Latter-day attempts to find a dark, brooding layer in Mozart’s psychology have been unconvincing. His counterpart in modern times is perhaps George Gershwin, who was charming and self-infatuated in equal measure. Whether or not such intrigues existed-John Rice’s biography of the supposedly dastardly Salieri portrays him as a likable character, and an imaginative composer-Mozart himself was not above politicking: when he applied for the job of second Kapellmeister, he pointedly observed that “the very capable Kapellmeister Salieri has never devoted himself to church music.” Later, in Vienna, Mozart clung to the idea that Antonio Salieri, the Imperial Kapellmeister, was plotting against him. “Where, indeed, have I not had them?” As he traces conspiracies, mocks the French, and extolls the Germans, he sounds remarkably like Richard Wagner. “I think that something is going on behind the scenes, and that doubtless here too I have enemies,” he wrote from Paris, in 1778. Mozart, by his own admission, could be “as proud as a peacock,” and the Archbishop of Salzburg, whose service he quit in 1781, was not the only person who considered him “dreadfully conceited.” Conceit edges easily into paranoia, and Mozart was not immune.

In a letter to his father, Leopold, Mozart had warned that “the Viennese gentry, and in particular the Emperor, must not imagine that I am on this earth solely for the sake of Vienna.”Īs a child prodigy, Mozart was advertised in London as “the most amazing Genius, that has appeared in any Age.” Leopold dubbed him “the miracle whom God allowed to be born in Salzburg.” Prince Kaunitz, Joseph II’s chief minister, said, “Such people come into the world once in a hundred years.” Praise at this level, however justified, takes its toll on a man’s humility. Emperor Joseph II was a fan of Mozart’s work, and, in 1787, to prevent “so rare a genius” from going abroad, he gave the composer a well-paying position that required little more than the writing of dances. If audiences were occasionally perplexed by his creations, listeners in high places recognized his worth. He achieved considerable success, although not as much as he knew he deserved. He frittered away money, not least on expensive apartments. He was physically restless, quick-witted, sociable, flirtatious, and obscene one of the more provocative items in his catalogue is a canon for six voices entitled “Leck mich im Arsch” (K. A product of the artisan classes-his ancestors were bookbinders, weavers, and masons-he adopted aristocratic fashions, going around Vienna in a gold-trimmed hat and a red coat with mother-of-pearl buttons. He was an urban creature, and had almost nothing to say about the charms of nature. He was born in the archbishopric of Salzburg in 1756, and he died in the imperial capital of Vienna in 1791. Nonetheless, he was generally well liked. “As touchy as gunpowder,” one friend called him. In several pictures, his left eye droops a little, perhaps from fatigue.

In one, he wears a hard, distant look in another, his face glows with sadness. Portraits suggest a man aware of his separation from the world. But he often gave the impression of being not entirely present, as if his mind were caught up in an invisible event. When he was in a convivial mood, his gaze was said to be warm, even seductive. Wolfgang Amadè Mozart, as he usually spelled his name, was a small man with a plain, pockmarked face, whose most striking feature was a pair of intense blue-gray eyes. Scholars now see Mozart not as a naïve prodigy or a suffering outcast but as a hardworking, ambitious musician.

Mozart compositions