Do musical instruments have souls? Ramon Gener (Barcelona, ??1967) has a ritual every day, when he gets up, first of all he goes to the library and says good morning to his piano, talks to it, and leaves it open until bedtime . One day, when he was already thinking of writing a novel, he says, the piano “asked him to tell his story”. And yes, he has written the novel, aptly titled Història d’un piano, which has won the XLIV Ramon Llull prize, endowed with 60,000 euros, which will be published by Columna (in Spanish, Destino) and will hit bookstores on March 6 , the day after the award ceremony. After several successful television programs and three literary essays around music, it is the first novel of the musician and cultural communicator.
Gener explained that when he bought the piano it was in very bad condition, but it was “the brand I wanted to have, even though I didn’t have the money to restore it”. When he was able to do so, however, he discovered two things: the serial number, which dated the construction of the Grotrian-Steinweg in 1915 in Brunswick (Germany) and “a secret, something else that one does not expect to find even in a piano or nowhere”. Then he embarked on a journey to discover its past, which took him first to the factory, and then to England, Poland and, finally, Barcelona, ??so that he ends up narrating the European history of the 20th century, “a story of redemption through music, because a piano is more than an instrument, it is a time machine and the journey of the piano is the journey we have all taken, a vehicle to understand this journey”.
The author has pointed out that everything that happens and the names that appear in the book are real, but “the research got to a point where I had to fill in the blanks”, a “very beautiful process that took a few years”. He also explained that he is “another character in the book, but it is the biography of an instrument and of all those who have surrounded it”. In the end, he assured, “there is no one who does not like music, which has the power of redemption, it appeals to each of us individually even if it is the same for all, we make it our own and it is part of our individual and collective imagination”. “Music – he concluded – has a longing for immortality, and writing tries to immortalize those who are part of it”.
Gerard Quintana – member of the jury with Carles Casajuana, Pere Gimferrer, Isona Passola, Núria Pradas, Carme Riera and Emili Rosales – insisted on the idea that “music can save us, and so can literature”, and he meant that ” a jury always hopes to find a treasure, in an award, and we had that feeling. It’s not a seasonal book, it’s a forever book”, he replied. Carles Casajuana also wanted to emphasize that it is a very well structured story, and that even if according to the author it is based on real events, this is not of great importance for the reader, because it is a novel.
