Mozart in Person: His Character and Health

(Hardback)

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An appraisal of the physical, mental and spiritual aspects of Mozart's health and its effect on his creativity. The composer emerges as a human being, realistically perceived by a 20th century sensibility, yet also discussed retrospectively in terms of 18th century mores. This volume describes all of Mozart's known illnesses and presents a detailed discussion of the controversial cause of his premature death, with a refutation of the poisoning theories. Davies defines Mozart's enigmatic, complex personality, and presents insights into his relationships with his pastimes and stresses. The health of Mozart's family, especially the illnesses and death of his father are discussed. The author explores many of the myths surrounding this great and often misundersood composer and clarifies our understanding of Mozart's flaws and shortcomings through authentic documentation, thereby eliminating some of the distortions created in recent popular plays and films. There is a detailed review of Mozartian economics, including the composer's debts, extravagance and gambling proclivities. Another highlight of the book is an up-to-date account of recent research on Mozart's skull and the bronze death mask. Although suitable for non-specialist research, this volume will also have wide academic appeal in the study of medicine, psychology and music.

Reviews

.,."Mozart in Person is a splended psychobiographical achievement. Ideally equipped for such an undertaking, Peter J. Davis is a consulting physician in internal medicine and gastroenterology in Melbourn, Australia. Maintaining throughtout an admirable balance between personal involvement and clinical detachment, the author does indeed shed 'new light on the physical, mental, and spiritual aspects of Mozart's life, as they affect his creativity'. Built on a solid scholarly foundation, convincingly reasoned, and written in an engaging manner, Davies's important contribution offers instructive, thought-provoking, often poignant reading for all Mozart lovers. Brought home forcefully is the price the creator paid for his sublime gift."-The Opera Quarterly
. . . Dr. Peter Davies, an Australian physician who possesses a flair as medical sleuth of the lives of the great musical composers, has recorded the results of his extensive researches into the life of Mozart. . . . Dr. Davies is to be commended for this superb work, obviously a labour of love. He has disposed of the many previous erroneous fictions and preserved the hard historical facts, providing new insights into the nature of Mozart's health, character, and death. This book will now be essential reading for musicologists and medical historians and, of course, Mozarteans everywhere.-Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine
...Mozart in Person is a splended psychobiographical achievement. Ideally equipped for such an undertaking, Peter J. Davis is a consulting physician in internal medicine and gastroenterology in Melbourn, Australia. Maintaining throughtout an admirable balance between personal involvement and clinical detachment, the author does indeed shed 'new light on the physical, mental, and spiritual aspects of Mozart's life, as they affect his creativity'. Built on a solid scholarly foundation, convincingly reasoned, and written in an engaging manner, Davies's important contribution offers instructive, thought-provoking, often poignant reading for all Mozart lovers. Brought home forcefully is the price the creator paid for his sublime gift.-The Opera Quarterly
Despite its eye-catching primary title, this is not an introduction to Mozart for the general reader. The real key to this distinctive book lies in its subtitle. The book's core is an astonishingly detailed medical history of Mozart, spanning his entire life, compiled with great ingenuity and skill from varied and sometimes surprising sources. Davies, a British physician specializing in internal medicine, has already established his credentials with a series of substantial journal articles concerning Mozart's final illness and death. Here he expands and consolidates his research, offering a presumably definitive account of the intricate cluster of ailments and disabilities, some stretching back over many years, that eventually contributed to Mozart's death. After reading Davies, one wonders not at Mozart's early end but, rather, how he survived for so long. (And the hapless Salieri is, of course, detoxified for once and for all.) In the remainder of the book Davies turns, though with less striking results, to Mozart's character, or lifestyle' as he puts it. There are chapters on Mozart's religious beliefs, amorous interests, finances, pastimes, and other aspects of personality. Davies advances unexpected medical causes for some Mozartean peculiarities of behavior, and surely these ideas will provoke much interest among Mozart scholars. For college or university libraries that already have the basic' Mozart items, here is a unique and most rewarding addition.-Choice
..."Mozart in Person is a splended psychobiographical achievement. Ideally equipped for such an undertaking, Peter J. Davis is a consulting physician in internal medicine and gastroenterology in Melbourn, Australia. Maintaining throughtout an admirable balance between personal involvement and clinical detachment, the author does indeed shed 'new light on the physical, mental, and spiritual aspects of Mozart's life, as they affect his creativity'. Built on a solid scholarly foundation, convincingly reasoned, and written in an engaging manner, Davies's important contribution offers instructive, thought-provoking, often poignant reading for all Mozart lovers. Brought home forcefully is the price the creator paid for his sublime gift."-The Opera Quarterly
." . . Dr. Peter Davies, an Australian physician who possesses a flair as medical sleuth of the lives of the great musical composers, has recorded the results of his extensive researches into the life of Mozart. . . . Dr. Davies is to be commended for this superb work, obviously a labour of love. He has disposed of the many previous erroneous fictions and preserved the hard historical facts, providing new insights into the nature of Mozart's health, character, and death. This book will now be essential reading for musicologists and medical historians and, of course, Mozarteans everywhere."-Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine
"Despite its eye-catching primary title, this is not an introduction to Mozart for the general reader. The real key to this distinctive book lies in its subtitle. The book's core is an astonishingly detailed medical history of Mozart, spanning his entire life, compiled with great ingenuity and skill from varied and sometimes surprising sources. Davies, a British physician specializing in internal medicine, has already established his credentials with a series of substantial journal articles concerning Mozart's final illness and death. Here he expands and consolidates his research, offering a presumably definitive account of the intricate cluster of ailments and disabilities, some stretching back over many years, that eventually contributed to Mozart's death. After reading Davies, one wonders not at Mozart's early end but, rather, how he survived for so long. (And the hapless Salieri is, of course, detoxified for once and for all.) In the remainder of the book Davies turns, though with less striking results, to Mozart's character, or lifestyle' as he puts it. There are chapters on Mozart's religious beliefs, amorous interests, finances, pastimes, and other aspects of personality. Davies advances unexpected medical causes for some Mozartean peculiarities of behavior, and surely these ideas will provoke much interest among Mozart scholars. For college or university libraries that already have the basic' Mozart items, here is a unique and most rewarding addition."-Choice

Author Bio

PETER J. DAVIES is a Consultant Physician in Internal Medicine and Gastroenterology in private practice, in Melbourne, Australia. He is the author of many scholarly papers and articles published in the Journal of Royal Society Medicine, The Musical Times, and Speculum, Gut, Journal of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, and The Medical Journal of Australia.