Book + CD of accompanying music

Sample translation available

On the occasion of the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s birth in January 2006

In a moving homage to one of the world’s greatest composers, the internationally renowned author and playwright Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt combines reading with listening in the form of a fictional correspondence with Mozart.

In a newly revitalized tradition that recalls Mitch Alborn and Alain de Botton, Schmitt offers here a touching and universal story that pays tribute to the power of great art to console and, more importantly, help us live. In pitch-perfect, candid prose, the author takes the reader into his confidence as he relates the story of how Mozart changed his life. How music saved him, during a difficult period in his teens, from committing suicide. How it taught him, though the pomp and arrogance of his youth to the passing on of terminally ill friends in later years -- through these and other artistic and emotional trials -- to be happy. In these pages, Schmitt’s intimate experience of music becomes our own through the sheer force of his writing.

All the pieces and interpretations, selected by the author, are presented by a host of renowned musicians, from conductors Sir Georg Solti and Karl Böhm to pianist Murray Perahia and the legendary soprano Gundula Janowitz. A unique way to travel through Mozart’s musical universe, in a voyage of discovery or rediscovery…