The Pianist in the Dark
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- $20.99
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- $20.99
Publisher Description
A stirring novel of love and music inspired by the life of pianist Maria-Theresa von Paradis, a blind virtuoso and contemporary of Mozart.
Maria-Theresa von Paradis, the only daughter of the secretary of the empress of Austria, was an exceptionally gifted child. By the age of seventeen, she was a full-fledged virtuoso, playing for the royal family, acclaimed for her beauty and talent . . . and because she was blind. Her father, unable to accept her condition despite her soaring musical gifts, enlists the help of Franz Anton Mesmer, the forerunner of the modern practice of hypnotism, where Maria-Theresa discovers the passions and emotions from which her blindness had previously protected her. In the tradition of Sleeping with Schubert and The Cellist of Sarajevo, the novel is moving portrait of courage, loss, the elation of first love—and the pain of lost innocence.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This spare and elegant depiction of the life of blind Austrian piano prodigy Maria-Theresia Von Paradis friend of Mozart, and brief lover of Mesmer proves a seductive introduction to the work of French novelist Halberstadt. Maria-Theresia is blind by age three and undergoes years of torturous treatments at the hands of doctors intent on curing her, if sadistically so. Playing the piano becomes her sole joy and solace, and at age 17 she beseeches her father to cease the doctors' treatments; however, after meeting Franz-Anton Mesmer, who has developed a form of magnetic healing, she places herself in his care. What develops is an emotive, gently unfolding love story: Maria-Theresia begins to trust Mesmer and regains some of her eyesight, and the two develop an affecting sympathy and deepening sensual love. But all is not well: Maria-Theresia despairs of playing the piano again (her hands distract her), rumors spread, Mesmer is denounced as a charlatan, and the experiment in curing the young pianist could be doomed. Halberstadt distills the story to its very essence, and though the storytelling can sometimes feel too confining, it evokes a life of art, love, and tragedy lived almost entirely in the dark.
