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The Mozart Family: Four Lives in a Social Context [Hardcover]

Ruth Halliwell (Author)

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Ruth Halliwell
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"She offers students and scholars at all levels an important new look at the milieu of the Mozarts."--Choice

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The family into which Mozart was born has never received a rigorous contextual study which does justice to the complexity of its relationships or to its interactions with colleagues, friends, and neighbours in Mozart's native city, Salzburg. Most biographies of Mozart have undervalued the many passages in the rich family correspondence which do not bear directly on him. This book draws on the neglected material, most of which has never been translated into English. At the heart of the work is a detailed examination of the letters, supplemented by little-known archival material from the papers of the Berchtold family, into which Mozart's sister Nannerl married. Additional information concerning Salzburg's local history, especially the working conditions at court and the provision for dependants of court employees, enables the hopes, expectations, and fears of the Mozarts to be located in the context of the social conditions there. As well as providing a sympathetic account of the other members of the family, all of whom were profoundly affected by the experience of sharing their lives with Mozart, this approach gives new significance to the events of Mozart's life; not only are they set against the background of his familys expectations of him, but the ways in which the source material has to be used for this purpose necessarily involves fundamental improvements in its interpretation. Ruth Halliwell challenges most previous views of the characters in Mozart's family (especially of his father, Leopold), and of the relationships within it. She also introduces a wealth of characters from the Mozarts's circle in Salzburg, from chambermaids to princes, and demonstrates the relevance of the gossip stories the Mozarts told about them to the larger outlook of the members of the family. In an important final section, Halliwell traces the roles of Nannerl and Mozart's wife Constanze in using, controlling, and handing on the biographical source material after Mozarts death. She discusses their dealings with publishers such as Breitkopf & Härtel, and with the authors of the earliest biographies of Mozart. This complex topic here receives an account which not only illuminates the characters of both women and the relations between them, but also addresses the question of how myths were able to creep into the Mozartian biography at so early a stage and take tenacious hold.
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WHEN Mozart's parents married on 21 November 1747, the event marked the end of several years of struggle to establish the necessary financial foundations. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Amazon.com: 3.6 out of 5 stars (5 customer reviews)

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Better than most think, 31 Dec 1999
By D. Schuster - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Mozart Family: Four Lives in a Social Context (Hardcover)
Halliwell's scholarship is impeccable, and her written style firmly holds the reader for hours at a stretch (I was even thumbing through it at redlights while driving home from work). Much attention is given to the family as a unit as well as historical and biographical background on individuals. The ongoing debate of Mozart and Leopold's respective personalities and their relationship is something that no one book can accurately put to rest, Halliwell's input explores another side of the contemporary idea of Mozart, that can be at odds with traditional views. The reader should be prepared to balance her writing with the works of other Mozart scholars (particularly Knepler, Kuster, and Landons). Incidentally, cjarrard@mindspring.com's online review at Amazon.com is unjustly critical: from the very beginning Halliwell states that her purpose is to explore Mozart's family, and not the genius himself; this is clearly emphasized in the book's preface. And, while Solomon's "A Life" is a masterful read, there is no reason to grasp it as the Bible of Mozart scholarship (consider W. Stafford and N. Till as well as the previously mentioned authors).

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Family context adds depth to the study of Mozart's life, 29 Dec 1999
By Richard D. Simon Jr. - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Mozart Family: Four Lives in a Social Context (Hardcover)
I found this volume to be well-researched, very well written, and extraordinarily interesting. The strength of this volume is not that it replaces other works concerning Mozart's life but that it richly supplements them. The author has chosen to focus on letters of members (primarily Mozart's father Leopold and his sister Nannerl) of Mozart's family, not just on the letters of Mozart. The author's hypothesis is that much can be learned about Mozart by learning about his family. This book strongly supports this hypothesis. Whereas Solomon (Mozart A Life) presents a rather grim, abusive, and almost criminal picture of Leopold Mozart, I believe that Halliwell's work more likely captures a truer flavor of his character: a very intelligent man concerned for his family, loving but autocratic, less creative than Mozart but still very arrogant, and very much concerned with finances - so much so that Leopold's actions likely adversely affected Mozart's ability to achieve court appointments. In many respects, Halliwell's interpretation of Leopold is similar to Solomon's, except that she suggests a less "criminal" motivation on Leopold's part. One thread that is woven throughout this book, moreso than in others, is the large role that the constant threat of illness and death played in the lives of the Mozart family. The authors hypothesis that this fear of leaving family unprovided for at death provided signficant motivtion for Leopold's actions is certainly plausible. I found, in particular, the chapters on Leopld and Nannerl to be very interesting. I also enjoyed the last several chapters of this book which dealt with the manner in which information was provided by Nannerl and Constanze to the various biographers of Mozart. All in all, I rate this work very highly. This work strengthens and adds family context to the works of Solomon (Mozart: A Life), Einstein (Mozrt: His character, his work), and Braunbehrens (Mozart in Vienna: 1781-1791).

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Was Wolfgang Really As Bad As All That?, 28 May 1998
By Carol (cjarrard@mindspring.com) - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Mozart Family: Four Lives in a Social Context (Hardcover)
Having just read the book "The Mozart Family: Four Lives in a Social Context", I think the subtitle should be changed to "Two Lives in a Social Context". The author lavishes a lot of attention and affection on the famous composer's father (Leopold) and his sister (Nannerl). Wolfgang Mozart is merely a shadowy presence in the background. The author has quite a different take on Leopold than that presented by Maynard Solomon in his book "Mozart: A Life". While Solomon was highly critical of the elder Mozart (Leopold had an extremely controlling nature, he was lying when he claimed to be in financial straits, he was overly critical of his son and he seemd to view Wolfgang as a "cash cow"), Halliwell is full of praise for Leopold (he was self-sacrificing, devoted, and justly worried about his son's irresponsible behavior). On the other hand, Halliwell hardly has one kind word for Wolfgang. He was thoughtless, deceitful, self-centered, and oblivious and uncaring about the problems of his father and sister. He thought the world revolved around him, and the expressions in his letters of love and tender concern for his father and sister were completely hollow.

Solomon makes you want to cry for Wolfgang Mozart, while Halliwell makes you want to cry for his father. Who is right ????

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 5 reviews  3.6 out of 5 stars 
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