Matt Rees's Blog - Posts Tagged "classical-music"

Historical novelists recreate the emotions and events of distant times. It helps if they can use real places that still exist. In the case of MOZART’S LAST ARIA, I was able to set much of the action in streets and buildings where Mozart lived and worked – and where you can still visit.

In my historical thriller, the composer’s sister Nannerl comes to Vienna to investigate her suspicion that Wolfgang was poisoned. One of the men who helps her is Baron Gottfried van Swieten, an important patron of her brother. Swieten was Imperial Librarian, and you can see the majesty and learning of that time arrayed on the shelves of the Prunksaal, the great library attached to the Hofburg, the Emperors’ palace in central Vienna.

The library is open to the public, but you’ll rarely find more than five or six other visitors there at one time – most people are shuffling with the crowds through the Emperor’s rooms down the way. It’s a gem hidden in rather plain site.

The house where Mozart died was destroyed some time ago (though you can visit a museum in the house where he wrote The Marriage of Figaro nearby). There’s a department store there now, on Rauhenstein Lane. But if you stand with your back to the spot, you can look to your left, your right, and in front of you, and you’ll see just what Wolfgang would’ve seen – except there’ll be less horse manure on the streets. Much of central Vienna remains just as it was in Mozart’s time.

Despite its destruction, I was able to describe the interior of Mozart’s home quite fully, however. There have been a number of academic theses written about the furniture and layout of the apartment. Yes, really. (Some years ago, the startling discovery was made that not only did he have two windows on the front of his studio, but he also had another one on the side. You get a Ph.d. for this stuff, you know. But anyway I’m very grateful to those dedicated Mozartians.)

You can look at a photo tour of other Mozart sites and locations from MOZART’S LAST ARIA in Vienna on my website.

Read the rest of this post on my blog The Man of Twists and Turns

The best reason I have for writing a novel about Mozart must surely be that I love his music. Other elements contribute, including my fascination with his neglected sister and the growing historical research which I believe points toward his murder. But the music must be at the center of the novel itself.

I’ve played music all my life. But after my initial music lessons I eschewed the playing of classical music – no more Etudes by Heller for me. I’ve been a guitarist and bassist in various rock bands. Less sexily, I played glockenspiel in my high school band.

So for MOZART’S LAST ARIA, my new historical thriller in which Wolfgang’s sister Nannerl investigates his death in Vienna, 1791, I decided to learn to play piano. This showed me two things: first that I’m not much good on the piano; and second a way to see inside Wolfgang’s music, because the piano study made me think more deeply about musical theory than rock guitar. (Surely THAT doesn’t surprise anyone, but it was worth demonstrating anyhow.)

My guide in this was my dear friend Orit Wolf, a fabulous concert pianist who lives in Jaffa (You can see her dressed up as Nannerl and hear her version of Mozart’s Fantasia in D on this video). Orit’s probably best known for her heartfelt interpretations of romantic composers. When she plays Chopin or Schubert, I challenge you to stay on your feet, so emotional and breathtaking is it. But her insights into Mozart are stupendous. Our discussion of Wolfgang’s piano sonata in A minor I remember in particular. It gave me the idea of building the entire novel around the mood and structure of that piece.

Orit also introduced me to some of the techniques great musicians use when they prepare for a performance. For example, she told me that when she first looks at a piece for a performance she decides what color the music makes her think of. Before each performance, she’ll visualize that color and it will create a mood in her, and in turn that mood will be reflected in the music as she plays it. It isn’t just about hitting the right keys.

I had a similar talk with the great conductor Zubin Mehta (in which he was very frank about the lack of worth of certain composers who’ll remain nameless). He was very clear about who the greatest of them all is. “I’d find it very hard to live without Mozart,” he told me.

Read the rest of this post on my blog The Man of Twists and Turns.

When Peter Cook admitted to Dudley Moore that he was “turned on by dead Popes,” it was a satire on those among us who’re so bored by their lives as to be infinitely suggestible. Thus a dead pope lying on a catafalque in white robes looks “at peace, at rest, and ****ing fanciable.”

The joke, of course, is that no one could imagine the Pope as a sexual object, whether alive or dead. The same might be thought to be true of classical musicians. While Shakira shakes her “fanciable” ass on every video, classical musicians are supposed to be much stuffier.

However, during the research for my new historical thriller MOZART’S LAST ARIA I discovered that the sexiest performers today are not the booty-shaking R’n’B divas, nor the pouting rockers (none of them has ever been able to compete with Joan Jett.) They’re the opera singers and clarinetists and pianists.

Followers of my blog The Man of Twists and Turns will have seen a couple of videos featuring the music from MOZART’S LAST ARIA performed by current musicians. I cite them here to prove my point. Check out Diana Damrau and tell me that when you hear this beautiful blonde Bavarian singing Mozart (as she does on her homepage), you don’t feel a stirring in areas you might have thought were as dormant as a dead Pope. She’s also evidence that the days of the fat lady singing are over. Opera divas are quite gorgeous these days.

Or there’s the Israeli clarinetist Sharon Kam who appears in a video on my blog playing another of the pieces from my novel. A prominent performer around Europe, she’s much more expressive on stage in her body movements than most soloists. I will stop here before I get into further Cook-and-Moore territory with comments about the shape of the clarinet and where the soloist places it… (And after all Spike Milligan’s orchestral penis substitute was a different woodwind which he dubbed “Pink Oboe.”)

This is all more than idle comment on a few good-looking women, of course. There’s an important artistic point to be made. And now that I’ve given you links to what Pete and Dud would’ve called “the crumpet,” I shall make that artistic point.

Read the rest of this post on my blog The Man of Twists and Turns.

Write a review of one of my books on amazon.com or amazon.co.uk and get a chance to win a free copy of my novel Mozart's Last Aria.

Just write your review, send me the link to the review at mattreesbooks@gmail.com, and you'll be entered in a drawing for a free, signed copy of the book. I'll be doing the drawing on Dec. 5, the 221st anniversary of Mozart's death -- which is of course the starting point for the mystery in Mozart's Last Aria.

The lovely PBS show 'Dinner and a Book' featured my first novel THE COLLABORATOR OF BETHLEHEM a couple of years ago. Now the delightful crew at "Michiana's" public television channel discuss my novel MOZART'S LAST ARIA while cooking Wolfgang Mozart's favorite dish. Prepare to be utterly charmed!

Watch Mozart's Last Aria on PBS. See more from Dinner & A Book.