Explores the life and work of the prolific eighteenth-century Austrian composer who began life as a child prodigy, composing music at the age of five, and died a pauper at age thirty-five.

As he's done in Napoleon, Churchill, Jesus, and Darwin, acclaimed historian and author Paul Johnson here offers a concise, illuminating biography of Mozart. Johnson's focus is on the music-Mozart's wondrous output of composition and his uncanny gift for instrumentation. Liszt once said that Mozart composed more bars than a trained copyist could write in a lifetime. Mozart's gift and skill with instruments was also remarkable as he mastered all of...

Almost from the moment it was first set to paper, the music of Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) - technically superb, rich in quality, and widely imitated - has exemplified the Classical style, creating not only the Classical-era symphony but setting the standard, through his own 68 string quartets, against which that form has ever after been judged. And yet Haydn, despite the influence left by more than 1,000 works, seems to no longer get his due,

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A documentary about Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart told through dramatic readings from his personal letters. Includes interviews with noted personalities and excerpts from numerous musical performances.

Describes the life of eighteenth-century Austrian composer, Mozart, a musical prodigy who learned to write music before he could write letters and grew up to become Imperial Court Composer to Emperor Joseph.

"A biography of Mozart-his music, his life, and his legacy-by the poet Patrick Mackie"-- "Mozart is one of the most familiar and beloved icons of our culture, but how much do we really understand of his music, and what can it reveal to us about the great composer? Following Mozart from his youth in Salzburg to his early death; from his close and rivalrous relationship with his father to his romantic attachments; from his hugely successful operas...