Die Mozarts

The Rise of the Mozart Family

The story of the Mozarts does not begin in Salzburg, but in a small village near Augsburg. Here lie the roots of a family that has given humanity a great gift: three generations of musicians of European renown, including the pianist, organist, violinist, music entrepreneur, and composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. In his book, Michael Lemster narrates the rise and decline of the Mozarts, from their beginnings in the 15th century to the death of the last descendant in 1965:

• The rise of the Mozart family: from farmer to craftsman to artist and from enlightened courtier to bourgeois existence
• A vividly told family history, intertwined with the history of Europe
• The family tree of the Mozart family: Mozart's ancestors and his parents Leopold and Anna Maria, wife Constanze Weber, and Mozart's sons Franz Xaver and Carl Thomas Mozart
• A life dedicated to music: the Mozart Company, the family business of Leopold Mozart, and their travels through Europe
• What inspired Mozart: from his first compositions as a child prodigy, through artistic crises, to the posthumous publication of his works against his will by his wife Constanze

The Mozarts – A Family Biography and Panorama of European History

The Mozarts, whose rise began after the Thirty Years' War, represent formative epochs in European history. Creative and ambitious, they mastered the challenges of their time. The biographies of the family members are rich in highlights and crises, puzzles and entanglements. Was Leopold Mozart really the unyielding disciplinarian of the childlike and carefree Wolfgang? Was the "Bäsle" the great but impossible love of the composer? And was Wolfgang's wife Constanze the ruin of the family or the mother of their posthumous fame? With a keen sense of the historical context, Michael Lemster poses unusual questions in his Mozart book and tells the extraordinary story.