He has acquired a reputation for being feisty and willing to experiment. In ON MOZART, Burgess disdains the conventional tribute of the composer by combining a dialogue, a libretto, a fragmented filmscript, and more into a whole for the celebration of the bicentennial of Mozart’s death in 1991. Anyone who is unfamiliar with Mozart’s life and his musical achievement should look elsewhere for satisfaction. The reader will learn more about Burgess than Mozart in this playful volume. The opening section of ON MOZART finds such musical giants as Ludwig van Beethoven, Richard Wagner, Sergei Prokofiev, Sir Arthur Bliss, and Felix Mendelssohn arguing up in heaven. They trade insults with one another. At later points in the book, George Gershwin, Arnold Schoenberg, and many others also join in the fray.