A WHIMSICAL NOVEL

Edmund Bealby-Wright's
'This Farewell Symphony',
read by KAREN HAID

Inventive, quirky, witty -- just a few characteristics shared by Franz Joseph Haydn, composer who needs no introduction, and Edmund Bealby-Wright, burgeoning writer whose debut novel is structured around the venerable, eighteenth-century composer's eccentric 45th Symphony, the Farewell. This comic tale follows a group of tourists on an excursion from Vienna to the Esterhazy Palace in Fertod, Hungary, 'one of the less popular day trips' compared with those of Mozart or Johann Strauss, although not 'at the bottom of the league' as they 'didn't even need to hire a coach for the Alban Berg tour'.

A book for music-lovers, anyone who has ever been on an organized tour or who simply enjoys finely tuned, observational humor, This Farewell Symphony is an enjoyable read. While under the guise of a fanciful romp, the author's comic commentary paints an accurate description of a multinational assemblage of day-trippers, group organizers and participants involved with presentations such as the costumed performance of the Haydn symphony in question. Musical references are both precise and informative, as with the mystery of the maestro's missing head...

FRANZ JOSEPH HAYDN

HUNGARY

VIENNA

AUSTRIA