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This biography of Wolfgang Mozart is short but not sweet. The opening chapters provide a good overview of Mozart's childhood, family life, and early musical influences and training, and the final chapter does a good job dispelling the myths surrounding Mozart's death and burial. Even nonmusical readers will be able to understand the development of Mozart's musical talents and composition. Unfortunately, these accomplishments as overshadowed by the book's flaws.

The book is organized so that each chapter shows a different role played by Mozart, which results in a nonlinear chronology that can be confusing at times if the reader isn't paying close attention to all the dates. The author doesn't feel inclined to provide exact dates for important events in Mozart's life. This same stinginess applies to the events themselves, and the author glosses over things that deserve more than a single sentence.

Much time is spent analyzing Mozart's relationship with his father, but this is done from a modern point of view, so the intrepretation is skewed rather than set in its historical context. The author also goes into great detail regarding Mozart's amusingly smutty letters to his first love interests although they have no relevance to his later life, relationships, or musical compositions.

Readers looking for a good solid biography of Wolfgang Mozart best look elsewhere, but Mozart does have its good points for those willing to spend their time on something that hits as often as it missed.