From the physician Antonio Mistretta of the ISS the novel ‘The lost music’ between magical notes and literature

“You can caress a man with just your voice”. This is the key phrase, recalled on the back cover of the novel ‘La musica perduta’ by Antonio Mistretta, doctor at the Higher Institute of Health and university professor, passionate about literature and music and in particular of his illustrious fellow citizen Vincenzo Bellini, the ‘Swan of Catania ‘. And it is between the Etna capital and Paris that the protagonist moves, a pianist from Salento who, during a stop in the Ville Lumiere, comes into possession of a letter that belonged to the widow of Gioachino Rossini and begins the search for a symphony considered lost. It is the ‘lost music’ of the title, which in some way also recalls the ‘search for lost time’ of Proustian memory. “Music, literature and science are the three ingredients of this novel and also of my life”, underlines the author Antonio Mistretta at AdnKronos, after the presentation of the book – published by Giulio Perrone – in Catania in the foyer of the Bellini theater, ” right under his statue “. The idea of ​​the novel has in some way a dream origin … “In fact: we could say that it is the daughter of a dream of a few years ago, as soon as I woke up I wrote the canvas straight away, which I then worked on for years. there is also an in-depth study of the life of Vincenzo Bellini. Then, I kept the realization of this idea in a file, once we would have said in a drawer, before proposing it to the publisher who immediately gave credit and substance to this proposal , which I would define as a musical thriller “. An idea between literature and music that Mogol also liked, who many times ‘celebrated’ the marriage between notes and words, speaking of” surprise for an irony that continually emerges from the pages, like lotus flowers on the water … “. After all, as a letter concludes at the end of the novel, “music, all music, is really capable of making anyone find the way to go, even when they were lost … life, not music!”. (by Enzo Bonaiuto)