Exemplary ... Mackie’s book nicely balances the proper spiritual astonishment with the proper cultural curiosity, as he goes about chronicling Mozart’s life through a series of celebrated work ... I wasn’t always convinced by Mackie’s claims, or always able to hear exactly what he describes ... But at his best Mackie is a sensitive and highly intelligent appraiser of musical form, with a gift for analyzing Mozart’s music as the dynamic enactment—rather than the simple expression—of larger cultural and biographical energies.
Erudite, ambitious and elegantly written ... Mackie’s assertions about the ways Mozart’s identification with his era come through in the music are intriguing and insightful, even when overly sweeping and, at times, too speculative ... It’s through detailed, lengthy, wide-ranging descriptions of Mozart’s music that Mackie conveys his ideas, and structures the book. He takes on a sizable number of works ... Though eschewing a chronological narrative, Mackie offers perceptive portraits of Mozart’s intimates, colleagues and competitors ... For all the allure of Mackie’s writing, he’s sometimes so bent on pressing his points that he turns redundant and strains his language ... In his encompassing, literary approach Mackie sometimes overreaches. But every piece he discusses I know well, and the book gave me much to think about.
He demonstrates persuasively—and passionately—how the nuances of a Mozart score don’t merely reflect but embody the central concerns of biography and history ... Mozart aficionados may be disappointed that Mr. Mackie gives relatively short shrift to such major achievements as the minor-mode piano concertos and the world-embracing late string quintets ... Essential to Mr. Mackie’s conception of 'motion' is humor, a quality as pervasive in Mozart’s music as in his personality ... Passages tempt me to put down the book and just listen to the music—Mozart’s and Prince’s, comparatively—which might be just what Mr. Mackie would advise ... Eloquent.
In addition to relying on letters and extant accounts for Mozart in Motion: His Work and His World in Pieces, Mackie also incorporates academic theory and philosophical reflections on how we collectively experience music today into his thematically organized biography. The result is still a familiar portrait of Mozart, but one that is painted in new colors ... Mackie sometimes betrays an overconfidence in his ability to get inside the mind of the famed composer. And his writing style is perhaps more ornate and erudite than readers who are looking for a casual introduction into the composer’s life are looking for.
Patrick Mackie’s book places us firmly in this new world, and that’s the best part of it – a feeling of looking over Mozart’s shoulder as he jounces in a carriage, plays for an inattentive salon, negotiates with patrons ... One of the clear virtues of the book is Mackie’s feel for the original ... Mackie takes us inside the salon environment for Mozart’s three great piano sonatas of 1784, where his sensitivity to Mozart’s mood is remarkable ... The larger problem with the book lies in its attempts to convey a wider context ... Mozart in Motion is at its best in the beginning.
An engaging biography ... The book is organized around a series of 25 essays in which he analyzes specific pieces of music. While the book makes it easy to follow the arc of Mozart’s life and to appreciate his personality, this is not a conventional biography ... Mackie’s insights range far and wide and, at times, seem a little too far afield ... Nonetheless Mackie’s extraordinary knowledge, thoughtful insights, and exemplary prose make the book insightful, thought provoking, and enjoyable. Reading the essays is like attending a concert with a friend who is exceptionally well-read and articulate. Rare is the reader who will digest these essays without immediately wanting to listen to whatever piece of music has just been examined.
An illuminating book that aims to ground the music of a composer too often idolized as a mere instrument of the divine in the context of his time ... The book is not a chronological survey of Mozart’s career, and it presupposes a certain amount of knowledge ... What Mackie offers is a collection of essays, each one focused on a particular work illuminated through a different historical or psychological lens. He is, however, a poet, not a musicologist, and this engaging book relies as much on his intuition as on his reading ... The connections he draws are always thought-provoking even when they rely on conjecture ... Some of Mackie’s most generous insights are tucked among more effortful attempts at contextualization ... His writing can also be fussy. A maddening number of adverbs and adjectives clutter the text, snarling a reader’s flow like a forest of traffic signs at an otherwise-straightforward intersection.
An intriguing blend of biography and deft musical analysis ... After perusing the pages of this thoughtful and beautifully written book, readers will want to discover, or rediscover, the timeless music of this beloved composer.
A unique, wide-ranging study ... Absorbing ... Ambitious and brilliant: a book that rethinks Mozart’s place in history and one that should win him new fans along the way.
