Klarinet Archive - Posting 000132.txt from 2008/06
From: "Daniel Leeson" <dnleeson@-----.net>
Subj: [kl] New book: "The Mozart Cache"
Date: Wed, 25 Jun 2008 15:55:30 -0400
This is NOT a fiction and nothing to do with the clarinet, but some of you
have asked me to announce when my new book comes out. Well, here it is.
“The Mozart Cache,” is now published and available for sale. The work is a
non-fiction scholarly study. The text describes a collection of objects
(many, if not most, shown in color), which came from the estates of both
Leopold Mozart and his friend and former landlord Johann Lorenz Hagenauer,
with the Mozart pieces being in the majority. No music is involved in the
book. It is entirely devoted to portraiture and iconography. If you find
the subject of Mozart portraits and icons interesting you might find the
book to your liking. There is also some new Mozart history derived from the
research involved.
How the collection came to be, and where it has been for the past 2¼
centuries is described in considerable detail. However, the greater part of
the book is spent in examining each item in the collection and making
statements about what I believe the various pieces are and what evidence
allows me to reach these conclusions. In my opinion, the collection contains
a number of previously unknown and entirely authentic portraits of Mozart
(though one portrait dates from ca. 1875), several of his sister, Nannerl,
one of his mother, and one of his maternal grandmother, whose image has
never previously been known to exist in any form. There are also five
portraits of Johann Lorenz Hagenauer and a variety of Mozartean icons, many
of which I believe can be traced back to the Mozart family’s Grand Tour of
1763-1766. There are also a variety of items collected by Leopold in the
years following the Grand Tour up to the time of his death in 1787, at which
point the collection effectively disappeared, its location unknown. Cliff
Eisen of King’s College London recently highlighted one of these portraits
in a presentation he made about two months ago. I refer to this portrait as
“The Man in the Red Coat,” while Eisen refers to it as “The Hickel Mozart,”
after Joseph Hickel a Viennese court painter known to Mozart.
For those interested in reading the book, the easiest and least expensive
way to order it is through my website, www.leesonbooks.com. Once on the
website, click the title above the cover image for “The Mozart Cache,” and
once there, click on “Order.” That screen will provide a toll free phone
number for book sales managed by the publisher, and also a link to the
publisher’s website from which orders may also be placed. The toll free
number can also be used to make toll free calls placed outside of the United
States, providing one precedes the number with the International Dialing
Code of 001 for calls to the U.S. I confirmed this to be the case for
England, and presume it true for all other countries.
The cover of the book on display at the website shows a sample of five
images from the collection displayed in a semi-circular array. From left to
right, I believe them to be a portrait of Mozart’s sister Nannerl at age 11
or 12, painted by the German-born English painter John Zoffany, a portrait
of Mozart’s mother, artist unknown, the image of the Man in the Red Coat,
which shows Mozart at the age of 26, a portrait of Mozart’s maternal
grandmother, Eva Rosina Pertl (who lived with her daughter and son-in-law
following their marriage in 1747 and who survived to December, 1755, just
one month before Mozart was born), and a portrait of Johann Lorenz Hagenauer
at the age of ca. 65.
Only a few brief blurbs about the book are available because it has not yet
been reviewed. That will occur over the next few months and reviews will be
added to my website as they become available. You may review the book
yourselves and send me the review after which I will consider placing it on
my website providing you agree.
Around September 1, the book may also be ordered from Amazon.com, Barnes &
Noble.com, Borders.com, etc. The price asked by online booksellers is higher
than that requested by the publisher. I have no control over bookseller
markups. The price of the book when ordered from the publisher is $37.50
(U.S.) plus shipping and applicable taxes, if any, for each copy. I regret
the high price, which is caused by three factors: (1) there are almost 200
pictures in the book and most of them are in color; (2) the book is
oversized (8-1/2 x 11 inches), which allows many images to be shown in a
large format; and (3) it has a great deal of text to cover in its 223 pages.
There are also chapters on biometric facial identification, the matter of
fraud in dealing with portraiture, the history of the Firmian portrait,
which was once thought to be that of Mozart but is a portrait of an entirely
different person, and several other related topics.
Thanks for taking the time to read this. Drop me a note if you have
questions. I hope you enjoy the book.
Dan Leeson
dnleeson@-----.net
SKYPE: dnleeson
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