Rock Me Amadeus

Book excerpt: Once he'd reached his early thirties, Seb Hunter knew it was time to try to grow up - but that, of course, meant attempting to enjoy classical music. Pretending just wouldn't do. His musical tastes had always been catholic, but this was a step into the unknown - down beyond the glass partition and into the record-shop basement. It might as well be beyond the looking-glass; yet our intrepid hero reckons he's up to the task. And, not one to do things by halves, he embarks on a haphazard journey across Europe that takes in hallucinating nuns, a Yoda-like mentor, angry eunuchs, frustrated minstrels, trying really hard not to vomit at the opera in Rome, an assault on the Kremlin and several run-ins with his mother. But will Beethoven roll over? Will Nigel Kennedy return his calls? No. From chanting monks to music played with helicopters via twenty different varieties of Austrian sausage, it's a passionate, unlikely and very funny story. If you've ever wondered whether classical music is all it's made out to be, now you'll never have to listen to any in order to find out - just read this instead.