El amor el mar

In the mid-17th century, the kingdom of France is shaken by epidemics, starving protests, renegade fires and revolts against monarchical power, while all of Europe lives devastated by decades of religious wars. and they seem endless.On this Dantesque stage, music appears as a refuge for the sublime. In the center, Johann Jakob Froberger, a German organist, harpsichordist and composer who studied with Frescobaldi in Rome and whom Bach recognized as his teacher. And next to him Monsieur de Sainte-Colombe, who never wanted his music to be published; John Blow, who would be Henry Purcell's teacher; or Princess Sibylle of Wurtemberg, a student of Froberger, whom he invites to spend her last years in retirement in his castle. And other fictional characters, such as the composer and virtuoso of the lute and theorbo Lambert Hatten, and the viola teacher Thullyn, who will live the love story that is the backbone of the novel. With all of them, Pascal Quignard weaves a world that is heading towards its end, that of the Baroque. And he does it with scenes bathed in light from paintings by Georges La Tour or engravings by Jean Baptiste Bonne Croix. The result is a hymn to the inextinguishable beauty of music, the sea and love.