This novel is based on events in the life of the young Mozart.

He was closely involved with the four Weber sisters, among them Aloysia, who broke his heart, and Constanze, whom he married. We know that he and his wife were close to Sophie (he always sent kisses in his letters to her) and that he wrote some of his greatest music for Josefa.

Mozart had a hard time making a living in Vienna; acclaim for his opera The Abduction from the Seraglio began the short period during which he saw some prosperity. He indeed hid Constanze at the Baroness’s house to protect her from her unstable mother and was horrified that she allowed a young man to measure her leg. Though some of the dates of personal and musical events have been slightly rearranged for the novel, he really was physically kicked from the palace of his Archbishop. His close friend, the horn player Leutgeb, for whom Mozart wrote much of his horn music, also had a Viennese cheese shop. After his marriage, Mozart was quite kind and generous to his difficult mother-in-law

The Englishman Vincent Novello came to Constanze (who by then had lost her second husband) in her old age in Salzburg to gather what he could from her of Mozart’s life. Sophie, also a resident of Salzburg, lived until eighty-three and was the last surviving sister.

Stephanie Cowell