Review: Mozart: The Reign of Love

Mozart: The Reign of Love by Jan Swafford
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

While I always enjoy these long, dense biographical books, I often find they get bogged down in detail, or tend to ramble on about something or another. And, not knowing much about Mozart and not being particularly musically inclined, I fully expected the same from this.

But I must say I was happily surprised. This was a pleasure to read, from the surprisingly naughty messages and couplets of his youth (my daughter really enjoyed hearing about these parts) to his trial and travails later on in life. The description of certain operas got into more detail than I could really process, but I did appreciate the analysis of famous operas like the Marriage of Figaro, or how the arias of Queen of the night were written for his sister-in-law. And some of the other characters (yes, including Salieri, but also Lorenzo Da Ponte and others) were fascinating.

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Review: Music as a Mirror of History

Music as a Mirror of History by Robert Greenberg
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I learned a lot from this course. On the other hand it wasn't what I purchased it for. This was a random history lesson, mostly about Europe, with more of a concentration on Russia. Some music was thrown in here and there.

I'm not sure how I feel about a musicologist teaching me history. I'm sure he didn't make any facts up or anything, but who knows what biases he may have.

Regardless, maybe I'm too much of a newbie to music, but I was hoping for more of the basics. Maybe concentrating on the top 5 or 10 main composers and discussing how their works were a reflection of their life and times, or something along those lines.

Mainly, however, I was hoping I'd be able to hear more music. For every 40 minutes of talk there will be one or two short excerpts of a minute or two each.

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