The Literature about (Classical) Music

I do not know of many stories or novels that have as their "theme" our genre. There are a few operas I think, but I am seeking literature (particularly fiction or poetry). I seem to recall something by Poe, but it escapes me. Who was that other American, the Civil
War era writer? His name escapes me at the moment (old age is wrecking my memory).
AhA, I am thinking of Ambrose Bierce. I think he might have penned something.

Well, at least I remember Lovecraft's "Music of Erik Swann". I think that's what it is called. Here is a synopsis of that great story on the computer

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Music_of_Erich_Zann

Well at least I got the title almost correct.

I myself am writing my own Epic Poem to be titled

_Last Chair, Second Violin_

The loneliest spot in the crowd.

Well if you know of similar stories please share your information. Thank you.

You could have a look at:

An Equal Music by Vikram Seth

The Noise of Time by Julian Barnes

I do not recommend McEwan's The Children Act.

Music is an important thread that runs through the whole of the Aubrey/Maturin series.

How about The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux?

I also think of Carolan's Concerto by Caiseal Mor. Not strictly classical, I suppose, but an excellent novel about old Ireland set around the famous 17th-18th century blind composer and harpist, Turlough O'Carolan, whom many consider to be Ireland's national composer (cf Wikipeda). Exciting, amusing and poignant, and who knows, it could be true in the land of faerie.

Doktor Faustus, Thomas Mann
Verdi, a novel of the opera, Franz Werfel
Das Konzert -- multiple novels with this title, I was thinking of Hermann Bahr's, but there's also Hartmut Lange, Ismail Kadare etc.
The time of our singing, Richard Powers
Gödel, Escher, Bach

and on and on...

Actually, I think there are so many works in which classical music is the subject or an important theme, one could probably sub-select opera, ballet, performance, composing, by instrument, by period etc.

>4 LolaWalser:

Have you read Doktor Faustus? If so, brief comments?

I'm finishing off Colm Tóibín's The Magician, so Faustus is tempting, but intimidating. I wonder if it's as engrossing as The Magic Mountain (in which I certainly sense the pervasive spirit of Mahler)?

>5 librorumamans:

I read it a long time ago so maybe this is disproportionate to reality, but as I recall Mann spends a lot of time on abstruse music theory. Well, he was projecting the mind of a composer, but just saying. I was getting lost tbh. I preferred The Magic Mountain because it's so much more fun and packed with characters--I'd say it's a bigger book in every sense.

>6 LolaWalser:

Thanks!

I understand that Leverkühn is a thinly differentiated portrait of Schoenberg, so I'm not surprised that his geist is not readily accessible.

>2 librorumamans: I really enjoyed The Noise of Time.

A book I read and enjoyed in January was The Forest of Wool and Steel by Natsu Miyashita (2015), translated from the Japanese by Philip Gabriel. This novel is about a young man who decides to train to become a piano tuner. For such a little book it has a lot packed into it: about striving for perfection, about perseverance, about mentors, about being completely dedicated to your craft. It's also about the importance of sound and tuning and creating the right timbre for a specific pianist on a specific piano. The author is a classical pianist.

Has anyone read The Great Passion by James Runcie? I love the St. Matthew Passion so much, but am afraid a novel might ruin it for me.

Goldbug Variations is on my recon list, another by Richard Powers (already suggested in >4 LolaWalser:) but I've not read it to confirm its relevance to your query.

>9 elenchus:

That's a good one to read together with the Hofstadter!

>8 kac522: Has anyone read The Great Passion by James Runcie? I love the St. Matthew Passion so much, but am afraid a novel might ruin it for me.

I picked up The great passion, read fifty or sixty pages, and put it down. That was my personal choice, of course. What I read seemed well researched, but the characters struck me as twentieth-century people inhabiting a seventeenth-century world and being unaware of the differences. That's a type of historical fiction that I will set aside.

Edited to correct wrong word: society -> century

>11 librorumamans: Thank you, I appreciate that comment. It is something that I would not want to pursue either.

Thank you all! These suggestions will be filling in my reading hours for a long time to come!

I have read a few, but that was back in ancient college days. Godel / escher / back was for some class I can't remember but I vaguely recall that one. Same for Thomas Mann, and someone mentioned Goldbug? I can't find that comment but there was a Poe gold bug wasn't there? Not the same though I don't think.

Okay, well thank you and make more suggestions if you think of any more. Today I was reading HL Menken and in his essay "Sahara of the Bizarre" or something like that he compared the rarity of a good Southern poet to that of an oboe player LoL well I guess they were rarer back then. Oboe players that is.

HL Menken is / was an acid wit. I have been reading his "Prejudices" (as republished by the Library of America) and he has much to say about music in general (and back then, classical WAS music, with jazz and blues just coming into their own) and he has some rather acerbic comments about (for example) "seven-foot baritones fornicating with 300 pound coloraturas" and spending one or two evenings listening to "tremendous gargling by fat tenors."

I got the feeling that he did not care for the opera much (neither did I either until I was in my twenties). But his style of reviewing the symphony and opera is refreshing when compared to the velvet inkings of modern day critics.

I remember when I went to see Rampal perform with the DSO (Galway was still playing his penny-whistle back then and Jean-Pierre must have looked seventy and was at least in his sixties) and I was SO excited. I bought third row seats to get a good look at "the MASTER" and was so disappointed. I came away with the impression that he played fat, drunk, and / or apathetic.

I never cared much for the flute after that. So I went back to last chair, second violin.

And he WAS fat.

I second a time of our singing a powerful story of a mixed race family of singers just after wwII and of the civil rights movement.

Theres another book, takes place i think in denmark during the renaisance, where the king keeps a band, hidden in the basement. Woman author

The Conductor by Sarah Quigley, a novel about Shostakovich and the conductor Eliasberg set during the siege of Leningrad by the Germans from the spring of 1941 through the summer of 1942. Shostakovich had completed his sixth symphony and conductor Mravinsky was rehearsing his Fifth Symphony with the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra. The critical composer and the conductor appreciate each other. Shostakovich sometimes forgets to put directions in his score. When Shostakovich tells Mravinsky at the rehearsal that he is not having something performed properly, Mravinsky responds: the composer has forgotten to put the sign pianissimo with the notes.

Off hand:

James Joyce's work is filled with music -- he himself played guitar and sang well enough to have been considered competition for the great John McCormack.

Marcel Proust's Remembrance of Thing Past is shot full of music with a certain little theme from a violin sonata (attributed by critics to Saint-Saëns) playing a key role throughout.

And, a bit more contemporary, there's Thomas Bernhard's The Loser, a novel with a protagonist modeled after Glenn Gould.

Something else that might be fun to consider: Literature that has been turned into Opera. The latest example of this might be Cunningham's novel The Hours, composer Kevin Puts.

Edit: And, being a mandolin player, I am attracted to fiction featuring such: e.g., Valentine's Fall by Cary Fagan, The Mandolin Case by Tom Bibey.

And you might check this thread on the Mandolin Cafe site: https://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/threads/149201-Reading-suggestions

>17 mandojoe: Cunningham's novel The Hours, composer Kevin Puts.

I did not know about this. Thanks!

There's another Richard Powers novel, Orfeo, having much to do with music. "How does music trick the body in to thinking it has a soul." A novel which has encoraged me to, at least occassionally, listen to music I don't like.

And on my to be read list, there's Alexander Chee's The Queen of the Night. I'm discouraged a little by its length. Can anyone recommend?

>19 Parker51: I have read the Chee and can not recommend it. I notice that others have given this a higher rating than myself. This is a duel timeline (if I remember correctly), and it was confusing. That being said, I listened to it on audio and perhaps if I had read a hard copy I might have followed along more closely.

>20 Tess_W: Thanks for this. I think the book's likely to remain on my "to be read" list, what with so many other titles clamoring for attention.