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Mozart: The Early Years, 1756-1781
Stanley Sadie. 624 pages. W.W. Norton, 2005. Reviewed by Mark Kroll .
The year 2006 marks the 250th anniversary of the birth of Mozart. There will be festivals, concerts, lectures, and a host of other offerings, some of which threaten to teeter on the edge of bad taste. Salzburg, for example has added several items to its usual array of Mozart "memorabilia," including Mozart baby bottles, Mozart milkshakes, and even a "Mozartwurst." Not to be outdone, Vienna will reportedly station costumed musicians all along the route of the City Marathon to serenade runners with Mozart as they stagger by.
We can also look forward to a number of new books about the great composer and his world. One of the first to appear is by Stanley Sadie, the distinguished critic, scholar, and editor of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians . Sadie planned to write a two-volume biography, the second covering the years 1781-1791, but sadly passed away before completing the project. We are fortunate that he finished this book just a short time before his death.
In his preface, Sadie tells us that his goals were ambitious: the book "is designed ... to be as near to comprehensive as such a book can...