When, in October 1762, the Mozart family arrived in Vienna from Salzburg, Wolfgang – the six-year-old child prodigy – immediately became a star attraction, both in the court of Maria Theresa and among the musical establishment.

Inevitably, Leopold Mozart’s ambitious hopes for his son and Wolfgang’s extraordinary talents led to further visits – in 1767-8 and 1773 – marked by such problems as an attack of smallpox and the jealous intrigues of other less gifted composers, and culminated in Wolfgang’s decision to settle in Vienna in 1781.

In Mozart and Vienna, H. C. Robbins Landon combines his own vivid and immensely readable account of Mozart’s association with Vienna with extracts from John Pezzl’s Sketch of Vienna, published in the years 1786-90. Pezzl, born like Mozart in 1756, was also a member of the same Masonic lodge and sympathetic to the reform policies of Emperor Joseph II. His ‘Sketch’ covers every aspect of life: the principal buildings and parks, the Imperial court, politics, religion, commerce and leisure activities, from elaborate carnival balls to unseemly animal-baiting. Pezzl’s vivid verbal picture of the social scene is embellished with a selection of contemporary paintings and engravings, which together provide a first-hand impression of Vienna as Mozart knew it.

The distinctive and informed writing of one of the world’s leading authorities on Mozart and eighteenth-century music will, when read in conjunction with Pezzl’s lively descriptions, provide both an entertaining account of the composer’s successes and failures and an illuminating guide to the musical and social climate of Vienna.

H. C. Robbins Landon was one of the world’s leading scholars in the field of eighteenth century music. His main publications were on Haydn and Mozart, including the five-volume Haydn: Chronicle and Works, Mozart: The Golden Years and 1791: Mozart’s Last Year. He was responsible for the first edition of all Haydn’s symphonies and has also shared in the new Collected Edition of Mozart’s works. In 1988 he was accorded the signal honour of life membership in the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, Vienna.
H.C. Robbins Landon died in 2009

Also of interest
Mozart: The Golden Years by HC Robbins Landon