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READ: NEW ONLINE Article
"For the love of Mozart"
Read a transcript of this article here
August 2025
Published on 28 Jan 2025 in the UK, and now available in SA...
Publisher:
The BookGuild Publishing
United Kingdom
bookguild.co.uk
Publication Date:
28 Jan 2025
£7.99
ISBN: 9781835741221
By William Charlton-Perkins
Meetings with Mozart
“Absolutely riveting!” - PL
Mozart’s genius, fiery energy, wonderful sense of fun and extraordinary musical output make for a fascinating life story. Meetings with Mozart taps into that with a parallel modern story focusing on Mozart’s own credo: ‘Neither a lofty degree of intelligence, nor imagination, nor both together, go to the making of genius. Love, Love, Love. That is the soul of genius.’
Horace, a retired opera director, engages with a group of Mozart enthusiasts to help them discover his idol’s profound contribution to humanity – love.
Set in eastern South Africa, with its lush midlands, soaring mountains and arid bushveld, Meetings with Mozart vividly evokes the sense of time and place of its milieu: the fragrance of its flora, the music of its birdcalls, the torrential storms of its summers. The narrative interweaves the high – and the low – points of Mozart’s life and his music genius, with the lives of present-day characters.
__________________________
Author
William Charlton-Perkins, a journalist and columnist, is one of South Africa’s eminent opera connoisseurs. He grew up with his three siblings in the Natal Midlands, in a home that brimmed with their parents’ passion for the arts—a passion he inherited. A lapsed amateur pianist who has regarded Mozart as his musical deity since childhood, it is perhaps inevitable that Meetings with Mozart is his debut novel.
OTHER LOCATIONS TO PURCHASE THE BOOK IN THE UK/USA
Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk | Blackwells | WHSmith | Waterstones
KINDLE/eBook version also released on 28 Jan 2025
Now available in South Africa!
Note: For Book Sellers in SA, regarding Print-on-Demand via Ingram Spark [click]
Ingram Spark do not have a customer-facing website. Instead, they have integrated their systems with wholesalers and retailers, which means bookshops can order POD books through their preferred wholesaler.
DOWNLOAD THE ABOVE as PDF
WITH CLICKABLE LINKS
Current Media & Reader reviews for “Meetings with Mozart”
Media
19 Nov 2025 | Review by Barbara Townsend | Meetings with Mozart
This debut novel by William Charlton-Perkins intrigued and delighted me….The author’s lifelong love of Mozart’s music is at the heart of this story….Apart from learning a great deal more about Mozart’s life and work in the oblique way I prefer, my life is infinitely enriched by listening with a new sense of wonder and delight to his sublime music. We are all invited to this feast.
Reader
“Reading this novel along with listening to the works under discussion has the character of an idyll. I heartily recommend it to music students, both at school and university. Listening to the music discussed while reading the book is a wonderful refresher on Mozart’s most beloved works and a gratifying introduction to his less familiar ones.”
Betsie Smith, Gauteng | Music Reviewer for multiple SA-newspapers [read credits in link below...]
Overheard Soundbites
Vivienne Filiatreault
Position
"...I often fear that truly great writing is a dying art form. Now I know that it is alive and well within YOU. Thank you!"
Ludwig von Beethoven
Position
"...It's not loud enough!"
Andrew Botha
Position
"...Impeccably researched, with glorious imagery, you will want to listen to Mozart all over again."
Garth Annetts
Position
"...Not just a study of Mozart—it is a love letter to music, community, and place"
Juan Burgers
Position
"I revel in your descriptive talent; one feels the need to listen to these pieces, which is what most reviewers fail to communicate..."
Robin Gordon-Powell
Position
"Bravo! You hit the spot every time!"
Debbie Lütge
Position
"You have turned your love of Opera into a golden opportunity to share this adoration with your public in a unique and creatively dynamic way. This is an extraordinary achievement..."
Opera Rara
Position
"Thank you for this wonderful review of Il Proscritto, William."
Wendy Nell
Position
"...Inspiring, witty writing."
About William – Author
[1st published on the bookguild.co.uk website Author Page]
South African–born William Charlton-Perkins has worked variously as a journalist, columnist, copywriter and publicist over the past four decades. While his focus and forté have always been in the performing arts, he has also worked at the Natal Parks Board, producing feature articles for Getaway and various other magazines, writing a centennial book for Struik Publishers on the Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park, and contributing eight pieces to Off the Beaten Track – Day Drives in Southern Africa, published by Readers Digest. He has produced a number of plays under the banner of his company, Copy Dog Productions; The Mercury Newspaper in Durban carried his bi-monthly Classical Notes column for more than three decades.
William is widely recognised as one of South Africa’s eminent opera connoisseurs, having played a major role in setting the standard for the publicity and review of opera over the decades. His experience has been recognised internationally, amongst others by the London-based company, Opera Rara.
He grew up with his three siblings in the Natal Midlands, in a home that brimmed with their parents’ passion for gardening and the arts – passions he inherited. An ex-marathon runner, with 10 ultra marathons to his credit, William is an English Literature Honours graduate (University of Natal) and a lapsed amateur pianist who has regarded Mozart as his musical deity since childhood. So, it is perhaps inevitable that Meetings with Mozart should be his debut novel.
William lives within a magical garden in the coastal town of Knysna with four dogs, where he approaches his ‘senior’ years with as little reverence as possible.
[Published also on BookGuild website]
William Charlton-Perkins
Author
Collaborations include...
Recent Articles & Blog
The selection of pieces curated here is a fraction of the material I have produced over the years.
Highlights will continue to appear on this page during the coming months…
10 Sep 2026 | Classical Notes | Tribute to Juan Burgers
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‘Handel is the greatest composer who has ever lived….Go to him to learn how to achieve great effects, by such simple means. To him, I bow the knee.’ – Ludwig van Beethoven ‘When he chooses, he strikes like a thunderbolt’ – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Over the past 75...
Classical Notes CD Review | L’esule di Roma, another Donizetti triumph
Friday 1 March 2024 saw the release of Opera Rara’s 27th complete Donizetti revival, L’esule di Roma (‘The Exile of Rome’). Carlo Rizzi, the label’s artistic director, is at the helm of the Britten Sinfonia in this beautifully paced recording First performed in 1828...
William Charlton-Perkins
