Mozart's Sister
This is a novel, as such it is presented and as such often gives free rein to fantasy; but it is also a work of history, chronicle, truth, and when it is not actually true it is likely or at least plausible. To the author, who studied piano and sang in the theatre but who is also a journalist and television scriptwriter, it did not seem possible that of the musician Leopold Mozart’s two small children, one was an outright genius and the other a musical nullity. Leaving aside the greatness of Wolfgang Amadeus, it was not right that the artistic and personal life of Maria Anna, or Nannerl as she was called (Salzburg, 1751 – 1829), was limited to the typical occupation of piano teaching in the dreariness of her native city and a marriage imposed by her father. From this starting point, Charbonnier tells the story of a long life of delusions, deceptions and obstacles both musical and sentimental, without overstepping documented reality fortunately made famous through her brother and biographies of him. She demonstrates how a woman of that time (as well as before and since) could not express herself musically other than in the sphere of theatre, singing on the stage (and probably meeting with every sort of moral censure as a result).
In the book Leopold, who forces his son to practise and perform to the point of making him ill, prevents his daughter from playing the violin (a man’s instrument), does not teach her counterpoint (although she picks it up by listening in at the keyhole during her brother’s lessons), and only when excluding her from the longed-for Italian trip does he present her with the magnificent piano that would never otherwise have been destined for her. The novel is well-written, captivating, now serious and now humorous (for example the meeting with the Queen of France who is old and melancholic though sensitive and sly). It is highly orchestrated; the author never lets fantastical digressions run away with her, always keeping the threads of the story in hand and expertly winding them up with full ensemble scenes that could be from an opera.
Piero Mioli in Rassegna Melodrammatica, Italy, September 2006
