for three of Mozart’s most sublime operas, a collaborator with Salieri, a friend of Casanova, and a favorite of Emperor Joseph II. He would go on to establish New York City’s first opera house and be the first professor of Italian at Columbia University. An inspired innovator but a hopeless businessman, who loved with wholehearted loyalty and recklessness, Da Ponte was one of the early immigrants to live out the American dream.
In Rodney Bolt’s rollicking and extensively researched biography, Da Ponte’s picaresque life takes readers from Old World courts and the back streets of Venice, Vienna, and London to the New World promise of New York City. Two hundred and fifty years after Mozart’s birth, the life and legacy of his librettist Da Ponte are as astonishing as ever.
Customer Reviews:
A Passionate Life.......2007-02-25
Lorenzo da Ponte defied his time, and later, his age. In his era, most people stayed put, and if they moved, they stayed in the new place. People generally had one career- that of their father(s). Having relocated and reinvented himself, several times, da Ponte lived two generations beyond his contemporaries. At his death he was more than twice Mozart's final age. He outlived his wife by a generation, and he was a generation her senior!
He was busy every moment with optimistic plans and schemes. When things worked out he had high highs. He had low lows when they didn't. Nothing deterred him - ever. He died a risk taking octogenarian. Something about his personality garnered great friends and stirred up enemies.
Bolt is wonderful in describing places da Ponte lived in their time. In Vienna, through the largesse of the Emperor Joseph, a theater could operate independent of the crown, a privilege easily rescinded. I read and re-read the different parts about how the words of Thomas Jefferson resounded in Europe. Like the descriptions of late 18th century Vienna, Prague, the Italian cities and London, the descriptions of early 19th century Philadelphia and NYC are marvelous.
Don Giovani played here in Hawaii to a sold out crowd last week. I wonder how many of those in attendance knew the librettists' name? How many this wonderful story of his life?
Everything you Wanted to Know about Lorenzo DaPonte and More.......2006-11-10
My initial interest in this book was to learn more about the person who wrote those exquisite librettos for Mozart's Don Giovanni, Le Nozze di Figaro, and Cosi Fan Tutte. I was initially somewhat disappointed that the author did not dedicate more space to his relationship with Mozart, but this disappointment dissipated after reading about the rest of DaPonte's life and how he reinvented himself over and over again, in Venice, in Vienna, in London, and finally in New York City. He was a man born way before his time and certainly someone we should read about in admiration, despite his many flaws. The book is very well written and holds your interest from beginning to end.
Great for music lovers.......2006-11-07
I got this for my parents, who are opera fans and know classical music, and they really enjoyed this book.
Engrossing........2006-11-06
Lorenzo Da Ponte was an early Venetian librettist well known in the late 1700s: he was Mozart's poet, Casanova's friend, and would serve as librettist of three of his friend Mozart's most controversial operas. He went on to become the first professor of Italian at Columbia University: THE LIBRETTIST OF VENICE traces a varied, involving life but also provides a fine history and set of social insights of his times, recreating the politics and world of early Vienna through the changing career of a remarkable man. Engrossing.
Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch
Great Adventure.......2006-11-04
Da Ponte was an amazing character. His story is told in a funny, understated style that is informative and entertaining. A great read.
Amazon.com
Perhaps the most important Mozart biography ever written, this book is subtle, rich-textured, endlessly stimulating and provocative -- just like the man's music.
Book Description
On the occasion of Mozart's two hundred and fiftieth birthday, read Maynard Solomon's Mozart: A Life, universally hailed as the Mozart biography of our time.
Customer Reviews:
Serious and thoughtful.......2007-09-18
Although I give this book five stars, I recommend it only to certain readers. If you
--already love Mozart's music
--have read a certain amount of Mozart biography before (like liner notes on CDs)
--yearn to know more, and
--are willing to read patiently
then this is the book for you.
Solomon is a true scholar who has studied all of the old letters and documents with care. When he addresses aspects of Mozart's life that are encrusted with mythology (Did Mozart think he was writing his Requiem for himself? Was he vulgar? Did he almost starve?), he gives you a solid answer by including quotations from the original sources. In cases where the sources conflict, he lets you know this and doesn't try to pretend that the facts are known. Solomon is also quite unsentimental and doesn't let what we'd *like* to believe influence his presentation.
More controversially, Solomon thoroughly explores Mozart's thoughts, motivations, and relationships, along with those of his close relatives. This can be gripping. I am particularly taken with Solomon's portrayal of Mozart's father Leopold, a complex and difficult personality.
Occasionally, the psychologizing becomes too much for me. For instance, I'm not very enthusiastic about Solomon's idea that the substitution of "Adam" for "Amadé" on Mozart's marriage certificate was deliberate. But following Solomon out on these too-long limbs is a small price to pay when the book as a whole is so insightful.
A masterpiece.......2007-05-20
This is a very detailed account of the life of this great composer. At times with some insight into the psyche of Mozart. The timeline of his life is analysed and this is all in the context of his music. The letters of Mozarts have a prominant role in this book. This book even surpasses the author's wonderful biography of Beethoven.
Enjoyable to read...........2006-10-22
Mozart's financials were now up now down, and this also reflects the vicissitudes attendant on the way this great musician genius was living.
Indeed Constanze was the inadvertent witness of his financial engagements and, being so keen on money, she brought about a gloomy catalogues of his Balance Sheet (so to speak) so that his heirs would not have greedy `appetite' after him.
Mozart's personal letters to his cousin (before he married Constanze) are full of frivolity, vivacity, and written in unorthodox language, in their contents, using `flagrant' terms and words befitting a merry teenager full of gaiety and high spirits. Mozart's soulful personality, for instance, didn't know the pressures of antagonisms from anyone, including Saliere.
Mozart always had a personal touch of sincere friendliness to clear away any lingering misunderstanding with the Royal court (The marriage of Figaro)
There have been awful lot of exaggerations in the movies and in the literatures written about Mozart, which made us wonder what was true vs. dramatized.
It is a documented fact, though, that Mozart (and his friend Haydn) found great personal diversion in the Masonic Lodges of Vienna.
Mozart's first complete musical contribution honouring the `Lodge' with Masonic themes and allegory was his `Die Zauberflote'- The magic Flute, music and libretto of devoted love and unique delight.
At the Lodge, some of the lectures also spoke of the meaning of `death'. Should it be feared? Should it be regarded `friendly' as the secession of all mundane excessive endurance to quietness, self-relief and freedom of the soul? Mozart composed the `Requiem' of music combining `happiness' and `acceptance' of the inevitable as `duty' and `obligation', not of fear.
"An Accountant's Dream" or "Mozart on the Couch".......2006-04-06
I read up to chapter twenty (about 300 pages) and stopped reading the book, realizing I had more important things to read. My major complaints are (1) that there is too much discussion of the Mozart family finances, which I'm sure would be fascinating to economists and accountants, however tedious to someone concerned about music; and (2) too much retroactive Freudian analysis of the subject, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Think about this: Solomon uses an obsolete, and now debunked, system of psychoanalysis to describe a subject that cannot be interviewed. The best discussion of music is concerning the Salzburg serenade style in chapter eight. Other than that brief section (pp. 125-133), I was not impressed. Short of reading Mozart's letters and making your own analysis, I recommend Stanley Sadie's "Mozart: The Early Years, 1756-1781" for starters.
A Must Read!.......2005-11-21
A bit on the dry side but so well written and researched that this is the best book on Mozart at present.
Average customer rating:
- Mozart from the Heart
- "Piano, piano, si va lontano"
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Mozart's Letters, Mozart's Life
Robert Spaethling
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton
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ASIN: 0393328309 |
Book Description
"A wonderful collection that gives Mozart a voice as a son, husband, brother and friend."—New York Times Book Review
In Mozart's Letters, Mozart's Life, Robert Spaethling presents "Mozart in all the rawness of his driving energies" (Spectator), preserved in the "zany, often angry effervescence" of his writing (Observer). Where other translators have ignored Mozart's atrocious spelling and tempered his foul language, "Robert Spaethling's new translations are lively and racy, and do justice to Mozart's restlessly inventive mind" (Daily Mail). Carefully selected and meticulously annotated, this collection of letters "should be on the shelves of every music lover" (BBC Music Magazine). Published for the 250th anniversary of Mozart's birthday. 16 pages of illustrations.
Customer Reviews:
Mozart from the Heart.......2007-02-02
Almost since the moment of his death in December 1791, people have been writing about W.A. Mozart, some of it accurate, but a great deal misguided, and false. Although I have enjoyed reading various Mozart biographies (Maynard Solomon's is my favorite), I found it quite refreshing to finally to read a collection of Mozart's own words. While the composer was certainly a prankster in his younger days (a stereotype unfortunately perpetuated by the reknowned film "Amadeus"), his letters undeniably demonstrate that Mozart was also a very thoughtful and passionate human being who enjoyed the highs and endured the lows of life, just like the rest of us. In this book, readers will get to know a man who wanted to be loved and lead a full life, only to die at the young age of 35!
Mozart's correspondence show that he sought a coveted position as a kappellmeister or court composer somewhere in Europe, which would mean steady demand for compositions, as well as a handsome salary. In February 1778, he wrote to his father: "I am a composer, and I was born a Kapellmeister. I must not and cannot bury my Gift for Composing, that a benevolent God has bestowed upon me in such rich a measure." Despite his relentless determination and marvelous talent as a performer and composer, Mozart never received the court post he so desperately desired, and this lack of a steady income pushed him deeper into debt during his last few years. Considering his financial problems and the other demands in his life, the quantity and quality of the work he produced in his final days is mind-boggling. Mozart's life was also marred by other tragic events; the gut-wrenching letters describing his mother's death in Paris in 1778 are particulary moving, as are his emotional attempts to mend the strained relationship with his father after Mozart left Salzburg and moved to Vienna in the early 1780s. Perhaps most interesting of course, are Mozart's discussions of his art. My favorite quote of all, perhaps, comes from a letter of December 27, 1777, in which Mozart told his father as he sat at the organ, "The playing just flowed from my heart." To me, that one line captures why this remarkable man and his incredible music still captivate us today. This book does not seek to provide a completely rounded view of Mozart's life and times, but it is still a wonderful collection of Mozart's correspondence that will inspire and inform.
"Piano, piano, si va lontano".......2006-05-06
These letters are pleasing to read, a dignified but casual translation. Spaethling's commentary is never intrusive, always enlightening. It's fascinating to trace Mozart's maturity, his move away from his father, his flirtatiousness, sometimes erotic writing, with his wife. The preening and posturing show the genuis's very human side.
Amazon.com
In his lifetime, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart didn't have the best of luck with his patrons. One of them, Archbishop Colloredo of Salzburg, actually had his chamberlain kick the composer in the ass to signal the end of his employment. Mozart has been luckier, however, with his biographers. In the last 20 years alone, he has been the subject of two fine books: Maynard Solomon's meticulous study, which slides Mozart's rather mystifying psyche under the analytic microscope, and Wolfgang Hildesheimer's more sardonic effort, in which the author seems determined to strip every last bit of romantic varnish from the traditional portrait.
Now Peter Gay joins the party with his own brief life. Weighing in at 177 pages, Mozart will never displace its deep-focus predecessors. But it's a delightful introduction to the composer, whose entire existence was, as Gay puts it, a "triumph of genius over precociousness." It's one thing, after all, to knock 'em dead at age five--at which point the waist-high Mozart was already a keyboard virtuoso. It's quite another to keep developing at the same prodigious pace. "A child prodigy is, by its nature, a self-destroying artifact: what seems literally marvelous in a boy will seem merely talented and perfectly natural in a young man. But by 1772, at sixteen, Mozart no longer needed to display himself as a little wizard; he had matured in the sonata and the symphony, the first kind of music he composed, and now showed his gifts in new domains: opera, the oratorio, and the earliest in a string of superb piano concertos."
Gay gets in all the essentials: Mozart's mind-blowing maturation, his family life, his weakness for billiards, and (of course) his seriously scatological style as a correspondent. Like Solomon, he takes an Oedipal approach to Wolfgang's perpetual head-banging with his overbearing father. And like Hildesheimer, he's at pains to scotch certain cherished myths--the mysterious figure who commissioned the Requiem, for example, turns out to be no otherworldly harbinger of death but a chiseling wannabe who hoped to pass off the finished product as his own work. Perhaps best of all, Gay never goes sublime on us. His portrait is attractively level-headed, and at one point he's even modest enough to knock his own metaphors for their puerility. Here, surely, the author is being hard on himself. But he's right about one thing: as far as artistry goes, this former child prodigy does make children of us all. --James Marcus
Book Description
A biography of the greatest musical mind in Western history
Mozart's unshakable hold on the public's consciousness can only be strengthened by historian and biographer Peter Gay's concise and deft look at the genius's life. Mozart traces the development of the man whose life was a whirlwind of achievement, and the composer who pushed every instrument to its limit and every genre of classical music into new realms.
Customer Reviews:
Mozart's Life: Lite yet Substantial.......2007-02-23
Peter Gay's `Mozart' is the sort of book a heavy-hitting historian like Gay writes while on holiday at the beach. Lite, witty and short, but still substantial enough to satisfy. (The same could be said for many of the excellent volumes of the Penguin Lives series--alas, now defunct.)
As nearly every other reviewer has pointed out, this slim volume treats Mozart's correspondingly brief life with Gay's celebrated prose style. No new details are introduced, at least nothing destined to alter Mozart scholarship (for all the details, you'll want the much longer `Mozart: A Life' by Maynard Solomon). What Gay brings to Mozart's life is readability, historical context (this is PETER GAY, after all) and a nice quick summary for those readers who have an interest in Mozart but may not care to spend more than a few hours studying him.
One nice advantage of the book, especially for those looking to gain a better understanding of Mozart's music, is that Gay connects the events of Mozart's life to the production of some of his musical masterpieces. With Gay's book and iTunes, you can quickly build a "best of" Mozart library as you read along.
Bravo Peter Gay.......2006-12-21
It takes one genius to write about another genius.
Peter Gay is so very well respected for his insites and work for many years. He tackles the complex life and mind of Mozart with eloquence and with a prose that is engaging and fluid.
I think I am off to listen to my old records of Mozart.
Exceptional read, that captivates the reader.
Love The Written Word
A good short life .......2006-12-19
Commissioned by James Atlas as part of the 'Penguin Biography ' series this short biography of Mozart by historian Peter Gay is balanced, transparent and clear. In other words it partakes of some of the Classical qualities which so distinguished Mozart's work. And this when one of Gay's major points is to stress that Mozart's dark side was a very great part of his music. Gay traces the story of the child prodigy who unlike most child prodigies continued his complex development throughout his working life, creating in the course of this a vast body of work at the highest level in all the musical genres of the time. Two of his friends Johann Christian Bach and the great Haydn helped him on his way. Haydn told Mozart's proud, overbearing, pushy father,"Before God and as an honest man I tell you that your son is the greatest composer known to me either in person or by name: He has taste, and, furthermore, the most profound knowledge of composition."
Gay dispels a number of popular myths including the one which is the basis of the film 'Amadeus' that Salieri poisoned Mozart. He makes use of his psychoanalytic training to explain the relationship between Mozart father and Mozart son. He dispels the myth of Mozart's abject poverty and rejection. He provides a very readable narrative of the lives of one of mankind's great God - gifted geniuses.
A pleasure to read.
Mozart lives!!.......2006-11-06
Professor Gay is a superb author. His opus on the genius Mozart is eloquent, brings new elements to my understanding of the musician, and keeps the reader completely centered in Mozart's world and era. His prose is tremendously engaging and his book is hard to put down. I had read many of Prof. Gay's work while studying for my Ph.D exams 35 years ago in his area of speciality, the Englightenment. Then he brought me a great understanding of that era and he continues in that manner on Mozart. I am most impressed with his characterization of this life and his thorough understanding of Wolfgang's music related to his life. We spent a week in Salzburg this year (our second journey to this Episcopal Imperial on the Salzach, and then ordered this biography as we longed for more information. Prof. Gay's work was the perfect suplement to this trip and the great music we hear and a most welcome addition to our library. May he write even more entertaining and enlightening works.
Superb introduction to Mozart's life.......2004-03-09
In this book, Peter Gay offers an excellent, concise summary of Mozart's life and greatness. This is not a balanced recounting; Gay compresses the Mozart's active childhood of tours and performances into a single chapter, while his frustrating years at Salzburg are similarly condensed to a few pages. Yet such an approach is more than justified given the purpose of the "Penguin Lives" series, which is to offer brief introductions to their selected subjects.
A distinguished intellectual and cultural historian, Gay brings considerable knowledge of Mozart's world to bear in examining the details of his life, connecting it to the broader historical developments of his time. Chapters 6 and 7 break away from the biographical narrative to focus on Mozart's achievements as a writer of symphonies and operas, which allows Gay to turn his finely honed analytical abilities to evaluating Mozart the artist. While there is nothing new in his analysis, it nonetheless provides an excellent introduction to the life of this brilliant musician and composer.
Book Description
Letters by Mozart in sparkling new translations that capture the flavor of the writing, transmit every nuance, and render every thought faithfully and accurately. What was Mozart really like--wild? sublime? responsible? fun-loving? bright? foul-mouthed? Reading these letters, we learn in his own words that he was all of these and much more. Here is the composer at his most intimate and unguarded, expressing his feelings about life, love, music, and the world around him. For this collection, Robert Spaethling has carefully chosen letters written by Mozart over a span of almost twenty-two years--from his first journey to Italy as a shy teenager to the final months of his life in Vienna. The letters, together with the accompanying introductions, chronicle the composer's life, personal development, and artistic growth. These new translations into English, the first in more than sixty years, are faithful to the original German even to the point of misspellings, which abound in the early correspondence. No effort has been spared to find language as closely equivalent to Mozart's as any translation can be and to clear up references in the letters to people, places, and events. Mozart's Letters, Mozart's Life makes wonderful reading for anyone who has ever loved a work by the composer, from the deceptively simple Eine kleine Nachtmusik to the towering, magnificent Requiem.
Customer Reviews:
I love it................2007-04-18
Mozart's full and final dedication to his work was exemplary; no doubt, his music spoke for the conscience of the world and his audience felt an almost religious faith in it. But the young man had frivolous and fun-loving personality, and his closeness to infantile notions was apparent with friends, relatives and pupils.
Mozart was possessor of the least inhibited tongue even in his contacts with serious foundations like Archbishopric or Freemasonry that mismatched the depth of notes he wrote.
This composer genius was filled with spontaneous strong-willed passion for music if weak-witted for romance and throughout the wide spectrum of his works involving every conceivable style of symphonies, operas, and orchestral pieces - some of the finest ever written - Mozart produced something truer than love.
Great book.......2005-08-03
If you are interested in everyday lives and struggles of geniuses, this is a book for you. Most of us know Mozart as a great composer, but he also wrote passionate letters to his friends and loved ones. His writing style and personality allow us to understand his times more and to have a closer look at the person that he was.
This lively book will deepen your appreciation of Mozart.......2004-03-19
What a fine accomplishment! According to the introduction, this book contains about 2/3 of Mozart's surviving correspondence. It has letters from and to Mozart and the translations are very lively and bring the personality of the composer to life. In older translations it seems that care was taken to make him sound like the monumental cultural force that he has become. But in this book, Mozart is a boy, a young man, a young husband, a fiery genius, and at times lost, grieving, and even confused.
The book is organized chronologically and provides biographical information that gives each letter some context. There are many useful footnotes as well as a couple of maps and list of Mozart's travels. The author has even included some notes about the various currencies in order to help the reader understand the discussions of money in the letters.
I can't emphasize enough what a lively read this book is. I found that I simply didn't get bogged down and enjoyed reading it. Yes, there are some portions of some letters I skipped, but that is one of the beauties of the book. You don't get lost simply because you skipped some mundane portions of one letter or another.
Mr. Spaethling is to be congratulated on this fine achievement. If you are interested in Mozart in any way, this book will deepen your appreciation of the living breathing person who wrote all that music. It didn't come from some alien dimension. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, this wonderful and complex human being did it all and we are much richer for it.
A whole new view of Mozart.......2002-12-26
Those of us who know a little about Mozart believe that he was perfection incarnate, part angel, fluttering down to endow the world with heavenly music. (There probably is some truth to that.) This book, however, reveals a whole new side of Mozart, a very human side. As beautiful as Mozart's music is, the more beautiful it becomes after reading this book. Understanding his big heart, hard work and, yes, even imperfections, increases one's appreciation of his music.
Bravo!.......2002-10-12
This book enabled Mozart come to life for me. The translation was very good. It showed, (in english), how Mozart worked on his grammar and spelling as he got older. Since he was "home educated", he had to work at this.
I could not put this book down, reading a few letters every day, I saw how Mozart grew from a boy into a man with a family. He was a really good guy, it's a shame he had to die so young.
I would say, to anyone who wants to know more about Mozart, buy this book. You can form your own opinion of him, then you can buy the "expert's" books.
After having read this book, I would like to know more about Constanze!
Book Description
Joseph Bologne was one of the most famous men in 18th-century France. The son of a slave and a French nobleman in Guadaloupe, the ambitious Joseph moved to Paris, where he was christened the Chevalier de Saint George. During his extraordinary life, he conquered every limitation by becoming a champion swordsman, violin virtuoso, composer, and military commander in the French Revolution. From the plantations of the West Indies to the palace at Versailles, The Other Mozart details the true story of a remarkable man. Illustrated by original paintings and archival materials, the Chevalier de Saint George's inspiring and affirming story lives on.
Book Description
In June 1805, a 56-year-old Italian immigrant disembarked in Philadelphia carrying only a violin. Before dying in New York 23 years later, in his ninetieth year, he would find New World respectability as a bookseller, then as the first professor of Italian at Columbia University. Abbé Lorenzo da Ponte, a scholarly poet, teacher and priest, with a devoted wife, also had a reputation as a womanizer. He charmed all he met, pioneering the place of Italian music in American life. But his self-assurance also excited mistrust. When the first Italian opera was performed in New York in 1825, he had the nerve to claim he had written it. He had, so he said, known Mozart. Like the memoirs he had recently written to pay off more debts, the old man was so full of tall stories. The many lives of Lorenzo da Ponte—librettist of Mozart's three great operas, The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, and Cosi Fan Tutte—begin in Venice, linger in Vienna and London and wind up in New York, where today he lies buried in an unmarked grave in one of the world's largest cemeteries.
Average customer rating:
- The choice biography of Mozart
- A bit murky but fascinating nevertheless.
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The Life of Mozart
Edward Holmes
Manufacturer: Tantor Media
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ASIN: 1400100984 |
Book Description
Edward Holmes, a schoolfellow of Keats, provides the first complete account of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, based upon Mozart's own letters and memoirs.
In this biography, written long before the significance of the Mozart's work was fully realized, Holmes reveals the musician's character and genius, his struggles, his influence on art and the brilliant reputations that surrounded him.
Customer Reviews:
The choice biography of Mozart.......2007-08-19
This book was originally published in 1845 and remains to this day a work of reference. It portrays all the essential stations in the life of this composer of great genius. The reason why Holmes's biography is so valuable is no doubt the fact that the author uses large excerpts of Mozart's correspondence and his letters give precious information about the man himself. Edward Holmes then adds precious data concerning dates, names, musicians, places and customs of the late 18th century.
There is also an appendix listing all of Mozart's works and their date of composition as well as a useful index.
The book is masterfully read by David Case for Tantor Media.
A bit murky but fascinating nevertheless........1999-08-19
I am currently listeing to this novel on tape and have found it fascinating. While it is complicated, and as I said a bit murky, I strongly reccomend it to anyone interested in this composer's history.
Average customer rating:
- A Book of Haunting Beauty
- We hear only from the most courageous
- A "must read"
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Loving Mozart: A Past Life Memory of the Composer's Final Years
Mary Montano
Manufacturer: Cantus Verus Books
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ASIN: 096425770X |
Connecting Link, July, 1995
It may be a while before hypnotic regression achieves mainstream acceptance, but Montano's own work in that area and the resultant Loving Mozart will certainly assist in its doing so. Loving Mozart adds an important dimension to the musical genius we know as Mozart and his devoted friend Franz Sussmayr. Captivating reading.
Customer Reviews:
A Book of Haunting Beauty.......2002-11-15
When I read this book four years ago it haunted me for a long time. The beauty of its prose and the lucidity of the author's memories lingered in the back of mind and in the recesses of my heart, adding a dimension to the character of a young man few people can say they understand. There are no portraits of Franz Süssmayr, no eye-witness accounts of what kind of person he was, or what his relationship with Mozart was really like. This book fills in those spaces to reveal a gifted, generous, tender-hearted man, who was a loyal friend to the end-and beyond.
Books that claim to have their basis in past-life recall are always met with ridicule because people who don't believe in reincarnation are not educated in the field and thus cannot comprehend all the profound implications of it, or the myriad beautiful possibilities that go along with it. Immature souls see life as black and white. Mature souls see life as an ocean of limitless color, light and shadow, tone and texture. This book is a creation of all these qualities.
I recently re-read Loving Mozart and I received more from it than I did after my first reading. Only when something contains the truth can it affect us this way-it touches our hearts again and again, regardless of how many times we pick it up, dust it off and allow it to take us into its private world. When truth is that palpable, we know it deep in our subconscious whether we recognize it or not, and assumed historical details lose their grasp. Ask any police detective if any ten people will remember an event the same way and the answer will be no. Mozart knew a great many people, some of whom were never allowed into his private life. Many of those people went on to write about him, and even they do not always agree on just what happened at the end of Mozart's life. We remember events from our own experience and inner reality, and history is written by the winners anyway. Franz Süssmayr was not one of the winners. The winners went on to create a Mozart that would appeal to charitable organizations and individuals-an eternal manchild, a composer who never struggled over a piece of music, but composed as easily as writing out a grocery list, an apollonian god.
Some critics of this book don't recognize that Loving Mozart is not a book about Mozart, but a book about the spiritual path of someone who simply loved, and acted out that love in a beautiful, selfless way. If that's not Truth I don't know what is.
We hear only from the most courageous.......2002-08-29
There are two kinds of people who claim famous past lives: total phonies, who are simply out to make themselves seem more important, and the rare genuine articles, who really do have some connection, direct or archetypical, with a historical figure.
How to tell which is which? Just ask the person this: "When you found out you were or knew so-and-so... how did you deal with the shock and the fear?" If they don't know what you're talking about, you have a genuine, garden-variety phony.
Real ones do what most of us would do in their situation: look in the mirror, think 'how could I have been THAT?', feel surreal and worry that maybe they are just crazy. When considering telling anyone, they worry about their reputations, their jobs, their relationships. They know about the phonies, the weekend Cleopatras, and they know what they will be called. They sometimes wish their memories would just go away.
We hear only from the most courageous of them.
_Loving Mozart_ was ten years in the making; ten years for the author to gather the information and the courage to publish. Wishful thinking simply doesn't take that long, and lusts after perfect experiences, not the painful, ambiguous, messy ones portrayed. Besides, if the author had the total freedom of fantasy, why not go the whole hog and claim to have been Mozart himself?
This book isn't about fame and glory anyway; it is about music, and about love. It is about loyalty, joy and a passion for creating beauty that transcend poverty, rejection and death. It is about the nature of souls and their multi-life connections and missions, and about how inspiration is drawn from the Divine.
If you firmly disbelieve in reincarnation you don't want to read it; it will just seem like airy-fairy nonsense, and the details that differ from history (as is inevitable, since people often remember the same events differently) will peck at you. If you can accept reincarnation as fantasy, you will be both moved and uplifted. If you accept reincarnation as reality, you will find much that is confirmatory -- and still be moved and uplifted. If you are undecided but open-minded, there is a lot to learn, and this deeply beautiful book will stay in your mind and heart for a long time after reading.
A "must read".......1999-12-18
for anyone who has ever stopped to wonder WHY one has these memories that just do not fit in one's current life. Also, this book gives some insight into Mozart as a person with talent, not the "man touched by God" as a recent A&E commentator claimed.
Books:
- The Literature of Music Bibliography
- The Messiah: An Oratorio Complete Vocal Score (G. Schirmer's Editions of Oratorios and Cantatas)
- The Mozart Effect for Children: Awakening Your Child's Mind, Health, and Creativity with Music
- The Pema Chodron Collection: Pure Meditation:Good Medicine:From Fear to Fearlessness
- The Penguin Guide to Compact Discs and DVDs Yearbook 2006/07 Edition (Penguin Guide to Compact Discs and Dvds Yearbook)
- The Situation Is Hopeless, but Not Serious (The Pursuit of Unhappiness)
- The Sugar Solution: Weight Gain? Memory Lapses? Mood Swings? Fatigue? Your Symptoms Are Real - And Your Solution is Here
- The Tragic and the Ecstatic: The Musical Revolution of Wagner's Tristan and Isolde
- This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession
- Toscanini's Fumble and Other Tales of Clinical Neurology
Books Index
Books Home
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