From Rees's Q &A with Jeff Glor about his new novel, Mozart's Last Aria:
Jeff Glor: What inspired you to write the book?Learn more about the book and author at Matt Beynon Rees' website and blog.
Matt Rees: I've always loved Mozart, but his music became more important to me when I was working as a foreign correspondent for Time magazine during the Palestinian intifada. The violence I witnessed and experienced disturbed me. I was in some ways traumatized. My reaction to trauma was to lose my temper to a crazy extent. When I listened to Mozart, I felt calmer. So I used to drive around the West Bank and Gaza listening to this beautiful music, not thinking about the killing and the threat that lay around the corner. I took a break from covering the intifada to visit Austria with my wife - we were looking for a place that was the anti-intifada, organized, peaceful and beautiful. We happened to pass through a small mountain village where, I learned, Mozart's sister, Nannerl had spent her married life. I visited her house and saw that she looked exactly like her brother. Naturally that got me thinking about plot opportunities. But I also felt called by her, as I stood at the edge of the lake at the bottom of her garden. Called by a talented woman who had been consigned to this backwater while her brother achieved fame in the Imperial capital. I wrote the book for her.
JG: What surprised you the most during the writing process?
MR: I learned to...[read on]
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--Marshal Zeringue