Mozart's Sister

August 6, 2007
Maria Anna Mozart (1751–1829), nicknamed “Nannerl” by her brother Wolfgang Amadeus, was also known in her lifetime as a musical child prodigy, but was outshone by her younger brother. In this energetic debut, Italian TV scriptwriter Charbonnier fictionalizes Nannerl's life, beginning with her tender years in the household of ambitious and tyrannical patriarch Leopold Mozart. Depriving her of her beloved violin (“not an instrument for girls”), Leopold forces Nannerl into a supporting role for Wolfgang, which Charbonnier dramatizes with melodramatic verve. Nannerl's adult epistolary love affair inevitably gets tangled with Wolfgang and his career, though the two remain close throughout his short life. There's a blunt immediacy to the writing (carriage horses “t off with a whinny of euphoria”; characters exclaim “Holy Shit” at moments of crisis), and Charbonnier is more concerned with bursts of emotion than period detail throughout. Deep this isn't, but it does capture some of the electricity than ran through the family.

September 15, 2007
Two children in the same family are graced with undeniable musical talent. One is featured in the concert halls of Europe, while the other is forced to stay home and give music lessons. The boy is given too much freedom, the girl is given too little freedom, and the result is none too happy. Mozarts sister, Nannerl, was five years older and quite possibly a composer of superior talent. But, alas, her gender kept her from being promoted throughout Europe as a musical genius, and frustration may have led her to make more than a few questionable choices in life. Herself a musician and actress, Italian author Charbonnier offers a first novel that sympathizes with Nannerl and the injustices that she faced. Emotions ran high in the Mozart family, as it was understood that excitability often goes hand in hand with artistic genius, and the familys mania is expressed in the rapid transitions between time frames and voices. The dialog has some unusual wording, which could be attributed to the translation. An interesting story, somewhat unevenly told; recommended for larger popular fiction collections. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" 6/15/07.]Susanne Wells, P.L. of Cincinnati & Hamilton Cty.

Copyright 2007 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 1, 2007
Clipping along at a breezy pace, this fictional biography reimagines the life of an all-but-forgotten player on the stage of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozarts celebrated life. A brilliant musician in her own right, Maria Anna Mozart, nicknamed Nannerl, was overshadowed by the prodigious talent of her younger brother and exploited by her ruthlessly ambitious father. Forced by Herr Mozart to play a supporting role in his grand design to promote Wolfgangs career, Nannerl gives up her beloved violin, eventually becoming a piano teacher in order to provide financial support for the persistently strapped Mozart family. When love enters the picture, Nannerl must choose between her family and her own dreams and desires. Charbonnier paints a vivid picture of two gifted siblings trapped in a supremely tangled web of family dysfunction.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)