In this novel, Peter Härtling, celebrated author of such successful artist novels as Schubert, Hölderlin and Schumanns Schatten, sets out on the trail of the young Mozart*. *
When we meet him for the first time, Mozart is just six years old and already a musician of outstanding talent. Under the supervision of his teacher-father and accompanied by his older sister, a virtuoso on the violin and piano, he travels all over Europe. While his father is eager to find new engagements and take his family to foreign countries, Mozart escapes into his own private world – a world of fantasy and sounds. He meets new people, princes, kings and even the empress, who admire and celebrate him, but none of them can take away his loneliness. Only his sister Nannerl manages to do this – and Quintus, a product of his imagination who accompanies him on the piano and is always game for a practical joke.
Mozart’s world threatens to fall apart when his sister falls seriously ill and Mozart himself is stricken with smallpox.
In poignant language and images and with great sensitivity, Härtling describes what it is like to be different and special and how the young Mozart was driven both by the ambitious plans of his father and his own creative energy. A literary gem which – like the novella Bozena – describes in a wonderful way the emotional world of a lonely person.
