Trumpet Shall Sound A Novel

It is 1742 and the celebrated composer

Georg Handel is in Dublin for the first performance of his new work Messiah. Once the most successful composer of opera in London, and fêted by aristocracy and royalty alike, Handel is now nearly penniless, recovering from a debilitating illness and out of favour and his exile in Dublin a sign of his fall from grace. With him and due to sing in his Messiah is the celebrated young actress, Susannah Cibber, the subject of scandal and public disgrace, on the run from an abusive husband and considered with suspicion by the musical elite of Dublin. In this exciting new historical novel, Eibhear Walshe recount’s Handel’s time in Dublin, retracing his golden youth in Rome, his sometimes shady role as emissary and spy for the Elector of Hanover, who in 1714 would become George I of Great Britain and Ireland, and his doomed first love affair. With energy and insight, this novel leads up to the first performance of the most celebrated work of sacred music, with failure and loss transformed in a moment by the genius of Handel’s musical imagination.