Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, arguable one of the greatest --- possibly the greatest --- musical genius the world has produced, died suddenly at the age of 35, in Vienna, in 1791, leaving his family impoverished. A child prodigy who composed his first music at the age of six, he was brilliant, passionate, erratic in life, and scandalous even in death.
The story is narrated by Mozart's sister Nannerl, who travels to Vienna to discover how and why her brother died claiming he had been poisoned. The doctor who examined his corpse insists he died of a fever, and no one wants to talk about the circumstances and the discrepancies surrounding his abrupt demise. Rees has done his research, and late 18th century Vienna, its sophisticated culture, the political ferment created by the Enlightenment and the terror evoked by the French Revolution, the squalor endured by the poor and the luxury enjoyed by the privileged, all form the background to Nannerl's investigations. As she talks to her brother's wife, his mistress, his friends, his musical rivals, powerful nobles and patrons of the arts, she begins to realize that Mozart was also involved in deep political intrigues that had earned him ruthless enemies as well. And she receives warnings that asking questions about her brother's death could be a fatal mistake for her, too.
Rees has integrated Mozart's music into all the key moments in his plot, and even uses the Sonata in A Minor as the pattern for the structure of his story. Almost all of the characters are real persons, the places described are real places, and he offers a very intriguing and historically plausible solution to the mystery of Mozart's untimely death.
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