Roxanne de Bastion’s family biography begins with a piano, old and weathered from decades of use. As a child, Roxanne knew it had been in the family for more than a century, but it wasn’t until her father died and she inherited the instrument – along with a treasure trove of old letters, photos, sheet music and cassette tapes – that she learned of its history. The piano, a baby grand Blüthner, had belonged to her late grandfather, a Hungarian Jew called Stephen de Bastion, who had worked as a composer and pianist in the 1930s. During the second world war, he was sent to a Russian labour camp, where he suffered horrifying abuse. From there, after being abandoned by his captors, he made the journey home on foot (of the 1,070 Jewish men sent there, eight made it home).
But that wasn’t the end of Stephen’s torment, since, after returning to Hungary, he was deported first to Mauthausen and later to Gunskirchen concentration camps. Against the odds, he survived and, years later, after moving to Britain with his wife, Edith, he recounted his wartime experiences in a series of taped recordings.
Drawing on those tapes, and on wider historical research, Roxanne pieces together his story in this gripping tale of horror and survival, family and music. The audiobook, movingly narrated by the author, is bookended by some wonderful recordings of Stephen playing his original compositions on the piano. There is also an accompanying album, available separately, entitled Songs from the Piano Player of Budapest, which features Stephen’s music, carefully restored, reimagined and re-recorded by his granddaughter.
• Available via Little Brown Audio, 8hr 51min
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Keir Starmer: The Biography
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