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Book Review
Marrying Mozart
By
Stephanie Cowell
("Marrying Mozart" Website)
Published by Penguin Books (2004)
(Penguin Group US)
Susan Weinrebe
March 3, 2006
Don’t think it was all hot Schokolade mit Schlage for Mozart as he composed his way from child prodigy to legendary musician. Poverty, pride and an overweening archbishop were stumbling blocks in his way. And then there were the beautiful, musical and very marriageable Weber sisters. Marrying Mozart, a fictionalized biography, recounts the years in Mozart’s life just before he achieved acclaim, as he struggled to find success and love.
Told mainly as a reminiscence by Sophie, the youngest of the four Weber girls, and Mozart himself, I felt transported back to 18th Century Austrian life. Moving about such towns as Mannheim and Vienna, just before Mozart hit it big in Salzburg, Stephanie Cowell details life in the Weber household. The food the characters ate, their daily chores, elements of apparel, even how they coped with the cold are amply detailed and impart authenticity to the story.
It was in the apartment of Fridolin and Maria Caecilia Weber where Mozart met the four girls at one of the family’s Thursday musical evenings. He returned as a friend, boarder, suitor, and finally husband, through the rise and fall of all of their fortunes.
Ms. Cowell, a lyric coloratura soprano by training, brought her musical expertise to descriptions of performances, both vocal and instrumental. Even to a non-musical reader such as myself, the intricacies of voice and composition were made understandable through the author’s crystalline prose.
Marrying Mozart is a delightful account of a side of Mozart’s life not overly explored. Using the voices of people surrounding him, the author made this reader feel part of his milieu. In this, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s 250th birthday year, if one can’t get to Salzburg to hear the bells chime in his honor, or take a Mozart chocolate cruise, this book is the next best thing.
Marrying Mozart a novel by Stephanie Cowell. Cover design: Gabriele Wilson. Cover Photograph: Ingres, The Comtesse D'haussonville (detail), 1845 copyright The Frick Collection, New York
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