Hermann Abert's W.A. Mozart

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The research that I propose involves annotating and explicating the classic Mozart biography by Hermann Abert (Leipzig, 1919-21). The annotations bring Abert up-to-date: since his time there has been considerable new research on the authenticity and dating of Mozart's works, some of which has significant implications for his conclusions. But Abert's is not simply a life and works (albeit probably the finest of its sort every written). It is also a historical document, the last great attempt to come to grips with Mozart as a composer whose works intimately reflect not just the facts of his life, but who he was, and what he represented, as a creative personality. As such it implicitly represents a theory of the relationship between biography and music history, between how we write about music and musicians and how we are to understand them and their works. Subsequent biographies have divorced Mozart from his music- his fife is aSuccession of facts, his music a succession of analytical observations. In no small part, this trend derives from a reluctance to consider biography as fundamental in establishing the social values and analytical methodological that are the actual bases for both narrative and analysis. What I propose, then, is to investigate the role of biography as a musical-historical construct and to formulate a theory of the relationship between biography and music historyspecifically with respect to Mozart, the 'classical period' and the 'classical style'. Abert is in many \Nays the idea! Vehicle for this project, suitable to academics and the general reader alike: the end result will Be an extended introduction that explores biographical theory and its relationship to scholarship and the appreciation of art; an explicated text germane to problems of music and biography; and an eminently readable biography of the composer, a rejuvenated classic that even now represents one the very best works of its kind.