At one point, Risto Mejide had to choose: either he started his career in television, or he became an agent of the CNI. When José Manuel "and period", the agent who tried to recruit him, revealed the salary, there was no possible doubt. And so, gentlemen, is how the Catalan publicist of dark glasses became one of the most loved and hated faces of the small screen.

Infiltrating other people's stories, on the other hand, did not completely leave it aside. For some years now, he has dedicated his few free hours to immerse himself in the life of another celebrity, one that a priori seems to have absolutely nothing to do with him but in whom he would find traces of common biography. So many, as to write a novel, Sixteen notes (Grijalbo), which arrives this Thursday in bookstores.

The famous in question is Johann Sebastian Bach himself, who came into Mejide's life as a revelation in his first piano lessons and whom a mystery made the protagonist of his sleeplessness. The key is a year absent from all his biographies: 1720, between the death of his wife and the emergence of a new love with a young woman who was almost twice his age. You can see the parallels, right?

His foray into the historical novel has been much criticized. They have even said that he is not qualified to talk about Bach or to comment on music... I didn't know you had to ask permission, I think it's absurd. Not only can anyone talk about Bach, we should all do it. I wish people talked about Bach in the butcher's shop, in the Mercadona. It's still because I'm not a musician. But then, can mystery novels only be written by murderers? And the science fiction ones, just the astronauts? Let them read a little bit and then judge. I want to think that even if it's only one person out of every 100 who read my book will say: I'm going to listen to it. Do you feel a certain responsibility, because of your influence, to mainstream topics that seem reserved for an intellectual elite? Whoever knows my way of writing will enjoy this story because it is my hand, it is my way of narrating. I do want to think that my fame and popularity can help, but people aren't idiots, they don't buy a book because I'm on TV. There are many television characters who write one, and none more. I have 11, I have sold more than a million, there will be something more. This work will please even people who despise what I do on TV.

People aren't idiots and don't buy a book of mine because I'm on TV. I have sold more than a million, something else will be there

Why Bach? Did you empathize with their love story? The identification came at the end, Bach has been with me for as long as I can remember. When I started playing the piano, at 14, I heard the Toccata and Fugue in D minor and thought it was progressive rock, I couldn't believe I was 300 years old. And I discovered a chapter of his life that wasn't in any biography. They all skipped a year, just when his first wife died and, after a few months, he appears happily married to a 19-year-old girl, to whom he has even been attributed the authorship of some of his works. My head exploded and I started reading biographies compulsively. I'm not exaggerating, I've read 20. How is it possible that no one has united these two points, between the most absolute misery and the most incredible ecstasy?

The story of Bach and Anna Magdalena, which took 16 years like the Sixteen Notes announced on the cover of the novel, is just one of the three scenarios that Risto Mejide visits in 487 pages. The thriller note is a curious discovery during the exhumation of the remains of the composer, in 1894; and the anchor to the present comes with the recording of the Goldberg Variations in the 50s by a still unknown Glenn Gould that would mark the History of music.

As soon as you fall in love with someone who has a difference of more than 10 years with you, the mechanisms of mockery and pointing begin.

"This is not a novel about Bach, or about music. This is a novel about the freedom to love whomever you want." Coming from a heterosexual cis man, where does that freedom lie? In the oppression of others. As soon as you fall in love with someone who has a difference of more than 10 years with you, the mechanisms of mockery, of pointing out, begin. And I make my cape a sayo, but many people write to me who have had to break their relationship because of social pressure, who see their mental health in danger. There are two million people in Spain discriminated against for falling in love with someone much younger, and the worst thing is that it has no name. If I discriminate against someone because of their race, I am racist; if I do it because of their sexual orientation, I am homophobic; But there is no word for this. And what is not named, does not exist. He said in The Negative Thought: "If when you speak no one is upset, you have said absolutely nothing." He takes it at face value... So said Michael Crichton, author of Jurassic Park, in 2005. I read it in an interview and I freaked out, I was foreboding of what is happening now: there is no way not to bother anyone. If you want to say something, of course. In my guests at the Chester I see more and more fear of screwing up. Fear that the pack of social networks will come upon them.And do you feel that fear? Obviously I do not have a good time when they attack me, I am human, but if in what I have said there is an ounce of truth or it is what I think, I endure the downpour and shoot forward. Nor has he minced words when it comes to criticizing television executives. What do you think of the latest changes in Mediaset? For the last two years I have been immersed in a maelstrom of work that prevents me from noticing anything else. I have little time to be in the halls and find out what's going on.

If one day Mediaset tells me that I can not do something in my program, as in Save me, I will decide if I comply or not, and if I continue working there or not.

If you were suddenly called from above and told that there are things you can no longer do, as has happened with Save Me, what would happen? It would have to be evaluated, depending on what they prevented me from doing I would decide if I abide by it or not, and if I continue working there or not. But that has not been the case. I have been at Mediaset for 16 years and I have never been prevented from talking about anything, and I have even talked about Berlusconi.At one point in his life he got up two hours before going to work to study Chinese, with no apparent use. Have you already made sense of that, or have you changed it to writing books? I guess I do more productive things now, but I want to get it back when I retire. In short, these dreams that we all have in the bedroom. Yes, it served me for unexpected things at some point. For example, thanks to Chinese I was called to work at the CNI.

They called me to work at the CNI, but I had an offer on TV and I told them: "Delete me from the file that I'm not going to go"

And did he think about it? Yes, yes. It was at a time when I was unemployed, I saw an advertisement for the CNI in the newspaper looking for people who spoke Arabic or Chinese. I thought there wouldn't be so many people and sent the resume. Months passed, and nothing. And one day I received a call from a certain José Manuel, I asked the last name and he said: "José Manuel and period", I loved it. I was about to start on TV, in an invention contest of Antena 3, so I had a bit of a dilemma. When José Manuel called again I asked him how much he was going to charge, and with all due respect I said: "Delete me from the file that I will not go." [Long Silence] Surely.

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