The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Volume 1

Correspondence from Mozart’s teens and early twenties, the first of two volumes Lady Wallace translated from Ludwig Nohl’s German edition of the letters. It falls into four parts: the Italian tours and the years touching Vienna and Munich down to 1776; the job-hunting journey through Munich, Augsburg and Mannheim from September 1777 to March 1778; the Paris months from March 1778 to January 1779, the period in which his mother, travelling with him, fell ill and died in the city; and the Munich winter of 1780-81 given over to Idomeneo. Most of the letters go to his father Leopold, with others to his sister Nannerl and his mother. What survives the translation is the unguarded register: fees, unpaid patrons, and candid opinions of other musicians.