Mozartiana

Since I work in a library, I get to see all kinds of really good books that I want to read, and among those is a book called "Mozart's Sister" by Rita Charbonnier. I finally had a chance to read it, although it took me many long weeks to finish reading it, but I did finally get through the entire book. I've also got several very good Mozart playlists on my iPod, one of which I just put together the other night, Mozart Masses, the last of which is his Requiem Mass. The performance of it that I have is one that I was most fortunate enough to participate in back in 1985 when I was singing with the Kent State University Choruses. The concert in which we sang this piece also included the Bach Cantata No. 140, "Wachet Auf, Ruft uns die Stimme", one of my favorite pieces by that composer. We had the very good fortune to perform these pieces with the Canton Symphony Orchestra, one of our areas regional ensembles, but still a very fine one at that, under the very able baton of Maestro Gerhardt Zimmerman. So yesterday, I was listening to my Mozart Masses playlist and it got to be about lunch time, so naturally I took the book "Mozart's Sister" with me as I was nearly done reading it. There is a scene in the novel when Mozart's sister finds out that he has died, and just as I got to that part of the book, the Requiem Mass began playing on my iPod. How appropriate, I thought! It was perfect, because in the movie "Amadeus", the "Lacrymosa" movement plays as the hearse bearing Mozart's body travels on a dreary rainy day to take him to his final resting place in an unmarked pauper's grave. So hearing this music as Nannerl, Mozart's sister, receives news of his passing, was just the perfect music to accompany my reading. The book is quite good and is about Maria Anna Walburga Ignatia Mozart, the great composer's sister, who was also a talented composer in her own right, but sadly, was overshadowed by her more famous brother and was not permitted by her father to utilize her talents to their fullest, leaving her to live a life of constant frustration and eventual estrangement from her beloved brother Wolfgang. It's sort of a sad but fascinating novel, made the moreso by listening to Mozart's

music while reading it.

Right after I finished reading "Mozart's Sister", I decided that I wanted to continue on the same vein and read another novel about this same composer. A few weeks ago at work, I just happened to spot a book called "Marrying Mozart" by Stephanie Cowell, so I decided that this would be my next read. It is about the Weber family that Mozart married into. His wife's name was Costanze Weber and the composer Carl Maria von Weber is a distant relative of hers. So far, I haven't read a great deal of this book yet, but I am wondering if there are other novels out there about other famous composers. I have read several novels about famous works of art, or artists, by authors like Susan Vreeland and Tracy Chevalier, but I would like to read more novels about famous composers as well. I'm not sure how many authors are eager to tackle such subjects, but if there are any out there that readers who come here know of, please feel free to let me know. I may work in a library, but that doesn't mean I know every single book out there! So by all means, I look forward to hearing if anyone out there knows of novels about famous composers. I just hope that our library, or our hometown library here where I live, have them available to read. Otherwise, I may have to resort to InterLibrary loan, and that means I'll have to read 'em quick because they don't loan them out for very long. And I am a slow reader these days, unfortunately. Winter tends to make me feel sleepy earlier as the nights are long and cold and I get into my yearly hibernation mode, especially on these frigid January nights. Brrrrrr!