5 novels that return to the past to reimagine it

Just after God, there is dad by Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt

Ed. Albin Michel, 208 p., €19.90.

Twenty years later My life with Mozart, An epistolary story in which he confided how the composer’s music had, in his youth, given him back the taste for life, Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt looks at the relationship between Leopold Mozart and his prodigy son, who adored him for a long time – as evidenced by his numerous letters – before moving away from him.

Violinist, vice-chapel master at the Court of the Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg, Leopold did everything to convince Wolfgang the Wisp to comply with the customs of the Court, at a time when musicians were paid by a protector.

If, as a child, the young Mozart agreed to tour the capitals of Europe, powdered and in a suit, the role of servant, accepted at the request of his father, hardly enchanted him… But how could he live without a master? From the Court of Salzburg to those of Vienna and Paris, this journey into the intimacy of a family – with mother Anna Maria, and sister Nannerl – instructs as much as it seduces.

Our opinion: PPP

Muriel Fauriat