Above: Maria Anna (Nannerl) Mozart
After recently watching the film Mozart's Sister, my curiosity was piqued about Mozart's older sister Nannerl, herself a talented musician forever in the shadow of her genius-brother. Matt Rees's novel MOZART'S LAST ARIA popped up on my radar, and I grabbed a copy from Amazon; admittedly the book's attractive cover was an added incentive:
Nannerl, four-and-a-half years older than Wolfgang, was considered a musician of equal talent to her brother. As their father carted them all over Europe, playing for royalty, Wolfgang began to eclipse his sister in notoriety.
Both children began to compose, Wolfgang openly and Nannerl furtively. Wolfgang admired and encouraged his older sister's work. At a
concert, when Wolfgang announced that the piece he had just played was
written by his sister, their father Leopold was furious. He ordered Nannerl never to
compose music again because in the 18th century, women did not become
composers.
Thereafter, Leopold focused all his attentions on Wolfgang, leaving Nannerl at home, taking only her brother on tour, and forcing her to give piano lessons to wealthy students to finance Wolfgang's travels. Nannerl became depressed, and in the years that followed the close relationship of brother and sister faded, especially once Wolfgang had married Constanze.
In 1784, Nannerl had married the magistrate Johann Baptist Franz von Berchtold zu Sonnenburg; they lived in St. Gilgen and she did not see Wolfgang again. In the novel, which begins with Nannerl, having received a letter from Constanze informing her of Wolfgang's death, leaving St. Gilgen for Vienna in an effort to learn the facts surrounding Wolfgang's untimely demise.
Of course, there have always been rumours that Mozart was poisoned - namely by the rival composer Antonio Salieri. There is no verifiable evidence of this, but the myth has persisted anyway.
Constanze's letter to Nannerl hints at foul play. This induces Nannerl's trip to Vienna where she runs up against a wall of silence and deception. Attempting to ascertain who might have had cause to desire her brother's death - the jealous husband of one of his amours? a sinister creditor? a rival composer? or those involved in the secret and banned acttvities of the Masons? - Nannerl finds her own life endangered.
At a soiree where Nannerl dresses as her brother and plays one of his compositions for an elite assemblage, the culprit is unmasked. But many questions remain, and as Nannerl slowly sorts things out, a complex web of duplicity and political intrigue is revealed.
In reality, Nannerl did not travel to Vienna following her brother's death. But in using her as the axis of his novel, the author has crafted a finely-paced murder mystery into which real personages from the time - including Emanuel Schikaneder, librettist of Mozart's "Masonic" opera THE MAGIC FLUTE - are introduced. The novel would seem well-suited to a cinematic treatment: a beautiful period piece with a host of brilliant character roles and a built-in soundtrack of some of the greatest music ever written.