Beskrivelse
Brophy was a brilliant eccentric who championed the brilliance and importance of the eighteenth century despite her simultaneous belief in the significance of Freudian thought, sexual liberation and other intellectual phenomena not frequently associated with those who admire the last century of aristocratic values. The book is partly about Mozart’s beliefs, partly musicological, partly about psychology and partly about the enlightenment and changes in the western european role of women in the eighteenth century. She is quite good on the latter. What should we make of the centrality of the figure of the Don and the rake generally in certain of the greatest operas? Or of adultery in the greatest 19th century novels, from Russia to France to America? She is brilliantly provocative on such matters. Don’t expect to agree with everything she says.
