This book is a detailed critical inspection of a collection of objects that
have their feet in two worlds, namely Mozart Historical Research and Art
Historical Study. Leopold Mozart, the father of one of the world�s most
supreme composers, died in 1787. At the time of his death, his apartment
held precious treasures given to his brilliant son and daughter during their
lengthy European tour of 1763-1766. Furthermore, it is likely that
memorabilia and portraits collected in the 21 years following that tour were
also in Leopold�s apartment. There is little historical record about what
his collection might have contained at the time of his death, or what
happened to it.
In 2003, an American antiques collector, traveling in Italy, bought what he
thought were some interesting pieces from a woman merchant. Though he was
unaware of what he had stumbled into at that time, these pieces now appear
to have been a portion of Leopold Mozart's estate. The collection�s owner
engaged the author of this book to examine and comment
on the approximately
40 pieces in the acquisition. The telling of the story of each of the
collection�s pieces and how they survived for more than two centuries is
rich with Mozart history.
Daniel N. Leeson was bass clarinetist with the San Jose Symphony
orchestra for 20 years and is an award-winning writer of nonfiction,
including articles dealing with Mozart, published in the Mozart Jahrbuch,
Music and Letters, The Instrumentalist, The Musical Times, Musical America,
MadAminA, the International Journal of Musicology, Eighteenth Century Music,
and The Newsletter of the Mozart Society of America. In addition, he has written
program notes for the London Proms concerts, the San Francisco
Symphony, San Francisco's Midsummer Mozart Festival, and others.
Leeson has been an invited speaker at the Salzburg Mozarteum as
part of the International Congress of Mozart scholars; at the
Chautauqua Institute; the Nevada Mozart Festival; and the California
Mozart Society in Carmel/Monterey. In 1992 and 1993, he was a faculty
member of the Mozart Opera Studies Institute (San Francisco State
University and California State University, Fresno). For two years he devoted himself
to research on the subject of the Mozart Requiem and his book, Opus Ultimum presents
the results of that study.
Leeson's fiction work, The Mozart Forgeries, was published in 2004.