Mozart’s Sister

Name: Mozart’s Sister
Rating: 4.3 (226 reviews)

by Nancy Moser Book 1 in the Women of History series.

First published 2000

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4.2(226)

Maria Anna “Nannerl” Mozart is an exceptional keyboard player who tours Europe with her younger brother Wolfgang under the direction of their father, Leopold. Courts celebrate both children, but as adolescence approaches the family’s ambition increasingly centres on the son whose compositions promise fame and income. Nannerl’s ability is praised while the possibility of an independent career is quietly withdrawn.

The novel imagines the emotional cost of becoming a witness to another person’s genius when her own gifts are constrained by gender, family finances and obedience. Illness, exhausting travel and paternal control complicate the glamour of the prodigy tours. Nannerl’s search for a God-given purpose gives the story a Christian meaning without denying the scale of what she was prevented from pursuing.