Sixtus Beckmesser

Sixtus Beckmesser, the town clerk from Wagner’s Die Meistersinger is my pen name. I was formerly a GP and cognitive psychotherapist in Hampshire. After retirement, I have been traveling round Europe seeing friends and going to music festivals. I live in Hampshire and the Tuscan hills making wine,book binding and writing whilst still finding time for music in Florence, Milan, Venice, Munich and of course London. I have always been fascinated by finding out how people survive terrible things.

SURVIVAL combines the first two stories of the Livonia series, Walpurgis Night and The Last Star Rising, which celebrate human courage, fortified by music, in escaping from hell. The women's inspiration is Beethoven's only opera, 'Fidelio' against a background of other music, in particular Wagner's Ring Cycle.