5.0 out of 5 stars Brings the amazing personality of Mozart to life and explains his music with great precision.

J.C. · 2 October 2021

We have just finished reading “Mozart: The Reign of Love”. My husband read it out loud to me. It is the best work of non fiction we have ever read. It has taken several months to read (740 pages), but we both enjoyed reading it together very much. It brought the amazing and very funny personality of Mozart to life for us and explained with great precision how his music works. We often laughed aloud at things Mozart said and sometimes my husband was so moved by what Swafford writes he could scarcely read the words. We have loved every minute of reading it. Swafford is a composer and a musicologist, but his prose (once you get used to his occasionally American use of English) is some of the finest and most insightful we have ever read.

5.0 out of 5 stars Thoroughly researched but very readable

J.M. · 2 March 2026

Long, but don't be put off. Presents Mozart as a person, which is what I wanted

4.0 out of 5 stars Mozart – The Reign of Love - Written by a musician for musicians

C. · 20 February 2021

When I saw the universally rapturous reviews for this new biography of Mozart, I put it on my pre-order list and then decided to ask for it as a Christmas present. I will deal with the production values of the book itself first and separately, as they seem to have aroused a certain amount of emotion from a number of reviewers. Yes, I agree, that half dust jacket is just plain stupid. And ugly. The board covers reminded me rather of the post war reprint society volumes collected by my parents (but without the attractive gold and black kid title labels on the spines). The paper was incredibly thin, and as someone who reads in bed (always tricky with a weighty hardback), I had to keep putting it down to separate the pages. I was both surprised and underwhelmed by this. It was adequately if not lavishly illustrated and overall I was disappointed at the look and feel of the volume. As I only buy/acquire the odd hardback, usually non-fiction, I am used to them looking and feeling beautiful and this certainly didn’t.But what about the writing, the book, the subject matter you might reasonably ask? I had never heard of Jan Swafford and initially mistook the name to be that of a woman. Not that that matters. His pleasant and deprecating self-introduction told me what he did, and I dutifully followed his suggestion to read his simple explanation of the structure of classical music first, thinking, “oh yes, I learned this for “O” level music, but have largely forgotten it, but no matter”. Except it did matter, a lot!I had previously read and really enjoyed the conductor Jane Glover’s biography “Mozart’s Women”, which I considered to be an outstanding life of Mozart. Assuming that no one is going to buy a biography of Mozart who isn’t an admirer of his music, I presumed that this book (lauded for its detail) was going to add something to my knowledge and understanding of him both as man and composer.Well again, yes and no. It started off really well, with an introduction to 18th Century mid-European mores, the Holy Roman Empire and the Enlightenment. All good stuff, and the copious original information available was reflected in the detail on Mozart’s early years and travels. I noted that Jane Glover’s book was very frequently referenced in the early chapters. But then there was the dissection of each and every piece Mozart composed, from the very earliest. Fair enough, I thought, he is a composer after all. About a third of the way in, I realised that discussion of the technicalities of every Kochel number was going to be an integral part of the work. And that’s when the Americanisms started to grate on me. For the first few pages I kept thinking, “the editors might have checked the spelling” before remembering it was written by an American using American spelling and grammatical usages. Entirely fair, and I’m sure there are biography and history books written by English authors where the turns of phrase annoy and irritate US readers. As it went on, I’m afraid I found them more and more irritating, especially where he tried to inject a little lightness of tone. I didn’t find his writing elegant or fluent, and there were some awful repetitions of what I can only describe as “noticeable” words. To use “burgeoning” once is fine, to use it twice in consecutive paragraphs is shoddy editing. We all do it when writing – find that perfectly apposite word, only to find ourselves throwing it in repeatedly. Towards the end of the book I was maddened by frequent, repetitive uses of the word “numinous”, interspersed for a little variety with “luminous”. And don’t get me started on the Americanism “likely” used all the time when in English English we would use a variety of more precise terms of possibility or probability. This sounds very picky, I know, but the rave reviews didn’t alert me to this, or the fact that as the book went on more and more of it was dedicated to dissecting the structure of the works, and less and less to Mozart himself.About two thirds of the way into the book I was seriously flagging and had to ask myself who this book was actually written for? I decided the only way I was going to finish it was to deploy my War and Peace strategy. This had involved skipping all the bits on freemasonry in order to keep going with the actual narrative. It had worked for W & P, and so when I got to a clump of Kochel numbers that were clearly going to take up to in some cases 5 pages of detailed, technical discussion, I just skipped on past them!I so wish I’d taken the advice of the reviewer who set up Youtube to listen to each piece as they were being described. But it was too late by the time I discovered this excellent wheeze. It was OK if the “nicknames” were given, such as the “Paris”, Prague” or “Hafner” symphonies, but generally Swafford forebore to sully his descriptions with such people pleasers. I was okay with the dissections of the 5 major operas (Seraglio, Figaro, Don Giovanni, Cosi and The Magic Flute) as I am very familiar with all of them, but even so, I found by this stage of the book more attention was being paid to the characters in the dramas and how they reflected Mozart’s state of mind and opinions, than Mozart himself. This was probably partly because once Leopold had died and Mozart’s contact with his sister faded, there was less material available. He skipped over most of Mozart and Constanze’s children – not even naming most of those who died either at birth or in infancy. I expected more discussion of Mozart’s strange mannerisms, his filthy writings, his relationships, his health, but these faded the further the book went on, in favour of longer and longer dissections of the works themselves. In the end, it finished quite abruptly (although of course, like TITANIC, we knew what was going to happen) and I was left feeling that Mozart was still an enigma.So ultimately, I was rather disappointed in this book, enjoying it far less than I had anticipated. I accept that my lack of musical technical ability may be partly to blame, but it does rather limit full enjoyment of it to the musically well qualified.

5.0 out of 5 stars Style, poise and empathy

K.M. · 26 October 2024

Hard to find anything to dislike in this superb biography. Most important of all, the author, who is himself also a composer, empathises with his subject, and understands the music. Without drowning us in technical jargon, he draws us into all the major works, if not quite bar by bar, then certainly movement by movement, by enthusing about each one's unique qualities. From 1784 onwards, Mozart is rarely happy to rest on his laurels, but is constantly pushing himself further and further. Those who still think of Mozart as a writer of 'galant' rococo sugar-plums ('Eine kleine Nachtmusik' etc.)---and, sad to relate, there are still such cloth-eared philistines around---need to read this book even more than fully paid-up Mozartians like me. A slightly later genius, Beethoven, was a troubled soul throughout his frequently unhappy life; but Mozart was mostly cheerful: someone, in other words, who was very much in love with life. But that didn't preclude him from being able to plumb the depths of tragedy when he needed to, and not merely in his operas. Swafford sees both the life and much of the music as a struggle between darkness and light---with light consistently breaking through, if only after the repeated onset of the forces of darkness. Witness his sublime account of Piano Concertos nos. 20 and 21 . . . This is a biography to read and re-read. Keep it close at hand on your shelves to consult every time you listen to yet another of Mozart's many triumphs.

5.0 out of 5 stars Superb.

M.S.T.B. · 13 March 2023

The best Mozart book we’ve ever come across. Years of a deep love of classical music. trips to the Wigmore Hall and to many opera houses …. this book gives as much pleasure. And I can’t think of a higher accolade.

5.0 out of 5 stars A brilliant read

g.w. · 13 October 2021

Even though my lack of knowledge on classical music lies heavy with me, I found this a brilliant, beautiful and educational read. Mozart lived a very short life, but it was filled to the brim everyday he was well with such hard work and production of wonderful music. This book gave me a great insight into what it was to be a composer in this era.

5.0 out of 5 stars Enjoyable

B. · 14 March 2021

Almost as enjoyable as Mozart's music. I don't usually enjoy biographies, but this is an exceptional read, which sets the subject in the context of family and society, with all the ups and downs of those relationships. A reading treat!

5.0 out of 5 stars If you only read one book on Mozart, this must be it.

s.s.d. · 8 January 2021

A most impressive book and a must-read for anyone who loves Mozart’s music. The author’s book on Beethoven was exemplary and his book on Brahms is worth searching for in second hand book places. Few authors have the writing skill Jan Stafford has. Highly recommended.

Maravilhoso

C.A. · 24 November 2021

Lindo

excelente obra

L.b. · 19 February 2022

Como los otros libros del autor. Esta muy bien documentado. Su lectura es un placer. Además de aprender sobre W A Mozart y su increíble música

Alles in Ordnung

J.W. · 6 January 2026

Lieferung zügig. Zustand wie beschrieben.

Terrific biography

D. · 11 November 2024

Like the same author's biography of Beethoven, this book is well written, engaging, and very informative. There is some speculation, but it is clearly labeled. I felt that I understood Mozart's music much better after reading this.

Perfect

C. · 2 March 2024

An excellent biography of arguably the greatest musical genius that has ever lived. I quite enjoyed it. I would recommend it 100 percent.As a side note, there is a lot of discussion within about particular pieces of music at key times in Mozart's life so I used a music streaming service to play the opus numbers whilst I was reading. It really added to the whole experience.