Anděl se šalmají – Lothar Ernst (2025)

Sometimes described as Downton Abbey in Vienna or an obituary for Austria, this sweeping historical novel by the prominent Moravian-Austrian writer Ernst Lothar is a panoramic Habsburg saga. Lothar wrote it during the war while living in American exile after fleeing the Nazis. In the centre of Vienna, a stone angel with chubby cheeks plays a shawm above the portico of a house at number 10. Behind the elegant Baroque façade lives the Alt family, an extensive dynasty of piano makers whose instruments were played by Mozart himself. The family’s “small” destinies become intertwined with major historical events, from the suicide of Crown Prince Rudolf and the First World War to the Anschluss. The author portrays a declining Austria, reflected especially in the fate of the novel’s main character, the captivating yet selfish Henriette. Loves, intrigues, betrayals, beloved illegitimate children and despised legitimate heirs, warm passions and chilling relationships, world war, the rise of Nazism, ambitions, hopes and state secrets shape the story. Three generations of the Alts live and die in house number 10, each witnessing in their own way the changes Europe undergoes during its era of splendour and decadence.