On Mozart is an attempt to suggest how much more complicated a figure Mozart was
than popular legends and media portrayals would have us believe. He was
certainly a genius--in that, the legends are correct, and the evidence
abounds--but he was also a working composer in a society crowded with other
working composers, and he had to make a living at his craft to maintain the
style of living to which he and his family had become accustomed. By observing a
realistic and human genius, the collection of essays portrays a more complex
individual than the divinely inspired Mozart of myth, who took his notes
directly from