Classical Vienna

Vienna in the second half of the 18th century was the music capital of the world, and it knew it. Mozart arrived as a child prodigy and died at 35, penniless, having written more perfect music than anyone since. Beethoven arrived from Bonn, half-deaf and furious, and rewrote what music was capable of expressing — pushing it into territory that wouldn't be fully understood for another century.

Around them: Constanze, who kept Mozart's music from being forgotten after his death; Nannerl, his older sister and equal prodigy, who was forbidden from touring once she came of age; Archduke Rudolph, Beethoven's most loyal patron, to whom three of his greatest works are dedicated; and Josephine Brunsvik, the countess many historians believe was Beethoven's "Immortal Beloved." A city of concert halls and salons, holding genius it didn't entirely know what to do with.