This blog complements the online edition of the Mozart family letters. Postings – some short, some long, some academic, some more general in nature – elaborate on both specific references in the letters (such as sources, documents, people, places, events and material culture, among other topics) and on more general aspects of Mozart’s life, works and times. Articles relating to specific references in the family letters are identified in the archive by the dates to which they refer and are more broadly grouped by the natural biographical divisions of Mozart’s life: his early years in Salzburg and childhood travels, 1756-1773; his years based mainly in Salzburg (with the notable exception of his journey to Mannheim and Paris, 1777-1778); and his years in Vienna, prefaced by the composition and performance of Idomeneo in Munich, 1780-1791. More general articles, which take as their starting points topics mentioned in the letters but that go beyond those specific references to discuss works or groups of works, or Mozart in the broader context of the eighteenth century, are posted under the rubric ‘Mozart: Life, Works and Times’. In this way, readers can either follow an expanded chronological commentary to the letters or approach Mozart’s life and works more generally and more thematically.

This blog is a work in progress; articles will appear periodically. For the moment at least, there is a language disjunction: while the edition presents the letters and their commentary in Italian, the blog is in English. Readers of the letters can nevertheless get a fair idea of both the substance of the letters and their commentary by using the translate function on their browsers or some other translation program. For alerts to new postings, please subscribe to the feed. And comments, questions, corrections or suggestions are always welcome at cliff.eisen@mozartiana.org.