Mozart and the Mediation of Childhood

This book examines how Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart shaped the social and cultural reevaluation of childhood during the Austrian Enlightenment. Whether in a juvenile sonata printed with his age on the title page, a concerto for a father and daughter, a lullaby, a musical dice game, or a mass for the consecration of an orphanage church, Mozart's music and persona transformed attitudes toward children's agency, intellectual capacity, political and economic value, work, school, and leisure time, and their relationships with each other and with the adults around them. Thousands of children across the Habsburg Monarchy were affected by the Salzburg child prodigy and the idea he embodied: that childhood itself could be packaged, consumed, deployed,performed"--in short, mediated--through music.The book advances a new understanding of the history of childhood as dynamic, rather than a mere projection or fantasy-in other words, as something mediated not just through ideas or objects, but also through actions. Drawing on a range of evidence, from children's periodicals to Habsburg court edicts and spurious Mozart prints, the book shows that while we need the history of childhood to help us understand Mozart, we also need Mozart to help us understand the history of childhood"--