The price of being a critical reader is occasional disappointment. Since joining epinions almost a year ago I sometimes (mercifully rarely) find myself reading a book that is so poorly written, so aggravating or otherwise not worthy of my time that the only motivation I have for sticking it out 'til the bitter end is the prospect of giving it a sound thrashing in my epinions review. Mozart: A Cultural Biography, by Robert Gutman is just such a book.

What could be so bad about a biography of Wolfgang Mozart? For starters there's the author's writing style. Gutman is clearly of the old school of writers which holds that constructing insufferably convoluted sentences is permissible so long as the grammar and syntax are impeccable. His paragraph-long sentences may serve as robust specimens for sadomasochistic, sentence-diagramming English grammar tutors. They do not, however, make for engaging or informative reading. Allow me to illustrate this point with two samples of Gutman's writing:

"If, at its least felicitous, the score suffers from a monotony of texture (a disorder that too much unrelieved solo singing frequently inflicted upon opera seria), and if, when regurgitating the stiff formulas of Neapolitan opera, it at times fails to transcend the words and offers stretches of the commonplace, Silla does beguile with pages of melting cantilena spun forth with breathtaking ease." p. 305

"Reinterpreted and given new dimension through Mozart's finely colored harmonies, ever fresh and scrupulous melodic detail, and volatility of humors, these units show forth as brilliant reinventions, as refinements of the pastiche of his Salzburg masses, the rhetorical grandeur of the Qui tollis for two four-part choirs the finest example. Moreover, in the tradition of the Salzburg works, he eggs and sugars the baroque pudding with galant touches: rococo and empfindsam enchantments from time to time take the lead, offering their tender beauties and with them textural contrast, as in the exquisite pathos of the Et incarnatus, the longest and most demanding of the three soprano solos shaped, so Constanze had it, for her voice." p. 628

For all his grammatical pirouettes, Gutman's writing is often sloppy when it comes to clarity. Those marathon sentences of his often include mention of several people, only to be followed immediately by another sentence that begins simply with "He..." So which "he" is it? It is too often unclear from the context as well.

Gutman's portentous style would be bad enough left to its own delusions of grandeur. But there are other aspects of his writing that grate as well. When I pick up a biography, I expect to read primarily about a single individual. I'm perfectly willing to learn a bit about relatives, mentors, romantic or business partners and anyone else who had a profound and significant role to play in the subject's life. Gutman however proves simultaneously unable to confine himself to a single person (with a limited orbit of secondary personalities) and completely inadequate to the task of bringing his subject to life.

Instead he sets off on inexcusably didactic tangents, enumerating the architects of churches Mozart once played in, the philosophers who contributed to the currents of social thought swirling through Mozart's era, not to mention every major and minor noble in nearly every royal house at that time. Gutman literally introduces a cast of thousands. In such a morass of detail, one can only let the names wash over the mind, it being impossible to absorb and retain such an undisciplined mass of data.

For good measure, Gutman has the really annoying habit of using impossibly esoteric words for ordinary things. I don't mind it when an author uses a bunch of technical terms or a rare word that has a very specific meaning that no other word approximates. I'll happily look words up in my dictionary. I certainly cannot fault his abundant use of musical terms, even if he doesn't condescend to explain them. But when an author continuously uses toffee-nosed words like "whilom" instead of the lowly "former," "congé" rather than "leave of absence," "sottise" rather than the ordinary "blunder," and "gallimaufry," "spatchcock" and "farrago" in preference to the too-too mundane "hodgepodge" then I start to become really irritated. Am I supposed to believe this is how Gutman speaks? Or am I meant to be duly impressed at his ability to navigate a thesaurus?

To make sure that the reader never forgets just how scholarly and erudite Gutman is, he employs in Mozart: A Cultural Biography a numbering system for each of Mozart's surviving works of music. Although he will occasionally stoop to refer to these works by their vernacular titles, such as Idomeneo, The Magic Flute, or 'Figaro,' this is much more the exception than the rule. Usually, the works are identified only by a system of numbering explained in the preface.

All these offenses could be excused if Gutman had troubled himself to actually write a biography of Mozart, but he did not. Despite the wealth of surviving correspondence between Mozart and his family, he succeeded in communicating only the vaguest outline of Mozart's personality and his relationships with relatives and associates. What Gutman offered on Mozart as a human being - as a son, a brother, husband, father and friend, in other words on the details of his inner life - would probably not fill 50 pages. I found the tedium of slogging through the quantity and quality of Gutman's tome, searching for some glimmer of Mozart's individuality and life well beyond what should reasonably be expected of any reader.

I understand and appreciate just how large a role music must have played in Mozart's life. But to focus on musical theory and criticism to the exclusion of major events in the subject's life seems to defeat the purpose of writing a biography. To give you a sense of what I'm talking about, the births of only three of the six children born to Mozart and his wife garner so much as a passing mention in the text. Likewise, the deaths of only two of the four children who died are mentioned, and only one with even the slightest consideration of the grief suffered by the parents.

So what faint praise do I have for this book? There is an excellent section of references and source notes at the end of Mozart: A Cultural Biography. And the few pages of illustrations are nice, though it would have been a small mercy if they had been printed in color. Heaven knows there isn't much of that to be found elsewhere in this pedantic text.

In the final analysis I expect a good biographer to have an intuitive (if subjective) feeling for the subject's personality and outlook on life, and to be able to communicate that vision to the reader. Gutman strikes me as having little or no appreciation for Mozart as a human being. Clearly he commands a scholar's deep knowledge and understanding of Mozart's music. But biographies are not written about bodies of music. It's a pity that no one found a way to drive home this point to Gutman. As it stands, the book is a poor amalgam of musical criticism, musical theory, European and musical history, with a light seasoning of philosophy and biographical notes of Mozart. Gutman would have done better to focus exclusively on the criticism, theory and history of Mozart and his opus, and to have published the work under another title.

I can recommend this book, very reservedly, only to those with a great deal of background and interest in musical theory and history, not to mention a generous endowment of intestinal fortitude. All others would do far better to watch the movie Amadeus, which even when it presents events in less than strictly factual and chronological ways, nonetheless conveys a sense of personality and holds the interest.



Recommended: No

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