Allegro

The historical record is quite clear: in 1750, several months after undergoing eye surgery, Johann Sebastian Bach died. There is persuasive evidence that the same surgeon operated on Georg Frideric Handel, who died months (or, depending on which sources you accept, years) later. What if, in the late eighteenth century, a determined--you might even say obsessed--amateur sleuth put his entire future on the line to find out, once and for all, whether these two great composers were murdered? And what if that amateur sleuth was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart? The new novel by the author of Death and the Maiden (1996) and The Suicide Museum (2023), is a study in contrasting elements: beautiful and profane, amusing and infuriating, exhilarating and heartbreaking. It shows us a Mozart we've never seen (or, likely, imagined), moving about in a world that feels unlike any late-1700s environment we've previously encountered. It's a brilliantly constructed mystery, a love letter to classical music, and a gripping character study. Narrated by Mozart himself, it's a story that's so captivating that we really wish it were true.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is conscripted into the intrigue surrounding Johann Sebastian Bach's dying days in the underwhelming latest from Dorfman (after The Suicide Museum). In 1765, when Mozart is nine, he visits London with Johann Christian Bach, son of the famed composer. After giving a performance, he's cornered by John Taylor, a disgraced oculist blamed for the death of the elder Bach in the wake of a surgery to cure the composer's blindness. Taylor pleads with Mozart to arrange a meeting between him and the younger Bach so that Taylor might clear his name, emphasizing that to secure the meeting Mozart need only mention the name of another composer, Handel. Bach refuses, and 13 years later, Mozart is accosted by Taylor's son, Jack, in Paris. Now poor and a compulsive gambler, no longer able to trade on his childhood as a musical prodigy, Mozart is more easily persuaded by Jack, also a doctor, who offers medical attention for Mozart's dying mother in exchange for arranging an audience with Bach. Dorfman breathes considerable life into these historical figures, but the tale itself feels at once inflated and underdeveloped, with minor episodes devoted to Mozart stretched into dozens of pages at the expense of the more intriguing Jack and his quest for vindication. The result is closer to a penny-theater melodrama than a grand symphony. Agent: Jacqueline Ko, Wylie Agency. (Mar.)