More shows on 17 and 27 April!

We had a whale of a time at Kings Place, performing the UK premiere of Being Mrs Bach on Saturday afternoon. Left to right: Ben Bevan (baritone), Steven Devine (harpsichord), me, Jonathan Manson (cello and gamba) - what an absolute privilege to work with them! Totally knocked out by the brilliance of Steven's harpsichord playing, which provided the effect of an entire orchestra or two, the apparently effortless beauty of Jonathan's solos and the way he switched between instruments as if simply taking another breath, and the warm, gorgeously tender tone of Ben's baritone, which we understand will be gracing Opera Holland Park this summer.

Onwards... next up is Odette: A Celebration of Swan Lake, which takes wing on Wednesday. The award-winning Fenella Humphreys (violin), also-award-winning Viv McLean (piano) and I will be at Bob Boas's series, Music at Mansfield Street, London W1, on 17 April, and St Mary's Perivale on 27 April. St Mary's will be LIVE STREAMED! If you would like to come along on Wednesday, there are still places available (it clashes with a) the Easter hols and b) most annoyingly, the Proms launch) and you can email boas22m@btinternet.com for further details. If you want to come to St Mary's, just turn up on the night - more details here. And if you want to watch the live stream, it will be here (but is only available at the actual time, not online thereafter.) The concert is an hour and a half without an interval.

More stuff below!

Fenella Humphreys (violin)
Viv McLean (piano)
Jessica Duchen (narrator)

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's ballet score for Swan Lake casts a powerful spell over generation after generation. It has had innumerable reimaginings and retellings, balletic and otherwise. The latest is author and music critic Jessica Duchen's magical-realist novel ODETTE, in which the enchanted swan princess meets 21st-century Britain.

This remarkable narrated concert mingles selected readings from the book with the story behind Tchaikovsky's creation of Swan Lake and its passionate, tragic inspirations. Award-winning, ballet-loving British violinist Fenella Humphreys embraces the great violin solos with which Tchaikovsky embroidered his score, as well as the closely related Violin Concerto; pianist Viv McLean evokes the influence of Chopin and Liszt on Tchaikovsky; and there's plenty of humour, with works by Saint-Saëns and Gershwin. Share the enchantment with this joyous celebration of a beloved ballet, its composer, its fairy tale and what they can mean to us today.

Tchaikovsky: Swan Lake – Introduction 

Saint-Saëns: Danse macabre 

Liszt (arr. Achron): Liebestraum No.3 

Tchaikovsky: Swan Lake – Odette's Solo 

Gershwin: The Man I Love 

Chopin: Polonaise-Fantaisie 

Tchaikovsky: Swan Lake – White Swan Pas de Deux 

Tchaikovsky: Swan Lake – Adagio from the Black Swan Pas de Deux 

Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto in D major - finale 

Fenella Humphreys (violin) enjoys a busy career combining chamber music and solo work, performing in prestigious venues around the world. Her first concerto recording, of Christopher Wright's Violin Concerto with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra was released in 2012 to great critical acclaim. Her recent Bach to the Future project, a set of six new unaccompanied violin works by eminent composers was a huge success, garnering performances at acclaimed UK venues, and has now been recorded over two CDs for Champs Hill Records. Both have received huge critical acclaim, and the second received the BBC Music Magazine's 2018 Instrumental Award. Her new disc with Nicola Eimer was released in February 2019. Fenella is a passionate chamber musician and is regularly invited by Steven Isserlis to take part in the prestigious Open Chamber Music at the International Musicians' Seminar, Prussia Cove. Concertmaster of the Deutsche Kammerakademie, Fenella also enjoys guest leading and directing various ensembles in Europe. Her teachers have included Sidney Griller CBE, Itzhak Rashkovsky, Ida Bieler and David Takeno at the Purcell School, Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and the Robert-Schumann-Hochschule in Düsseldorf. She plays a beautiful violin from the circle of Peter Guarneri of Venice, kindly on loan from Jonathan Sparey.

Viv McLean (piano), the winner of the First Prize at the 2002 Maria Canals International Piano Competition in Barcelona , has performed at all the major venues in the UK as well as throughout Europe, Japan , Australia and the USA . He has played concerti with most major UK orchestras, performed chamber music with leading groups such as the Ysaye String Quartet and the Leopold String Trio. Viv studied at the Royal Academy of Music and was the piano winner at the Royal Overseas-League Music Competition and one of three winners of the National Federation of Music Societies' Young Artists Competition, leading to various recitals and concerto appearances throughout Great Britain . Viv has recorded regularly for BBC Radio 3 and recorded for Sony Classical Japan and Naxos , as well as the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra's own label. Viv lives in Harrow and has been a huge supporter of concerts at both St Mary's Perivale and St Barnabas in recent years.

Jessica Duchen's books have gathered a loyal fan-base and wide acclaim. Odette, published by Unbound in November 2018, is her sixth novel, but has occupied her for over 26 years. Ghost Variations (Unbound, 2016) was Book of the Month in BBC Music Magazine and was John Suchet's Christmas Choice among the Daily Mail's Best Reads of 2016 ("A thrilling read" - John Suchet).   Jessica grew up in London, read music at Cambridge and has devoted much of her career to music journalism, with 12 years as music critic for The Independent. Her work has also appeared in BBC Music Magazine, The Sunday Times and The Guardian, among others. She was the librettist of Silver Birch by composer Roxanna Panufnik, which was commissioned by Garsington Opera and shortlisted for an International Opera Award in 2018, and she has worked frequently with Panufnik on texts for choral works. Her further output includes biographies of the composers Erich Wolfgang Korngold and Gabriel Fauré, her popular classical music blog JDCMB, and the play A Walk through the End of Time , which won the town medal of St Nazaire in France, where its commissioning festival was based. Jessica lives in London with her violinist husband and two cats.

'SWAN LAKE' JDCMB CHRISTMAS COMPETITION

WIN A SWAN LAKE CD AND A COPY OF ODETTE

Vladimir Jurowski's recording of Swan Lake in its original 1877 version - before Drigo got his paws on the score - is an absolute stunner, out now on Pentatone Classics. The State Academic Symphony Orchestra of Russia 'Evgeny Svetlanov' offers sleek, intense playing, the sound quality is excellent and in Jurowski's hands the dramatic climaxes become utterly hair-raising, almost Wagnerian in their magic and majesty. And in the box there's even a set of instructions for how to fold your own Origami swan.

Swan Lake is the inspiration behind my new book, Odette, in which the ballet's heroine meets the present day head-on. This week Odette has been on a 'blog tour' which has found it termed 'enchanting', 'magical' and 'absolutely unique' (for which I'm extremely grateful and happy.)

I'm delighted to say that Pentatone is offering a copy of Jurowski's splendid Swan Lake recording for our JDCMB Christmas Competition. This is your chance to win a double prize: the CD and a paperback copy of Odette.

For a chance to win, simply answer the following question and email your response to: jdcmblog@gmail.com before Christmas Eve, 24 December 2018.

QUESTION:Which ballerina danced the role of Odette/Odile in the world premiere of Swan Lake, at the Bolshoi Theatre, Moscow, on 4 March 1877?

I will put all the correct entries into a hat and the one to be drawn out wins the prize. The winner will be notified by email. The prize will be dispatched when the post office reopens after Christmas.

Don't forget that you can see Swan Lake itself on BBC4 TV on Christmas Day at 7pm. It's the Royal Ballet's gorgeous new production and stars Marianela Nunez and Vadim Muntagirov. More details here.

Just in: ODETTE

The new book arrived by van yesterday: a sleek plum-purple volume with white feathers and broken glass around gold lettering on the front cover. Still can't quite believe it's real. (Nor, from the look of them, could the cats - but they were more interested in playing with the cardboard box when I'd emptied it.)

ODETTE in numbers:

1 - beloved Tchaikovsky ballet

1 - rather off-the-wall idea

4 - main characters: Mitzi Fairweather, her brother Harry, her landlord Robert, and Odette herself

2 - scary birds

1 - imaginary town named Cygnford, vaguely modelled on Cambridge

26 - years to write

1002 (approx) - revisions over those 26 years

153 - supporting patrons via Unbound

72,000 or so - words

Lost count of - publishers who turned it down saying, 'ooh, it's a bit quirky for us'

Not going to tell you - age I was when I started it and age I am now

50:50 - proportion of relief to terror now that it's done.

29/11/18 - publication date.

I do hope you enjoy it. Available for pre-order here.

Never give up...

My Top 10 ODETTE FAQs...

Q: Ooh, Odette? The World War II spy? Or Proust?
J: Er, no. Swan Lake.

Q: The Tchaikovsky ballet? So did you go to Russia to research it?
J: Actually, the book's set in a university town in East Anglia in 2018.

Q: So it's, like, real fiction?
J: Well, one of the main characters turns into a swan every day, so, yep.

Q: How did you get the idea?
J: I had this recurring dream about looking for my Swan Lake book, and it was never there, so I thought I might write it...

Q: Maybe I should get it for my 9-yr-old daughter. She's mad about ballet.
J: Well, it's not really suitable for 9-yr-olds, and there's no actual ballet in it.

Q: If there's no ballet, what's it about?
J: Outsiders. How we treat them. How they respond to us. How we change each others' lives. How much responsibility do we have to look after other people?  

Q: And it's for which age group?
J: Adults, though could probably be enjoyed by the young adult market.

Q: But who's it aimed at?
J: Anyone who fancies crossing Swan Lake with Bridget Jones and A Christmas Carol. Some will 'get' it, some won't, and that's fine. [Evoke Marmite HERE if desired.]

Q: How come it took you 26 years?
J: I started it in 1992 and have been rewriting and updating it ever since. Maybe it just needed the right publisher - one who didn't mind dealing with something not quite like anything else out there. For 25 years they all minded a lot. Meanwhile other things came along, first Korngold, then Fauré, then the Independent; and life happened, as it tends to, so I was dealing with three cancer deaths in my immediate family, trying to keep my head above the freelance waters, then getting married, moving house, and writing four other novels on contract, plus Ghost Variations, which itself took 5 years while more life happened... And finally Unbound said, 'Great, bring it on.'

Q: But why did you keep trying?
J: I couldn't let go of it. I couldn't just leave it there. There's something in that book that holds all I wanted to be and say before my parents and sister were ill and dying and before the domino effect that had on daily existence. It contains something that's innocent and hopeful and human. And finally I want to get it back in some way, or at least find I didn't entirely lose all of it in the onslaught. It's changed over the years, of course, on every rewrite, but the essence of that search is still there. As Solti would have said: never give up.

And meanwhile...
Dear friends, if you would like to support ODETTE, you have just 3 DAYS LEFT. To get your name onto the patrons' list, please sign up before the end of 28 October. Publication date is 29 November, in time for Christmas. At Unbound you can pre-order by pledging for a paperback, a digital copy, or good deals for two copies or five, or other special offers.

https://unbound.com/books/odette/

'Editorial Development': a view from the cat-tree

[This is a shared post with my Odette "shed" update page at Unbound, so if you've subscribed to the book, it will probably pop into your inbox soon...]

The other day I growled to my husband, "This book is driving me mad." He gave a shrug: "They always do." After 20 years, it's water off a violinist's back, and he retreats happily to practise his Paganini. Upstairs, though, I am in the middle of what is elegantly termed 'Editorial Development', but is, to me, the inevitable part of writing a book that is a bit like being skinned alive. The outer covering is pulled off and every bone, every vein, the entire network of connective tissue and nerve-endings, are under microscopic scrutiny. 

My editor has done a wonderful job with the manucript. She has been kind, encouraging, firm and to the point. She's homed in on issues that I sort of know about, but might not have focused on so clearly: for instance, I tend to speed up towards the end of a story, and that's not a bad thing, but it is not good if you press the accelerator pedal down so hard that the countryside blurs and your passengers can't see the thing they came out with you to see in the first place. Ghost Variations arrived back from its editor 14,000 words shorter. Odette has pinged in with an encouragement to make it 5,000 words longer.

Above all, she has made a point which I know that the legendary Robert McKee, the Hollywood screenwriting guru, would applaud: the stranger the story's world, the more its internal existence has to be consistent and convincing. 

This week I've been at my desk for long hours (and will be for this next week too, I expect), still trying to shake off the sore throat and annoying cough I picked up on the plane coming back from Australia, and attempting to make sense of a 70,000 manuscript in which the central premise does not and never will make any sense, and is not supposed to, but everything else has to be a hundred per cent watertight.

This probably sounds nuts, but I promise it's a crucial part of the whole Writer's Technique malarkey. For instance, I am asking you to accept a story in which one of the main characters is transformed into a swan during daylight hours and has been living under a spell for 166 years. But that means under no circumstances can I ask you also to accept that she could be blown 8000 miles from Siberia to the east of England in a single day. Not even the most extreme hurricane-force wind could do that. When I first drafted Odette, back in 1992, we had no internet, you'd have to go to a library full of good encyclopedias in order to check your details, and I had no idea how far it was from Cambridge/Norwich/Cygnford to Novosibirsk, let alone Irkutsk. Now it takes about 15 seconds to find out on Google Maps. 

In fact that wasn't something my editor picked up; but she did point out much else, and when you start noticing and questioning such things, you then start noticing and quesitoning others as well. And that's when you start checking facts on the internet, even though the basic facts - e.g., your heroine is 185 years old and her enchanter is probably about 200 - are totally, utterly impossible. 

I think this may be one reason it's called "magical realism". 

Next, I read the whole thing aloud. To the cat. Our old cat, Solti, used to detest being read to. After about two sentences he'd pad in and start meowing at me continuously. I never knew whether this meant "I wanna join in" or "Shut the **** up!" (The same is currently true for Madame Cosima and Tom's violin practice...) Ricki (pictured right) who has designated himself "my" cat, while Cosi is "Tom's", is much more patient. He'll sprawl in his top bunk and watch the birds in the apple tree while being read a nice, very long story, and only really responds if I happen to have used the word "suppertime".

Whatever he thinks of it, it's an incredibly useful thing for me to do. Again, it's the laboratory microscope of the Writer's Technique malarkey. If you read aloud, you read every word. You hear things - and if you are into music, this means you are aurally motivated and hearing things will offer insights that simply seeing them can sometimes miss (especially if you're trying to look at them afresh after 26 years). You notice images that are repeated too often, or phrases you've over-used, or daft clichés that stick out like a sore thumb [see what I did there?]. You feel the passages that jar, rubbing at your skin like mosquito bites. And you notice the bits that probably go on too long because you start wanting to check Facebook while you're reading them. Time to make judicious use of the 'delete' button. 

So, that's where we are in 'Editorial Development'. Now you know the painful truth, and I'm going back in to tackle the next 100 pages. Wish me luck and have a lovely Sunday. 

You can pledge to/pre-order Odette here.