Marrying Mozart
Stephanie Cowell, 2004
Penguin Group USA
368 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780143034575
Summary
Mannheim, 1777. The four Weber sisters, daughters of a musical family, share a crowded, artistic life in a ramshackle house. Their father scrapes by as a music copyist; their mother keeps a book of prospective suitors hidden in the kitchen. The sisters struggle with these marriage prospects as well as their musical futures—until one evening at their home, when 21-year-old Wolfgang Mozart walks into their lives.
No longer a prodigy and struggling to find his own place in the music world, Mozart is enthralled with the Weber sisters: Aloysia's beauty and talent captivates him; Josefa's rich voice inspires him; Sophie becomes his confidante; and Constanze comes to play a surprising role in his life.
Eighteenth-century Europe comes alive with unforgiving winters and yawning princes; scheming parents and the enduring passions of young talent. Set in Mannheim, Munich, Salzburg and Vienna, Marrying Mozart is the richly textured love story of a remarkable historical figure—and four young women who engaged his passion, his music, and his heart. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—New York City, New York, USA
• Education—N/A
• Awards—American Book Award
• Currently—lives in New York City
In her words
I was born in New York City to a family of artists and fell in love with Mozart, Shakespeare and historical fiction at an early age. I began printing stories in a black and white school notebook at about nine years old and in my teens wrote several short novels which remain in a dark box. I learned something though, because by twenty, I had twice won prizes in a national story contest.
Then I left writing for classical singing. I sang in many operas and appeared as an international balladeer; I formed a singing ensemble, a chamber opera company, and so on. The translation of a late Mozart opera returned me to writing once more and I now mostly sing while washing the dishes!
My first published novel was Nicholas Cooke: Actor, Soldier, Physician, Priest. That work was followed by two other Elizabethan 17th-century novels: The Physician of London (American Book Award 1996) and The Players: A Novel of the Young Shakespeare. In 2004, I returned to my musical background and wrote Marrying Mozart; it has been translated into seven languages and optioned for a movie.
I am married to poet and reiki practitioner Russell Clay and have two grown sons (one in computer systems design and one a filmmaker). I was born in New York City and am still living here, a short walk away from all the impressionist paintings at the Metropolitan Museum. (From the author's website.)
Book Reviews
[Cowell's] Mozart tale is a perfect harmony of fact, fiction. [It is] a charming novel, so much so that one would enjoy it even if the gentleman involved in these girls' lives were not one of the greatest geniuses in the history of music.
Los Angeles Times
Former opera singer Cowell, whose previous novel (1997's The Players) explored the apprenticeship years of a callow Shakespeare, turns her eye to the women in the life of a young Mozart in her fourth graceful and entertaining historical. Music copyist Fridolin Weber and his socially ambitious wife, Marie Caecilia, have four daughters-bookish and devout Sophie; quiet Constanze; beautiful, silver-voiced Aloysia; and headstrong Josefa-whom they struggle to keep in hats and hose. Though the freethinking girls may wonder about the benefits of marrying well vs. marrying for love, Caecilia, whose family once had money, is terrified of growing old a pauper. Pinning her hopes on her prettiest daughter, 16-year-old Aloysia, Caecilia aims for a Swedish baron as suitor (though she keeps a list of backups in a notebook). Aloysia falls in love with the young Mozart, however, who happily returns her affections, though he, too, wonders about marrying better to support his father and beloved mother. But when the Webers move to Munich from Mannheim, Caecilia's hopes for good matches begin to dim, as Josefa takes a married lover and a pregnant Aloysia runs away with a painter who, along with Mozart, had been boarding with the family. As Mozart progresses in his career, he has relationships with the other Weber sisters, too, and falls alternately in and out of favor with their bitter old mother. Told through the recollections of an aging Sophie, the tale is as rich and unhurried as 18th-century court life.
Publishers Weekly
Long before Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart married Constanze Weber, his musical and personal life was intertwined with her family. In Cowell's fourth historical novel (after Nicholas Cooke, The Players, and The Physician of London), Sophie, the youngest of the four Weber sisters, shares the story with an English biographer visiting Austria. As she recalls events from 60 years earlier that reveal how the sisters influenced Mozart's music, readers are drawn into a world rich in music but poor in material goods. Herr Weber ekes out a living by giving music lessons and performances; his weekly gatherings assemble famous and aspiring musicians, including Mozart. While the elder daughters, Josefa and Aloysia, both possess wonderful singing voices, it is Aloysia, with her remarkable beauty, who wins the public's adoration (not to mention Josefa's jealousy). After Herr Weber's early death, Frau Weber schemes to marry her daughters into wealth, but her harsh demands drive the family apart. Because Mozart's family depends on his earnings, his father blocks early marriage, a delay that costs Mozart Aloysia and haunts the composer for years. Cowell vividly brings to life not only the Webers and the Mozarts but also dozens of minor characters and their era. Fans of Tracy Chevalier's Girl with a Pearl Earring will relish this exploration of family demands and the creative drive. Recommended for all public libraries. —Kathy Piehl, Minnesota State Univ., Mankato
Library Journal
A fourth outing by New York soprano and novelist Cowell (The Players, 1997, etc.) re-creates the situation that led up to Mozart's marriage. Based on true events, this is the story of the prodigy who, at 21, is just beginning to make a name for himself as a serious composer. Unhappily engaged as a court composer for the Archbishop-Prince of Salzburg, Mozart leaves the bishop's employ in 1777 and begins to travel throughout Europe with his beloved, ambitious mother. In Mannheim, the two visit the home of Fridolin Weber, an impoverished musician whose four daughters (Josefa, Aloysia, Constanze, and Sophie) are as renowned for their musical talents as for their beauty. Mozart eventually becomes a lodger in the Weber home and a fixture in that family's life. Fridolin's wife Maria, a shabby-genteel sort who nurses memories of her fine upbringing and dreams of recovering her lost position in society, wastes no time in sizing up the young Mozart as a good prospect for a son-in-law-although not in the same league with the Swedish count they're also trying to reel in. Before long, Mozart is engaged to Aloysia, but this ends unhappily when it turns out the young lady is pregnant by another boarder (a painter). The brokenhearted Mozart leaves Mannheim and throws himself into his work, but he has a change of heart in the end and returns to the Weber house to marry Constanze and live out the rest of his life with her—fairly happily, too. Cowell frames the story by relating much of it as a memoir, recalled by Sophie in 1842 at the behest of Mozart's English biographer Vincent Novello. With its frequent changes in locale and abrupt switches in the objects of affection, the tale is reminiscent of nothing so much as an opera—appropriately enough. A delight, at once fanciful and erudite: should be richly satisfying to Mozart buffs and fascinating to those in the outer circle as well.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. How does the Mozart of this novel compare to your previous idea of him?
2. Discuss how each of the Weber sisters in turn affects Mozart and his music. How does Mozart, his choices, and his passions change over the course of the novel?
3. Of the four Weber sisters—Josefa, Aloysia, Constanze, and Sophie—who do you think would have ultimately made the best wife for Mozart? Are you content with the choice he made?
4. Much of the story rests on the fact that women were wholly dependent on their fathers and husbands for financial security. The fact that the two oldest daughters, Josefa and Aloysia, are able to earn their own incomes as singers made them more independent and rebellious than the two younger sisters. How do you think each of the sisters would have been different had they lived in modern times?
5. Josefa and Aloysia are rendered as complete opposites from one another, and also from their younger siblings. Constanze is also depicted as quiet and reserved whereas Sophie is fearless and outgoing. Discuss the many differences between the girls, and the surprising similarities.
6. What effect do Fridolin and Maria Caecilia Weber have on each of their daughters, for better or worse?
7. Both the Weber girls and Mozart are expected to make advantageous marriages to help support their parents. Yet they are each desperate to make their own way in the world on their own terms. Discuss the role of duty between parents and children of the time.
8. Discuss the rebellious nature of Mozart's choices. In leaving the security of the Archbishop and marrying for love instead of money, he makes risky and potentially disastrous gambles.
9. How is different is Sophie (our narrator) as a young girl and as an elderly woman? What do you imagine her life was like?
(Questions issued by publisher.)