Music in the Dark (Seix Barral) is the new novel by Antonio Iturbe. It tells the story - based on a real case - of Mariano, a master clarinetist and tailor who arrived with his wife to Zaragoza with the aim of modernizing the country through education and culture and creating a music band made up of homeless peasants. training. A work in which his characters weave a story of improvement, based on his passion for music and his desire to change the world. "For me, it is a very personal narrative, since I wanted to include family figures, including my grandfather," says Iturbe, in a meeting with journalists at the Laie bookstore.
In fact, the story is set in the rural neighborhood of Casetas (Zaragoza), where it is explained how humble and modest people "transform their lives through music," explains the journalist, who is also a journalist. "I like to create often anonymous characters, forgotten among the big names, but with their small contribution, in the end they manage to change the world," says Iturbe.
Regarding the documentation process, the writer visited the Municipal Archive of Zaragoza. However, the most effective for the author were "the explanations my grandfather gave about the band, in short, the stories that were told at home." In fact, the language that Iturbe uses throughout the book is very natural and close, since "I wanted to use the way my mother spoke, just before moving to Barcelona, that is, the way the people of Zaragoza used in the 60s".
"For me the title of the book has a double reading," admits Iturbe. "On the one hand, it wants to be a reflection on music, but also the memory of those turbulent times that were always stalked by uprisings." The writer acknowledges that "I never learned to play an instrument", despite this he is passionate about this discipline. "Currently, the soundtrack of my life would be Debussy's Moonlight," reflects the journalist.
"The characters are a fundamental element of the novel," comments Iturbe, "there is a very noticeable duality." And in this new novel he presents Mariano, a master clarinetist with republican ideas, and also the healer, known as "the witch." "In the end, a pulse will be established between the two between reason and superstition," concludes Antonio Iturbe, the writer of Music in the Dark.
