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The Master

8th January 2007 by Helena Leave a Comment  

One of my New Year’s resolutions was to listen to more music. When I say music, I don’t mean Take That’s latest album (although I do have it and jolly good it is too) but classical music. I have this romantic idea of the children growing up with classical music constantly playing in the background. Luckily this resolution of mine coincided with my finally working out how to burn music from my laptop onto a CD. This summer when I was staying with my friend Rachel in Corsica I copied a recording of a piano concerto played by Daniel Barenboim onto my machine. Last week I burnt it onto a CD and have been playing it non-stop ever since. It is like an angel has taken up residence in my CD player and is gently, gracefully tapping out these incredible sounds. We tried to guess who the composer of this angelic music was. Chopin was my suggestion. No, said my husband, it’s got to be Mozart. The minute he said it (swot that he is, but can he tell Take That from Boyzone? – I don’t think so) I realised he was right.

MozartI have had one other such magical musical moment in my life. I was lying by a swimming pool in Kenya watching a series of delicate clouds make their way across a wide blue sky when my husband (who was then my boyfriend) put a walkman on my head (shows how old I am) and said: “Listen to this.” It was Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto. I had never heard anything more beautiful in my life. It was like a seductive yet loving caress slowly working its way over my mind and body. I am sure it contributed to my falling helplessly in love with my husband-to-be.

My father once said to me; “If you have a problem, ask Bach.” He didn’t mean try to gain access to the great man in the land of the dead, he meant listen to his music and your problem will resolve itself. A sort of oratory solvitur ambulando. So if any of you are suffering from the January blues here’s my top tip for the day; listen to Mozart. Listen to him all the time, while you’re washing up, when you’re in the bath, when you’re cooking, as you’re falling asleep. He is the master and after listening to him you can’t help but feel refreshed and restored, even if you’ve had the worst Christmas and New Year in living memory.


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Helena Frith Powell was born in Sweden to a Swedish mother and Italian father, but grew up mainly in England. She is the author of eleven books, translated into several languages including Chinese and Russian. She wrote the French Mistress column The Sunday Times about life in France for several years. She is a regular contributor to the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, The Times, Daily Telegraph, Tatler Magazine and Harper’s Bazaar.

Helena has been the editor of four magazines, including M Magazine, a supplement for the Abu Dhabi based National Newspaper and FIVE, a high-end fashion glossy, also published in Abu Dhabi. Helena was also editor in chief of 360 Life, a quarterly glossy magazine published with the Sports 360 Newspaper in Dubai, part of the Chalhoub Group.

Helena contributes regularly to UK-based newspapers and magazines and holds a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Cambridge. Helena is also working on a thriller called Thin Ice that will be published in spring 2021 as well as a novel about the relationship between Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield called Sense of an Echo.

Her latest non-fiction work Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles came out in hardback in 2016 and in paperback in April 2018.

Helena, who was educated at Durham University, lives in the Languedoc region of France with her husband Rupert and their three children.

Bibliography

More France Please, we’re British; Gibson Square 2004

Two Lipsticks and a Lover 2005; Gibson Square (hardback)

All You Need to be Impossibly French; (US version of above) Penguin 2006

Two Lipsticks and a Lover; Arrow Books (paperback) 2007

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (hardback) 2006

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (paperback) 2007

So Chic! (French version of Two Lipsticks) Leduc Editions 2008 (also translated into Chinese, Russian and Thai)

More, More France; Gibson Square 2009

To Hell in High Heels; Arrow Books 2009 (also translated into Polish)

The Viva Mayr Diet; Harper Collins 2009

Love in a Warm Climate; Gibson Square 2011

The Ex-Factor; Gibson Square 2013

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles; Gibson Square 2016

The Arnolfini Marriage; Amazon Kindle December 2016

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles (paperback); Gibson Square spring 2018

The Longest Night; Gibson Square spring 2019

 

 

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