When a 70th birthday looms on the horizon, it can give rise to various considerations for the main character. Perhaps the idea of a Autobiography, or even better, a Facitlist, which can be used to silence rumour mongers and nip other salacious incivility in the bud. Then you can read how I Really is - which inevitably becomes who I was.
My offer: Have you heard that wrong - a look back is just that, a look over my shoulder, where I have selected episodes and contexts from life seen backwards with tweezers. Traditionally, I start with childhood and schooling (after all, it's during these years that your personality is formed), and end - a modest 106 pages later - with a review of my latest opera The Thirteenth Child, which will premiere at the Santa Fe Opera in the US state of New Mexico this summer, on 27 July 2019.
Opera, symphony, solo concert, chamber music, all things you associate with someone like me, but what and how are they put together? And where does it all come from...
I lighten the lid a little in my book, all spiced up with anecdotes and funny episodes from my many travels as a composer - and private person. Actually - if I do say so myself - it's quite a good-natured little book; I don't hang anyone out to dry, except for a particularly hard-hitting class teacher from my time in primary school, where - out of consideration for innocent descendants - I have blurred the name, which is not common.
Have you heard that wrong - a look back is rounded off with a completely updated discography
