Allegro

This thrilling historical mystery starring Mozart tells of friendship and betrayal, and how music allows us to defy death-from the acclaimed author of Death and the Maiden and The Suicide Museum.This thrilling historical mystery starring Mozart tells of friendship and betrayal, and how music allows us to defy death-from the acclaimed author of Death and the Maiden and The Suicide Museum.In 1789 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart visits the grave of Johann Sebastian Bach in Leipzig, looking for a sign, a signal, an answer to an enigma that has haunted him since childhood- Was Bach murdered by a famous oculist? And years later, was Handel a victim of the same doctor?Allegro follows his investigation, from the salons of London to the streets of Paris, recreating an enthralling and turbulent time, full of rogues and brilliant composers, charlatans and presumptuous nobles. Running parallel to this search is the rise of Mozart, his knowledge and fame, his trials and losses.

“Atmospheric, highly literary…the mystery plots allow [Dorfman] to ask deeper, more elusive questions about human existence…Watching people of exceptional talent wrestle with the domains in which they are ordinary is both entertaining and instructive…[Mozart] becomes more human.” —The Atlantic

“The mysterious circumstances surrounding Bach’s death hang over this historical novel, which follows a sleuthing young Mozart as he contemplates inspiration and mortality.” —New York Times Book Review

“A study in contrasting elements: beautiful and profane, amusing and infuriating, exhilarating and heartbreaking, it shows us a Mozart we’ve never seen…a brilliantly constructed mystery, a love letter to classical music, and a gripping character study…it’s a story that’s so captivating that we really wish it were true.” —Booklist

“Luminous…The entrancing, sumptuous eighteenth-century European backdrop is contrasted with the undertow of political revolution developing in France and the US…the book’s heady passion for music heightens the plot while enlivening the joys and sorrows of each character. Beyond its compelling intrigue of intertwined creative lives…Allegro is about how Mozart yearned for divine inspiration while confronting his own vulnerable mortality.” —Foreword Reviews

“Dorfman breathes considerable life into these historical figures.” —Publishers Weekly

“A historical mystery…in which Mozart tries to unpack the truth of Bach’s death…delightful.” —Literary Hub, Most Anticipated Books of the Year

“This lovely novel will be particularly meaningful to musicians…reads like an 18th-century picaresque, about tragedies but not itself tragic, charming…For all the poverty, illness, loss, and death surrounding him, this Mozart delights the reader with his effusive appreciation of food, drink, women, and music, music above all…I loved viewing that world through his eyes.” —Historical Novel Society

“[Dorfman] clearly has a reverence for both classical music and its history…[Allegro is] an intricate examination of grief overlaid on a globe-trotting mystery.” —Christian Science Monitor

“Beautifully written, taking the reader inside the royal palaces and music halls in 18th-century Europe. The descriptions of some of Mozart’s compositions are so eloquent that one can almost hear the notes…Allegro is a delightful read. Dorfman brings all the glamour and mystery of the Classical Period alive.” —Woman Around Town

Praise for The Suicide Museum:

“An intricate examination of guilt and grief…evocative of Philip Roth. Its prose is brainy and confident, building momentum through the intensity of its ideas…profoundly moving.” —New York Times Book Review

“Set largely in the nineteen-nineties…[The Suicide Museum is] also a novel that looks toward the future…exhilarating.” —The New Yorker

“A thriller nested inside a literary novel nested inside a memoir…playful and intriguing.” —Los Angeles Review of Books

Ariel Dorfman is a Chilean-American author, born in Argentina, whose award-winning books in many genres have been published in more than fifty languages and his plays performed in more than one hundred countries. Among his works are the plays Death and the Maiden and Purgatorio, the novels The Suicide Museum (Other Press, 2023), Widows, and Konfidenz, and the memoirs Heading South, Looking North and Feeding on Dreams. He writes regularly for the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, New York Review of Books, The Nation, The Guardian, El Pais, and CNN. His stories have appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Harper's, The Threepenny Review, and Index on Censorship, among others. A prominent human rights activist, he worked as press and cultural advisor to Salvador Allende's chief of staff in the final months before the 1973 military coup, and later spent many years in exile. He lives with his wife Angelica in Santiago, Chile, and Durham, North Carolina, where he is the Walter Hines Page Emeritus Professor of Literature at Duke University.

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