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Mozart's Last Aria
 
 
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Mozart's Last Aria [Kindle Edition]

Matt Rees (Author)
3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews) |
Digital List Price: £9.43 What's this?
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Product Description

Product Description

It is 1791 and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is enlightenment Vienna's brightest star. Master of the city's music halls and devoted member of the Austrian Freemason's guild, he stands at the heart of an electric mix of art and music, philosophy and science, politics and intrigue. Six weeks ago, the great composer told his wife he had been poisoned. Yesterday, he died. The city is buzzing with rumours of infidelity, bankruptcy and murder. But Wolfgang's sister Nannerl, returned from the provinces to investigate, will not believe base gossip. Who but a madman would poison such a genius? Yet as she looks closely at what her brother left behind - a handwritten score, a scrap of paper from his journal - Nannerl finds traces of something sinister: the threads of a masonic conspiracy that reach from the gilded ballrooms of Viennese society to the faceless offices of the Prussian secret service. Only when watching Wolfgang's bewitching opera, The Magic Flute, does Nannerl truly understand her beloved brother once again. For, encoded in his final arias, is a subtly crafted blueprint for a radical new tomorrow. Mozart hoped to change his future. Instead he sealed his fate.

About the Author

Matt Rees was born in Wales and read English at Oxford before moving to the Middle East to become a journalist. He is also the author of the award-winning Omar Yussef series, which follows a detective in Palestine, and is now published in twenty-two countries.

Product details

  • Format: Kindle Edition
  • File Size: 606 KB
  • Print Length: 291 pages
  • Publisher: Corvus (1 May 2011)
  • Sold by: Amazon Media EU S.à r.l.
  • Language English
  • ASIN: B004V9ODJK
  • Text-to-Speech: Enabled
  • Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #44,446 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

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Matt Rees
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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
18 of 19 people found the following review helpful
Mozart's Last Aria 18 May 2011
By S Riaz TOP 50 REVIEWER VINE™ VOICE
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
It is a fact that Mozart believed himself to have been poisoned. Whether he was poisoned or not, is not known, but Matt Rees takes this for the starting point of his excellent, and exciting, new novel. Already a successful author, with his popular Omar Yussef series, the first of which is The Bethlehem Murders: A Novel (Omar Yussef Mystery Series), this book takes him in a change of direction. Not contemporary, but historical crime, and with the added difficulty of bringing to life real characters. He pulls it off with perfection.

It is 1791 and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is living in Vienna, estranged from his sister Nannerl. Once a successful child prodigy, Nannerl has seen her life and success shrink with her fathers death and marriage to a man who needed someone to oversee his troublesome children. When she receives a letter from Mozart's wife, Constanze, to say he is dead and that he told her, "I'm sure I've been poisoned", her former life comes crashing back to her. When Constanze further suggests that rumours abound a jealous husband killed him, she decides to go to Vienna and find out for herself. Her husband expresses amazement, "surely he was dead to you already?", but although her father caused trouble between them with his will and she felt jealous of his escape and success, her love for him has never died.

Arriving in Vienna, Nannerl finds Mozart's former friends and colleagues suspicious, nervous and unwilling to speak to her about what happened. Yet, Nannerl is obviously not the completely downtroddon provincial she feels she has become. She is a woman who played in palaces and for royalty, and she is at home with that kind of life and not over awed. Did Mozart's links to the Masons threaten anyone? For the Emperor of Austria's sister, Marie Antoinette, is held under arrest and revolution is sweeping France. Europe is nervous of conspiracy and Nannerl finds conspiracy rife in Vienna.

Matt Rees brings both Austria and the people concerned back to life wonderfully in this novel. You can feel the cold, the fog, the fear and, also, the presence of Mozart throughout the book and how he affected everyone he came into contact with through his music. Nannerl is a great heroine, and you will her to make her peace with the brother she lost contact with. Excellent novel - I have enjoyed Matt Rees books for a long time and I look forward to seeing the new directions this talented author will go in the future. Highly recommended.
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15 of 17 people found the following review helpful
The new Amadeus 11 May 2011
Format:Hardcover
I'm a fan of Rees's great crime series set in present day Palestine. This is a historical crime novel set in Vienna in 1791. Mozart's sister Nannerl, who was a child piano prodigy like her brother, travels to Imperial Vienna, suspicious that the great composer was murdered. She uncovers a compelling plot -- illegal Masonic meetings, espionage, the Emperor's secret police -- and a secret hidden in The Magic Flute. All the plot elements are handled very deftly by the author. The period details are amazing, the use of the music is done with a true musician's hand, and the lead female character Nannerl is utterly convincing. A great new development in Rees's writing. This stands comparison with any historical fiction and even with the famous play/film about Mozart "Amadeus."
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Superb Structure 18 July 2011
By A. L. Rutter TOP 1000 REVIEWER
Format:Hardcover
Never has the structure of a novel felt more important than in Mozart's Last Aria. Matt Rees takes the essence of Mozart's music to weave a plot that showcases musical genius alongside a desperately paranoid and rather naive young man, who just wanted to introduce equality to all levels of society. Rees starts with a difficult opening - as Nannerl hears about her estranged brother's death and starts to learn that he believed he was being murdered through slow poisoning. The central portion of the book is a more thoughtful and reflective period, where Nannerl discovers more about her brother's place in Viennese society. The final, explosive portion of the novel is the triumphant climax of the music - as Matt Rees calls it: "a crime novel in A minor."

It's been a while since I've read a novel that is as cleverly put together as Mozart's Last Aria. I appreciated the rising tension, the slow build as Nannerl starts to put all the clues together.

This would be nothing, though, without the exploration of Mozart's relationships with those close to him - his wife, his children, the Brothers of his Masonic Lodge, and Nannerl herself. This helps the reader to discover the man behind the music.

I loved the parts of Mozart's Last Aria that dealt with the Masons and how Mozart explored the future of the Masonic Brotherhood through the forms of his operatic pieces, particularly The Magic Flute. The Masons could so easily become an over-used device - all dark cloaks and twirling moustaches, but Rees presents them sympathetically, especially the notion of equality.

The only part of the novel that I wasn't sure about were Nannerl's encounters with the Baron Swieten. It did help to explain why the Baron might have been so willing to lend his aid to Nannerl, but I found it to be a little too sensationalist.

This is an entertaining and swift read through the possibility of Mozart being murdered. The mystery of who might be behind the murder - if, in fact, it is such - will keep the reader guessing to the end, and the character of Nannerl is one to be cherished. But the real treasure of Mozart's Last Aria is the appreciation of the man's music, and allows him to take his place as a true virtuoso.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
I was swept away into the world of 1791 and the music
The most impressive thing about Mozart's Last Aria is perhaps that Matt Rees makes the world of Vienna in 1791 come alive, alongside Mozart's music. Read more
Published 8 days ago by Stella Aretino
Tone Deaf
As a rule, I love historical crime fiction. That's why I picked up this book. I'd never heard of it or the author but the notes on the flyleaf and the opening paragraphs were... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Catblack_uk
Difficult beginning and a dislikeable lead character
I love a book that's slightly different to the vast majority out there and that's certainly what you get with this title by Matt Ree's as he works a story around a musical movement... Read more
Published 4 months ago by Gareth Wilson - Falcata Times Blog
Yawn (sorry!)
I was really looking forward to reading this - mystery, history and Mozart: what a combination. But I was totally disappointed, I persevered until I reached the half way point but... Read more
Published 5 months ago by S. dennison
Frustrating and Tedious
A lot of research has gone into "Mozart's Last Aria" which could have been used in a better style of writing. Read more
Published 7 months ago by wisty
Intriguing historical thriller
I've read Rees' Omar Yussef novels so I thought I'd give this a go.

Interestingly, I thought this was a more detailed novel than his Yussef works, going into the... Read more
Published 8 months ago by freedomrulesok
Mozart, masons and murder
Matt Rees is fine mystery writer and you expect a good storyline with his novels. "Mozart's Last Aria" certainly delivers on that expectation. Read more
Published 8 months ago by Blue in Washington
Another great novel - thanks
Thanks again Matt for writing another great novel. Thanks also for not giving Freemasons a hard time! Read more
Published 8 months ago by Brian Medhurst
More pedante than vivace
Having persevered to the end of this story I learned that the author had planned it around the three movements of a sonata ~ a turbulent first, slow and reflective second, and... Read more
Published 9 months ago by Hard2please
Voi che sapete (Variations on a Mozart theme)
An author who seeks to construct a whodunnit around the death of Mozart has to contend with the theory that perhaps Salieridunnit. Read more
Published 9 months ago by G. M. Sinstadt
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&quote;
In The Magic Flute, the name of the high priest is spoken eighteen times and sung eighteen times. He speaks eighteen sentences and sings 180 bars of music. When he comes on stage, the chorus that accompanies him is eighteen bars long. &quote;
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in A minor Wolfgang wrote after our dear mothers death in Paris. &quote;
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The curse of the artist is to have the best part of ones faculties occupied only with ones craft. &quote;
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