Mozart and the Wolf Gang: By Anthony Burgess
By (Author) Alan Shockley
With Will Carr
With Christine Lee Gengaro
By (author) Anthony Burgess
Manchester University Press
Manchester University Press
4th October 2022
United Kingdom
General
Fiction
Literary studies: fiction, novelists and prose writers
823.914
Hardback
288
Width 138mm, Height 216mm
Written in 1991 to commemorate the bicentennial of Mozarts death, Burgesss novella-length piece is a compendium of themes, genres and even art-forms revolving around the one central preoccupation of the entire Burgess oeuvre: the reconcilability of life and art.
This is a kaleidoscope of a book, which stretches even the bounds of even Anthony Burgesss fiction in an attempt to understand Mozart through celestial dialogue, an opera libretto, and fragments of a film script.
As gracefully witty as it is daringly experimental, Mozart and the Wolf Gang is one of Burgesss late, great works, often overlooked due to its experimental form, which nevertheless remains accessible, entertaining and yet refreshingly original to this day.
This new critical edition with analysis from noted musicologist and a first-class literary critic Alan Shockley enables this works significance to be assessed by a new generation of readers and scholars.
'In this authoritative new critical edition, Mozart and the Wolf Gang involves other opera composers too, including Prokofiev, Rossini, Berlioz, and Wagner.'
Opera Now magazine
Alan Shockley (19702020) was Professor of Music at California State University, Long Beach. He studied composition and theory at the University of Georgia, Ohio State University, and Princeton University. He was a prolific composer whose works often called for unconventional combinations of instruments, voices, and electronics. His publications include The Contemporary Piano: A Performer and Composers Guide to Techniques and Resources (2018) and Music in the Words: Musical Form and Counterpoint in the Twentieth Century Novel (2009).
Will Carr is Deputy Director of the International Anthony Burgess Foundation. He has edited The Ink Trade, a selection of Burgesss essays, and the Irwell Edition of The Pianoplayers.
Christine Lee Gengaro is a Professor of Music at Los Angeles City College. She has edited the Irwell Edition of This Man and Music.