Mozart the man is easy to understand. Mozart the genius is impossible to comprehend.
The story of his life is well known. Austrian-born, a tyrant of a father who drove him relentlessly, an unhappy marriage to a spendthrift woman, a child-like character ill at ease amid the pomp and aristocratic splendour of the Viennese court, and an early death which robbed the world of its most instinctive musical genius.
Only the last is true. In this era of mass entertainment, it is possible the most prevalent image we have of Mozart is that portrayed in the hugely successful film Amadeus. Like the plot of the film, and the play from which it was adapted, the character is largely fictional, or at least grossly exaggerated. One element, though, rings totally true. That smile that stretched from ear to ear, that uncontrollable laugh, that permanent sense of happiness, of being comfortable with himself and at ease with his genius - all that permeated his being.
In Mozart: The Man Revealed, bestselling author John Suchet presents the composer as he has never been seen before.