Mozart

I picked up a nice hardback biography of Mozart by Paul Johnson the other day and have read it with enjoyment. I like short biographies and Paul Johnson, although he is a bit schoolteacherish, is a good writer. He does well with Mozart who was clearly a genius. As a Catholic himself Johnson is good at bringing out the religious dimension. He is also keen to debunk some of the Mozart myths as seen in Amadeus, etc. The chapter on opera was the hardest to read as I know nothing about opera and have no wish to change that particularly. It is clear though that if writing operas was the only thing Mozart had done he would be rightly famous. Yet it is far from being all that he did.

Reading the biography prompted me to gather my Mozart CDs (there must be nine or ten of them) and start listening to them again. Yes, he is amazing.

Paul Johnson on Winston Churchill

There's been a bit recently about Churchill as it is the fiftieth anniversary of his death. I am old enough to remember the funeral being on the TV and have some general idea about Churchill, including the fact that he was not very popular in Wales. Paul Johnson writes nicely (my father-in-law is a fan) and when I saw this brief biography in our local bookshop the other week I grabbed it (and paid of course) and then read it quite quickly. It is thorough, well written and with a few personal anecdotes and just one or two digressions. Great stuff. Johnson is a big admirer of Churchill (not just as  a politician but as an artist and as a writer and really as a man) but not entirely uncritical .There is a lot to admire but others would be much harder on him.