The Mozart Question

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

When cub reporter Lesley is sent to Venice to interview a world-renowned violinist, the journalist is told she can ask Paolo Levi anything about his life and career as a musician, but on no account must she ask him the Mozart question. Paolo has finally realised he must reveal the truth.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Publishers Weekly Review

A distinguished British pair brings on the violins for this sentimental story built atop the Holocaust. A young journalist is to interview world-famous but idiosyncratic violinist Paolo Levi, and all she knows is not to ask "the Mozart question"-but not what, exactly, that question is. When she artlessly mentions this to him, the book turns into a sequence of flashbacks involving a Venice boyhood of stealing outside in the moonlight to hear a street musician, who later secretly teaches Paolo to play the violin. Eventually the musician meets Paolo's parents, only to discover that the three already know one another from their incarceration in a WWII camp, where all three were made to play in a camp orchestra and where Paolo's parents were known as "the lovebirds." Scarred, Paolo's father has since forsworn music and asks Paolo never to perform the Germans' favorite composer, Mozart, in public. Foreman obliges this text with nostalgic scenes of canals, quaintly dressed gondoliers, women and children carrying baguettes; his appropriately subdued watercolors of the death camp depict structures like those at Auschwitz. The story's foundation, unfortunately, is flawed: men and women prisoners did not mix in concentration camps, and orchestras were not exceptions. Why ask readers to honor history (much less a history that undergoes very public challenges) if the author reinvents the record? Ages 8-12. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

School Library Journal Review

Gr 4-6-Set in Venice in the 1960s, this tale intertwines a famous violinist's boyhood reminiscences with the story of his parents' Holocaust experiences. Usually reticent Paolo Levi gives an interview to a young reporter and the story's narrator, answering the long-standing "Mozart question." When he was nine, Paolo badgered his mother into showing him the violin that was hidden away atop a cupboard, and she made him promise not to tell his father. The boy knew that Papa had once been a violinist, though he'd never heard him play. Soon after, Paolo became mesmerized by the music of Benjamin, a street performer. Longing to play himself, he secretly took the violin to Benjamin, who repaired it and gave him lessons. When the youngster finally confessed to his parents, they shared their own secrets: during World War II, the three adults were in the same concentration camp where they were forced to play music-mostly Mozart-for incoming prisoners to divert them from the horror that awaited them. After liberation, Papa vowed to never play again; however, Mama and Benjamin felt that music had saved them. When Paolo's parents heard how talented he was, they forgave his secrecy. The adult Paolo refused to play Mozart until after his father's death. Morpurgo breathes life into this touching tale, which is conveyed with compassion and honesty. Foreman's watercolors enrich the narrative, capturing both Venice's beauty and the camp's misery. This fine selection offers another view of the Holocaust and music's potential to heal.-Renee Steinberg, formerly at Fieldstone Middle School, Montvale, NJ (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Booklist Review

Survivor guilt is a dominant theme of many Holocaust stories: Why should I escape while others die? This spare, liberally illustrated novel is about a young reporter who discovers why a famous violinist, Paolo Levi, never plays Mozart. It's the story of secrets kept from him until, at age nine, he discovers the reason his father, also a brilliant musician, set his instrument aside. Foreman uses shades of blue to mark the story's beautiful Venice backdrop and sepia tones when visualizing Paolo's father's memories of living and nearly dying in a death camp, and how he and Paolo's mother entertained the SS and played to calm prisoners on their way to the ovens. Of course, their music was mainly Mozart. Unlike Anita Lobel's bitter memoir,  No Pretty Pictures (1998), Morpurgo's view  of the survivors is a little too glowing, but for middle-grade readers, this novel will still serve as an honest, unsensational account of the horror.--Rochman, Hazel Copyright 2008 Booklist

Horn Book Review

For young reporter Lesley, reclusive violinist Paolo Levi addresses the question he's long avoided: why he never performs Mozart. Levi delicately but inexorably reveals how he began studying violin, his early life, and most importantly, his parents' experience in a concentration camp. Soft watercolor illustrations suit the book's understated and moving revelations. An author's note explains Morpurgo's inspiration. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.