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Rudolf Herfurtner tells the history of music in stories. Some of them are funny, some strange, others are scary or sad. But they have one thing in common: they make you want to hear music.
This book is a voyage in time, a journey through the history of a great passion. And how impassioned they were, the masters of sound we meet here, from the Greek god Hermes to Johann Sebastian Bach, from the troubadours to Elvis Presley, in first-hand accounts of minor and major musical adventures. There's the famous contest of the minnesingers with the magician Klingsor and his fiery lute. In the Handel museum we meet the evil opera witch Alcina, who lives behind the fireplace. And of course we are introduced to the two Mozart children, Nannerl and Wolfgang. Nannerl was a talented pianist, too, and would have loved to compose music like her little brother. Perhaps a guardian spirit would have helped her to a career as stellar as that of Elvis, whose birth is said to have been attended by two angels.
These stories are as colourful as the opera, as touching as a good song. And, to make us understand how music continues to change and evolve, they are connected by short interludes, musical introductions to the respective epochs.

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