Mozart's Women: His Family, His Friends, His Music: Amazon.co.uk: Jane Glover: 9781405021210: Books

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John Allison, Music Critic, Sunday Telegraph

Jane Glover has pulled off a coup des livres with her fresh take on Mozart's life and work..

The Sunday Telegraph

...required reading for practitioners and will enlighten the most casual listener.

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9 Reviews

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4.8 out of 5 stars (9 customer reviews)

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50 of 51 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Glover's time machine, 26 Nov 2005

By

Stephen A. Haines (Ottawa, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER) (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Mozart's Women: His Family, His Friends, His Music (Hardcover)

While you're in Amazon, try searching "Mozart" in the "Books" category [don't even attempt it in "Classical Music"!]. Over three thousand offerings will be displayed. Refining that search to "Constanze Mozart" returns barely two dozen. While that might be expected, the fact that "Mozart's Women" appears in none of the lists seems a distortion.

Glover has successfully offered something innovative in Mozartiana - his life and that of the women in it. With so many seeing Mozart's wife Constanze through the film "Amadeus", Glover's view may be something of a shock. Her depiction of Constanze and the other Weber daughters, along with Mozart's sister Nannerl, is more than a rehabilitation. It is almost an upheaval of the traditional view of the lives of 18th Century composers and performers. Moreover, the tale is done with such verve and enthusiasm that you are caught from the first lines and held captive until the story's complete.

Does anyone who's read this far need an introduction to music's most eminent figure? The boyish, extroverted, discouraged and often distraught man who produced so much, yet died before his peak productive years? Glover manages to re-acquaint us to the child who found strength and inspiration through the presence of his sister. Their times apart were difficult for both, leading them to exchange a constant stream of letters in their younger years. They played together, with more than just music, since Wolfgang would bring home games when Leopold dragged him to some distant city. Only his relocation to Vienna broke the link, further sundered by his marriage to Constanze. Glover traces Nannerl's life in parallel to Wolfgang's. That existence fits more appropriately the image we have of the time - marriage to an unpleasant man and enforced exile away from music centres.

Mozart's eye for the ladies rarely let up until his marriage. Constanze's sisters attracted his gaze in his younger years and his ear in the later ones. Glover's division of this book into three "family" segments seems simplistic at first glance. Her logic is demonstrated as she follows the sibling, then marital relationships. It is the third segment, "Mozart's Women", that allows the author to achieve her fullest expression, however. It's no longer games nor domestic bliss, but Mozart's compositions and how he worked with singers and musicians. In his operas, he targetted particular performers - disappointed when certain vocalists were unavailable, appalled when substitutions were forced by circumstances.

As Glover recounts the development of librettos and cast assemblages, she draws you into each story with commanding passion for her topic. It is her depictions of the performances that jar the modern reader. She is able to evoke the quality of the singers' efforts as if she had personally witnessed them. You "hear" Calavieri's poignant ability, Alyosia Weber's soaring escalations to the highest pitches, and listen to the ways Mozart found to utilise the voices of young children. His tenors were no less carefully selected, with Wolfgang rewriting scores to accommodate the loss of power in an older performer. The entire segment reads as if Glover was sitting in the second row of the music halls furiously scribbling notes as the music washes over her. Her recounting of what she "heard" should melt the resistance of the most hardened opera avoider. It did me. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A valuable contribution to understanding Mozart, 11 April 2006

By

Dr. Allen Brown (Cambridge) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Mozart's Women: His Family, His Friends, His Music (Hardcover)

Generally I am impressed with this book, Dr Glover has a well crafted writing style and the narrative flows evenly throughout the whole book. The brief history of Mozart as seen in the context of the women in his life is a fascinating perspective to adopt and Dr Glover brings it off rather well. Mozart's adult life was closely enmeshed with the Weber family and their four talented daughters (he married one of them) - this theme runs throughout the whole text and is well developed. As expected a considerable amount of the book is given over to the operas owing to a high level of distinctive female presence on stage. Again very well presented - observing the difficulties and the triumphs of each opera as experienced by members of the female cast. Just a couple of reservations, the structure of the book - the chapters are very long and I feel a few subtitles would not have been out of place. In the brief history of Mozart's life in Chapter 1 it would have been useful to have reference to concurrent compositions accompanying events - positioning Mozart's music in a sort of chronology. Anyone who is a Mozart enthusiast will find this book an enjoyable and entertaining read.

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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A fantastic book for anyone that loves music., 6 Aug 2006

By

Ms. S. E. Wright "Susan Heaton Wright" (Hertfordshire) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: Mozart's Women: His Family, His Friends, His Music (Paperback)

What a wonderful experience reading this book! I had expected a high quality biography from Dr Glover, but this was outstanding. She focused on the music and genius of Mozart without lowering the tone by resorting to 'gossip' and 'conspiracy theories' about his death. It was so interesting to read about how certain women were 'muses' to his musical creativity.
I have bought copies of this book for other musicians and cannot recommend it highly enough for anyone that loves opera.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Mozart's Women
Even for the most modest of music lovers, this is a book that is hard to put down.
Jane Glovers writing style is bound to please, and she deals with the subject with... Read more

Published 5 months ago by John Murray