The Life of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Rating:
Summary: A very enjoyable introduction to Mozart
Review: It seems the most popular budget classical music label, Naxos, not only makes most of the Western musical output available at very reasonable prices (no top stars who demand absurd fees make this possible), but it has also issued three very nice boxed sets of recordings on cassettes and CDs (I have the latter) that together give you a quick, fairly accurate, and quite enjoyable survey of three major topics. Perry Keenlyside's (NA 314412) is on three tapes or CDs and more or less delivers what the title promises in about 3 hours and 40 minutes. The text is considerately divided into sections--"Mozart, the child prodigy," "January 1762, the first journeys," "Paris and London, 1763-4," and so on--with tracking cues for each section. The narration and quotations from letters and journals of the time are accompanied by the appropriate music drawn from the bottomless Naxos catalogue. Nigel Anthony is the narrator, aided by Paul Rhys (Mozart), Edward de Souza (Leopold Mozart), with David Timson and Anna Patrick in "other parts." I have not seen the original books to see how much of an abridgment this is, if at all, but that is immaterial. The voices are personable, the information digestible, the whole project very worth while, especially at the price. My only objection to the Naxos recordings of books in the low recording level that makes it a bit difficult to hear on a walkman set up on (say) a noisy train. But this should offer no problem to home hearing or even in your car. These sets are really perfect listening for long trips.

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