The book, first published in 1995, 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 surely a genius - in that, the legends are correct, and the evidence abounds - but he was also a working composer in a society crowded with 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 God.