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Mozart's Last Aria (Omar Yussef Mysteries Book 5) Kindle Edition

by Matt Rees (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
3.9 3.9 out of 5 stars 224 ratings
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It is 1791 and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is enlightenment Vienna's brightest star. Master of the city's music halls and devoted member of the Austrian Freemason's guild, he stands at the heart of an electric mix of art and music, philosophy and science, politics and intrigue.


Six weeks ago, the great composer told his wife he had been poisoned. Yesterday, he died.


The city is buzzing with rumours of infidelity, bankruptcy and murder. But Wolfgang's sister Nannerl, returned from the provinces to investigate, will not believe base gossip. Who but a madman would poison such a genius?


Yet as she looks closely at what her brother left behind - a handwritten score, a scrap of paper from his journal - Nannerl finds traces of something sinister: the threads of a masonic conspiracy that reach from the gilded ballrooms of Viennese society to the faceless offices of the Prussian secret service.


Only when watching Wolfgang's bewitching opera, The Magic Flute, does Nannerl truly understand her beloved brother once again. For, encoded in his final arias, is a subtly crafted blueprint for a radical new tomorrow. Mozart hoped to change his future. Instead he sealed his fate.

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  1. Print length
    322 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Corvus
  4. Publication date
    1 May 2011
  5. File size
    2.0 MB
  6. Page Flip
    Enabled
  7. Word Wise
    Enabled
  8. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
  9. See all details
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Product description

Review

The power and politics of the day are at work and Mozart fans and code crackers will enjoy the clever musical riddle. A very readable historical mystery ― The Times

Well researched, very clever... This is an even better mystery novel than the author's prize-winning series about the Palestinian detective Omar Yussef - and that's saying a lot. ― Literary Review

Cleverly weaves music, crime, and conspiracy into a sumptuous historical whodunit, set against the decadent backdrop of 18th-century Vienna ― Marie Claire

From the Back Cover

The news arrives in a letter to his sister, Nannerl, in December 1791. But the message carries more than word of Nannerl's brother's demise. Two months earlier, Mozart confided to his wife that his life was rapidly drawing to a close . . . and that he knew he had been poisoned.

In Vienna to pay her final respects, Nannerl soon finds herself ensnared in a web of suspicion and intrigue--as the actions of jealous lovers, sinister creditors, rival composers, and Mozart's Masonic brothers suggest that dark secrets hastened the genius to his grave. As Nannerl digs deeper into the mystery surrounding her brother's passing, Mozart's black fate threatens to overtake her as well.

Transporting readers to the salons and concert halls of eighteenth-century Austria, Mozart's Last Aria is a magnificent historical mystery that pulls back the curtain on a world of soaring music, burning passion, and powerful secrets.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B004V9ODJK
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Corvus; Main edition (1 May 2011)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 2.0 MB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 322 pages
  • Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ 0062015869
  • Customer reviews:
    3.9 3.9 out of 5 stars 224 ratings

About the author

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Matt Rees

Matt Rees

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My novels have grown out of my career as a Middle East correspondent, which took me into culture very different from my own, and my love of history, which takes me into times very different from now. But those places and times aren't so completely different. I love to examine the emotions that connect you and me to people who live in distant places or distant times.

My books have been dramatized for BBC Radio and published in 25 languages. Along the way I picked up some major awards (a Crime Writers Association Dagger in the UK) and some nice compliments: major authors have compared my writing with the work of Graham Greene, John Le Carre, Georges Simenon and Henning Mankell.

Read more about my books at mattrees.net.

Customer reviews

3.9 out of 5 stars
224 global ratings

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Customers say

Customers find the book's references to Mozart's music and discussions of 18th-century music performance throughout the book descriptive. They describe it as a satisfying, clever read from a skilled writer. Readers appreciate the author's research and personal interest in the plot, which is described as an exciting, multi-layered mystery.

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Music referencesReadabilityPlot
4 customers mention ‘Music references’4 positive0 negative

Customers appreciate the book's references to Mozart's music and discussions of 18th-century music performance. They find the descriptions of daily life in Vienna at the time engaging. Readers describe the author as a skilled mystery writer with a good storyline.

"...can feel the cold, the fog, the fear and, also, the presence of Mozart throughout the book and how he affected everyone he came into contact with..." Read more

"...What is very satisfying about this novel is the referencing of Mozart's music throughout and the author provides a very useful list of pieces..." Read more

"...of a great deal of detail about Mozart's music, discussions of 18th Century music performance and descriptions of daily life in Vienna of the time...." Read more

"...The author's writing style is very good and descriptive with lots of reference to classical music which I found interesting but the cycle of events..." Read more

4 customers mention ‘Readability’4 positive0 negative

Customers find the book easy to read and enjoyable. They appreciate the author's skill and research, mentioning that the book is clever and exciting.

"...Excellent novel - I have enjoyed Matt Rees books for a long time and I look forward to seeing the new directions this talented author will go in..." Read more

"...Overall a very satisfying read and I look forward to reading it again and listening to some of the pieces listed in context." Read more

"...about the book's characters, on the whole, this is a pretty good read from a skilled writer." Read more

"...The book has not been hastily thrown together. The author read and researched extensively; in an afterword he carefully explains where fiction..." Read more

3 customers mention ‘Plot’3 positive0 negative

Customers find the plot engaging and well-researched. They describe the book as an exciting, new novel with a multi-layered mystery surrounding the composer's sister.

"...but Matt Rees takes this for the starting point of his excellent, and exciting, new novel...." Read more

"Matt Rees is fine mystery writer and you expect a good storyline with his novels. "Mozart's Last Aria" certainly delivers on that expectation...." Read more

"...He concocts a multi-layered mystery which envisages the composer's sister, Nannerl, arriving in Vienna bent upon discovering the truth from those..." Read more

Top reviews from United Kingdom

  • S Riaz
    5.0 out of 5 stars Mozart's Last Aria
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 18 May 2011
    Verified Purchase
    It is a fact that Mozart believed himself to have been poisoned. Whether he was poisoned or not, is not known, but Matt Rees takes this for the starting point of his excellent, and exciting, new novel. Already a successful author, with his popular Omar Yussef series, the first of which is The Bethlehem Murders: A Novel (Omar Yussef Mystery Series), this book takes him in a change of direction. Not contemporary, but historical crime, and with the added difficulty of bringing to life real characters. He pulls it off with perfection.

    It is 1791 and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is living in Vienna, estranged from his sister Nannerl. Once a successful child prodigy, Nannerl has seen her life and success shrink with her fathers death and marriage to a man who needed someone to oversee his troublesome children. When she receives a letter from Mozart's wife, Constanze, to say he is dead and that he told her, "I'm sure I've been poisoned", her former life comes crashing back to her. When Constanze further suggests that rumours abound a jealous husband killed him, she decides to go to Vienna and find out for herself. Her husband expresses amazement, "surely he was dead to you already?", but although her father caused trouble between them with his will and she felt jealous of his escape and success, her love for him has never died.

    Arriving in Vienna, Nannerl finds Mozart's former friends and colleagues suspicious, nervous and unwilling to speak to her about what happened. Yet, Nannerl is obviously not the completely downtroddon provincial she feels she has become. She is a woman who played in palaces and for royalty, and she is at home with that kind of life and not over awed. Did Mozart's links to the Masons threaten anyone? For the Emperor of Austria's sister, Marie Antoinette, is held under arrest and revolution is sweeping France. Europe is nervous of conspiracy and Nannerl finds conspiracy rife in Vienna.

    Matt Rees brings both Austria and the people concerned back to life wonderfully in this novel. You can feel the cold, the fog, the fear and, also, the presence of Mozart throughout the book and how he affected everyone he came into contact with through his music. Nannerl is a great heroine, and you will her to make her peace with the brother she lost contact with. Excellent novel - I have enjoyed Matt Rees books for a long time and I look forward to seeing the new directions this talented author will go in the future. Highly recommended.
    26 people found this helpful
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  • Moonlit
    4.0 out of 5 stars Mozart's Last Aria
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 13 July 2011
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    It is well documented that Mozart believed himself to have been poisoned and this is not the first fictional attempt to solve this mystery. The stage play and subsequent film, Amadeus, provides a convincing account of how Mozart's contemporary Salieri poisoned him, brought to this by terrible jealousy of Mozart's genius. How does this compare then? In fact, it compares quite well. It takes a completely different approach, looking to Mozart's masonic connections as an alternative explanation and refreshingly bringing to life, Mozart's older sister, Nannerl, who was also a talented musician. Nannerl, who by the time of her brother's death, is living a provincial life with her husband, his unruly children and her own two surviving children, journeys to Vienna to be with her sister in law and to investigate the claims of murder made by Constanze. She soon finds herself in the thrust of masonic conspiracies, not knowing who to trust but determined to solve this mystery.

    What is very satisfying about this novel is the referencing of Mozart's music throughout and the author provides a very useful list of pieces referred to at the end of the novel. He also gives an account of exactly what is known about Mozart's death so that we can clearly separate fact from fiction. Overall a very satisfying read and I look forward to reading it again and listening to some of the pieces listed in context.
    6 people found this helpful
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  • Blue in Washington (Barry Ballow)
    3.0 out of 5 stars Mozart, masons and murder
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 17 September 2011
    Verified Purchase
    Matt Rees is fine mystery writer and you expect a good storyline with his novels. "Mozart's Last Aria" certainly delivers on that expectation. Rees builds this historic novel on the long held theory that Wolfgang Mozart, who died in 1791 at age 36, was actually murdered. Here the death is tied to Mozart's involvement with a politically controversial masonic lodge that had connections with the Kingdom of Prussia. The "police procedural" in "Mozart's Last..." is pursued by the composer's estranged sister, Maria Anna aka Nannerl, who is driven by both love of her brother and great sibling guilt for not having been there for him in his time of financial stress and illness. The investigation and its discoveries are clever and convincing. The author has clearly put a lot of research and personal interest into the plot.

    A second strong point for this novel is the inclusion of a great deal of detail about Mozart's music, discussions of 18th Century music performance and descriptions of daily life in Vienna of the time. All of this puts good flesh on the bones of Rees' storyline.

    Where I had some problems with "Mozart's Last Aria" was with the characters. The portrayal of the central player Nannerel as a kind of avenging angel, whirling around (the action takes place in a matter of several days) Vienna interrogating some of the movers and shakers of the period somehow just didn't seem credible. Ultimately, Nannerl does not emerge from the story as very likable or even admirable. Maybe that wasn't the point, but as protagonist, she could have been given a few more positive qualities and heft (in my opinion). Likewise, some of the novel's other characters are not fully fleshed out and, for me, lacked real credibility in their roles as well.

    Even with the reservations about the book's characters, on the whole, this is a pretty good read from a skilled writer.
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  • Pam
    5.0 out of 5 stars Historical Fiction, Mystery, Intrigue, Romance
    Reviewed in the United States on 8 February 2021
    Verified Purchase
    This is an accounting of intrigue, history, fiction, and a brilliant composer. Mozart was an intellectual but naïve. He took a childlike delight in his music. He loved his sister, wife and family. In this book, the author, Matt Rees, will show us what may or could have been. This is a time in history when intrigue is met with swift punishment. At this time, the rest of the world is watching France and the revolution is under way. Even in Vienna, Mozart’s home, where he feels a freedom to express with his music that equality should be for all, danger befalls him and his brotherhood. Who may have felt him to be a threat? Royals, the brotherhood, a jealous man? When his sister comes to find the truth, all of the pain of the past years without her brother comes crashing around her. A young man’s life was cut short, natural causes or murder? How does she find out without bringing the same upon herself?
    I enjoyed the history and mystery and even the romance. Rees hints at the inner workings of a secret society that I didn’t realize existed at that time but is strong now. There has always been someone like Mozart cut down in his prime because he dared to think and to be ahead of his time. Brilliant minds and sometimes, those who simply cared enough and tried to make a difference. If only to read and enjoy, let that be enough then.
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  • Red Max
    3.0 out of 5 stars Interessante
    Reviewed in Italy on 26 September 2012
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    Da grande appassionato di Mozart, non ho potuto fare a meno di leggere questo romanzo.
    Com'è noto, Mozart morì in circostanze non del tutto chiare all'eta di soli 35 anni; Rees prova a dare una possibile spiegazione dell'accaduto.
    La sua ipotesi è ben congegnata e sicuramente calata nel contesto storico e politico dell'epoca; la ricostruzione è accurata, così come l'analisi delle opere del grande Maestro.
    Tuttavia la trama si sviluppa in modo piuttosto lento, e non vi sono colpi di scena degni di nota.
    In definitiva, si tratta di un romanzo ben scritto e molto gradevole, soprattutto se siete amanti delle opere di W.A. Lasciate perdere se invece cercate atmosfere thriller (alla Dan Brown o Glenn Cooper per intenderci).
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  • S. McGee
    4.0 out of 5 stars Enticing mystery for history buffs and music lovers
    Reviewed in the United States on 15 April 2012
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    I'm a big fan of the author's mystery series set in contemporary Palestine and featuring an aging schoolmaster trying to be a voice of sanity in an insane world. Matt Rees couldn't have ventured farther afield from his traditional stomping grounds for this new work, and yet it worked well enough that I'm interested to see what he tackles next.

    Leaving aside the somewhat clunky framing device, the novel starts on a wintry day in a small village outside Salzburg, where Mozart's elder sister has married and settled down to raise five stepchildren and two of her own. But it's 1791, a letter arrives to bring her news of her brother's demise -- and informs here he had insisted he had been poisoned. Nannerl (Anna Maria) immediately sets off to investigate, and is caught up in a whirlwind of plots and counterplots, spies and policemen, Masons and musicians. Was it jealousy, politics or Masonic conspiracy that brought the genius's life to a premature close?

    Rees is less skilled at bringing to life the personality of either Nannerl or her sister in law, Constanze, Mozart's widow, than he is in making "real" his Bethlehem-based schoolteacher. (That's a pity, as he clearly has insight into the world of music that he sees her as having relinquished with reluctance and regret.) But he crafts an intriguing, if sometimes over the top, tale that is at least somewhat plausible and certainly a lot of fun to read. And the Viennese settings are fabulous -- from the snowy streets to the Baroque palaces and the classic coffeeshops, Rees has the knack for capturing a sense of place.

    This will appeal to fans of historical mysteries, and perhaps to music buffs as well. Don't expect anything genre-defying or ultra-literary; there are plenty of conventional twists and turns in response to which I occasionally found myself rolling my eyes and groaning. But it's an intriguing historical "what if" that is a great way to spend a few hours. Recommended.
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  • Erin S.
    3.0 out of 5 stars A well written novel exploring the mysterious circumstances of Mozart's ...
    Reviewed in the United States on 15 October 2014
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    A well written novel exploring the mysterious circumstances of Mozart's actual death in Vienna. Wolfgang's sister, Nannerl, travels to Vienna following a letter from her sister-in-law telling her Wolfgang predicted his own death. Nannerl then digs get way through her brother's life in Vienna--his friends, patrons, and Masonic brothers--to find the truth behind hey brother's death. Was it murder, or an unfortunate case of sickness.

    The story is filled with so much music, I wish the book was able to play the music as the characters performed. I appreciated that Rees included a reference of all the music performed in the novel for readers to explore Mozart's genius further.
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  • Catherine A. Laury
    5.0 out of 5 stars Intriguing
    Reviewed in the United States on 8 January 2020
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    This book was very well written. I found it to be intelligently written & suspenseful. As a fan of Mozart, I enjoyed being transported to the streets of Vienna and Salzburg.
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