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| Book information |
| Title,
subtitle |
A Certain Music |
| Author |
Celeste Walters |
| Illustrator |
Anne
Spudvilas
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| Number of pages |
122 pp |
| First Published |
2009 North Sydney, NSW by Random House Australia |
| Book Type1 |
Novel
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| Genre |
Historical |
| Reading age |
9 to Adult |
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| Annotation: |
A fictional speculation about the origin of the name of possibly the most famous piece of piano music in the world.
Because she is usually alone, a nine years old girl living in Baden, Austria, is attuned to aspects of the world others might ignore, especially sounds, ‘the water that bubbled from the fountain, in the rustle of needles in the conifer’. Wandering in the woods (the Vienna Woods) she encounters another loner whose head is also full of sounds even though he is almost entirely deaf. The man is a composer and the girl (she is not named) is drawn to his house by the music even though the man is abrupt and seemingly unresponsive to company. A relationship develops and leads to a Cinderella moment in the girl’s and her sick mother’s lives when they attend a glittering concert at the Karntnerthor Theatre in Vienna to hear Beethoven’s version of ‘Ode to Joy’ performed for the first time. Then after several years have passed something special is given to the girl ‘Elise’ we presume, the manuscript of ‘Für Elise’.
Set in the 1820s this tale of two outsiders has a fairytale air. The tone is gentle but the girl’s situation is harsh; her much-loved but sometimes weak-willed father joins the army to provide money for the small family, her mother is dying of tuberculosis; everyone around her has to work hard to survive. Nevertheless kindness comes when needed, from neighbours and workmates. For Beethoven of course there are greater things, but this link with a girl who would otherwise have been forgotten by history is an uplifting tale about the endurance of art.
Would make an excellent read aloud book for primary students, several of the short chapters at a time. |
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| Themes in this book: |
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Austria. Composers. Concerts. Deafness. Exceptional children. Friendship-aged and children. Joy and sorrow. Kindness. Loneliness. Music. Poverty. Singing. Sounds.
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| Recent Edition Information |
Publisher: |
Woolshed Press |
Binding: |
Paper back
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13 Digit ISBN: |
978 1 74166 333 4 |
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