Posted on 24 May 2010, 23:02

I’m soon to go into the recording studio with the excellent Andy Havill to record ‘Conversations with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’ for the audio version of the book.

He was a child prodigy, hawked around the courts and concert halls of Europe as a six and seven year old, by his ambitious and rather controlling father. Many were charmed by this tiny keyboard maestro, though he and his sister became ill with the stress of it all.

His father’s attitude was natural, if not partcularly beautiful, in a parent/ child relationship. He was what is nowadays called ‘a pushy parent’. But unfortunately, it continued into Wolfgang’s adult life.His father was an increasingly negative influence, as he felt his control slipping away. He could not give his son a compliment, only a complaint.

Mozart didn’t know how to handle this, and his response was to pretend it wasn’t so; to imagine that his father was just having a bad day, that he didn’t mean what he said and that he would soon be more pleasant. Always Mozart hoped for this. Like many, he couldn’t handle the inadquacy of his parents. So he continued to speak highly of his father, with reconciliation always round the next corner…and then the one after.

But here’s what he really thought -  he didn’t attend his funeral. Watch what people do, not what they say…

Instead, Wolfgang fed his hopes and longings, sadness and rage into his music, which, as Nicholas Till’s biography has it, offered a vision of humanity ‘redeemed through art, forgiven, and reconciled with nature and the absolute.’

Home at last.

Conversations with Mozart

Audiobook download available below from Audible.com

Conversations with Mozart: In His Own Words Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, a child prodigy who became an adult genius….