Listen with Father

At four years old, Caroline Sanderson fell in love with the music of Mozart after listening to it with her father. At eight, she fell even harder for the songs of David Bowie. Her dad made many gentle attempts to persuade her back to his world of classical music, but it wasn’t until after he died that she returned to it, in memory of him.

In a beguiling blend of memoir and biography, we follow Sanderson as she set out to listen, with great care and attention, to the music her dad loved, to work out why he so appreciated it and whether she could too. From hearing Mozart recitals in Salzburg to visiting Sibelius’s house near Helsinki and playing Robert Schumann at home on the piano, this is a beautifully touching and absorbing story of a beloved father, told through the classical music he cherished.