Wolfgang and Nannerl Mozart
There was great and mutual support between the Mozart children; an intense emotional closeness. They called each other My King and My Queen. They performed together, travelling around the capitals of Europe. Wolfgang, her junior by five years, had a high opinion of the talent of his sister Maria Anna, nicknamed Nannerl, and would always feel bitterness about his sister’s giving up music as their father wanted (she was a woman and should marry). Later, their relationship went through moments of cold hostility and then completely broke down. In the last years of Mozart’s life, they had no contact.
Combining an extraordinary capacity for psychological acuteness and a passion for music (she studied piano and opera singing before dedicating herself entirely to writing), in this excellent book, Rita Charbonnier fathoms the depths of complex emotional dynamics, grasping the hidden meanings within: love, anger, jealousy, resentment, incomprehension, detachment; up until the reconciliation, after the death of Mozart, when only affection remains. And love for the music of a genius.
Cristina Tirinzoni in Psychologies, Italy, January/February 2006
