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Good Reading : June 2010
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its inhabitants, the tendency of his robe to fall open and reveal his naked body to passers-by, the disturbing way in which doors from rooms lead to rooms in separate buildings or the appearance of people from his past. Famous composers such as Bach, Mozart, Chopin and Beethoven are cited, but it's fictional music that Ryder plays -- he's famous for his renditions of Moder nist composers Mullery and Kazan, who write pieces with odd titles such as Aspestos and Fire, and Grotesqueries for the Cello.The music you might hear in your mind's ear while reading this novel will be of your own composition. In the 20th-century American classic by Willa Cather, The Song of the Lark, a poor rural woman's incredible operatic gifts lead her to a better life. The development of the singer as a (woman) artist mir rors Cather's own experiences developing her skills and life as a writer. The central character, Thea, is inspired to chase her dream and discover her potential when she hears Dvorák's New World Symphony in a concert hall. She moves to Europe and becomes a famous Wagnerian soprano. Wagner's music, particularly the opera The Valkyrie, is central to the book. In The Piano Teacher, Nobel Prize- winning author Elfriede Jelinek tells the story of a woman's awakening -- of a very different kind to Cather's artistic one. Erika Kohut is a woman in her mid-30s who lives with her domineering mother. Not good enough to become a concert pianist, Erika earns a living teaching piano at the Vienna Conservatory of music, and she seems to be a dutiful daughter and dedicated teacher. However, she has sexual perversions that are becoming increasingly difficult to contain, and when she embarks on an affair with one of her students, she insists on sadomasochistic rituals before she will have sex with him. This book was made into a film in 2001, directed and adapted by Michael Haneke. Schumann and Schubert are prominent composers in the novel, and the film version includes extended scenes featuring the characters playing some of the piano pieces. The 1989 novel by Australian author Peter Goldsworthy, Maestro, was last year adapted into a stage play by the author and his daughter, Anna Goldsworthy. The play also features scenes in which the characters play piano, allowing the viewer to actually hear, instead of virtually hear, the music of the story. The book is about Paul Crabbe, a teenager growing up in Darwin in the 1960s, and his relationship with his tragic, eccentric piano teacher, the Viennese maestro, Eduard Keller, who lost his family to the Holocaust. Keller has a complex relationship with music, particularly with the music of Wagner, and with Liszt and Beethoven -- Keller claims he was taught by a student of Liszt. A film is now in production with, no doubt, a soundtrack we can look forward to. There are several historical novels that speculate on the lives of famous musicians, the people they loved and the people who loved them. They include Longing by J D Landis, the incredible story of Clara and Robert Schumann and Clara's affair with the composer Brahms, Vivaldi's Virgins by Barbara Quick, about the convent/orphanage where Vivaldi preached and taught, and a promising young violinist who lived there, and Mar rying Mozart. The last is notable because it was written by Stephanie Cowell, a for mer opera singer. It's about Mozart's relationship with his wife and her sisters. When reading, I prefer exterior silence and comfort: a quiet bedroom, a train car riage without loud iPods booming bass near me, or a blissfully silent library. Rarely does anyone get to read in such peaceful conditions, but they are ideal for allowing ourselves to properly hear the voices, the sounds and the music we love and expect from the best stories. categorical
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