::"Standard item of Mozart biography" is referring of course to the usual jumble of nonsensical mistakes. That's exactly the problem that such incompetent crap is taken as "standard" these days. Spaethling has no knowledge of Austrian 18th-century vocabulary. Like Anderson he mistranslates "Lichterputzer" as "lamp cleaner". "so aber - -  ziehe ich nur mein schnupftuch heraus und schmutze." (14 November 1777) is being turned into the nonsensical "As it is, I just  pull out my handkerchief and hide a smile."[LOL!], because Spaethling obviously thinks "schmutzen" is a form of "schmunzeln". "Stimmen" are mistranslated as "vocal parts", "er geht in die Töne" becomes the absurdly wrong "He attacks the music[!]". And Spaethling's abolute masterpiece of nonsense is his translation of Mozart's sentence "O, wenn man genereux ist, kann man alles haben" with "Oh, there are no limits to those who think imaginatively" [ROTFL!] These are the embarrassing ludicrosities you get when you trust somebody, who has absolutely no knowledge of the German language and just dabbles in the translation business.