For the love of Mozart

A Durban opera columnist’s passion shines in his debut novel Meetings with Mozart about a retired opera director and his love of music.

Mozart's genius, fiery energy, wonderful sense of fun and extraordinary musical output make for a fascinating life story. Meetings with Mozart taps into that with a parallel modern story focusing on Mozart's own credo: ‘Neither a lofty degree of intelligence, nor imagination, nor both together, go to the making of genius. Love, Love, Love. That is the soul of genius.’

In the novel Horace, a retired opera director, engages with a group of Mozart enthusiasts to help them discover his idol’s profound contribution to humanity – love. Set in eastern South Africa, with its lush midlands, soaring mountains and arid bushveld, Meetings with Mozart vividly evokes the sense of time and place of its milieu: the fragrance of its flora, the music of its birdcalls, the torrential storms of its summers. The narrative interweaves the high – and the low – points of Mozart’s life and his music genius, with the lives of present-day characters.

William Charlton-Perkins, a journalist and columnist, is one of South Africa’s eminent opera connoisseurs. He grew up with his three siblings in the Natal Midlands, in a home that brimmed with their parents’ passion for the arts - a passion he inherited. A lapsed amateur pianist who has regarded Mozart as his musical deity since childhood, it is perhaps inevitable that Meetings with Mozart is his debut novel.

Charlton-Perkins explains: ‘I grew up as a shy little boy who listened to classical music at an early age. For four decades, my bi-monthly Classical Notes column in The Mercury was the only one of its kind in South Africa, completely focused on the world suggested by its title. My novella, Meetings with Mozart, began life as a libretto for an opera about Mozart.’

"Before setting out to write it, I updated my Mozart library with new reading matter about the composer, including an updated and invaluable edition of his letters (Mozart was an inveterate correspondent). Then the writing process began. Due to a career change, the composer-friend with whom I’d planned to collaborate never wrote a score. So, having written more than 5000 words, in what felt like an unstoppable flow, I set the manuscript  aside for a while, and then decided to take the plunge and turn it into a self-standing book.

"My decision was sparked when I chanced upon a Facebook post by an expat friend, Joanne Smith, who emigrated to Perth in Australia decades ago. The post indicated that Jo had started a new career as a book editor. This led to an exchange of email and phone details, and within a week, I’d started my novel. Jo turned out to be a Rolls-Royce of an editor, just the ticket to keep me on the straight and narrow, and it seemed as if my manuscript virtually wrote itself. It took about ten months to complete, and the search for a publisher opened a new phase in the experience of becoming a first-time author as a septuagenarian," he said.

Meetings with Mozart was published in the UK at the end of January this year, and became available in South African outlets a few months later. 

Media and readers' reviews speak for themselves. 

"If Mozart ever had a farm in Africa, it would certainly have been in the idyllic Natal Midlands, brought memorably alive in this enchanting debut novel by opera fundi William Charlton-Perkins. . . An easy, delightful read in this hectic, strident world." writes Greg Landman of Magic Grape Tours 

"A warm and informal exploration of Mozart’s life and work, playfully situated in a contemporary setting," says Kate Wakeling in BBC Music Magazine.

"The idea behind the story and its architecture is wonderful. There are volumes written on Mozart, but the approach here is totally original, and it all weaves together beautifully. Bravo!" writes Philip Bovet from Switzerland                                                       

Order the paperback of Meetings with Mozart from Amazon.co.za or download the e-book from Amazon.com