Mozart's Women: His Family, His Friends, His Music

If you hope to share vicariously any of Mozart's amatory escapades, this book will disappoint you. There are cautious suggestions of romantic entanglements, but there is also the overwhelming depiction of Mozart as a man who spent most of his waking hours composing and playing music, as any reasonable person should imagine. If you hope to penetrate very deeply in Mozart's pysche or intellect, you may also be slightly disappointed; author Jane Glover chooses to approach the composer largely from the outside, from the influence on his career of his father, wife, and the many women musicians with whom he worked. With those two warnings in mind, I can strongly recommend the book as compelling reading. The text is segmented: The first third is a concise biography of Mozart from his birth to his early death, focused chiefly on his struggle to make an independent living as a musician. The second third addresses the practical factors of performance and specific performers that shaped Mozart's operas. The third follows the lives of Mozart's sister, wife, and other women companions after Mozart's death. One could choose to read each segment as a separate article, and I suspect most readers will be most thrilled by the first third of the book. There is something eminently sensible and polite (dare I say British?) about Jane Glover's writing style, which I found delightfully incongruous when applied to the rambunctious, impish, scatological, scattered manchild who composed such grand music.

Jane Glover has written a remarkable book, which in its way demystifies much about Mozart's music. So many of his pieces, particularly his vocal works, were written for men and women in his closest circle: his family, friends and, often, their spouses. Arias written for the Weber sisters, including his wife Costanze were, in Glover's words, "tailor-made" for these gifted ladies. Other dear friends include Nancy Storace, the first Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro, whose brother Stephen was a fellow composer and close friend, Caterina Cavallieri, Salieri's mistress (the first Kostanze and the first Donna Elvira), and the list goes on. Also illuminated in incredible detail, is Mozart's sister Nannerl, who was the "other" talented prodigy, in some ways perhaps, even a more subtle pianist than her genius brother. By the end of the book, you feel you know the people behind much of the gorgeous music that was penned for them. None of this detracts from the fact of Mozart's genius, but it makes him all the more human. It also makes his loss all the more real, and tragic, though untimely death in the late 18th-Century was, unfortunately, a fact of life. This book is a must-have for any classical musician, and certainly any music lover. It is NOT an academic tome, but a fascinating tour through a short but incredibly well-lived life.

This is a valuable and engrossing new look at Mozart where the women in his life are mercifully not presented as pale additions or indeed obstacles to his creativity. In "Mozart's Women," his family, his loves, his wife, and the singers and musicians with whom he worked come vividly to life as he saw them and they saw him; they influenced him, cheered him on when no one would hire him, sat up all night with him when he finished an overture in a rush, lent him fortepianos, sewed buttons on his coats, sang his music and fell apart when he died. What must it have been like for one of the greatest singers of the 18th century to find across the room at the piano as her composer a small boy of fourteen? How tender are his older sister's memories of him as a child! Particularly fascinating for me is Jane Glover's depiction of the four Weber sisters, one of whom he married, one who broke his heart, one for whom he wrote The Queen of the Night, and the last one his dear friend to whom he always sent a thousand kisses and in whose arms he died. I know these women well as I am the author of the Viking Penguin novel "Marrying Mozart" (2005) which concerns the relationship of all four Weber sisters (Aloysia, Josefa, Constanze, and Sophie) with Mozart when he was in his early twenties and tells of his complicated path to marrying the right one! I devoured Ms. Glover's book. It was all I could have hoped.

This beautifully done book about Mozart and his woman friends, associates, and relatives is probably a feminists dream, in showing the huge influence various women had on Mozart, the Man and his Music! Starting with his sister and mother, moving along with his wife, and some musicians and singers, Mozart seems to have been very, very comfortable in their company, and a true gentlemen (despite a slightly diffent view in "Amadeus"). The last days of his life are also decribed, and this is completely different from "Amadeus" as well.His death and funeral are beautifully rendered, and it is noted that the "pauper's funeral/grave" is an exaggeration ,in that the current Viennese politicos wanted to keep funeral and burials very low key for health and social/financial reasons. All in all, a very fine view of an often overlooked aspect of the Great Composer!