Fiction schmiction

I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who got 'stuck' trying to read JD Landis's 'Longing' - Richard responds to the book quiz by wondering how I got along with this. While I'd hate to throw cold water over a book that has evidently taken so much research, immersion and general blood and guts from its writer, I just can't get into it. That started me thinking back over the handful of novels I've attempted to read that are based on the lives of composers. The results are not encouraging - not least because I've always kind of fancied writing one myself.

I ploughed through Janice Galloway's 'Clara' - like 'Longing', it is of course about the Schumanns. I had my doubts about it, though most people do seem to have loved it and it is a great achievement, exquisitely written too. I felt that she dodged all the difficult issues, however - whereas Landis jumps straight in with both feet, speculating almost immediately about whether Brahms could have been the real father of Felix Schumann. My main complaint over 'Clara', however, was that although it is poetic, it is also over-intellectual and pretentious and although it paints the most fabulous picture of a Schumann who is totally, utterly, stupendously nuts, it never truly touches the heart. The same is true - as far as page 60 - of 'Longing', which on the other hand tries to be poetic but never quite makes it. Its self-conscious intellect, clumsy sexual symbolism and a style that attempts much but doesn't flow easily prevents any real identification with the characters. What's more, unlike Clara, the writer doesn't seem to have managed to assimilate his research into a fictional world of his own. Footnotes that take about third of a page spin you off at a tangent and there's nothing more offputting in fiction than constant reminders that it is based on fact. It's like flying a plane without retracting the wheels.

Most other novels about composers that I've read have been about Beethoven and Mozart. I hated Leslie Kenton's 'Ludwig' so much that it put me right off even trying John Suchet's multi-volume effort, though I've been told it's rather good. There was a book about Mozart writing Don Giovanni in Prague that was quite fun but, in writerly terms, somewhat amateurish. I haven't ventured into Anthony Burgess's 'Mozart and the Wolf Gang'...or a more recent book called 'Igor and Coco' (what more can one say?).

Here's the nub of the problem: either the fictionalised biographies of composers appeal to the head and not the heart - perhaps because of a perception that their potential market loves to be intellectually pretentious - or else they are just plain awful. The question is WHY? Is that what comes of trying to base a novel on fact? Or is it more the case that in musical spheres we all have our own mental images of our heroes and don't particularly like to take on board someone else's interpretations of them? I don't know, but I do know that the tempting scenarios that whisper to me from the 19th century need to be handled with extreme care and are probably best left alone.

A nice book quiz from Helen

Helen has put up a lovely book quiz and declared she's passing it to me next, so here's my take on it.


1. You're stuck inside Fahrenheit 451, which book do you want to be? 

See Helen's excellent explanation of it. Safe to say, it involves memorising a single book.

I'd choose Dodie Smith's 'I Capture the Castle' - which I love so much that I've nearly memorised it anyway.


2. Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?

Yes. I think a few of the men in my past were actually fictional, because their real selves turned out to be very far removed from who I'd thought they were. If you see what I mean.


3. The last book you bought is:

'Longing' by JD Landis. A novel (yes, another one) about Robert and Clara Schumann. I'm currently stuck, around page 60.


4. The last book you read:

'Ferruccio Busoni: A Musical Ishmael' by Della Couling.


5. What are you currently reading?

'My Sister's Keeper' by Jodi Picoult.


6. Five books you would take to a deserted island:

Vikram Seth: 'A Suitable Boy'
Ian McEwan: 'The Child in Time'
George Eliot: 'Middlemarch'
Tolstoy: 'War and Peace' (though if 'Anna Karenina' could be appended to it, that'd be nice)
A very large book of poetry, including as much as possible of Keats, Yeats, Eliot and Ted Hughes, ideally with some Verlaine and Rimbaud and Baudelaire thrown in in the original French, and some Lorca, preferably translated...does this book exist or is it the poetic equivalent of iTunes?


7. Who are you going to pass this stick to (3 persons)? And Why?

Will think about this and do it later because the people I wanted to suggest have already done it!




 

In today's Indy...

I had a lot of fun writing this article about Hans Christian Andersen's musical associations, which appears in today's Independent. The CBSO is doing a new piece by Denmark's leading composer, Per Norgard, on 2 April...all is explained therein! I had an interview with the marvellous Norgard and also with the American professor and author Anna Harwell Celenza, who's just brought out a book about Andersen and music. And Tom, resident Danophile, is thrilled that I suddenly got interested in all things Danish! Especially ducks.

Very fired up today by Tasmin's glorious performance of the Elgar Violin Concerto last night with the LSO and Richard Hickox. What an extraordinary piece it is - with an intensity that transmutes from mood to mood but never really lets up. Tasmin really went for it: wonderfully secure, beautiful eloquent tone, deeply involved in every moment of the work, and with a particularly impressive sense of ensemble with orchestra and conductor. She did indeed make the piece very much her own, as I thought she would; the result was that it seemed part of her and she seemed part of it. Fabulous.

I just wish the Barbican was a nicer place to spend a Sunday evening.

Roger's rare bit of Mozart

A nice CD hit my desk yesterday: violinist Daniel Hope & pianist Sebastian Knauer playing Mozart with the Camerata Salzburg under Roger Norrington. Dr Philip Wilby has seen fit to 'complete' a concerto for violin and piano that Mozart left unfinished. It seems that after the first movement Wolfie decided to write a violin sonata instead, so the second and third movements of the concerto are in fact orchestrations of that sonata (D major K306). And it's gorgeous. The CD is on Warner Classics.

The press release contains a fabulous quote from Sir Roger:

"It's interesting to hear this kind of 'second generation' historically informed playing: modern instruments, but completely digested performance practice, with pure tone of course from the orchestra, a very slight and informed vibrato from the violinist, and phrasing from everyone in sight! What a joy to realise that you can play stylishly with any instrument, whether new or old, and that 'early music' is in the mind rather than the hardware."

So has Sir Roger Norrington JUST NOTICED that early music is all in the mind?! Some of us could have pointed this out 20 years ago, and indeed have been trying to do so ever since... Never mind, it's a lovely recording.

Dates for the diary

The BBC weather forecaster has confirmed my suspicion that Spring Is Sprung. And a lot is happening this spring. Here are just a few things that Tom and I and our friends are up to that may be of interest!

20 March (this Sunday): Tasmin is playing the Elgar Violin Concerto with the LSO at the Barbican, conducted by Richard Hickox. I think this just might be "her" piece to a T...Book here.

28 March: release date for Philippe's stunning new CD from Avie Records. Hear Ravel's Tzigane as you've never heard it before! More details when it hits the shelves.

9 April: the London Philharmonic is, quite incredibly, giving a concert at the RFH that includes BOTH Korngold AND Faure, with Ravel thrown in for good measure! I'm not sure that I've ever encountered My Two Boys sharing a programme before, let alone with my orchestra-in-law. Emmanuel Krivine conducts and the programme is Korngold's Schauspiel Ouverture, both the suites from Ravel's Daphnis et Chloe and, to close, the Faure Requiem.

5 May: oh boy, trust Jess to clash with the (likely) general election...I am doing an open interview with the pianist Robert Taub at Kingston University as part of the Kingston Readers' Festival. Our title (an inspiration from Bob!) is 'Beethoven, his ears and you'. Bob is in the middle of that piano Everest, performing the complete Beethoven sonatas, so we'll start from there and see where we get to. More details of venue and how to get there when it appears on the website.

22-25 May: Tom joins the Razumovsky Ensemble for three of their concerts in a festival deliciously entitled Bacchus & Apollo in the middle of a vineyard close to Bordeaux. Lucky Tom!

25 May: Rustem Hayroudinoff plays the complete Rachmaninov Etudes-Tableaux at the Wigmore Hall. Since Rustem is one of the most sincere and engaging pianists around, especially in Rachmaninov, this should be quite an event.

1 June: Tom and I give the official Elgar Birthday Concert at the Elgar Birthplace Museum at Broadheath in Worcestershire. Our title is Entente Cordiale and we'll be playing - yes! - English and French music, including the Elgar Violin Sonata, the Faure Violin Sonata no.1 and some lovely stuff by Delius and Debussy. Book here!

10 June: As above, but this time in Music at Woodhouse in Surrey, close to Dorking. Wonderful venue, gorgeous gardens, a spot well worth discovering...More details here.

9 June: Krystian Zimerman plays the Royal Festival Hall. Do NOT miss this concert!!!

That should keep you going for a bit. Us too, for that matter.