By this time, word of a gifted – and reasonably good-looking - young music prodigy had reached Vienna’s nobility. Curiosity grew until we received a formal invitation to perform for…
Father always knew that I was a precocious little boy. Mother, more accurately, described it as exhausting. There I sat, perched over my beloved harpsichord, legs dangling, quill in hand,…
Like most children, I owned a few toys. Unlike most children, mine rarely survived the week. My favorite was a small wooden soldier with a broken drum. I attempted to…
On Thursdays, Mother prepared chicken soup using fresh ingredients gathered from the market behind our house. The soup was hearty and delicious, though the presence of a chicken beak floating…
I never cared much for trumpets. Their sound struck me as unnecessarily loud and forceful, as though designed to announce arrivals rather than make music. Even then, I preferred instruments…
My father, Leopold[i], enjoyed a solid reputation as a music teacher. He was widely respected for his best-selling violin manual, Versuch einer gründlichen Violinschule[ii], a work that brought him recognition…
The room was dark, lit only by the faint glow of a candle trembling beside unfinished sheets of music. The silence was broken by my shallow breathing, and then there…
Sometimes I wonder whether I chose music, or whether music chose me. Whether my life was a calling, or simply a very noisy habit that never left me. All I…