In "Mozart: the Sociology of a Genius, " Elias paints a portrait of this extraordinarily gifted artist born into a society that did not yet possess either the concept of "genius" or (at least in music) that of freelance artist. The apparent contradictions of his character - the refined elegance of his compositions and the coarseness of his humor - reflect his uncomfortable and eventually tragic straddling of two social worlds. The volume also includes two major essays on cognate topics, previously unpublished in English: on the courtly painter Watteau's Embarkation for Cythera, and on "The fate of German Baroque poetry: between the traditions of court and middle class.