Episode 42: Mozart - Interview with Simon P. Keefe

Five Books for Catholics

Simon P. Keefe recommends some books that can help us learn about Mozart’s music and penetrate it more deeply as we listen to it.

1. The Letters of Mozart and his Family (3rd edition) edited by Emily Anderson
2. Mozart: A Documentary Biography by Otto Erich Deutsch
3. Mozart's Requiem: Reception, Work, Completion by Simon P. Keefe
4. Mozart in Vienna: The Final Decade (Kindle) by Simon P. Keefe
5. The Mozart Family: Four Lifes in a Social Context by Ruth Halliwell

Five Books for Catholics may receive a commission from qualifying purchases made using the affiliate links to the books listed.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) ranks with J.S. Bach and Beethoven as one of the greatest Western composers. His father, Leopold, was a musical pedagogue and a musician at the court of the Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg. When Leopold began to give clavier-lessons to his seven-year-old daughter, Nannerl, her younger brother listened attentively, started playing it himself at the age of four, and was composing his first pieces at the age of five. Between 1762-1773, Leopold brought the two child prodigies on tours around the main European cities and courts, from Rome to London, hoping to promote his son’s future career. Young Wolfgang worked as a court composer for the Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg, but, desirous of a better salary and opportunities to compose operas, he resigned in 1773. After several years of visiting different cities in search of a suitable position, he settled in Vienna, where he spent the final decade of his life. At Vienna, he composed most of his greatest compositions, and his greatness was recognised by both established composers, such as Haydn, and up-and-coming ones, such as Beethoven. Despite his premature death at the age of thirty-five, he left a huge body of work, with masterpieces in sacred, orchestral, and chamber music, concertos, and opera.

Simon P. Keefe is James Rossiter Hoyle Chair of Music at the University of Sheffield, a life member of the Academy for Mozart Research at the International Mozart Foundation in Salzburg and President Elect of the Royal Musical Association. He is the author of five monographs on Mozart, including Mozart's Requiem: Reception, Work, Completion (Cambridge University Press, 2012), which won the 2013 Marjorie Weston Emerson award from the Mozart Society of America, and editor of a further seven volumes for Cambridge University Press, including Mozart Studies, Mozart Studies 2 and Mozart in Context.

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