One man his piano and their miraculous survival. 'Extraordinary' Baroness Julia Neuberger
'Powerful and gruelling ... an almost unimaginable story of horror and survival' Mail on Sunday
'Stunning. A beautiful blend of action poetry thought-provoking comment and music ... just
brilliant' James Ainscough OBE 'A gripping narrative of suffering loss and survival with
music at its heart' Fiona Maddocks All future freedom and success lay ahead of young pianist
Stephen de Bastion in 1930s Hungary. Life whirled headily around cocktails romance applause
and the buzz of Budapest late into the night. Then 1939. Stephen's world disintegrates and
this becomes a story of his brutal descent of his time in labour camps of Mauthausen and
Gunskirchen and the unimaginable horrors he endured during the Holocaust as a man of Jewish
descent. Yet this is also a tale of extraordinary escape ... and the piano waiting for him.
The same piano that Roxanne de Bastion his granddaughter inherits when her father dies. It
has been in the family over one hundred years but it is only when deep in grief she discovers
a cassette recording of Stephen that the astonishing history of the piano the man and her
family begins to unravel. Weaving together his original recordings unpublished memoirs
letters and documents Roxanne sings out her grandfather's story of music and hope lost and
found. Luminous and profoundly moving this book captures the great spirit of one man in the
face of darkness and the hope that echoes down through generations.
