Letters

ozart´s remarkable life was well and richly documented in letters: his own and those concerning him written by others. This volume brings together a fascinating selection, giving us a detailed portrait of the composer´s life and times. Here are letters to and from Mozart´s domineering father, Leopold, the earliest of which, addressed to a friend, describes the six-year-old Mozart´s accomplishments. There is also a letter sent to the Royal Society in London from one of its members describing an astonishing encounter with the eight-year-old prodigy. Here are letters from the adolescent Mozart to his mother and sister; adoring, protective missives to his wife; and, from his later years, letter after letter to friends, family, former patrons, and fellow musicians begging for financial help.Mozart´s correspondence is full of details that illuminate the quotidien aspects of his days, reveal the great joys and burdens of his musical genius, and provide us with a lively account of the musical politics in the courts and opera houses of eighteenth-century Europe. Finally, in a letter written by Mozart´s sister-in-law, this splendid epistolary portrait of the great composer is completed with a deeply moving account of his last hours.