Mozart's Last Aria by Matt Rees

the concert hall?” Lichnowsky bowed and took my hand. He moved as though his limbs were hinged like the puppets in the emperor’s marionette theater at Schönbrunn.
    He led me through white double doors into a lavish hall. Pink and gray marble rose in a stucco relief up the walls, to give the effect of classical columns. The Grecian figures of the ceiling fresco represented the academic disciplines studied at the university.
    The hall filled with the conversation of perhaps four hundred people. Many were of the highest society, holding themselves on their upright chairs with a listless rigidity that reminded me of the kings and queens for whom I had played as a girl. I noted much greater animation among those who wore plainer attire. These were probably wealthy merchants. Wolfgang had often said that aristocrats no longer had sufficient funds for household orchestras and so he had gathered groups of businessmen to support his concerts. These had come tonight to show that the pleasure of his music hadn’t died with him.
    Lichnowsky guided me to the front row. He bowed from the waist to some of those seated around us.
    Everyone on the front row shifted to see who had arrived. Except one man. The Baron van Swieten stared ahead, silent and still. Looking sideways toward his seat at the center of the first row, I scrutinized him, unseen.
    He was a broad man. His frock coat was embroidered with silver on a frosty gray fabric. His hands rested on a silver-topped stick that he held upright, its tip on the marble floor. Perhaps a decade older than me, he had very black hair. The shadow of his beard was thick on his cheeks and chin.
    Swieten ignored the chatter around him, gazing at the piano with a look of puzzlement and pain. I had the impression he was trying to will Wolfgang back into existence so that he might hear him play once more. He bore himself with the air of one so powerful that he was used to having his wishes granted. His stare intensified, vexed to find this single, profound desire beyond his command.
    Lichnowsky touched my elbow and gestured to my seat.
    When we settled, the prince spoke so softly in the direction of the elaborate crystal lantern beside the stage that at first I failed to understand he was addressing me. “I consider myself to have been a close friend of your brother, madame,” he said. “As close as is possible between two men of such different station, you understand.”
    “No doubt my brother was mindful of the honor you did him, my prince.”
    “I might even say I was his companion. We traveled together.”
    Wolfgang took to the road only when he was assured of paid recitals at the end of his journey, so I admit that I forgot to whom I was speaking. “You performed with him?”
    Lichnowsky’s eyebrow quivered in annoyance. Like all aristocrats, he thought of the public performance of music as a task fit only for servants. “We made a trip to Berlin together,” he said.
    “Rather a long journey.”
    “Which brought us into close companionship.”
    I recalled that Magdalena’s husband had lent my brother money for that trip. I wondered why he had needed extra funds, if he had traveled with a prince.
    “My brother went to Berlin in search of a position at the court of the Prussian king. May I ask why you went?”
    “My family has estates in the Prussian province of Silesia. There were some rental issues to resolve.”
    “Do your estates take you to Berlin often?”
    “Not at all.” Lichnowsky spoke so sharply that, in the orchestra, a double bass player and two cellists looked up from their tuning in surprise.
    The prince waited, to be sure that the musicians had returned their attention to their instruments. “I suppose I could’ve avoided the trip had it been solely to manage my estates. I chose to accompany Wolfgang for other reasons.”
    “As a brother Mason?”
    He faked a cough, to disguise my words.
    I would’ve questioned him more, but Maestro Salieri, the court