Mozart in Motion

An exhilarating and stimulating new survey of one of our civilization's greatest creative figures. Mackie sheds new light on both Mozart's music and his motivation, with an often piercingly original sideways glance - typically, Mackie ends his molto allegro romp through the works not with Mozart's famous unfinished Requiem but with a tiny keyboard Gigue that sums up his genius -- Nicholas Kenyon, Managing Director, Barbican Centre
This book is like a set of virtuoso cadenzas on themes from Mozart's life and works: improvisatory, thought-provoking, quirky and constantly inventive -- Stephen Hough
A dazzling celebration and recalibration of Mozart's genius, written with an energy to match its subject -- Ian Bostridge, author of Schubert's Winter Journey
Written with the kind of energy and inventiveness of its subject, Mozart in Motion brings Mozart and his milieu into focus in a startling and original way. At once vividly evocative and dazzlingly informative and informed, this book changes the way we think about how art works, and how writing about art should work -- Adam Phillips
As "kaleidoscopic" as the composer's own genius... an immersive and thought-provoking experience that will send you back to Mozart's oeuvre with a renewed appetite * Financial Times *
Some sections flare into flame... he brings into vivid life the decadence of 18th-century Paris as it slides towards the Revolution... this book is as much about literary virtuosity as anything else * BBC Music Magazine *
A brilliant whirlwind of a book that makes us listen to Mozart's music in new ways and brings new ideas about the enlightenment, modernity, the rococo, Goethe, Kant, Prince -- Lara Feigel, Books of the Year * White Review *
Patrick Mackie's book places us firmly in [a] new world, and that's the best part of it - a feeling of looking over Mozart's shoulder * TLS *
[Mackie's] sentences sizzle and explode from the page like an elaborate firework display... Luminous * Morning Star *
Erudite, ambitious and elegantly written . . . Mackie's assertions about the ways Mozart's identification with his era come through in the music are intriguing and insightful . . . His writing is fresh and imaginative, showing feeling for the musical character and dramatic narrative of a piece * New York Times Book Review *
An exemplary intervention in this kind of cultural critique . . . Mackie is a sensitive and highly intelligent appraiser of musical form, with a gift for analyzing Mozart's music as the dynamic enactment-rather than the simple expression-of larger cultural and biographical energies * New Yorker *
[A] stimulating, often profound exploration... Mr. Mackie gives us fresh, revealing and poetic perceptions... He demonstrates persuasively-and passionately-how the nuances of a Mozart score don't merely reflect but embody the central concerns of biography and history... Such resonant understanding of the deep implications of Mozart's music is the main reason to read yet another book on Mozart, though I don't want to minimize Mr. Mackie's excellence as a traditional biographer * Wall Street Journal *
Mackie's extraordinary knowledge, thoughtful insights, and exemplary prose make the book insightful, thought provoking, and enjoyable. Reading the essays is like attending a concert with a friend who is exceptionally well-read and articulate. Rare is the reader who will digest these essays without immediately wanting to listen to whatever piece of music has just been examined * Christian Science Monitor *
Writing a biography of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart nowadays is no easy task . . . But Patrick Mackie exploits his background in both poetry and academia in an effort to bring Mozart to life in new ways . . . The result is still a familiar portrait of Mozart, but one that is painted in new colors * Associated Press *
A book that will unquestionably stand among the more poignant investigations of Mozart and his genius, Mozart in Motion . . . is a serious study of the composer's character and music as it first within the context of European manners and mores in the second half of the eighteenth century * Chicago Review of Books *
Delightfully instructive... Mackie achieves for Mozart what Mozart himself did for music, time and time again: to make the old new, and intelligible as such * New Criterion *
Ambitious and brilliant: a book that rethinks Mozart's place in history and one that should win him new fans along the way... A unique, wide-ranging study of the canonical composer * Kirkus Reviews *
In an intriguing blend of biography and deft musical analysis, poet Mackie creates a gallery of the composer's masterpieces expertly framed in the cultural setting of eighteenth-century Europe... Clear and insightful... After perusing the pages of this thoughtful and beautifully written book, readers will want to discover, or rediscover, the timeless music of this beloved composer * Booklist *
Patrick Mackie's vibrant biography has something of the 18th-century dash and panache that he evokes in Mozart . . . Mr. Mackie is a soloist who writes on a world stage with a sententiousness that made 18th-century biography seem not merely the story of another's life, but a story that could only emanate from a singular voice that had something unique to tell us * New York Sun *
Mackie's prose gathers momentum by tackling the music's rich contradictions . . . If Mackie's voice flirts with pretense, a close reading reveals keen ears and a lively imagination, especially for opera fans . . . Mackie challenges received ideas and offers descriptions that may yet prove worthy of his subject * Truthdig *