WA Mozart

by Hermann Abert Translated by Stewart Spencer; edited by Cliff Eisen

Yale University Press £45, pp1,544

Twelve years in preparation, this huge work is a million-word monument to a talent so vast that the hand of something greater than ourselves was surely at work when young Wolfgang burst upon an unsuspecting world. Musicologist Hermann Abert published his magnum opus in three volumes in 1923-24, but it is only now that it has become available in English, gathered into one volume by translator Stewart Spencer and editor Professor Cliff Eisen, who added 200,000 words of footnotes and annotations which artfully take into account the 80 years of Mozart scholarship published since Abert's work first appeared.

The doyen of those scholars, HC Robbins Landon, believes it is 'incomprehensible' that it had never been translated into English. Now, his prayers have been answered and English readers can relish the fullest account of the composer's life and a detailed analysis of his operas, symphonies, concerti and chamber music. But what makes it stand above all others is its forensic examination of Mozart's personality and its relation to his music. 'It is impossible to separate his life from his music,' wrote Abert. 'In both, the same force is at work.'