My Year with Mozart
Five Things I Learned from My Year with Mozart
Thoughts on spending a year with the prolific composer →
Lorenzo Da Ponte: Mozart’s other half
By Lawrence Toppman According to legend, the wife of lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II heard a guy at a →
Genius: Neither brains nor sweat
By Lawrence Toppman You know the quotation attributed to Thomas Edison, right? “Genius is 1 percent inspiration and →
Mozart and Masons
By Lawrence Toppman You cannot fully appreciate Mozart without knowing something about his connection to Freemasonry. He entered →
10 Mozart pieces you need to hear
By Lawrence Toppman A friend familiar with this blog suggested a post titled “The Best of Mozart.” Those →
Separating the Artist from the Art
Lawrence Topman Critics have no harder job than distinguishing between the thing they’re watching or hearing and the →
No Top 40 for Wolfgang!
By Lawrence Toppman Pop songwriters have pillaged classical music for 80 years. Big bands first turned memorable tunes →
The myth of the pauper’s grave
By Lawrence Toppman You’ll occasionally hear that Mozart was ignored at the end of his life, dumped into →