This Thursday (January 20) at 5 pm, Manorbier author Paul Griffiths will take part in an hour-long online discussion with three music-lovers in Boston, plus an audience of 250 and counting.

Paul’s historical novel ‘Mr. Beethoven’ in which he gives the illustrious German composer a few extra years of life, sees Beethoven sailing to Boston to compose a new piece there, fulfilling a commission he was offered in real life by the Handel and Haydn Society.

The story has tickled the fancy of the present-day H+H Society, and rightly so. For two hundred years, they’ve been wishing Beethoven had done it for them. Now, thanks to Paul, it’s been done at last, in all but actual fact.

Join panelists including H+H President David Snead and historian Dr. Teresa Neff along with Paul in a livestream conversation moderated by Michael Patrick Brady, literary critic of The Boston Globe.

There is no charge, but those wishing to participate must register in advance, by clicking the following link: https://handelandhaydn.org/mr-beethoven/

Participants will not be visible but may submit questions.

For a bit of background on the two-hundred-year-old dream, click on this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ot3yxdslCEA&t=336s to watch an enjoyable seven-minute video, The Oratorio for Boston, compiled well before the H+H Society had heard about Paul’s novel. (Paul: “Good job they didn’t know something I missed!”)

After wi-fi was installed on the 349 bus, passengers riding between Manorbier and Tenby in the middle of the day regularly spotted Paul at work on his laptop, doing research for the book.

Since its publication, reviewers have called it ‘a novel of great wit and empathy, one that provides a deep insight into the composition of both classical music and historical literature through playful, inventive prose’ (The Boston Globe); and praised its ability to evoke ‘the sights and sounds, the custom and attire, of an earlier era’ (The Wall Street Journal).

The book was included in a roundup of the best historical novels of 2021 by The New York Times, which called it ‘a minor miracle.’