Mozart's Sister [Paperback]

'Alison Bauld weaves a compelling tale to create an extraordinarily accomplished first novel...a veritable tour de force. Best Buy.'

'A vivid and convincing portrayal with an intriguing new hypothesis about Mozart's final resting place.'

'Mozart's Sister is a brilliantly constructed debut novel with a wealth of additional facts as an index...I loved it!'

'That rare phenomenon, a book that's hugely enjoyable for the general reader and essential reading for scholars...I was enthralled.'

'Bauld writes with a lyrical delicacy but robust strains of earthy reality make her characters come alive on the page.'

This wonderful debut novel follows Nannerl Mozart's life through marriage, children, widowhood and death in conversations with her nephew, Franz Xaver, Mozart's younger son. Intervoven is a fictional account of what may have happened to Mozart's body. It is a story with subplots ingeniously constructed from the few known facts. The heroine is Nannerl Mozart, the forgotten sister of a genius. As a child she had played for the royal courts of Europe with her brother, yet in adolescence she was left at home in Salzburg with her mother, while her father and Mozart lived in Italy. The father is not portrayed as an ogre, more a parent dedicated to enshrining and marketing his son's talent. The consequences are explored with perception and sympathy for each member and for Nannerl in particular as an eighteenth century female of considerable musical gifts. In 1770, Mozart wrote to his sister from Rome to praise her composition, urging her to send him more. None of her music survives and A. M. Bauld has included one of her own songs in homage. Merdith Oakes, playwright and librettist said "I loved reading Mozart's Sister because it carried me far. It's a living history: it's history appropriated by an informed, engaged, adoring, perceptive and wildly creative mind that responds to the Mozarts' life and music with a life and music of its own."

This is not a book constrained by academic literality but is a passionate act of empathy by a contemporary composer who studied with the pioneering Elisabeth Lutyens. Like her teacher, A. M. Bauld is convinced that gender and sexual identy should not be an issue in judging degrees of musical creativity while acknowledging it has been in the past. Bauld's novel is an imaginative and sympathetic account of an eighteenth century heroine who wanted to compose in her own right, although none of Nannerl Mozart's compositions survive. This interpretation is informed by the author's own life as a composer in the 21st century and includes one of her own compositions in homage to Mozart's sister.

The letters of Nannerl Mozart reveal little of her interior world, allowing much scope for interpretation. Dialogue is based on the language and ideas expressed in the Mozart family correspondence and on conversations between Nannerl and her nephew, Franz Xaver, Mozart's younger son. Fragments of these were recorded by the English publisher, Vincent Novello and his wife, Mary in their published diaries. To ensure that the reader knows what is historically accurate and what is invented, I have placed an appendix at the back, detailing fact and fiction. I have also included a song of my own as a satirical and expressionist glimpse of 18th and 19th century musical styles.

Mozart's Sister
'It is fascinating. It is learned, touching and funny. It is so well written. The picture of the fanily which emerges is passionate, strong and in period. I loved it.' Mike Shaw of Curtis Brown

'This book constitutes a remarkable act of sympathetic restitution. By amplifying the scattered facts with imaginative fantasy, A.M. Bauld brings the personality of Mozart’s too-little considered sister back to life while offering an intriguing hypothesis about Mozart’s end.’
- Bayan Northcott, musicologist and composer

‘The interweaving of fact and fiction is compulsive in this novel. A.M. Bauld brings eighteenth century Salzburg to life through letters, conversation and a beautifully composed narrative.’- Heather Birchall, Curator, Tate Britain

'This imaginatively constructed fictional biography contains both powerful imagery and a strong sense of place and period. As the narrative unfolds from several viewpoints, the reader is given a convincing portrayal of the shadowy family behind the genius of Mozart. The appendix detailing the known facts of nannerl Mozart's life is an unexpected bonus. - Natasha McEnroe, Curator, Doctor Johnson's House, London

MOZART'S SISTER - A NOVEL
The heroine of this novel is Nannerl Mozart, the forgotten sister of a genius. As a child, she had played for the royal courts of Europe with her brother, yet in adolescence she was left at home in Salzburg with her mother, while her father and Mozart lived in Italy.
The father is not portrayed as an ogre, more a parent dedicated to enshrining and marketing his son's talent. the consequences are explored with perception and sympathy for each member and for nannerl in particular as an eighteenth century female of considerable musical gifts. In 1770, Mozart wrote to his sister from Rome to praise her composition, urging her to send him more. none of her music survives and A.M.Bauld has included one of her own compositions in homage.
The novel follows Nannerl Mozart's life through marriage, children, widowhood and death in conversations with her nephew, Franz Xaver, Mozart's younger son. Interwoven is a fictional account of what may have happened to Mozart's body. it is a story with subplots ingeniously constructed from the few known facts.
‘I loved reading Mozart’s Sister because it carried me far. It’s a living history: it’s history appropriated by an informed, engaged, adoring, perceptive and wildly creative mind that responds to the Mozarts’ life and music with a life and music of its own.’ Meredith Oakes, playwright and librettist

A..M. Bauld was born in 1944 in Sydney. A piano student ofAlexander Sverjensky at the Conservatorium of NSW, she later studied acting at the National Institute of Dramatic Art, touring in Shakespearian productions before completing a Bachelor of Music degree at the University of Sydney. She came to England on a university scholarship in 1969 and after studying composition in her first two years with Elisabeth Lutyens and Hans Keller, she completed a doctorate in composition at the University of York in 1974. Her music, almost all of a theatrical genre, has won international prizes and is regularly performed in concerts and broadcasts throughout Europe, the USA and Australia.

Page 82, extract from Mozart's Sister

‘Please don’t say what you think Papa. I am his wife.’
‘My child, how can I forget?’ Leopold’s eyes were fixed on an amorous shepherd and shepherdess. They lay entwined across the top of a mirror with their crooks perfectly crossed at the bottom.
‘We are . . . Yes, I’ll say it. We are two boars sniffing at one another and not liking what we smell.’
He turned his face away from the lovers and blew theatrically into his lace handkerchief. Nannerl said nothing because she was afraid it was the truth.
‘I remember when I first became aware of the baron,’ he continued mercilessly, nose still buried in the cloth, ‘just after the death of your mother. Your Sonnenburg, my dear, drew me aside at one of Hagenauer’s gatherings and said it was a sad time for all of us. I thought at first he was talking about you, me and Wolfgang, not the entire parish of St Gilgen. But of course, he is their magistrate and it was your mother’s birthplace.’
Leopold deserted the fortepiano to pace up and down one length of the carpet before returning. Absorbed by the memory of what he said, he forgot the aching stiffness in his bones.
‘I thought, what a pleasant, reverent person. How sympathetic and not at all a pompous, quasi-ecclesiastical prick. He was married to someone else at the time, so I could hardly imagine him being my future son-in-law. Soon after that, your husband’s second wife unfortunately died.’
Nannerl tapped her foot angrily against the wooden floor.
‘But Johannes is a kind and reverent person, Papa. You are being unfair.’
Her emotions were invisible in her face as she smoothed the silk leaves on her bodice with her fan, combing them so they fell uniformly across her breast. Leopold attacked the keyboard as if he had never left his seat. Extraordinary that he should ever have approved of a penny-pinching pipsqueak with one foot in the grave for his only beloved daughter.
‘He has not changed . . . It is your expectations which are different, Papa. We may be living at some distance from each other, but we are still able to visit... Johannes understands the importance of that. You will see. He is,’ and she hesitated briefly, ‘most considerate of our needs.’
Her words appeared conventional enough, but the way she spoke, lacked raw feeling. Leopold explored a simple, repetitive tune and sealed his lips.
‘Ah, Mozart, I believe,’ said Sonnenburg as he entered the room holding a violin case.