Music & Silence (Paperback, Reissue Ed)

Tremain's previous novel, The Way I Found Her, dealt powerfully with the present day. Now, as she did in her marvellous Restoration, she uses her gifts both for recreating the historical past and for summoning up the magic of story-telling to give us this fine book, set in Denmark in 1629-30 around the court of the troubled King Christian IV. Seeking in music an answer to his own problems, the king summons from Ireland to play in the royal orchestra a young lutenist, who becomes both observer and victim of a court filled with domestic intrigue and sexual resentment. Many voices sound here, and over the course of the book many strange tales are told, in a spirit of fairytale innocence appropriate to the era and the Nordic land of Hans Christian Andersen. This is the age of Tycho Brahe, whose prophecies and predictions play a part in the story, and whose changing cosmos lies behind it. The tale is splendidly researched; it is also a classic romance. Yet coming from a mature, serious and distinguished writer at the top of her powers, it is also a subtle meditation: on the struggles of existence; on human dreams, aspirations and intuitions; and on the ways these are so often centred around the notion of and the mysterious and cosmological power of music. Review by MALCOLM BRADBURY Editor's note: Malcolm Bradbury is the author of several novels, including Eating People is Wrong, and was also co-founder of the trailblazing creative writing course at East Anglia. (Kirkus UK)

In the year 1629, a young English lutenist named Peter Claire arrives at the Danish Court to join King Christian IV’s Royal Orchestra. From the moment when he realises that the musicians perform in a freezing cellar underneath the royal apartments, Peter Claire understand that he’s come to a place where the opposing states of light and dark, good and evil, are waging war to the death.

Designated the King’s ‘Angel’ because of his good looks, he finds himself falling in love with the young woman who is the companion of the King’s adulterous and estranged wife, Kirsten. With his loyalties fatally divided between duty and passion, how can Peter Claire find the path that will realise his hopes and save his soul?

General

Imprint:	Vintage
Country of origin:	United Kingdom
Release date:	July 2000
Authors:	Rose Tremain
Dimensions:	196 x 129 x 31mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Paperback - B-format
Pages:	453
Edition:	Reissue Ed
ISBN-13:	978-0-09-926855-0
Categories:	Books > Fiction > Genre fiction > Historical fiction
LSN:	0-09-926855-8
Barcode:	9780099268550

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